Call for grave of Offaly's first Civil War fatality to be restored

A LOCAL historian had called on the Ulster Bank to restore the grave of its Tullamore branch manager who was killed in the Civil War.

Tyrone native Thomas Mitchell was killed by anti-Treaty IRA forces when he confronted them during an armed raid on the bank on Monday, July 3 1922.

On that date an IRA unit drove up in a Crossley tender to the Ulster Bank. Mitchell, standing outside the counter, observed an estimated fifteen Volunteers, wearing overcoats, enter.

Historian Dr Philip McConway, in a feature article published in this week's edition of the Tribune, writes: “He (Mitchell) walked to his office desk and grabbed a revolver from the drawer. He then confronted the IRA and pointed his revolver at them. Without hesitation Timothy Buckley (the IRA's unit's commander), armed with a rifle, shot Mitchell beneath the heart. Dr George A. Moorhead was summoned. Arriving swiftly, the doctor examined the unconscious Mitchell who died in two minutes.

“The bank janitor and other employees carried the corpse upstairs to rooms inhabited by Mitchell. The IRA then ordered the staff to put their ‘hands up’ and removed them to the street. The vicinity of the bank was cordoned off by the IRA. Hundreds of people witnessed the raid from a distance. Fr Thomas O’Keefe remonstrated with the IRA who ignored him.”

Mitchell's grave in St Catherine's Cemtery, Clonminch is now in a dilapidated state and Dr McConway had called on the Ulster Bank to restore it.

He has contacted the bank's parent body, NatWest in Scotland and suggested that the bank pay for the work to restore the grave.

Dr McConway said it would be a notable gesture by the bank before they cease operations in the Republic early next year.