Thomas Kent honoured

Thomas Kent, the only Volunteer shot in Cork during the wave of executions immediately following the 1916 Rising was comemorated last week. He and his brothers were arrested after a fierce gun battle on the night of 1-2 May when the RIC and British army came to arrest them in their farmhouse near Castlelyons. He was executed for resisting arrest during which a member of the RIC was killed.

A re-enactment of the arrest of Thomas Kent took place on the streets of Fermoy on Saturday to much applause from the onlookers. Thomas, his brother William were marched through Fermoy, their hands tied on the morning after the siege.

A commemoration ceremony in Castlelyons last Sunday was addressed by Arthur Morgan TD who praised the bravery of people like the Kents who took on the might of Britain, the largest empire in the world at the time. He compared their action to the shameful actions of some of those in political life today, where members of the establishment parties have their knuckles rapped in tribunals, even though they are steeped in corruption.

He said that people were being offered an alternative in Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein elected representatives and people like the local candidate for the next general election, Sandra McLellan, were in the tradition of the Kents - fearless in their desire only to serve the people and to build a new and united Ireland.