Pearson brothers were killed a week after their siblings attacked an IRA roadblock

THERE has been a great deal of unfounded and ill-informed speculation resulting from the recent RTÉ Hidden History documentary on the Pearsons of Coolacrease.

The basic facts are as follows. About a week before the Pearsons were executed, an IRA roadblock at Cadamstown was attacked by the three elder Pearson brothers at about 11.30pm. They shot three people: my third cousin, Mick Heaney, Tom Donnelly (both of these on guard duty while the roadblock was being constructed) and ex-RIC man Bert Hogg who had been arrested by Mick Heaney after leaving the Pearsons’ house about 10 minutes earlier on his way home to Lackaroe via Cadamstown village. Mick Heaney was seriously wounded in the stomach and, though his life was saved in the short term, he never recovered and died of his wounds about five years later. Tom Donnelly was slightly wounded in the head by further Pearson volleys when he came to Mick Heaney’s assistance. Bert Hogg was shot in the leg and back as he ran towards Cadamstown from the Pearson attack. He made it home through Cadamstown village, but lost a lung as a result of the attack.

Apart from Mick Heaney, who was spirited to hospital after getting first aid from Dr Brown in Kilcormac, all of the men on duty that night were arrested in their homes the following day by a party of RIC and British troops who took over the whole of Cadamstown.