Brigade Adjutant Michael O’Brien

South Mayo Brigade

On the afternoon of the 3rd of May, 1921, Michael O’Brien of Kildun, The Neale, was shot dead by Lieutenant Ibberson of the British Army Border Regiment in the Partry Mountains behind Tourmakeady. The only fatality on the side of the Volunteers, O’Brien was an Adjutant in the 18-member Flying Column which, under the command of Tom Maguire of Cross, took part in the famous Tourmakeady Ambush along with several other volunteers (c.50-60 in total) from the South Mayo Brigade. Many of these same Volunteers had been lying low after having taken part in the Kilfaul Ambush on the 7th of March, hiding out in the hazel woods and rocks behind Lieutenant Michael Moran’s house in Kildun, where his mother, Mary and Michael O’Brien’s sister, Kate, prepared food for them. Rested, regrouped and re-armed as best they could, the Column left The Neale area on the night of the 30th April after Confessions in Moran’s house with Fathers Carney and Campbell and moved across bogs, back roads and fields, mostly under cover of darkness to get to Tourmakeady. There, they laid low with the support and planning of the Srah Company and the Ballinrobe Battalion until the morning of the 3rd of May.