A fascinating insight into how the events of Easter 1916 unfolded in Cork can be gleaned from a new exhibition currently running at the Cork City Museum in Fitzgerald Park.
Entitled Corcaigh 1916, it focuses on the history of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers from its formation in 1913 until the events of Easter Week, when over 1,000 men were mobilised in the city and county before being stood down in a welter of confusion. Dan Breen, assistant curator at the museum, explained that volunteers were mobilised on Easter Sunday to take up positions at a number of locations around the county, including at Macroom and Inchigeela in mid-Cork and Bweeng in north Cork.
Originally it had been planned to mobilise 10,000 men nationally but Eoin MacNeill's countermanding order meant many stayed at home and with no news coming from Dublin, Tomás MacCurtain took the decision on Sunday night to stand down the various units.
"MacCurtain received a message from Pearse at around 8pm on Easter Monday telling him that that Rising was going ahead at 12 noon on Easter Monday so the Rising was well underway before the Cork volunteers learned of it," Mr Breen said.
The Cork volunteers decided to take up defensive positions at the Volunteer Hall on Sheares Street and they remained there in a week-long stand-off with British troops until an agreement was brokered by the Lord Mayor of Cork, Thomas Butterfield, and Bishop Daniel Colohan.
Among the many items on display in the exhibition is a 1922 letter from Cathal Brugha exonerating the Cork volunteers of any blame for not engaging British troops in the confusion that followed MacNeill's countermanding order.
The exhibition, which runs until April 28th, includes details about the Kent family of Bawnard House, Fermoy who engaged the RIC in a gun battle which resulted in the death of an RIC man and the mortal wounding of Richard Kent and the later execution of his brother, Thomas.
