A History of Ireland in Song

Thomas Ashe

Thomas Ashe (1885-1917). School teacher, member of the Gaelic League and Irish Volunteers. In the 1916 Easter Rising he commanded the Fifth Battalion, North County Dublin (The Fingal Volunteers), the only unit outside the city of Dublin to engage the enemy during the Rising. In an ambush on an RIC unit at Ashbourne, Co. Dublin, Ashe and his men captured four police barracks with large quantities of arms and ammunition. Arrested soon after, he was court-martialed and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. Released in 1917 he was re-arrested for making speeches "calculated to cause disaffection" according to the government and sentenced to one year's imprisonment at hard labor. Thomas Ashe died on hunger strike in Mountjoy after a botched force feeding. He was buried at Glasnevin.

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