ARCHAEOLOGISTS have begun a painstaking search of prison grounds to find the secret burial place of executed Irish Volunteer Thomas Kent.
Work got underway at Cork Prison yesterday to solve the 99-year-old mystery of where British forces buried Kent after he was court-martialled and executed following a gun battle at his family home at Bawnard in Castlelyons, Co Cork.
An RIC officer and Kent’s brother Richard were fatally injured in the battle that took place on the first day of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.
After his arrest Kent was taken to Cork Prison where he was executed by firing squad on May 9 while his remains were buried at an unspecified spot in the prison yard.
Archaeologists from the Republic’s Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht are now attempting to locate the remains, and if they are successful DNA samples will be taken in the hopes of verifying their identity.
An Irish Prison Services spokesman said it would take up to eight weeks for scientists at the State Pathologist’s Office to complete any DNA work that might be necessary.
Kent’s descendents will be informed of any test findings before they are made public.
State archaeologists have previously exhumed the remains of the Forgotten Ten at Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison.
The ten - Kevin Barry, Patrick Moran, Frank Flood, Thomas Whelan, Thomas Traynor, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Bryan, Bernard Ryan, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher – were executed during the War of Independence. Following the exhumation they were reinterred in Glasnevin Cemetery after a state funeral in 2001.
