British Mercantile Marine Identity and Service Certificate of John O'Connor 4/1/1896 - 7/3/1923 and his Cogadh na Saoirse service medal

"Photo #1 is of a paper document in my possession - the service record of my Grandfather John O'Connor in the British Merchant Navy. Photo #3 is of his Cogadh na Saoirse service medal, posthumously awarded. John was born in Limerick to parents from Cork and Kerry. His father, Edmund, was an RIC Constable stationed in Inishannon and that is where John grew up. John went to sea and worked as a fireman on the great steamships that sailed between Britain, Ireland and America. He was also a volunteer with the Inishannon Company of the Bandon Battalion of the 3rd Cork Brigade. He used his work as cover to smuggle arms into Ireland from Britain and America during the War of Independence and to the anti-treaty forces during the Civil War. His ship, the Caheracon of the Limerick Steamship Company, was sailing between Liverpool and Limerick when it docked at Fenit on the night of 5th March 1923. Troops of the National Army boarded the ship and searched it and, though they found no arms or ammunition, they arrested John on suspicion of gun-running and brought him to Ballymullen Barracks in Tralee where they held him overnight. In the middle of the following night John died in an explosion on the road between Tralee and Killorglin, at Ballyseedy Wood, by the bridge over the River Lee. He was 27 and left a wife who was one month pregnant and a two year old daughter, my mother, in Liverpool. This fragile document tells me John was 5' 9" tall and his eyes were blue. "