CO-KLBG-0175

Denis Deasy, Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).

Denis Deasy was a Bandonian who worked as a Porter on the Cork and Macroom railway before immigrating to England. He was arrested on the 29^th March 1883 as he landed at Liverpool for carrying a box containing material which the Liverpool City analyst, Dr J Campbell Brown pronounced to be chemicals of a highly explosive character. Denis Deasy was put on trial for treason and felony. He was found guilty and sentenced by Mr Justice Stephen, at Liverpool on the 9^th August 1883 to penal servitude for the term of his natural life.  Never over robust, the rigours of prison life undermined his health and he died in Chat- hum prison one year later. The verdict of all who had any knowledge of the circumstances was that Denis Deasy had been starved to death. His remains were returned to Cork, where opposite the Distillery the coffin was taken from the hearse and carried on the shoulders of the processionists to this burial plot at Kilbrogan, a distance of about a mile and a half. The procession itself was a half mile long.

The inscription on the head-stone tells it all;

Here lies Denis Deasy

Born in Bandon 1853

Died in an English prison at the hands of the Saxon in 1884

An Irish patriot who loved his Country

And suffered and died believing in her cause

To God and Ireland true.

 RIP.

“I would rather wear those chains than be decorated with the star and garter of England”

This stone was erected by Deasys Fellow Townsmen.

John Desmond