A memorial plaque to one of the "Forgotten 10" of the Irish War of Independence has been revealed in Dublin.
Thomas Bryan, 24, was among a group of young volunteers who on January 1 1921, set out to ambush Black and Tans as they travelled into Dublin city from Gormanstown. The electrician will be commemorated on a plaque at 14 Henrietta Street.
Thomas Bryan was only recently married, and the pension application, submitted by his grieving family, reveals the poverty in which his parents continued to live at 14 Henrietta Street in the aftermath of his death. Tried and found guilty of High Treason, four of the men, Patrick Doyle, 29, Francis Xavier Flood, 19, Thomas Bryan, 24, and Bernard ‘Bertie’ Ryan, 21, were hanged at Mountjoy Prison.
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Historian Fergus Whelan said: "Thomas Bryan is one of the so called “Forgotten Ten” who were executed in Mountjoy Gaol between late 1920 and early 1921. The “Forgotten ten” is something of a misnomer, for two reasons. First, the name of Kevin Barry who was executed in November 1920 is well known to us.
"Second, Thomas and his comrades were never forgotten by the loved ones they left behind. Those loved ones did not just suffer the terrible loss of a family member to the hangman’s noose. They were denied the chance to bury their dead and a grave to grieve over for eighty years.’
Speaking at the unveiling, Lord Mayor Caroline Conroy said: "In unveiling this plaque today we remember the sacrifices made by those who fought in the War of Independence. Thomas Bryan and his comrades, Patrick Doyle, Frank Flood, and Bertie Ryan, were young men who paid the ultimate price for their actions. They left behind grieving families who, certainly in the case of Thomas Bryan, had also to face the very real poverty that afflicted many Dubliners of the time."
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