In the early hours of the 1st of April 1921, armed and masked men called at the home of suspected IRA volunteer Michael Coen at Lecarrow just outside Ballyhaunis. His cousin, also Michael, saw 15 men, some with flashlights, get out of a car and lorry and walk up the boreen from the main road to Coen’s house. The young man was dragged out of the house and severely beaten. He was then subjected to an horrendous death. A bayonet was used to cut his throat through to the windpipe. Both sides of his chest and his 2 feet were also stabbed. His body was left alongside a ditch 120 yards from his home where his father found him at 5 am the next morning.