On this day in 1791, Richard Lalor Sheil was born.
He played a crucial role in founding the Catholic Association in 1823 with Daniel O’ Connell and he became O’Connell’s most effective lieutenant.
Following Catholic Emancipation in 1829, Lalor Sheil was elected MP for Tipperary in 1833 and again in 1837. He became known as an outstanding orator in Parliament. He died in May 1851 and is buried in Long Orchard, Templetuohy.
The accompanying image is of O’Connell and Lalor Sheil. It is a lithograph by John Doyle entitled ‘Satan alias the Arch Agitator’ and was published in 1836. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Sources:https://www.dib.ie/biography/sheil-richard-lalor-a8032
Reports of “supernatural manifestations accompanied by cures” in Templemore first appeared in newspapers on 17 August 1920.
It was claimed that religious statues in Dwan’s shop on Main Street, Templemore, and in a cottage in Curraheen, near the village of Gortagarry, were weeping tears of blood. Jimmy Walsh, a 16-year-old farm labourer living in the cottage, said he had experienced Marian apparitions and that a “holy well” had formed in the floor of his bedroom.
By this stage of the War of Independence, tensions in Templemore were extremely high. On 16 August 1920, District Inspector William Wilson of the Royal Irish Constabulary was fatally shot by the IRA in Templemore. That night, the Northamptonshire Regiment, based at Richmond Barracks (now the Garda Síochána College), launched reprisals, setting Templemore town hall on fire.
The Tipperary Star reported that after the town hall was burned, “statues from which blood had been oozing were taken by Walsh to Templemore from the cottage in Curraheen... it was believed by local people that this action had saved the town from destruction.”
As stories of apparent miracles and healings spread, crowds of up to 15,000 people a day flocked to Templemore — dubbed “Pilgrimville” or “Pilgrimstown” by the press. A correspondent from the Catholic Times reported seeing four statues, with blood appearing to trickle from their faces, necks, breasts, or bodies. Daily News correspondent Hugh Martin described thousands gathered in the square, including paralysed children, elderly men with palsy, and young men with withered limbs... there was every deformity from warts to clubfoot, and nearly every chronic illness from fainting fits to tuberculosis.
Walsh, referred to by one newspaper as a “simple-mannered youth,” rose to sudden fame. Advertisements appeared offering “photographs of the boy to whom the Blessed Virgin appeared” and other souvenirs. One sceptical journalist remarked that he came “to see a miracle and saw one... It was not a miracle of bleeding statues, however, but of pathetic belief.”
An informal truce developed between the IRA, RIC, and British military under the extraordinary circumstances. The IRA was permitted by authorities to manage the massive crowds arriving from all over Ireland and beyond.
The Catholic Church took a cautious stance, adopting an attitude of “extreme reserve”. The Templemore parish priest, Rev. Kiely, refused to visit the statues. IRA commander Jimmy Leahy said that while most older clergy were sceptical, some younger priests seemed to view Curraheen as a second Lourdes and Walsh as a possible saint.
IRA commanders decided that action should be taken to halt the influx of pilgrims, as they had started to view the “whole business with incredulity”. Some pilgrims gave IRA volunteers “lavish tips” to skip the queue, and men who had “previously been abstemious and enthusiastic took to drink and began to forget that they were engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the country’s freedom”.
Walsh told interrogators that during his visions of the Virgin Mary, she expressed support for the IRA campaign and encouraged greater efforts. Leahy reportedly found it hard “to keep a straight face.”
Leahy contacted Michael Collins directly. Collins arranged for Walsh to be taken to Dublin for questioning, and asked Dan Breen, a senior IRA figure in Tipperary, to interrogate “this saint from Templemore... the fellow who operates the bleeding statue.” After lengthy questioning, Breen concluded that Walsh “was a fake.”
Senior Catholic clergy had also reached out to Collins, claiming that IRA members in Tipperary had built a bleeding statue to raise funds for weapons. A courier was dispatched to collect one of the statues for examination. Collins reportedly smashed the statue against a desk, revealing alarm clock parts inside. “‘I bloody knew it,’ said Collins,” and that marked the end of the bleeding statue story.
The hidden mechanism included an alarm clock connected to fountain-pen cartridges filled with sheep’s blood. When triggered, the clock would cause blood to squirt from the statue’s chest, creating the illusion of bleeding.
After his interrogation by Breen, Walsh was sent to the Salesian College in Pallaskenry. His disappearance from Templemore, along with an IRA ambush on 29 September 1920 at Killoskehane that resulted in the deaths of two RIC constables, caused pilgrims, traders, and vagrants to leave the town quickly.
By 1923, Walsh had emigrated to Australia, where he changed his name and made several unsuccessful attempts to join religious orders. By the 1950s, his marriage had ended, his teenage son Graydon had died, and he was working as a lay teacher in a Catholic school.
When the Church learned of his past in Templemore, he was dismissed. He found work as a hospital porter, and after a long illness, died on 12 March 1977. He was buried in Pine Grove Memorial Park in Minchinbury, Sydney. He never returned to Ireland.
Sources:
John Reynolds, "Supernatural Manifestations accompanied by Cures: The Phenomenon of the Templemore Miracles, 1920" in Tipperary Historical Journal 2009.
John Reynolds, The ‘Templemore Miracles’: How a fake bleeding statue led to an IRA truce in The Irish Times 14/08/2020. Retrieved on 31/07/2025 at https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/the-templemore-miracles-how-a-fake-bleeding-statue-led-to-an-ira-truce-1.4328392
