O’Higgins, who was once called the ‘Irish Mussolini’, is one of the most notorious Free State figures and has been a figure of hate of republicans for generations. Between 1922 and 1923, he personally ordered the execution of seventy-seven republican prisoners including Rory O’Connor (who had been best man at O’Higgins’ wedding), Liam Mellows and Erskine Childers. A unapologetic social traditionalist, he famously remarked that was part of a generation of ‘the most conservative-minded revolutionaries that ever put through a successful revolution’. [1]
He was killed just before midday on Sunday, 10 July 1927 as he walked from his home Dunamase House on Cross Avenue to the Church of the Assumption on Booterstown Avenue. As he approached the junction of Booterstown and Cross Avenue, a man stepped out of a parked motor car and fired at point-blank range.
O’Higgins staggered, turned and began to run, followed by the man firing. O’Higgins collapsed on the other side of the road and two men came from the rear of the car and fired down at O’Higgins as he lay on the ground. The men then leaped into the car and drove off.[2]
The three anti-Treaty IRA men who killed him – Archie Doyle, Bill Gannon and Tim Coughlan – apparently saw him by chance. Gannon later recalled:
‘seeing him … we were just taken over and incensed with hatered. You can have no idea what it was like, with the memory of the executions, and the sight of him just walking along on his own. We started shooting from the car, then getting out of the car we continued to shoot. We all shot at him, he didn’t have a chance’.[3]
The motor car in which they used was believed to have been stolen from a Captain McDonnell on the night before. After the shooting, the car was later found abandoned at Richmond Avenue in close by Milltown. [4]
A weekly mass goer, O’Higgins was usually accompanied by his wife or by P. J. Hogan the Minister for Agriculture and his closest friend. This week however he was escorted by Detective O’Grady. When the two men were ‘between their house and Booterstown avenue’, O’Higgins sent the detective back to collect something that he had forgotten. It was later believed that the Garda escort was in fact sent to Blackrock to buy cigarettes [5]
O’Higgins was found lying by a ‘lamppost outside the gates of the house Sans Souci, which directly faces up Cross Avenue’ [6] by locals on their way to mass who heard the shots. Apparently local resident Eoin MacNeill was one of the first people to reach the dying O’Higgins. He was moved to his house and miraculously lingered on for another five hours. (Tens of thousands attended his funeral. You can see footage of it here.)
The Boards.ie user GusherING believes that there used to be a ‘little cross’ to mark the spot in which he was shot ‘near the entrance to Sans Souci’. A local history site confirms that there a ‘small cross inscribed on the present footpath’ that identified the location.
The question that now has to be asked is whether ‘historians’ like ourselves should be pushing to replace the cross that marked the spot of O’Higgins assassination. I think we should be. No matter your political views or opinions on individuals, historical moments in our city’s life should be properly identified.
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[1] Joseph Lee, Ireland 1912-1985: politics and society (Cambridge, 1989), p. 105
[2] J. Bowyer Bell, The secret army: the IRA (New Jersey, 1997), p. 61
[3] Richard English, The Armed Struggle (London, 2003), p. 45
[4] The Irish Times, Monday, July 11, 1927, p. 7
[5] The Irish Times, Monday, June 11, 2007
[6] The Irish Times, Monday, July 11, 1927, p. 7
Ah, the man who reffered to the Democratic Programme of the First Dáil as “mostly poetry”
Fascinating character, some good snaps of him in the Garda Museum at Dublin Castle.
Nice Piece……Its only when we can all look at from where we came do we have any hope of going anywhere together in the future.
Like the piece. Not crazy about O’Higgins the politician or, from what I can gather, the person, but he deserved better than to be gunned down on a casual whim on his way to mass.
Agree about marking the spot. Though we have to bear in mind that commemoration is always primarily about makinga statement in the present.
Hi John
As the grand nephew of Timothy Coghlan i have a personal interest on this topic and have been researching it for a long time. What a lot of people dont know is that six months later Timothy Coghlan was also shot in the back of the head at close range by the special branch of the RIC and newly formed Garda Siochana in retaliation for Higgins death. Fitzgerald Kenny the minister for justice who took over from Higgins, led a debate in the Dail in 1928 to vote for a tribunal of enquiry to be held into the death of Timothy Coghlan as the autopsy report and the official story the then Government put out couldn’t be more different, anyway the tribunal never happed as it was voted down 86 to 54 so FG still have some questions to answer but on the up side (if you want to call it that) it is beleived that because of these killings and amongst others the IRA where forced to embrace democracy and give up the gun, and now FF.
