en en en en en en en en
He had been first picked up by 2 Auxiliaries RC Roberts and JC Wakefield of K Coy, They had handed him over to the military and Darcy was shot by a soldier, not an Auxiliary
The full inquest is given on these pages and show that Roberts and Wakefield were not responsible for the shooting that killed Darcy, but that Darcy had been haned over to a Curfew Patriol under Lt A R Koe of the Hampshires, and the shot was fired by Pte WH Dugan of the Hampshires. It is worth noting that Koe was in command at Clonmult when 12 IRA volunteers were killed.
2 Auxiliaries staying at the Imperial Hotel in Cork became suspicious of a man in clerical clothes in the hotel bar. There was a scuffle in the man's room, and he jumped out of the window. The Auxiliaries called the military, and again after a scuffle the man was arrested. He was later shot while "trying to escape". The dead man was Finbarr Darcy, who had been dismissed from the priesthood.
WS1401. All I know of the Alexian Brother Darcy is from unofficial current gossip and rumour. He had been an Alexian Brother in England, but had left the Order in about November, 1919. Although his family lived in Clanmire, he spent a great deal of his time drinking in Fanny O'Grady's and in the Imperial Hotel, and in actual. fact slept a great deal of his time, for several weeks, at the Imperial Hotel which was then the most expensive Cork hostelry. He constantly wore clerical garb. The accepted Cork story, in unofficial circles, is that he conspired with an ex British officer, named Kavanagh, then in the Cork Labour Exchange, son of a Cork solicitor, and later believed to have been in the Auxiliaries [Note- Kavanagh was never in ADRIC] ; and Walter Callanan, an undergraduate of University College, Cork, and. son of a most respected Cork builder, to rob the Cork G.P.O. Which stands beside the Imperial Hotel. It is alleged that they succeeded in stealing eight thousand pounds during curfew hours and that they committed the money, for safe keeping, to a women of bad character who ran away with the funds. It is believed commonly that it was on the actual night of this robbery that Darcy was taken up by British troops and conveyed to Cork Barracks, not because of the robbery, but merely for being on the streets after curfew, and that he was shot dead while trying to escape from. the lorry. In or about the late autumn of l924. or spring of 1925 Callanan was at a dance in Arcadia Ballroom beside Glanmire Railway Station, Cork, then a very fashionable dance hall. I was myself at the dance. Walter Callanan left the dance hall and entered the tunnel connected with the Dublin railway line and was killed by a down-coming train.
Given that Darcy does not appear on IRA records, my assumption is that he was, as in the Witness Statement" involved in criminal activity.