Sir, – May I add a minor correction to Frank McNally’s usual interesting, amusing and informative Diary (August 6th). Cathal Brugha died, not in a hail of bullets, but in the Mater Hospital on July 7th, 1922 as a result of loss of blood occasioned by a single bullet fired two days earlier on July 5th from a sniper’s rifle located at a first floor window in the old Findlater building on what was then Great Britain Street (now Cathal Brugha Street).
The injury from the single shot resulted in the femoral artery being severed and the femur fractured.
The bullet left a gaping wound at the back of his leg as it exited.
As well as being an avid cricketer, he was a powerful swimmer and, since his early adulthood, had been a member of the Half Moon Club on Dublin’s South Wall.
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Following his death, the members of Half Moon sponsored a silver trophy to be competed for annually in his honour.
My late mother Noinín was the second eldest of Cathal and Caitlín Brugha’s six children. – Yours, etc,
AUSTIN Ó BRIAIN,
Terenure,
Dublin 6W.