Military archives: Volunteer’s mother denied payout as he was illegitimate

Thomas Greehy was just 19 when he died in the Civil War trying to remove guns from an IRA arms dump in Co Waterford.

He did not get a proper burial for over a year. But to add to his mother Bridget’s woes, any hopes of recompense under laws sanctioning payments to family of dead anti-Treaty IRA members were dashed — simply because he was illegitimate.

The decision — revealed in her file in the latest release of Military Service Pensions Collection records — is a demonstration of the morals at the time according to archivist Michael Keane.