Relatives of Laois volunteers call for 1916 medals to be awarded posthumously

The descendants of Laois volunteers involved in operations during the 1916 Rising are advocating for medals to be awarded posthumously.

While local historian Dr Cormac Moore estimates that around fourteen Laois volunteers were involved in operations at Colt Wood and Athy railways, only six received medals.

Eamon Fleming was one of the six volunteers who did receive a medal for his efforts in Laois during the Rising. However, the Fleming family has led the campaign for recognition of the other volunteers’ involvement. Owen Kirby, a descendent of volunteer Michael Gray, who is based in Washington D.C., also made a public appeal for redress in an RTÉ report last week.

The state awarded 1916 medals in tandem with a pension award for 1916 service, with both awards being determined under the same criteria. The advocates now stress that they are not seeking financial compensation on behalf of their ancestors, but purely recognition in the form of a medal certificate.

Dr Moore explains that, during Easter week, Eamon Fleming received instructions directly from Pádraig Pearse – a document that the Fleming family has preserved – with orders to prevent British troops accessing Dublin through Laois. The Laois volunteers divided their efforts between two operations – one in Athy led by Eamon Fleming, and the other at Colt Wood, led by P.J. Ramsbottom.

While the Athy operation was largely ineffective, the operation at Colt Wood on the night of Easter Sunday was a success. The volunteers cut down telegraph poles and removed sections of rail. The following day, a train was derailed, causing eight passengers to jump off. On the night of the operation, a railway clerk travelled to the site from Portlaoise and ordered the volunteers to cease their activities. P.J. Ramsbottom fired three shots over his head, which, according to Dr Moore, are regarded as the first official shots of the Easter Rising.

Dr Moore estimates that three or four volunteers were involved in Athy and close to ten at Colt Wood.

Additionally, Dr Moore adds, the Brady sisters at Lawlors Mills performed deliveries and transmitted messages to volunteers. Dr Moore considers the sisters to have also been ‘at risk’ and monitored by British Forces.

To Dr Moore, the award of medals seemed ‘sporadic’: “While some got the medals, others who would have done similar work didn’t get the medals.”

Asked if there was strong historical evidence for the volunteers’ involvement, Dr Moore said: “There seemed to be full synergy and unity in what happened – there’s no contradiction. And all of the people who were involved were mentioned by all the different parties. So it’s not as if there were some people saying they did more than others, and others were exaggerating their roles. [...] If you look at the witness statements or pension applications, they pretty much say who was involved, where they were, and so on. So I think the evidence is quite strong in that regard, but some people got medals and others didn’t.”

Dr Moore suggests that the fact of a small selection of volunteers receiving medals actually supports the case that the remaining volunteers were snubbed: “It’s not as if the state is saying: ‘nothing happened in Laois’. Obviously they believe something happened, because they’ve given medals for duties carried out by Laois volunteers, in Laois, in 1916, and haven’t given them for others.”

Deputy Sean Fleming is the nephew of volunteers Eamon and Patrick Fleming and has joined his family in their campaign. He suspects that the political polarisation that emerged between members of the 1916 volunteers during the subsequent Civil War may have disinclined the leaders of certain operations from providing the state with evidence of the involvement of volunteers on the other side of the divide.

He said: “If a person was in charge, and he was asked to certify who was involved in that particular action – it's not just Laois, anywhere in the country – and depending on what side they took in the Civil War, probably the people who were on his side, you know, came and they certified that. But if the person in charge of the particular event in 1916 was on the other side of the Civil War campaign, they mightn't have been as willing to cooperate or approach each other to verify it.”

The dearth of evidence borne of these divisions may then have frustrated the medal applications and appeals processes through the mid-twentieth century.

Mr Fleming continued that the dissipation of Civil War divisions should now facilitate acknowledgment for unrecognised volunteers: “We're over the Civil War politics, you know, where generations have moved on.” He highlighted that documents submitted to the state in pension applications may help to corroborate volunteers’ involvement.

Mr Fleming submitted a question to Minister for Defence Helen McEntee in April 2026 regarding medals for the Laois volunteers.

Acknowledging that only six medals were awarded while several more volunteers were involved in the operations, the minister said: “While such an outcome may seem inconsistent, it was the result of various statutory processes, including appeals, carried out over the course of more than thirty years from the 1924 Act to the winding up of the various military service pensions related mechanisms in the late 1950s.

“The award of all previous 1916 medals was based on assessment of long-established criteria which my Department must continue to follow, in order to preserve the integrity of the overall 1916 medal process. You will appreciate that, with the passage of time, it is no longer possible at this stage to investigate or substantiate claims for posthumous 1916 medals to the required standard.”

Mr Fleming was unsatisfied with the minister’s response and plans to raise the issue again once the Dáil resumes. He hopes that the advocates’ efforts will open the door for other families around the country to pursue recognition for volunteers where they feel compelled to do so and the evidential burden is met.