If Dowling plaque comes down, we want it back, say family

By Bernie Ní Fhlatharta

THE American descendants of Major Dick Dowling who paid for the erection of a plaque to honour him in his home town of Tuam have described the controversy over the memorial as “insanity beyond belief”.

The Collerain family who paid for and commissioned the plaque in 1998 have also said they want both the plaque and a painting of their ancestor in Tuam Library back if they are to be removed from civic buildings.
Recent racial tensions in the United States spread to Tuam a fortnight ago when there were calls to remove Major Dowling’s memorial plaque from the exterior of Tuam Town Hall on the basis of it remembering a man who fought for the Confederate Army in Texas in 1863.

Read the full story in this week's edition of The Tuam Herald