Is there any way I can contact Gerald Moore
Just put together a small article on the executions of December 1922 in reprisal for the assassination of Sean Hales – a major reason why republicans hated O’Higgin so much.
http://www.theirishstory.com/2010/12/07/today-in-irish-history-december-7-1922-the-assassination-of-sean-hales/
You may have seen this already but look at this:
This gallery shows the footpath with the cross and apparently the house where he was shot. It looks a bit different to Sans Souci. I checked google street view and further up the road there is a similar wall but it is in a new housing development so its hard to tell
http://multitext.ucc.ie/viewgallery/1284
Thanks for that delta_bravo. Hadn’t seen those pictures before.
he was killed on a sunday on the way to mass, not monday! said i better say that in case anyone uses it in an essay or anything. he seemed to be a controversial figure, he was having an affair too with lady laverin i think her name was.
oh and it was never confirmed by the gardai who actually killed him, 10 men were arrested but no formal confirmed killers.
R. Mulcahy, FSA CinC, prob. bears just as much if not more responsibility in the official & unofficial killings by govt. forces after Collins death.
While the 3 desperados who gunned down O’Higgins “just happened” to be on their way to a day out in Wicklow…a question worth asking might be who really benefited from rubbing out O’Higgins ??
By the mid 1920’s, O’Higgins was the main opponent of Sweeps & Lotteries and by co-incidence Archie Doyle (O’Higgins executioner) & Joe McGrath worked side by side in Micko’s special bank robbing squad…(a fore-runner to the Lowry-O’Brien squad)..to fund the tan war.
Serious question, any one know what happened to Dublin’s Gen. Paddy Daly later known as Paddy O’Daly..what happend to him post 1924..where did he work in 30s, etc. ?? While Daly is infamous even today for directing the FSA murder campaign in Kerry… Ballyseedy, etc. …what destoryed his career/reputation in the end was a sex crime in Catholic Ireland…getting bagged with couple of his FSA lads for the rape of Dr. McCarthy’s 2 daughters in Kenmare after the civil war ended. Dr. McCarthy was well connected in CnaG.
[…] It may be telling though, that the most recent Fianna Fail Taoiseach Kenny referred to positively retired in 1979. Frustration at Fianna Fail’s long and sometimes sordid recent past clearly rankles more deeply with modern Fine Gael than do the ghosts of Collins, Hales or O’Higgins. […]
As a native of Booterstown I can assure you that the gates in the photo are of St Brendans not Sans souci house, which no longer exists, and that the cross, etched in the concrete of the road not the pavement is still there at the entrance to Sans’ Souci park, a small estate on the site of the house.
Check out the OSI map which shows the site as it was when the house was still there
map http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V1,720079,729628,7,9
Jimmy
[…] Kevin O’Higgins, a lot more than anybody else, has become the poster-boy for Free State/pro-Treaty hatred from the Republican side. This is almost entirely to do with his part in the execution policy of the Civil War, with O’Higgins involved with the death warrants and firing squads of 77 people, most of them without anything resembling due process. Most infamous of all of them is probably Rory O’Connor, who was O’Higgins’ best man a while previous to the Treaty split. A good summation of the entire affair, for the uninitiated, is here. […]
The photo shown here is of St. Brendan’s and not Sans Souci which was on the opposite side of the street. I remember a cross in the pavement there in the forties but it was removed in the fifties with the development of St. Helen’s.
It is St Brendan’s alright, but there’s always been some cross etched into the concrete on the road, next to the path since I’ve been here, going back from 60’s to present day… They upgraded the intersection there very recently but if I’m not mistaken, the cross was either still there or re-etched into the road. Of course Enda Kenny also unvailed a plaque to KO’H on the wall of St Brendans recently as well.
[…] position as police chief was often in jeopardy and indeed he was all but out of the job when Kevin O’Higgins was shot, and there were enough people in the know to set up the whisper that O’Duffy was in […]
OSI 25″ Map link showing the entrance to San Souci. As your previous commentators mention the Google Streetview is of St Brendans which is across the road.
http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,720023,729657,12,9
[…] It took a few years, but O’Higgins’ recommendations re executions (‘more of same, please…’) was eventually heeded… […]
A very clever man it is said by some that he took over Tim Healy’s job in British Intelligence as an Agent of Influence after Healy got the Governor General position. He had an intense romantic liason with Hazel Lavery .Collins was also said to have been involved with her she possibly also was an agent. O’ Higgins’ aunt was Tim Healy’s wife. O’Higgins was ruthless in the latter stages of the Civil War and may have been a sociopath as indeed were several high ranking politicians and military leaders.
If Michael collins had lived what would his reaction have been to the murderious campaign by the provisional gov. and the Betrayel of the northen nationalist regarding the boundary commission in 1925 even though it has been described by historians as a debacle
a govt. minister who executed 77 republicans, without legal authority, a law on to himself, very like Collins and met the same fate. Both Ruiri O’Connor and O’Higgins went to Clongowes together. Kevin O’Higgins is on their “serpentine gallery”, a corridor with famous alums portraits, no portrait for Ruiri O’Connor though, or the O’Rahilly who was also an past pupil. Have not been to cwc in years but I’m sure they have Bruton and soon Coveney. Maybe Ruiri and the O’Rahilly deserve better treatment from John Redmonds old school.
I agree all those who died in the war of independence and beyond should all have some type of marker to remember them .