This article is from page 8 of the 2012-08-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
A CLAREMAN who holds a special and unfortunate place in the annals of the Easter Rising has finally been remembered through a special ceremony in Dublin that has honoured the nearly 600 policemen killed during the 1916-22 period. Tullycrine man Michael Lahiffe was singled out for special mention at the ceremony which took place in Glasnevin Cemetery on Saturday for the estimated 563 Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Dublin Met- ropolitan Police (DMP) members killed in the 1916 rebellion and subsequent War of Independence.
Constable Lahiffe was a member of the DMP, having joined the force in 1910 aged 22 and was on duty at the entrance of St Stephen’s Green on Easter Monday, April 24.
When confronted by the Citizen Army, he was ordered to leave his post, but stood his ground and was shot three times and died from his injuries.
“He was an unarmed policeman, but was shot dead because he was doing his job,” said retired Garda, Gerry Lovett, who was one of the organisers of the wreath-laying ceremony along with other retired members of the Garda Siochána and Royal Ulster Constabulary.
“It is only right that Constable Lahiffe be remembered, because he was one of the first shot in 1916,” he added.
The ceremony came on the back of a local campaign in Clare mounted over a number of years by former detective sergeant, Michael Houlihan, who also hails from Tullycrine.
Growing up, Mr Houlihan knew Constable Lahiffe’s brother Tom and sister Nell, who lived in Tullycrine until their deaths in the early 1970s.
“They never talked about their brother,” revealed Mr Houlihan. “It just wasn’t something people talked about back then. A brother of Michael’s named John was in the RIC in Cork. There were eight of them in the family and they had a holding of about 30 acres in Tullycrine.
“It was only after they were all gone that I started gathering the information about what happened to Michael.
“A cousin of mine bought the house in which the Lahiffes were brought up and it was there we found bits and pieces,” he added.
These included a photograph of Constable Lahiffe in his police uniform, a postcard home to his mother proclaiming his love and a pledge to write again soon and a mass card.
Constable Lahiffe is the only person buried in the Dublin Metropolitan Police plot who has an individual headstone, on which reads the following inscription:
“Sacred to the memory of Constable Michael Lahiffe, who died on the 24th of April, 1916, from wounds received whilst gallantly doing his duty as a member of Dublin Metropolitan Police. Erected by his sorrowing parents, brothers and sisters and by the members of the Irish Police and Constabulary Recognition Fund.”