Cork Council to fund restoration of grave of Fermoy man who plotted 1880s dynamite attack on Britain

The grave of a Cork man sentenced to life in prison for plotting an 1880s dynamite attack on Britain is to be restored in a project undertaken by his great great grandniece.

John Curtin Kent was born in 1849 in Ballyhindon close to Fermoy town and is buried in a family plot in Kilcrumper Old Cemetery. Now his relative, Laura Doyle, has been granted funding from Cork County Council to carry out restoration of the grave.

Ms Doyle, a geneologist, has researched several documents from his life and says he dedicated himself in the US to the Amnesty Association, which was set up to free Irish political prisoners.

She says her own granduncle had written an article about Curtin Kent many years ago and after coming across it, she decided to research him for her college dissertation.

Curtin Kent, who died in 1931, was a relative of the well-known Thomas Kent from Castlelyons, whose body lay buried in the grounds of the former Cork Prison until it was exhumed and buried after a State funeral in Castlelyons in 2015.

FENIANS

Curtin Kent emigrated to the US in the early 1870s, joining the Irish Republican Brotherhood, known as the Fenians, while there.

He was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted at the Old Bailey in London in 1883 for plotting to dynamite Britain with 1916 leader Thomas Clarke, Glasgow man Dr Thomas Gallagher and Skibbereen native John Cadogan Murphy, in a Clan na Gael plot.

His release, 12 years later, after developing heart failure, came about due to intense lobbying by the US administration of the time.

After first returning home to Fermoy, Curtin Kent travelled to the US again and remained there until the 1920s. Following the death of his wife, who was from Castlelyons, he returned to Fermoy.

Laura Doyle says she is very proud of her relative and wants to ensure his grave is restored.

She says: “It was always something I wanted to do because he has been kind of forgotten about in history. A lot of people would not have heard of him. By all accounts, everything I have read about him, it looks like he was a quiet kind of person.” The grave is to be restored in the coming months.