John Mulhern my Grandfather came to Dublin  From Co Leitrim in the last few years of the 19th Century to serve his time as a hairdresser with relations of his Mother. He started up his own hairdressing business in Blackrock, Co Dublin. Soon afterwards he married my Grandmother Anne McGuiness; this business lasted until 1916, when it closed down. He was out of work for a month or so and read an advertisement for a barber in the Military Barracks in Arbour Hill. This required him to join the British Army which he did. Because he enlisted for a specific job he was spared any training in gunnery, in the first two weeks of his minimum training.

He cycled to Arbour Hill Barracks from Stephens Lane off Mount Street every morning, returning each evening for two weeks. On Easter Monday hearing of the troubles on O’Connell Street he diverted in that direction, when he was shot dead by a sniper operating from Bachelors Walk. His body was brought to King George V Hospital in Arbour Hill (now St Brican’s Hospital) where he was pronounced dead from gunshot wounds. He is buried in Deans Grange Cemetery   My Grandmother, his wife, told me this story when I was eleven, she told me of her disappointment of his joining the British army, and disclosed to me that she had not spoken to him for the previous two weeks as she was a Republican supporter. She did however take the British Pension for the next sixty years. Such is Life

Paul Mulhern