Thomas Whelan, from Galway, was charged with the murder of Captain G. T. Baggally. Whelan was "identified" as one of the gunmen and sent to Kilmainham. Here he was housed in the wing of the prison known to the inmates as "Murderers Gallery", and became an acquaintance of Paddy Moran and Ernie O'Malley.
Thomas Whelan
O'Malley described Whelan as "... smooth-faced, quiet and brown eyed with wavy hair; he smiled quietly and steadily. His voice was soft and when he laughed with the others one knew that the fibre was not as hard and that there was a shade of wistfulness about him." It emerged later that while under torture, a prisoner named Barnett had made a false statement which, he feared, had incriminated Whelan. When Barnett eventually heard of Whelan's execution, he became hopelessly insane and was transferred to Richmond Asylum.
Thomas Whelan (5 October 1898 - 14 March 1921) was one of six men executed in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin on 14 March, 1921. He was 22 years old at the time of his death. He was arrested on 23 November 1920 and, on 1 February 1921, he was charged with the shooting of Captain Baggally, a member of the Cairo Gang on Bloody Sunday (1920). He protested his innocence of the charges. As in the case of Patrick Moran there was eye witness evidence that Whelan had been at Mass at the time the shooting took place. Nonetheless he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. He was hanged at 6am along with Patrick Moran, the first of six men to be executed that day. A crowd estimated at 40,000 gathered outside the prison to pray as the executions took place.