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2019 Vice President Mike Pence Meets Murdered Constable Remembered
In Moving West Cork Ceremony
4th, President Higgins In Dublin
September ikePencebeganthe sec- ed the press before signing the human rights and equality

The US vice president greet-
ond day of his first offi-
issues.
Mcial visit to Ireland by guest book. Other topics were anticipat-
|
He wrote: “In the memory
meeting the President Michael D of a great Irishman, Richard ed to include Northern Ireland
EXAMINER accompanied by his wife Michael Cawley (Mr Pence’s migration. President Donald
and modern challenges of
Higgins on Tuesday.
The US vice president was
maternal grandfather) and on
On Monday night, he stayed
US
Karen, his mother Nancy
behalf of the United States of
at
IRISH Pence-Fritsch and his sister America – we are delighted to Trump’s family golf resort at
Ann Poynter as they were
Doonbeg, an area where his
be back in Ireland.”
Mr Pence and Mr Higgins
family has ancestral links.
greeted by the president and
his wife Sabina at their official were expected to discuss multi- Mr Pence’s visit comes just
residence in Dublin. lateral co-operation to address months after Mr Trump and
The engagement at Aras an climate action, Brexit and its First Lady Melania Trump vis-
Uachtarain came ahead of Mr impact on Ireland as well as ited Ireland.C
Pence’s meeting with
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. The
Pence family had traveled to
Dublin from Shannon Airport
on Air Force Two after spend-
ing their first night on their
Irish visit in Doonbeg, Co John Joe O’Sullivan and Kathleen Moran, nephew and niece of
Constable Downing (Anne Marie Cronin)
Clare.
Mr Higgins and his wife By Con Downing
escorted Mr Pence and his wife A large gathering of relatives, spanning several generations,
Karen to the state dining room marked the centenary year of the murder of Dublin Metropolitan
of the Aras on Tuesday morn- Police Constable Michael Downing at a special ceremony in
ing. Droumlave Cemetery in his native Adrigole last Saturday.
The commemorative event was organised by Beara Historical
Society as part of National Heritage Week and its chairman,
Fachtna O’Donovan, acted as master of ceremonies, welcoming
all present and giving some of the family history of the young
man and that fateful night in October 1919 when he was fatally
shot at High Street, near Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin. The
DMP was an unarmed police force and the young constable, who
had swopped shifts with a colleague because he had a date that
night, came across an incident – according to the subsequent
inquest – in which two men were attacking a woman.
Sharing some of his research at the graveside, grandnephew
Art McGann, from Dublin, revealed that Constable Downing
may, in fact, have interrupted some IRA men moving explosives
and that one of the key witnesses at the inquest could have been
involved in the shooting and not just the passer-by he claimed he
was at the time. The constable was just 23 years old when he was
cold-bloodedly killed.
Fachtna O’Donovan introduced a fellow retired garda, who
had also served with him at Kevin Street in Dublin, the station at
which Constable Downing was based. Gerard Lovett, on behalf
of the HARP (Historical and Reconciliatory Police) Society,
spoke at the graveside and said that Irish men who served with
the RIC and DMP were not traitors; they had their beliefs and
stuck to them.
The plaque on Constable Michael Downing’s grave to mark
the centenary was unveiled by his two closest relatives present,
niece Kathleen Moran (nee Power), Bantry, and nephew John Joe
O’Sullivan, Kenmare. Mr Lovett laid a wreath on behalf of
HARP.
The Last Post was poignantly sounded on trumpet by Gerard
O’Driscoll, from Skibbereen, followed by Amhrán na bhFiann, to
bring the ceremony to a close. Afterwards, most of the atten-
dance met up for refreshments and to renew acquaintances at the
nearby Wild Atlantic Bar.
The commemoration was also attended by another retired
garda, Jim Herlihy, a well-known Irish police historian, who that
night gave a talk at the Beara Coast Hotel in Castletownbere on
tracing police ancestry.C

Con Downing is a editor of The Southern Star newspaper in West
Cork and a grandnephew of Constable Michael Downing.