Tomás Mac Curtain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tomás Mac Curtain (March 20, 1884 - March 20, 1920) was a Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Ireland. He was elected in January of 1920.
He was born in the Parish of Mourne Abbey in 1884. He attended Burnfort National School.Mac Curtain became active in numerous cultural and political movements from the turn of the nineteenth century when he joined the Blackpool, Cork branch of Conradh na Gaeilge, becoming its secretary in 1902. He had diverse interests in music, poetry, history, archaeology and Irish history. He worked in his early career as a clerk and in his free time taught Irish to those who wished to learn. In 1911 he joined the Fianna Éireann. His devotion to the Irish language and independence attracted the attentions of the British authorities and he served prison terms in 1916 and 1917.
He was elected in the January 1920 council elections as the Sinn Féin councillor for NW Ward No. 3 of Cork, and was chosen by his fellow councillors to be the Lord Mayor. He began a process of political reform within the city, making changes to the way in which the council operated and was run.
In March, Mac Curtain was shot dead, in front of his wife, by a group of men with blackened faces, who were found to be members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Black and Tans, by the official inquest into the event. In the wake of the killing, Mac Curtain's house in Thomas Davis Street in the city's Blackpool area, was ransacked. The murder caused widespread public outrage. The coroner's inquest passed a verdict of wilful murder against British Prime Minister Lloyd George and against certain members of the R.I.C. The IRA later killed the man who ordered the attack, District Inspector Swanzy, in Lisburn, County Antrim.
Mac Curtain is buried in St Finbarr's churchyard and his successor to the position of Lord Mayor, Terence MacSwiney, died while on hunger strike in Brixton prison, London. This assassination had a profound and sustained impact on the citizens of Cork.
Mac Curtain's son, Tomás Óg (junior) later became a leading republican and Chief of Staff of the IRA. He was sentenced to death by the De Valera government in 1940 for shooting a police officer who had been following him. The sentence was not carried out, probably for fear of a public reaction.
