Christmas Card from The O'Rahilly

Liam Langley helped to set up the Irish Volunteers in Tuam in 1913.  This Christmas card was received by Liam from The O'Rahilly, a republican he got to know through their shared involvement in the rebellion.  The date of the card is between 1913-1915.

Michael Joseph O'Rahilly  (22 April 1875 –29 April 1916) known as The O'Rahilly,was an Irish republican and nationalist; he was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers 1913 and served as Director of Arms. Despite opposing the action, he took part in the Easter Rising in Dublin and was killed in a charge on a British machine gun post covering the retreat from the GPO during the fighting.

Howth Gun Running July 1914

Liam Langley travelled from Tuam Co Galway with a group of Fianna Eireann members to take part in the Howth Gun Running on 14 July 1914.  He can be seen in the photograph below in the light coloured suit wearing a boater type hat (third from right)

Family

Liam with daughter Ita late 1940s

Sons Brendan front centre, Jarlath left
Tuam 1941 25 Anniversary of 1916 Rising

Liam right with sons Brendan & Jarlath 1941

Jarlath, Ita, Mollie, Mairead, Nuala, Brendan

OBITUARY

This is the original obituary from: The Tuam Herald,
Saturday July 6 1968

Since this obituary was written further research into Liam's life and times have revealed and clarified details of his life which were not available at the time.

Mr Liam T. Langley

Late of Tuam

   The death of Mr. Liam T Langley, which occurred on June 21st at his residence, ‘Glenealy’, 23 Blackheath Park, Clontarf, Dublin, severs one of the last Tuam links with the 1916 Rising.  The number of people now left in the town who remember him is comparatively small, but here surely was a man whose name can be recalled with pride.  For Liam Langley had given a lifetime of devoted service to the national cause, and was friend and confidant of many whose names stand high in our country’s roll of honour.  “It wasn’t from the wind he took it,” for he was born with a Fenian heritage that he carried from childhood through the length of years.

   Though he always regarded Tuam as his home town, Liam Langley was born in Sydney, Australia, on January 23rd, 1888, and was only four years old when he first came to the land of his fathers.  It was homecoming too for his father, Michael Langley, a native of Caltra, Ballinasloe, who had to flee “down under” a a hunted felon after the abortive Fenian Rising of 1848.  While in Sydney, he married and raised a large family, and owned a book shop in the city.  Some years after the death of his first wife, he married Mary Kavanagh, daughter of emigrants from Co. Wicklow, both of whom had died and been buried at sea on the long voyage to Australia.  Liam was the only child of that marriage and in 1892 they returned to Ireland and came to live in Tuam.  In a thatched cottage on the Cloonthue Road, Liam Langley learnt the Fenian tradition from his father, whose brother Charles had been hanged outside his own house in Clastleblakeney in April, 1820, for organising the Ribbonmen in the area.

Bureau of Military History

Mentions of Liam T Langley in Witness Statements

National Activities North Galway 1913-1921 John D Costello click here

Statement  Liam Langley re arrest Sean MacDiarmuid Tuam May 1915 by R.I.C.

Statement  Activities of Tuam Company, Irish Volunteers Tuam Battalion, Irish Volunteers, Galway 1914-1921 Thomas Nohilly

Statement of Patrick Dunlevy activities of Irish Volunteers Tuam Battalion Galway 1916

Statement John Hosty activities Galway and Tuam 1910-16

Mrs Austin Stack biographical note on her husband - An Coosan IV Training Camp Athlon 1915

Statement of Michael O'Droighneain Galway 1916

Statement  Michael Ryan Tuam Battalion 1916

Statement  William O'Brien Reading Jail 1916

Statement  Ernest Blythe Reading Jail 1916

Statement  Sean Saunders activities 1917-1921

Statement  Sean Saunders re Dept of Local Government 1919-1921

Statement  Gary Holohan activities 1917-1921

Statement  Joseph Reynolds 1917-1921

Statement  Michael McDunphy 1921

Statement Harry Colley 1917-1921

Statement Major General Hugo MacNeill Organisation Na Fianna Éireann 1917-1921


Irish Volunteers, Tuam, Galway, 1913-1921 Sean O'Neill.  This is a very detailed statement consisting of 112 pages.  It is also an excellent social history of the era.