1
The Green,
Middleton, Co. Cork 23 May 1916 To The Excellency
Earl Wimborne
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland May it Please Your Excellency, I respectfully beg
to enclose a communication received
from the Local Government Board
in reply to one addressed to that
Board requesting permission for
the disinterment of the remains
of my husband in the burial -
ground attached to the Protestant
Church at Middleton. Further I beg to
inform Your Excellency that four
months since my husband's
remains were in error interred
in a grave the property of a
family named Arnold; and Your
Excellency's authority is now prayed
to have the remains removed
to an adjoining grave — my husband's
one — in the cemetery. I have the honour to remain
Your Excellency's Servant
Mrs Margaret OBrien
Letter from Margret O'Brien to Lord Wimborne. Sir Ivor Churchill Guest (1873-1939),
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1915 to 1918. From the beginning of 1916 Wimborne
began agitating for measures to be taken against the Irish Volunteers, but was constantly
dissuaded by Birrell and Nathan. However, Wimborne's early recommendations for action
reflected favorably on him after the 1916 Rising.
In the letter, O'Brien discuses her request for the exhumation of her husband's body
due to it's burial in the wrong grave. She goes on to state the grave is the property
of the Arnold family and she requests that her husband's body be moved.