Richard O'Carroll

Richard O'Carroll TC (Dublin, 1876–1916) was a founding member of the Labour Party alongside James Connolly and many other trade unionists and fellow socialists in Clonmel, Ireland, in 1912.

Career

O'Carroll held the position of general secretary of the Bricklayers Union from 1907 until his death in 1916. [1] He was also a city councillor during that period. [2] He was known as an active and critical Poor Law Guardian in his time.[3]

Death

O'Carroll was shot by a British soldier and mortally wounded on 26 April 1916, at the height of the Easter Rising. His death appears to have been part of the same murderous spree that also killed the pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington.[4][5]

Legacy

Richard O’Carroll Empowerment Bursary

The Labour Party has chosen to commemorate the life and legacy of O'Carroll by assisting young people in continuing their education by means of a bursary. [6] The competition for the bursary of €2,000 is ran annually and began in 2016.

References
  1. Robbins, Frank (1974). "Labour and Easter Week 1916". Dublin Historical Record. 28 (1): 21–29. ISSN 0012-6861. JSTOR 30103926.
  2. Callan, Charles (2006). "Labour Lives no. 8: Peadar Macken (1878-1916)". Saothar. 31: 121–123. ISSN 0332-1169. JSTOR 23199972.
  3. "Cllr Richard O'Carroll". Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  4. Neil Richardson, According to their lights: stories of Irishmen in the British Army, Easter 191 (Cork: Collins Press, 2015). Richardson cites as his source an unpublished memoir by an Anglo-Irish man who had been a medical student and also a cadet-sergeant in the British army at the time: Gerald Keatinge, "Some experiences of a cadet during the Irish Rebellion of Easter Week, 1916".
  5. Bryan Bacon, A Terrible Duty: the Madness of Captain Bowen-Colthurst, Thena Press, 2015 (a Kindle Book). Bacon cites as his source the report made by Bowen-Colthurst to his superiors on April 26, which described O'Carroll's capture and wounding but without providing his name.
  6. "Leaving Cert students encouraged to apply for Empowerment bursary". The Clare Echo News. 2018-06-24. Retrieved 2020-01-31.
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