Josephine Marchment

Josephine Marchment Brown ( – 1966), born Mary Josephine McCoy, acted as a spy for the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence. She married the IRA intelligence officer Florence O'Donoghue in April 1921, and the couple lived in Cork until their deaths in the mid-1960s.

Early life Josephine McCoy was the youngest of ten children of Bridget McCoy (née O'Sullivan), from Bonane, County Kerry, and Henry James McCoy, a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officer from Pallaskenry, County Limerick. Born in County Limerick, she was raised in Cork city.

She moved to Wales in 1910, and married her first husband, Coleridge Marchment (alias Brown), in 1913. She gave birth to their son Reggie in 1913, with a second son, Gerald, arriving in 1915. Her father died in 1917 and shortly afterwards her husband was killed, during the First World War, at Ypres.

While she had brought her youngest son with her to Ireland, her parents-in-law refused requests to return her eldest son to her. Obliged to sue for custody, she became one of O'Donoghue's most important intelligence agents. This letter, considered by Florence O'Donoghue to be "clear cut [evidence] of informing", resulted in O'Connor being shot dead by the IRA. have "speculated that her espionage may have led to the deaths of some of her neighbours". The application included references from O'Hegarty, Liam Tobin, Joseph O'Connor and Tom Barry. A plotline in the RTÉ mini-series Resistance is also partly based on Marchment's life. Marchment is played by Elva Trill.

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