How to trace family involved in the Easter Rising and after

ticklebelly7 · 28-12-2014 1:59am #1

I recently found a cousin online through our shared search for relatives in the IRA in Dublin and Kildare during and after the Easter Rising.

Via my Da, I'd heard that most of the family were active in one way or other, including my grandfather.

My cousin was told by her uncle that her father had been an Intelligence Officer in the IRA during the years before independence. Her father had said nothing to her during his lifetime.

Yet neither of us can find anything at all about either her father or my grandfather, (who were brothers). They're not recipients of IRA pensions, they weren't awarded service medals, there's no mention of them at the Bureau of Military History, I can't find them in any of the lists of participants in the Easter Rising.

We've tried various online fora but got no further leads.
Would anyone have a clue where else we could go apart from the sources mentioned above. Any information would be very welcome.

pinkypinky · 28-12-2014 2:21am

Contact the Military archives directly - you will need to establish direct descent from the person. If there's a record of him, they'll show you it.

ticklebelly7 · 28-12-2014 1:26pm

Thank you for that information pinkypinky. Will give it a try.

johnny_doyle · 28-12-2014 4:36pm

could you put up the names?

Have you tried the list of those arrested/deported in the Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook?

ticklebelly7 · 28-12-2014 6:00pm

I haven't heard of that handbook, Johnny. I'll have a look for it online. Thank you.

The relatives I know about are my grandfather, Thomas P Doyle, who would have been about 24 in 1916, and my cousin's father, Lawrence Doyle who would have been about 16.

My father told me about the Crown forces coming to the front door of their house to do a raid while the Doyle brothers got the arms they'd hidden in the basement out through the back door! I don't know if the family were just sympathisers or whether they were actually sworn members of the IRA, but from my Da's story it sounds like they were well involved.

Another brother, Anthony, ran away and joined the RD Fusiliers when he was only 16 ie too young to enlist. Lawrence tried to persuade him to join the cause when he came home on leave but Anthony refused and went back to the Balkans where he was shot by a sniper aged 18.

I believe Lawrence was something to do with Intelligence work and my cousin found some reference to him being at the Curragh - this would have been post 1916. Most of the family moved from Dublin to Naas sometime between 1916 and the early 1920s.

Who knows, with your name, you could be another long lost relative!!

johnny_doyle · 29-12-2014 12:22am

working from Anthony, is this him?

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/333104/DOYLE,%20A

Entered theatre (Balkans ie Gallipoli) 9th August 1915. Listed as born Rathmines.

The family in 1911?

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Dublin/Fitzwilliam/Charlotte_Street/73097/

and in 1901?

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Wood_Quay/Heytesbury_Street/1347161/

ticklebelly7 · 29-12-2014 12:40pm

Yep, that's all our lot Johnny.
There's a book called: A Coward if I Return, A Hero if I Fall: Stories of Irish soldiers in World War I by Neil Richardson.
Young Anthony's story is in it.
I'd never known anything about him apart from some half-remembered account by my father of his uncle going to Gallipoli.
My father was named after this young man.
I remember the boy every Armistice Day and play The Green Fields of France for him.

johnny_doyle · 29-12-2014 9:06pm

I know of the book but regret to say I haven't read it.

Sgt David Drummond landed at Gallipoli on the same day as Anthony, died the same day and is buried beside Anthony. A Scot, he worked for the Irish land Commission in Dublin.

So far, I'm not seeing any info re Anthony's brothers.

ticklebelly7 · 30-12-2014 1:58am

That book is a marvellous resource. I found it in Dublin airport whilst waiting for the plane back to London. If you find it online - dunno if I'm allowed to say the name, but you know what the biggest book-selling site is - then click on Look Inside, and put in the search term Doyle, you'll be able to read his story. This is where I first got the firm lead about Lawrence Doyle and the Doyles' connection with the IRA.

Thanks for looking for the brothers, that's very kind of you.

johnny_doyle · 30-12-2014 5:08pm

There is a scanned copy of the Sinn Fein Rebellion Handbook online you might want to search through

https://archive.org/stream/sinnfeinrebellio00dubl/sinnfeinrebellio00dubl_djvu.txt

It's got lots of typos though.

ticklebelly7 · 30-12-2014 5:47pm

You're an absolute star, Johnny. That's my reading for the evening sorted out!

How to trace family involved in the Easter Rising and after

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