Liam (William Joseph) Mellows was born in Lancashire, England in 1892, the son of British army officer, William Mellows. His mother, Sarah Jordan, was from near Castletown, County Wexford and Liam spent most of his childhood there with his grandfather, Patrick Jordan. Mellows became a nationalist and socialist at an early age, joining both Fianna Éireann and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was one of the founding members of the Irish Volunteers. During the 1916 Rising, he led a Volunteer unit in Galway in a series of unsuccessful attacks on Royal Irish Constabulary After the insurrection failed, Mellows escaped to the United States, where he was arrested and detained on a charge of attempting to aid the German side in the First World War. He was released in 1918. During the Civil War, Liam Mellows and three other anti-Treaty prisoners were executed in Mountjoy in December 1922 as a reprisal for the assassination of Sean Hales, TD. Mellows is buried in Castletown cemetery, County Wexford where a commemoration takes place annually at his graveside.
