A man whose relative was one of the victims of the Ballyseedy massacre says he thought Kerry County Councillors would back motions relating to the Civil War atrocity.
On Monday, councillors rejected a call that the Dáil record on the Ballyseedy murders in March 1923 should be corrected.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael councillors voted against the Sinn Féin proposal while three Fianna Fáil councillors abstained.
Sinn Féin councillors Robert Beasley and Deirdre Ferris had submitted motions calling on the Government to acknowledge that the killings of eight Republican prisoners were due to the deliberate actions of Free State forces.
The official Dáil account holds that the men’s deaths were as a result of a Republican booby-trapped roadblock.
John O’Shea attended the council meeting.
An uncle on his father’s side, George O’Shea, was one of the eight killed after being tied to a mine.
A ninth prisoner, Stephen Fuller, survived and became a Fianna Fáil TD.
John O’Shea said he’d expected the motions to be passed by a majority of councillors and he had hoped that there would be unanimous support.
The Ballyseedy massacre was a reprisal for an explosion which killed five Free State officers in Knocknagoshel earlier on that day, March 6th, 1923.
John O’Shea also has a connection to Ballyseedy on the pro-Treaty side.
His aunt on his mother’s side was married to one of the Free State soldiers, Ned Breslin, involved in the Ballyseedy atrocity.
While Mr O’Shea wanted the motions to be passed, he said he understood the perspective of some councillors who voted against the move by Sinn Féin to correct the official account of what happened in Ballyseedy 100 years ago next month.
