The last man
BY RAY O'HANLON
Patrick Motherway with Commandant Philip Cotter of the Irish army. Photo courtesy of the Motherway family
He may have been the last surviving Irish Republican Brotherhood veteran man in America. Patrick Motherway, originally from County Cork, died recently in New York at age 104.
Motherway, who served with the IRB and Irish Volunteers out of Charleville, County Cork, had been living with his son, Stephen and daughter-in-law Bridget in College Point, Queens.
“Up until the end he was sharp of wit and remembered dates, time and names of that fight,” said his nephew Jim Motherway in reference to Ireland’s war for independence.
As a teenager, Motherway was interned along with three of his brothers.
The youngest of seven, he was being raised by one of those brothers after the death of his parents, this when he was just three.
Motherway later followed his brother Denis to the U.S., arriving March 19, 1925 at Ellis Island. It would be fifty years before he would make a return journey to Ireland to see relatives.
Motherway lived in the Bronx for many years and was a keen fan of Gaelic games. He was also an active member of the Cork Association.
He would marry Dorothy O’Reilly and the two would have two children.
At his 100th birthday party, Pat displayed the wit and wisdom that comes with ten score years.
“If I knew I was going to live so long I would have taken better care of myself,” he said at the time.
Some time before his death, the Irish government sent army commandant (major) Philip Cotter to interview Motherway in New York about his actions in the Cork Brigade.
Cotter also presented Motherway with historical testimony given some years previously by his brother Mike.
The IRB fought in the 1916 Rising and its campaign continued into the later War of Independence.
In its final years it would be particularly active in County Cork and was led in the war by Michael Collins.
The IRB was dissolved in 1924, a year before Patrick Motherway set sail for America.
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