Bertie Murphy of Castleisland was one of the first victims of the Civil War in Kerry when the 17 year old was killed on the entrance steps of the Great Southern Hotel Killarney on September 19th 1922.
Bertie, born on March 4th 1905 to parents Daniel Murphy and Johanna Horan, was a member
of the local Fianna Éireann, the youth body of the Irish Volunteers.
Commemoration on Monday Evening
A commemoration will be held on the coming Monday evening, September 19th at 7:30pm at the plaque in his memory on the wall at the entrance to the railway station opposite the Great Southern Hotel Killarney.
The organisers are the National Graves Association of Ireland and the main speaker is Dr. Tim Horgan.
Tragedies of Kerry
In the book ‘Tragedies of Kerry’ first published in May 1924, the author Dorothy Macardle provided the following, vivid account of the brutal murder of Bertie Murphy while unarmed, as a prisoner and in the hands of the Free-Staters.
“Bertie Murphy was seventeen years old when he was killed on September 1922.
During the Black-and-Tan time his mother couldn’t persuade him to stay at school and he would be drilling with the Fianna and carrying dispatches for the volunteers.
His officer in the Fianna, Hickey, joined the Free State Army and Bertie Murphy became captain of the Fianna then.
After the outbreak of civil war Hickey led many a search for his old comrade, but Bertie eluded his enemies for four months.
One day in September he was walking down a bohereen at Dysart, alone with his rifle on his shoulder, when he encountered a Free State patrol.
His mother was standing at the door of her little shop in Castleisland, when she saw Bertie led up the street.
He was pale and disfigured, his face bruised. He signed to her with his hand to go in from the doorway.
They had threatened, one of the soldiers told her afterwards, to shoot him at his mother’s door.
They kept him prisoner that day at the hotel and his mother spoke to him there. Hickey was one of his guards.
They took him out as a hostage that night when patrolling in Ballymacelligott and brought him back to the hotel.
His mother heard that he was to be taken to Scartaglen, to remove a barricade and went in dread to the officers of the I.R.A.
They told her the barricade was not dangerous, and Bertie removed it without disaster on Sunday night.
On the following Wednesday, September 19th the troops from Castleisland went to Killarney.
A friend of Bertie Murphy’s saw him marched through the streets carrying a heavy bag on his back. He was taken to the temporary barracks – the Great Southern Hotel. There were other prisoners in the guard-room, some of whom knew him well.
A Free State patrol bad been ambushed on the road and there was violent excitement among the garrison in the hotel.
A soldier seized Bertie by the throat and struck him; then an officer called him out to the steps. There is a flight of eight steps in front of the hotel: the officer threw him, head first, down, the steps and fired shots into him as he lay below.
Somebody who saw it went for a priest, and Bertie lived until the priest came.
He had been killed, the Free State authorities stated, in the ambush in Brennan’s Glen.”
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