Mitchelstown
In the summer of 2011, a year after my brother Paul had died, I went back to Ireland to see the family over there. I stayed in County Clare for a few days before heading down to Cork, staying over night in a B&B in Tipperary. On the way down south, I stopped to take perhaps fifty pictures in geographical squares that had not been bagged either by me or any other Geograph contributor. One stop I made was in the main square of Mitchelstown - a small town in northern County Cork. It was a case of stopping, taking a couple of pictures and jumping back in the hire car. I didn't even know who the statuesque fellow was on the plinth. It turns out that he was John Mandeville (1849-1888). In 1887, he led an uprising of tenant farmers in the town - protesting about increased rents and evictions. Three men were killed by police that day in what is sometimes known as "The Mitcheltown Massacre". For his part in the unrest, John Mandeville was arrested, tried and imprisone...