“A friend of Arthur Griffith, he worked with the Sinn Féin newspaper Nationality in 1916. He died prematurely of a heart attack following a raid at the paper’s headquarters at Harcourt St” | I recently stopped to photograph this plaque in Loughrea. This did prompt me to stop in Naas on a subsequent visit to Dublin and record the plaque on the offices of the Leinster Leader. It also caused me to do some internet searching as to Seumas O’Kelly – which in turn raised an old debate. Sarah Medalie was the only person to die during the Burning of Cork. She suffered a heart attack as their home was forcibly broken into by the Black & Tans. I commented elsewhere that, admittedly on the face of the limited reading that I had done, I had difficulty in categorising death by heart attack as a killing. Seumas O’Kelly died of a heart attack following a police raid at the offices of the newspaper where he was working. I did not see any reference to Seumas O'Kelly having been killed. He died. Was he killed? Maybe the use of Irish, ‘Fuair sí bás’ or 'She got/found death', might avoid such debate or deliberation. |