Mary Catherine Comyns Fennell • 1897–1984
The local Black and Tans commander, Charlie Maslin, held a revolver. Mary Catherine Comyns sat before him, a young woman in her early twenties, and he spun the chamber—a Russian roulette session designed to break her will and force her to reveal the whereabouts of local IRA officers. She did not flinch, and she did not speak. That moment captures the core of Mary Catherine: courage without fanfare, commitment without bitterness.
This moment, described decades later in her 1984 obituary, encapsulates the extraordinary courage of a woman whose life spanned nearly nine decades of Irish history. To understand how she came to face Maslin’s gun, we must return to her beginning.
She was born Mary Catherine Comyns on August 16, 1897, in Tullabrack West, County Clare, into a family that would become, as her obituary noted, "noted for its devotion to things Gaelic." But her early years were marked by tragedy rather than revolution. Her father Patrick, a farmer, had emigrated to Galveston, Texas, hoping to make a better life for his family and send for them later. Instead, he died there between May and August 1897—before Mary was born, before he could bring them over, before his dream could be realized. Mary never knew him. Her mother Catherine Cushen Comyns raised Mary and her brother Michael alone, managing the farm at Tullabrack with the help of servants. The 1901 census shows Catherine as a literate, bilingual widow, keeping the household together.
In 1906, when Mary was eight, her mother died of tuberculosis. Orphaned, Mary and Michael moved to Ballykett to live with their maternal uncle John Cussen and his sister Mary. The 1911 census records the children as literate, bilingual, and working on the farm. It was a modest but stable upbringing in a community still bearing scars from the Famine and land struggles.
Then came the revolution. Between 1917 and 1921, during Ireland's War of Independence, Mary joined Cumann na mBan—the women's auxiliary of the Irish Republican Army—at an early age. She served with the Kilrush 2nd Battalion of the West Clare 1st Brigade—the same unit where her brother Michael would become O/C (Officer Commanding) after the Crown Forces murdered McNamara and Shanahan in 1920.
Mary's role in Cumann na mBan was both dangerous and vital. As her son Jack would later recount, his mother worked in a family bar on Vandeleur Street, where she put her bilingual skills to strategic use. RIC soldiers, not realizing she could speak English, often talked freely among themselves about military movements and plans. She gathered this intelligence and then became a runner, crossing the fields from Kilrush town to relay information to local commanders. During the War of Independence, Cumann na mBan women were "indispensable as couriers," praised for their "courage, their capacity, and above all, their discretion." Women like Mary leveraged their ability to appear unremarkable—young women going about daily business—while carrying dispatches through dangerous conditions. They used their local knowledge of fields and back roads, their fluency in both Irish and English, and the fact that British forces often underestimated or ignored them. It was work that required not just bravery, but also quick thinking and absolute discretion.
Kilrush became a flashpoint. On April 22, 1921, the West Clare Brigade launched coordinated attacks across the town: the workhouse, the Coast Guard station, the RIC Barracks. About 60 armed men, supported by 200 scouts and carriers, struck simultaneously. RIC Sergeant John McFadden was killed. Crown Forces destroyed homes in retaliation, their fury so intense that a British soldier died from flying debris.
Mary's role went beyond reconnaissance or message-carrying. Her pension application and obituary describe how she helped nurse wounded Brigade members back to health, including Ignatius (Terence) O'Neill, who recuperated from his wounds at her uncle's house in Ballykett. The house became a safe haven, and Mary became a target.
It was Charlie Maslin, the Black and Tans supremo in Kilrush, who subjected her to that terrorizing Russian roulette session. The psychological warfare failed. Mary kept her silence, protecting the men she served alongside. She received the Service Medal (1917-1921) in 1950, and in 1958, she was granted a Special Allowance under the Army Pensions Act for ill health related to her service.
After the War of Independence, Mary built a different kind of life. On June 26, 1928, she married Matthew Timothy Fennell, a merchant from Kilrush. They settled on Henry Street and raised seven surviving children: John Joseph, Michael Anthony, Matthew Francis, Patrick Senan, Mary Catherine, Margaret Theresa, and Ann Philomena. In approximately February 1948, another son died, possibly stillborn. The infant may be buried in the Cussen family plot in the Breaffa Cemetery.
Mary, known locally as Cissie or Cis, became a shopkeeper alongside her husband. Together they ran the boot shop Matt had established on Henry Street. Over the course of their life together, the boot shop morphed into a grocery store, adapting to the changing needs of the Kilrush community. When her uncle John and aunt Mary Ann died, Mary inherited the farms at Ballykett and Tullabrack, becoming both shopkeeper and farmer.
A 1954 court case over livestock trespass shows her son Michael managing the Ballykett property, dealing with damaged fences and wandering cattle while Mary, identified as "Mrs. Catherine Fennell, Henry Street," pursued the legal claim for damages.
Matthew died in August 1960 at age 67, his health having deteriorated in his final years and his heart and lungs failing him. Mary was 62, a widow like her mother before her. By then, all her children were grown. She continued working, managing the shop and oversight of the farm, even as her children had already begun to scatter in the mid-1950s—to England and the United States—following the emigration patterns that had reshaped Ireland for generations.
Her revolutionary past would follow her family for decades to come. In the mid-1980s, when her daughter-in-law applied for a position as secretary with the FBI in New York, the background investigation reached back across the Atlantic. A staff member from the U.S. Embassy in Dublin traveled to Kilrush and called to Henry Street to interview her, by then in her eighties, about her service with Cumann na mBan—answering questions about events from more than sixty years earlier. It was a reminder that her choices during the War of Independence still mattered to governments even an ocean away, her revolutionary service still considered relevant in assessing potential security risks.
When she died on June 6, 1984, at age 86, the Kilrush Urban Council adjourned its meeting in her honor. Vice-Chairman William O'Looney called her "a joyful, cheerful and pleasant person" with "a heart of gold." But her obituary emphasized something else: "She remained staunch to the Republican ideal to the end." That young woman who had faced Charlie Maslin’s revolver never wavered in her convictions.
She was buried at Breaffa Cemetery, her gravestone identifying her as "Mary Catherine (Cissie) nee Comyn." The nickname "Cissie" suggests the warmth her neighbors remembered. But history records something more: a woman who chose courage when it mattered most.
About the Author
Terry Fitzgerald is a family historian and genealogical researcher with deep roots in Irish and Irish-American history. Raised in the United States on the edge of two worlds — the country she grew up in and the Ireland her family carried with them — she has spent years tracing the lives of the people whose choices and sacrifices made her own possible. Her research spans church records and census entries, DNA matches and ship manifests, but her truest interest has always been the stories that don't fit neatly into any archive: the adventures, the losses, the moments that get passed down at kitchen tables and then, too often, quietly disappear. These chronicles are her attempt to make sure they don't.
Sources
● Mary Catherine Comyns, Birth Registration, Irish Genealogy birth or baptism records, #162.
● Irish census records for 1901 and 1911: Ireland Census 1901. Residents of a house 9 in Tullabrack West (Clooncoorha, Clare) and Ireland Census 1911. Residents of a house 1 in Ballykett (Clooncoorha, Clare).
● Pension application for Mary Comyns Fennell, 1949; privately held by Terry Fitzgerald, personal collection.
● Catherine Fennell, Clare Champion 1950-current, Saturday, July 24, 1954 - Page 1.
● Obituary for Catherine Fennell, Clare Champion 1950-current, Friday, June 22, 1984 - Page 15.