Full Name: Thomas O’Flanagan, nicknamed Toosie.
Addresses: 3 Lower Dominick Street (1901); 15 Bayview Avenue, North Strand (1911); 585 North Circular Road (1921, supplied to crown forces who arrested him); and 87 Brian Road Marino (from late 1920s to 1971).
Unit: F Coy, 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade. Rank Volunteer.
Born: 24 October 1900 in the Rotunda Hospital; home address 3 Lower Dominick Street.
Parents: John O’Flanagan, a Printer-Compositor originally from Co. Fermanagh and Tyrone-born Mary née Byrne.
Siblings: Seven surviving brothers and sisters – Michael, Ellen, Sarah, John, Joseph, Francis and Kathleen. Thomas was the youngest in the family and no siblings appear to have survived him at his death.
Military Service: F Coy, 2nd Battalion, Irish Volunteers/IRA. Lieutenant, Transport Corps, South Western Command National Army, serving in Limerick New Barracks, November 1922. He had enlisted on 1 March at Beggars Bush.
Personal Life: Thomas was a Clerk in Dublin and never married. He passed away in the Mater Hospital on 22 July 1971, aged 70. He was buried with his married sister Kathleen Comerford and some of her family in Glasnevin Cemetery plot ZJ193.5, St Patrick’s Section. Survived by nephews, nieces, relatives.
Remarks: Thomas appears in a couple of photos from Kilmainham Gaol.
The first shows him in a group, extreme left at back, beside Paddy Lawson and behind Edward Lane, with Michael Duggan front right.
He also made entries in Dan Rooney’s autograph books, trying a bit of ‘poetry’ – more like doggerel!
From written banter he had with John Mulcahy, we learn Thomas was the main sports and pastimes organiser for the prisoners, from handball games to lectures.
In 1939 he was included in a reunion photo of F Coy, 2nd Battalion.
Relatives: None known.
Des White
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