Cork and ‘The Trouble,’
1919-1921.
A Brief Review of the Major Incidents in CORK CITY, MALLOW,
FERMOY, and EAST CORK during the War of Independence.
(contributed).
The Autumn of 1918 had come round and the first ‘Great War’ was over. The eyes of the world were focused on the palatial Conference Halls in Europe where the fate of the vanquished States and the political future of many victorious ones were being decided (as it was then thought) for many generations to follow. The small nations of every continent, and in particular those to whom the birthright of freedom was hitherto denied, had good reason for taking more than a passing interest in the outcome of those meetings at Paris and Versailles. For right through the Great War the doctrine of self-determination had been loudly preached by those who were now in a position to apply it. President Wilson of America had solemnly undertaken to make freedom for small nations a cardinal principal of his post war policy, and the political heads of the now victorious Allied States had given frequent assurances that this doctrine would be a basic consideration when they came to discuss the ‘peace’. No wonder then, that Ireland, hopeful and expectant, kept an eager watch on events in Europe, believing that her age-old aspirations were at last to be realised, that the sufferings and sacrifices of her heroes and martyrs were now, at length, to achieve their purpose with the birth of a fully independent Irish nation.
But the waiting was in vain. The conference tables brought nothing to this country but disappointment and disillusion; and as the weeks passed by many of her people here at home began to turn their thoughts from the intrigues of Higher Diplomacy to what they considered more effective means of attaining the national ideal.
At this time the spirit of the people was strong. The glamour of the Rising of 1916 had been steadily seizing on the imagination of the younger generation. In the General Election of 1918 Sinn Fein had secured an overwhelming victory over the old Parliamentary Party. The abortive effort at Conscription (made in the Spring of the same year) swelled the ranks of the Irish Volunteers; and a wave of intense anti-British feeling began to sweep over the entire country. These volunteers now drilled and trained in public, the ‘Irish Republican Army’ emerged. And at last, angered by broken promises and ardent for action, the I.R.A. entered the lists. The British machinery of government and in particular that instrument of ‘law and order’ known as the R.I.C. was gradually undermined, and a guerrilla warfare developed as a result of which national aspirations were, in a few short years, brought closer to full attainment than they had been by the pleadings and Parliamentary agitation of the several preceding generations.
Many of the principal actors in the grim drama of 1919 to 1921 are no longer with us. Some of the bravest and best of them fell victims of the struggle in which they took part; others perished in the tragic Civil War of 1922 to ’24 ; the twenty years which have passed since then have, too, taken their inevitable toll. And all this perhaps accounts for the absence of reliable published records of I.R.A. activities in Ireland during the fateful years prior to the Truce of 1921. The following brief narrative may, to a limited extent fill the gap so far as Cork City and the Northern and Eastern sections of Cork County are concerned.
1916 –The Kents of Castlelyons
The attack on Bawnard House, Castlelyons, predates the period which is the subject of this review, but it deserves a preliminary reference.
After the Rising of Easter Week the British Authorities took steps to incarcerate the leading members of the volunteers with a view to forestalling further ‘trouble.’ In May, 1916, an armed detachment set out from Fermoy with orders to arrest all the members of the Kent family whose militant character was well known to those in power. There were in Bawnard House at the time the Crown Forces approached it, the four brothers Tom, Dick, David and William Kent, as also their aged mother. Having in the house a supply of rifles, machine-guns and ammunition they decided to resist arrest. They barricaded the house and for a few hours put up such a determined resistance that the military were eventually obliged to send to Fermoy for reinforcements. Even after these had arrived the Kents fought on with grim resolution. In the course of the engagement Head Constable Rowe was mortally wounded. When their ammunition was exhausted Dick made a dash to escape but he was shot when doing so, and died almost immediately. The remaining three brothers were arrested, and a week later Tom was executed in Cork, William was acquitted, and David, who had lost two fingers in the fight, was sentenced to penal servitude for life. He was released subsequently at the time of the general amnesty and he threw himself heart and soul into the later stages of the struggle.
