The John Mandeville Memorial was unveiled at New Market Square, Mitchelstown, on 9th September 1906 by William O'Brien, MP, from Mallow. The occasion marked the culmination of 18 years of fund raising and planning by a committee whose membership was comprised mostly of veterans of the Land War of the 1880s.

The John Mandeville Memorial Committee was formed shortly after John Mandeville died on 8 July 1888, at his home in Clonkilla, Mitchelstown. Mandeville's death, after two months in Tullamore Jail, enraged nationalist Ireland. However, with the notable exception of William O'Brien, Irish MPs were unwilling to press the issue at parliamentary level.

The coroner's inquest into Mandeville's death found that he had died of an inflamed throat condition brought on by the harsh treatment he received as a prisoner in Tullamore. O'Brien, determined to ensure that his friend should not be forgotten, promised to contribute £100 towards a Mandeville memorial fund. This donation sowed the seed for the formation of the John Mandeville Memorial Committee, which was established in the early autumn of 1888.

The committee enjoyed bursts of great enthusiasm, interspersed by periods of dormancy and inactivity. It also encountered considerable difficulties in raising the money required for an impressive sculpture. The late Jimmy Saich told me some years ago that these difficulties were overcome by Maurice O'Sullivan of Campaign House (his uncle) and Maurice Mannix of Clonmel road, who travelled to Boston, New York and Chicago to raise large sums of money amongst the Irish communities.

Another area of difficulty came with the plan to erect the memorial in New Square. This proposal was resisted by the County Grand Jury (predecessor of the County Council), which was comprised of landlords and justices of the peace. This problem was overcome in 1899 with the formation of Mitchelstown Rural District Council (later amalgamated into the County Council) whose nationalist councillors voted through approval for the sculpture to be erected in New Square.

Meanwhile, offers to Mandeville's wife, Mary, to erect smaller memorials were firmly rejected and the committee was compelled to stick to its original promise to erect a life-size sculpture in bronze. Following a selection process, the committee chose a design by Francis William Doyle-Jones, who was a brilliant young London-based sculptor of Irish parentage. This depicted a 7.5 foot high bronze sculpture of Mandeville, standing on top of a 10 foot high plinth of Ballinasloe limestone, made by John Maguire of Cork, to the design of Doyle-Jones. The bronze cost £850 and the plinth £200 (about half of the total cost of restoring the monument in September 1999).

The contract for a Celtic Cross over Mandeville's grave was given to WP O'Neill of Dublin, who had been in communication with the committee since the inception of the project 19 years previously. The cross cost £50.

The unveiling of the Mandeville Memorial on 9 September 1906 was a day of great celebration in the locality. According to `The Times' of London, some 25,000 people attended the ceremony, which was, it said, the biggest event in Mitchelstown within living memory. The `Cork Examiner' put the attendance at 20,000.

The procession was led by the Mitchelstown Brass and Reid Band `with the banner of the town,' followed by the Mitchelstown Fife and Drum Band. The Mandeville Memorial Committee came behind them, followed by huge contingents from Tipperary, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and elsewhere.

The route followed that of the National League contingents who marched into the town on 9 September 1887. Starting from New Square, they proceeded through Upper Cork Street, Church Street, George Street, King Square, Baldwin Street, Lower Cork Street and back into New Square.

In one photograph of the event, the sculptor Doyle-Jones can be identified wearing a straw hat, whilst the famous O'Brien, addressing the crowd, stands on a platform to the left of the statue. O'Brien's speech was full of vigour and rich in metaphor. He spoke of the heroic struggle of the 1880s, of Mandeville's leadership role in it, and of the three men - Casey, Shinnick and Lonergan - shot in the square by police in September 1887.