Two volunteers with Kilkenny connections and Caravaggio

Two volunteers with Kilkenny connections and Caravaggio

John (Jack) Lynch

This is the story of two Volunteers in The War of Independence and the Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571- 1610).

The two volunteers, Joe McMahon and Liam Tobin had connections with Kilkenny. Tenuous connections maybe but connections nevertheless.

Joe McMahon

Joe McMahon, who Jim Maher describes as the ‘Man from God knows where’¹ was from Kilmaley, Co. Clare. Early in 1920 McMahon had been sent by Michael Collins and G.H.Q in Dublin to instruct and assist the Kilkenny Volunteers in the use of explosives. His heroism and use of bombs in the attack on Hugginstown Barracks on 8^th March 1920 ensured that the attack was an outstanding success. Joe McMahon made the bombs for the attack in Peter DeLoughrey’s foundry in New Building Lane.²

After the attack on Hugginstown RIC Barracks about twenty Kilkenny Volunteers were arrested by the RIC and sent to prisons in Belfast, Cork and Wormwood Scrubs in England.³ Joe McMahon was a marked man. McMahon was working in Leahy and Furnis’s coachbuilders in Upper Patrick St and lodging at Paddy Leahy’s on the opposite side of the street. The area was under surveillance by the RIC and they entered McMahon’s bedroom. McMahon asked the two police officers to wait outside the door while he dressed himself. The RIC Sergeant and Constable politely waited outside the bedroom and McMahon climbed out the window and over a very high wall into the adjoining St Patrick’s Boys schoolyard. When the RIC realised that Joe McMahon had given them the slip they endeavoured to follow him but were unable to climb the high wall. McMahon escaped out to Danville and was sent by GHQ to assist with the War of Independence in Wexford.⁴

When McMahon arrived in Wexford he played a major part in the attack on Clonroche RIC Barracks in May 1920. He was also involved in an attack at Enniscorthy Railway station where 200 gallons of petrol were captured. Joe was a major player in the assassination of District Inspector Percival Lea-Wilson in Gorey.⁵ I’ll come back to this story in a moment. The man who led this assassination in June 1920 was Liam Tobin who was born in Cork but reared in Kilkenny. He is, with Joe McMahon our second Kilkenny connection to Caravaggio, the artist.

Liam Tobin

Liam Tobin was born in Cork in 1895 and his family were, according to the 1901 Census living at New Road, Kilkenny.⁶ By 1911 the family had moved to John’s Quay and Liam was attending Kilkenny C.B.S in James’s Street.

Lim Tobin went to work at Brooks Thomas Hardware in Dublin and joined the Irish Volunteers in 1914. He served in the Four Courts in Easter Week. Many of the captured volunteers after the surrender were taken to the gardens of the Rotunda Hospital at the top of O’Connell St. Liam Tobin was in the Rotunda Gardens was in the Rotunda when Tom Clarke, a signatory of the Proclamation, was ordered to strip naked in front of the staff and patients who were looking out of the windows. The British officer who humiliated Tom Clarke was a Captain Percival Lea-Wilson and both Michael Collins and Liam Tobin were determined that they would, some day, have revenge for this act. By 1919 Liam Tobin had become Michael Collins’s Deputy Director of Intelligence at G.H.Q.⁷

In 15^th June 1920 Liam Tobin lead a party, which included Joe McMahon, to Gorey to assassinate Percival Lea-Wilson who was by this time District Inspector of the RIC in Wexford. Percival Lea-Wilson was shot and killed leaving behind a widow Marie who was from a Cork farming background.⁸

Marie Lea-Wilson went as a mature student to Trinity College, qualified as a doctor and paediatrician. The Jesuits in Leeson Street, Dublin looked after her spiritual welfare and counselled her and in thanksgiving she presented a painting to the clerics. Dr Marie Lea-Wilson died in 1971. In 1990 Sergio Benedetti from the National Gallery declared that the painting was The Taking of Christ (1602) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, who lived 1571-1610. This painting is priceless and is now on permanent loan to the State.⁹

He was an Italian painter, a master of the Baroque and a major influence on modern western art.

He lived in Italy from 1571 to 1610 with time spent in Sicily, Naples and Malta.

Caravaggio lived a violent life with a conviction for murder.

So now, I hope we have completed the circle of two men with Kilkenny connections and the Italian artist Caravaggio.

Joe McMahon was from Kilmaley, Co Clare and had active service in Kilkenny.

Liam Tobin was originally from Cork but spent his childhood in St John’s Parish and was educated at Kilkenny CBS.

What happened to Joe McMahon and Liam Tobin?

Joe McMahon was sent to Cavan to instruct in bomb making where an accidental explosion killed him instantly in August 1920. He received a huge funeral with all the businesses in Ennis closing and was buried in Kilmaley Tuesday 24^th August 1920.¹⁰

Liam Tobin served as Acting Major General in the new National Army. In January 1923 he became A.D.C to Governor General Tim Healy. In 1924 he was involved in what has been described as a mutiny. The officers of The National Army were unhappy with the way they were treated. He left the army, started a motor hire service and joined Fianna Fail and when Joe McGrath founded the Irish Hospitals Trust, commonly called the Sweepstakes, in 1930 he represented it in the USA until 1939. He became Superintendent of the Oireachtas from 1940 until he retired in 1959. He died in 1963 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. Tobin married Mona Higgins in 1930 and had two daughters, Maire and Anne.¹¹ Liam’s wife, Mona or Monica died in 2^nd July 1971 and is with him in Glasnevin.

Liam Tobin and Joe McMahon are hardly remembered in Kilkenny today. Two brave men who did so much for the freedom we enjoy today.

Footnotes