We now pass from the comparative quiet of 1917 and 1918 to the opening phases in the following year of the guerrilla warfare in Cork County.
Attack on Military Barracks at Wesleyan Church, Fermoy.
On the morning of Sunday, September 7th, 1919, a party of seventeen soldiers were proceeding for religious service from Fermoy Barracks to the Wesleyan Church at the Clandulane end of the town. They carried unloaded rifles on their shoulders. As they were about to enter the Church they were set upon by some local volunteers who had two cars in waiting nearby. In less than a minute the military were disarmed and the volunteers were off in their cars by the Tallow road. One of the soldiers, Private Jones was killed in the scuffle, four others were wounded but recovered subsequently. Immediately after the cars had passed another party of volunteers had a tree felled across the main road at Carrigabrick outside the town, thereby holding up immediate pursuit.
Subsequently an inquest was held on the death of Private Jones. The jury held that he died from a bullet wound inflicted by some person unknown, They tendered sympathy to his relatives but refused (although requested by the prosecution) to call the shooting premeditated murder.
As a retaliation for the death of Jones a few hundred troops broke loose from Fermoy Barracks a few nights afterwards and caused widespread and systematic destruction. Not only did they loot the principal shops but they threw several hundreds of pounds worth of goods into the Blackwater. A military officer indicated some time later that their action was as much a protest against the jury’s unsatisfactory verdict as it was against the death of their comrade.
Eight arrests were made in connection with this attack of September 7th –Mick Fitzgerald, John Mulvey, John Hogan, Daniel Hegarty, Thomas Griffin, Patrick Leahy, Peter O’Callaghan and Leo O’Callaghan. At a Special Court held in Fermoy the local Crown Solicitor, in his address for the prosecution, stated that one of the cars used by the attackers was driven by Mulvey of Rathcormac; that its number had been obliterated; that two cars made away; that one of these went on via Lismore and Cappoquin to Mount Melleray; that this car was intercepted by the police at Lismore when the party was returning and that the names of its occupants were noted; also that the military had definitely identified Fitzgerald as one of the attacking party. Through a series of remands the arrested men were kept in jail until the Assizes of July 28th of the following year at which all were discharged except three, Fitzgerald, Hogan and Hegarty. They were to have been tried but the jurors who were summoned refused to attend. The prisoners were thereupon remanded once more, but as will be related further on, they were never brought to a final trial.
In Autumn of 1919 the volunteers throughout Munster began to make attacks on R.I.C. barracks and patrols. In Clare, in particular, incidents of this kind became so common that the County was ‘proclaimed.’ The first barracks in Cork County to be captured by the I.R.A. was that of Araglen in the parish of Kilworth; and with the dawn of 1920 the activities of the volunteers against police barracks through the country became intensified.
Carrigtwohill barracks was successfully attacked on the night of Saturday, January 3rd. After a sustained fight a breach was made in one of the walls and the garrison was forced to surrender. Police stations throughout the country were being given extra supplies of arms and ammunition at this time and the volunteers carried off some valuable booty from Carrigtwohill.
A little later the North Cork volunteers made an attempt on Kilmurry Barracks but this held out; as did Ardmore on February 2nd.
Aghern Barracks
On February 7th a party of I.R.A. held up and disarmed a sergeant and two constables from Aghern Barracks who were on patrol close to the station. The policemen later reported that they saw a force of ‘some hundred men’ in the locality, some masked, others equipped for tree-felling, etc.
But the attack proper on Aghern Barracks was not long deferred. In the early morning of February 16th the police heard some tapping blows on the gable-end of the Barracks as if somebody were trying to force a hole in the wall. They immediately got on the defensive and sent up Verey lights. The building was violently attacked with rifle fire and the front windows were broken in pieces. After about an hour’s fighting, however, the volunteers had to raise the siege. Prior to the attack the telegraph wires were cut and the roads were blocked to prevent or delay reinforcements.
