Robert Malone, A Ringsend Hero (by Trevor James)
Robert Malone, a proud Ringsender, was a fireman and lost his life in one of the worst tragedies in the history of the Dublin Fire Brigade. Robert was the eldest son of Robert Malone and his wife, Catherine Dent. He was born at 31 Pembroke Cottages and continued to live there with his parents through his childhood. He had a younger brother Pat and two sisters, Annie and Mary Martha. His father was a fisherman. Around about 1912 the family moved to another cottage at 17 Pigeon House Road.
Robert joined the Volunteers about ten days before the beginning of the Rising but had previously been a boy scout and national volunteer. He served with Eamon with De Valera in Boland’s Mills. He was interned in Wakefield prison and Frongoch after the Rising. He was released from Frongoch in December 1916 and immediately rejoined the 3rd Battalion, Dublin Brigade, “training and instructing recruits, making hand grenades etc” and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1918. He resigned in 1920, claiming that work made it impossible for him to attend parades. However, around this time he became a member of the confraternity of St Patrick’s church, Ringsend and remained involved in church affairs until his death and this may also have influenced his decision to leave.
In 1925 his brother Pat
died when he fell from a fishing smack while cleaning fish on deck. Although the other fishermen were almost
within arm’s reach of him, he suddenly sank, and his body was never found.
Robert had been working
as a scavenger but, with the support of his commandant, joined the Pembroke
Fire Brigade with his friend Peter McArdle and remained with the brigade when
Pembroke was amalgamated with Greater Dublin in 1930.
At the age of 30, Robert,
or Bob as he was generally known, married Annie Larkin from Strand Street,
Irishtown in 1928. The following year
they had a son, also called Robert. Bob
was attached to Tara Street station, and he lived there with his wife and child
in the married quarters. Bob loved his work as a fireman but in 1933 he was
seriously injured when he fell from a ladder at a fire in Huet Motors, on Grand
Canal Street.
In 1934, the government unveiled the Military Service Pensions Act to provide pensions to those who had fought in the Rising or in the war of independence. Bob applied for this but heard nothing from them. (See the bottom of this post for copies of the application)
On the night of 5th
October 1936, he was chatting to his friend and co-worker, Kit Mullen, when a
call was received that there was a fire in Exide Batteries on 164 Pearse
Street. This was close by, and within
two minutes fire engines were on the scene, to find flames leaping out of the
front windows of the building. By
coincidence, Bob’s wife, Annie, was returning from visiting relatives in
Sandymount and was passing through Pearse Street at the time of the fire. The
engines had reached there and connected the hoses to the fire hydrants but
there was no water pressure and only a trickle of water emerged, preventing the
firemen from fighting the fire effectively.
A crowd of onlookers was gathering, and shouts went up that there were
children inside. Annie saw Bob and two
other firemen, Peter McArdle and Tom Nugent, enter the building. One minute later there was a huge explosion
and Annie knew that she would never see her husband again. His friend, Kit
Mullen, had been off duty but he had travelled to the fire on his bike. When the explosion took place, the letter
"B" from Exide Batteries struck him, and he always believed it was a
sign from Bob.
The water pressure wasn’t restored until after midnight by which time the fire had spread to adjoining buildings. With the pressure restored, the fire was brought under control and the search for the firemen could commence, with firemen police and civilians digging through the smouldering rubble. It wasn’t till ten o’clock the following morning that the charred bodies of all the missing men were found. They could only be identified by their badges. The remains were brought to Sir Patrick Dun’s for an autopsy.
The whole city was in mourning, and the families were offered a public funeral which they accepted. The remains were moved from Sir Patrick Dunn’s and Bob’s body was placed on a fire engine from Tara Street and twenty men that he had served with in Boland’s Mills formed the guard of honour. The other coffins of Peter McArdle and Tom Nugent were also placed on fire engines, and all were brought to City Hall where they lay in state for two days, with four firemen keeping a constant guard of honour. There was a continuous stream of people through City Hall. Bob’s coffin was draped with the tricolour and the emblem of the Confraternity of St Patrick’s Ringsend where he had been a member for 17 years.
Two days later, after a funeral mass in St Andrew’s church, Westland Row the funeral procession made the three-mile journey to Glasnevin through streets lined ten deep with about 100,000 people. The funeral cortege was almost a mile long with the men’s families and representatives from the Government, Corporation, trade unions, businesses. The garda band headed the procession and hundreds of firemen in their bright red uniforms followed the engines and a Guinness ten-wheel lorry was needed to hold all the wreaths and flowers. The full procession took almost an hour to pass. At Glasnevin, the Last Post was sounded, a volley of shots was fired over Bob’s coffin, and the three firemen were buried side by side, in death as in life.
His friend, Kit Mullen, who
had also served with Bob in Boland’s Mills, was one of those who fired the
volley over the grave. Afterwards he
collected the spent cartridge shells and welded them to form a cross, with a
fire-brigade badge taking the place of Christ.
Annie Malone went to live
at 23 Strand Street, Bayview, Irishtown and subsequently at 180 Stella
Gardens. The military pension Bob had
applied for was posthumously granted but only amounted to £31/16s/9d.
