Clodagh Finn: Let’s back campaign for public tribute to Mary Jane Irwin

If a visiting monkey has a place in the streetscape, Mary Jane Irwin, as she was when she lived in Clonakilty, certainly deserves ones too

Mary Jane Irwin O'Donovan Rossa, whose life is celebrated in the film 'Rebel Wife'.

Tojo, the Brazilian spider monkey, is a new acquaintance. His jaunty salute, beautifully memorialised in bronze by sculptor Moss Gaynor, stopped me in my tracks while walking down Recorder’s Alley in Clonakilty on a recent gallivant.

The fantastical story of how a monkey came to be publicly feted in the West Cork town, and more incredibly, mourned and buried with full military honours is told in a panel on the wall beside him, under the heading: “The day the war came.”