Cathal Brugha — born Charles William St John Burgess — was one of the most uncompromising figures of the Irish independence movement. Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers, Minister for Defence in the First Dáil, he opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty absolutely and was mortally wounded on O’Connell Street on 5 July 1922, two days after the outbreak of the Civil War, dying the following day.
Albert Power made his death mask shortly after his death, producing the third of what would become an extraordinary series of memorial casts of the revolutionary generation. The barracks that bears Brugha’s name now holds the mask, connecting the object permanently to his memory and to the institution of the Irish Defence Forces he helped to found.
Power also made a bronze bust of Cathal Brugha, signed with his characteristic AGP mark, and designed the plaque on O’Connell Street that commemorates the spot where Brugha fell. Taken together — death mask, portrait bust, and street memorial — these three works represent the most complete sculptural record Power made of any single figure.
Significance: Part of Power’s extraordinary triptych of death masks from the Civil War period — Brugha, Griffith, and Collins — made within weeks of each other in 1922.
The death mask is held at Cathal Brugha Barracks. Power’s bronze bust of Brugha and his O’Connell Street plaque (1938) complete a unique three-part memorial.