Volunteer Jack Lawlor commemoration
A large crowd attended the unveiling in Ballyheigue, North Kerry,
of a monument to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Free
State execution of Captain Jack Lawlor, Ballyheigue Unit of the
Irish Republican Army, on Sunday 2 November.
Jack Lawlor was captured with two fellow Republicans on the night
of 30 October 1922. The following morning he was beaten, taken to
the old graveyard in Ballyheigue and shot (a bayonet was used on
his fingers when he refused to enter the gate of the graveyard).
His mother was then requested to collect the body.
The commemorative march commenced at the statute of Roger
Casement at the top of the village and proceeded to the old
graveyard where Jack had been brutally murdered. Three members of
the Special Branch were in attendance and monitored the
proceedings throughout, even in the graveyard itself where mass
was celebrated.
The oration was given by North Kerry Sinn Féin representative,
Martin Ferris, who spoke of the unselfish sacrifice of men like
Jack Lawlor who gave their lives for freedom, justice and an end
to interference in Irish affairs by a hostile and foreign power.
The gathering was reminded that arms have always been and always
will be the last resort for Irish republicans. Down south we tend
to wonder why republicans up north take up arms against British
oppression. We tend to forget that men like Jack Lawlor carried
out the same struggle in the south-west, when all of this little
island was under foreign rule.
In an article by Professor John A. Murphy in the Independent,
Kerry Republicans were described as ``sugán corporals rather than
armchair generals who live hundreds of miles away from the scene
of the `Troubles' and who can therefore know very little about
the situation in the North.'' An answer was given loud and clear
by the Republicans of North Kerry at the graveside of Captain
Jack Lawlor in Ballyheigue that Kerry will always play its part
in the struggle for Irish freedom and in the quest for national
self-determination for the people of this island.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)