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Author probes Clonmany murders 30.03.09
by Simon McGeady, Inishowen Independent
DUBLIN-based author Brendan Lynch’s latest book,
'Yesterday We Were In America' – the account of the
first non-stop flight across the Atlantic from
Newfoundland to Clifden in June 1919–hits
bookshelves this week, but another event that made
the news closer to home around that time has long
intrigued Lynch.
“The last of my surviving aunts, Sarah Regan (nee
Lynch), died last year at the age of 96. Before she
died she told me about two Royal Irish Constabulary
men killed in Clonmany near the end of the War of
Independence,” said Lynch, whose father, Patrick
Edward Lynch, was born and raised in Binnion. |
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“The two RIC men,
Alexander Clarke and Charles Murdock, were kidnapped
by an armed men, beaten up, shot and thrown into the
sea somewhere near Binnion. They were presumed
dead.”
After midnight there was a knock on the door of
Brendan’s grandparents house, it was one of the RIC
men, Charles Murdock. |
“My aunt’s mother sent
for the doctor, but before the messenger reached the
doctor’s house they bumped into one of the
assailants who came back for the RIC man. He was
taken out of the house and never seen again,” said
Lynch.
Clarke's body was found on seashore near Binnion,
Murdock’s was never recovered. Lynch speculates that
the body of the second officer might still be buried
in Binnion.
“After Murdock was taken from the house my aunt
Sarah said a decade of the rosary for the man. It
was very distressing. It was a terrible incident, a
man to have escaped death only to be killed after
he’d thought he’d reached the sanctuary a local
farm.
“I suppose that the people who came for the RIC man
couldn’t let him live for fear that he identified
them,” said the former 'Irish Times' journalist.
“I have done some research on this story, but on a
personal level it would be a difficult subject for
me to revisit for a novel. I remember now that one
of my father's brothers did not speak to him for
years because he joined the new Garda Siochana after
the Civil War. If I did attempt novel based on this,
it would be to explore brutality and futility of
violence,” said the 71-year old author, whose past
books include 'Green Dust, a history of Irish motor
racing'. |
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