1888 Mar 13 Born in Crossna, Boyle, County Roscommon. He was the third of eleven children of Bartholemew and Brigid Moran and attended primary school in Crossna before going to work as a grocer's assistant in Boyle.
1911 he settled in Dublin.
1913 A labour activist he was involved in the 1913 Lockout. He was also actively involved in the republican movement and was a member of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
1916 As Adjutant of D Company, 2nd Battalion of the Dublin section of the Volunteers he fought in the Jacob's Factory Garrison during the Easter Rising of 1916 under Thomas MacDonagh. He had been imprisoned at Knutsford and Wormwood Scrubs in England, before being sent to Frongoch Internment Camp in Wales.
1916 Jul After the amnesty for Irish prisoners he lived in Blackrock and he worked in Lynch and O'Brien's public house on George's Street where Shaws in now located. He is also given as being a grocer's assistan
Moran became captain of D Company, 2nd Battalion of the IRA and he was in charge of the port of Dun Laoghaire through which men, arms and ammunition passed between Ireland and Britian.
1917, he was a founder of the Irish National Union of Vintners, Grocers and Allied Trades. He went on to serve as the organisation's president and chairman of its Kingstown branch.
1920 He was arrested on two occasions in early 1920. While in detention at Arbour Hill Prison, he was identified as being one of a group of men who had killed Lieutenant Ames at 38 Mount Street, Dublin. Moran strongly protested his innocence of any involvement in Bloody Sunday. His alibi was that he was at Mass in Blackrock (over four miles from the scene of the shooting) at the time and seen there by several people including a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Moran was captain of D Coy, 2nd battalion, IRA Dublin Brigade.
Moran was charged with the murder of Lieutenant Ames at 38 Upper Mount Street on Bloody Sunday along with another man called Joseph Rochford. Moran was identified by three British soldiers as taking part in the shooting - they were Major Carew (who lived as 28 Upper Mount St - on the other side of the street from 38), Private Lawrence and Private Snelling. However, Carew was not prepared to swear positively that the man he saw was Moran. Snelling was positive that he saw Moran but he also identified Rochford. Both Moran and Rochford produced alibi evidence that they were elsewhere during the shootings. Rochford's was accepted but Moran's was not. Lawernce said that Moran held him up outside 38 Mount St. However, Lawrence had also given identification evidence at the trial of Thomas Whelan and his three co-accused and this evidence had not been accepted by the court. (In addition, there was accusations in the Irish Bulletin of collusion among the witnesses in identification.) Moran produced a large number of witnesses that he was in Blackrock at the time of the shootings - that he went to 8 o'clock mass in Blackrock Church, went home and had breakfast and then took the 9.30am tram from Blackrock to Nelson's Pillar. (Crucial witnesses who were his breakfast companions were, for some reason, not called to give their evidence.) The evidence from these witnesses was not accepted and Moran was found guilty and sentenced to be hung. Moran was captain of D Company, 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade, IRA.so would have been well known to the British
A fellow prisoner described him thus "Moran was stolid and serious. There was a roll in his walk. Of stocky build, but sinewy; fuzzy thick hair, showing two moons on his broad forehead. He had a strong pleasant face. "
He was transferred from Arbour Hill to Kilmainham Jail and incarcerated in the so-called 'Murderers' Gallery', two cells away from Ernie O'Malley, with whom he became good friends. On 14 February 1921, Moran, O'Malley and Frank Teeling broke through the padlock on an outer gate of the prison. However Moran refused to take the opportunity to escape since he felt the authorities would interpret it as an admission of guilt, telling O'Malley "I don't want to let down the witnesses who gave evidence for me." Instead Moran started a concert to distract the guards while the men escaped, with Simon Donnelly taking Moran's place. The event is related in detail in O'Malley's memoir On Another Man's Wound. City Hall, Dame Street, Dublin. Despite the evidence of his innocence Moran was convicted of murder three days later and sentenced to be hanged on the 14th March 1921. The Archbishop of Dublin spoke out against the sentence.
1921 Mar 14. Executed in Mountjoy Prison along with five other men The Irish National Union of Vintners' Grocers' & Allied Trades' Assistants, of which Moran had been an active member, called a half-day general strike on the morning of the executions and over 40,000 people gathered outside Mountjoy to pray for the six men who were hanged between 6am and 8pm.
In 1961 Harbour House, Dun Laoighaire and grounds were renamed Moran Park and Moran Park House respectively after Patrick Moran
2001 he and the other nine men hanged by the British, including Kevin Barry, were exhumed from their graves in the prison and given a full State Funeral. He is now buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
He was in fact the man in charge of the murder squad at the Gresham Hotel where MacCormack and Wilde were murdered.