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Ainm Gaeilge

Seán Mac Gabhann

Conradh na Gaeilge

also

Irish Republican Army

E Company

3rd Battalion Dublin No. 1 Brigade

&

5th Dublin Fingal Brigade

Chun an nglóir Dé agus an onóir na hÉireann

John, called Jack, is the son of Vincent & Jane (née Derham) McGowan of The Cross, a street in the village of Skerries.

Vincent McGowan was a publican, owner and proprietor of the Gladstone Inn, which was directly next to the McGowan home in which Jack was born. A fiercely nationalist family, the business was named in honor of William Gladstone, the indefatigable proponent of Irish Home Rule. It was so named by Matt McGowan, Vincent's father & Jack's grandfather, who originally opened the business. The McGowan's owned the Gladstone Inn until selling a few years before the start of WW II. It remains in business in it's original location to this day.

As a youth, Jack was involved with the Gaelic League which promoted the Irish language & customs and formed the core of the Republican movement in north Dublin.

At the outbreak of the Easter Rising young Jack McGowan, just 15 years old, attempted to join the heroic men set to fight the Battle of Ashbourne under the command of Thomas Ashe & Dick Mulcahy. Believing him to be even younger than 16 years old, they attempted to send him home.

Moving down to Dublin City, he joined his cousin, and fellow Skerries native John Mansfield, as a member of E Company, 3rd Battalion Dublin No. 1 Brigade.

At the signing of the The Treaty, Jack joined the Anti-Treaty forces in an effort to ensure all of Ireland's freedom. June 28, 1922 is widely considered the day the Irish Civil War began. On that fateful day, during a gun battle with Irish Free State forces on York St., near St. Stephen's Green in Dublin City, Jack was wounded and afterwards taken to St. Vincent's Hospital.

It was at St. Vincent's three days after being shot, that he died from his wounds, a martyr to the fight for a free and united Ireland, a fight that continues to the present day.

John "Jack" McGowan is often cited as the "first casualty" of Ireland's Civil War.

✞ Jack McGowan is buried at Holmpatrick Graveyard, Skerries in his McGowan family's plot. Buried with him are siblings, his parents, grandparents & great-grandparents. He fought and he died for all of them.

also

✞ Skerries Republican Martyrs Memorial

Holmpatrick Graveyard, Skerries

In addition to his own gravesite, Jack McGowan is honored & remembered, along with fellow Skerries Irish Republican Army soldiers Thomas Hand & Terry Sherlock, on a monument placed in Holmpatrick Graveyard. The Skerries War of Independence Memorial, also known as the Hand McGowan Sherlock Memorial, is located in the same cemetery as the McGowan's family gravesite. All 3 Republican patriots lost their lives during the fight for a free & united Ireland, a fight that continues to this day.