Family of Mayo man killed in Ukraine hope to erect a monument in his memory

THE family of a Mayo man who died fighting in Ukraine in 2023 hope to erect a monument in his memory in time for his birthday in September.

Finbar Cafferkey who was originally from Cashel on Achill Island was killed in battle with Russian forces near the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on April 19, 2023.

The 45-year-old had joined the International Legion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and was killed when his unit came under Russian artillery fire. 

His body was never recovered and speaking to RTÉ Radio One's 'Saturday with Colm Ó Mongáin', his brother Colm Cafferkey said that his family are hoping to unveil a monument in his memory in time for his birthday in September.

“There is a conversation going on in our family about this and we have a small garden made and we are going to put a small monument to Finbar in it this year. We are thinking for his birthday and have a celebration on the day he was born. Maybe something around his birthday in September. It would be nice to go somewhere since we cannot go to a graveryard,” he told Colm Ó Mongáin while conversing in Irish.

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Finbar is the eldest son of Tom and Celine Cafferkey who are well-known in the Achill community having run Ted Lavelle's Pub in Cashel for many years.

He was known as a social campaigner and was involved in the Shell to Sea campaign and in 2015 he went to Greece to assist refugees fleeing the war in Syria. In 2017, he travelled to northern Syria to join the Kurdish militia group YPG in its fight against the Islamic State.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finbar volunteered in providing humanitarian aid to civilians and Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline. Colm explained that he only found out two days before Finbar died that he had joined the fighting.

“The conversation I had with him at Christmas was that he was quite happy with what he was doing and felt they were doing good work and helping people and he was not interested in joining the military effort.

“On April 17 he emailed me to say was going to the front. I have since found out he had made a couple of efforts to get into the army before that so maybe this was something he wanted to do but did not want to be worrying his family with.

“I did respond and said 'tog aire duit féin' and will I say anything to the family…but I got no response from that. That was only two days before he died so he was not there long,” he said.

Colm explained that he received a phone call from a friend of Finbar explaining that he was missing in action and it was serious.

“In our lives Finbar was always missing and the seriousness of it did not hit me or I refused to at that moment but he stressed this was not good. I still did not believe it and thought this would work out and be okay until the following day when I told my family and said the words out loud myself. The reality of it then hit me harder,” Colm explained.

A few weeks after his death, the family received reports from his former battalion that Finbar's body had been recovered but over time it emerged this was not the case. Colm explained that not being able to have a funeral has been difficult but they have not given up hope on retrieving his body.

“We will not give up hope of that but you are dealing with the situation where his remains ended up in Russian territory so nobody knows what happened to them.

“If it happens we will be very happy.”