After the firing had ceased the policemen remained indoors, fearing that the lull might be a ruse to trap them. It was not until about 7 a.m. that an R.I.C. man ventured out. When he did he found one of the volunteers, Michael Condon, lying wounded near the Barracks while close by was a crowbar stuck in the wall where an attempt had been made to effect a breach. Condon was arrested and, when subsequently court-martialled, was sentenced to five years imprisonment.
A few days previous to this the East Cork Battalion made another successful capture, this time Castlemartyr Barracks –the second in their area within a matter of a few weeks.
Murder of Lord Mayor MacCurtain
In the course of the night of March 19th-20th –a tragic one for the City of Cork –a party of R.I.C. acting under the direction Dublin Castle, broke into the residence of Thomas MacCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, and shot him in cold blood in the presence of his wife and family, MacCurtain was at the time a leading figure in various national movements in the South, in the Gaelic League, in Sinn Fein, and in the I.R.A. At this time he was officer-in-command, Cork First Brigade. When in Dublin some months previously he was one of a small band who, led by Michael Collins personally, had ambushed Lord French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. MacCurtain was regarded with deserved esteem by all classes in his native city and the dastardly nature of his murder evoked widespread indignation. In fact the public reaction was so strong that the R.I.C. made elaborate efforts to cover up their tracks and fix the guilt on others.
The inquest lasted several days, the proceedings being closely followed not only in this country but across the Channel and by friends of the Irish Movement everywhere. After detailed consideration of a mass of evidence the jury on April 7th returned a verdict which as a matter of historic interest, may well be quoted in extenso:
‘We find that the late Alderman Thomas Curtain died from shock and haemorrhage inflicted by bullet wounds; and that he was wilfully murdered under circumstances of the most callous brutality, and that the murder was organised and carried out by the Royal Irish Constabulary officially directed by the British Government: and we return a verdict of wilful murder against David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of England; Lord French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; Ian Mac Pherson, late Chief Secretary of Ireland; Acting Inspector-General Smith of the Royal Irish Constabulary; Divisional-Inspector Clayton of the Royal Irish Constabulary; District Inspector Swanzy; and some unknown members of the Royal Irish Constabulary.’
The District-Inspector Swanzy referred to (who was considered locally to have been one of the leaders in this bloody business) was some weeks afterwards quietly transferred to Lisburn, his native place –apparently for his own safety. The Cork I.R.A., however, tracked him to his new quarters and one August morning a few months later he fell mortally wounded.
The murder of MacCurtain inflamed the country and ‘incidents’ immediately became more widespread. In the following weeks raids were made on many Barracks including Watergrasshill, Coachford, Ballyhooley, Togher, Glenville, Araglen, etc. Jails and internment camps were soon filled with Irish prisoners. The hunger-strike, first employed as a political weapon by Thomas Ashe in Dublin, was now made use of by the Irish prisoners generally. In the middle of April about seventy political prisoners in Mountjoy were set free after having passed twelve days without food; and following quickly on these releases the jails were opened to a number of others. A good deal of official blundering took place regarding Mountjoy, it was admitted by the British subsequently that even some convicted non-political prisoners had been released in error. Many volunteers who had been confined in Irish jails were soon taken over to Wormwood Scrubbs Internment Camp and to some other English prisons. The internees in Wormwood Scrubbs went on hunger-strike at this time too, and on May 11th a number of them, including some Cork prisoners, were released unconditionally.
Early in May 1920 the East Cork volunteers made a third successful raid, this time on Cloyne Barracks. The occupants who were well armed made a bold fight and it was not until after three hours that the I.R.A. succeeded in breaching one of the gables and setting the roof ablaze. The police (one of whom was wounded) then surrendered, and after all the arms had been secured the Barracks was destroyed.
A week later, on May 14th, the military broke loose in Youghal and severely damaged a marble statue which had been erected some time before to the memory of Fr, Peter O’Neill, Ballymacoda.
About the same time a party of East Cork I.R.A., by a clever ruse, brought off another successful coup. One evening a patrol of eleven soldiers and one policeman were cycling along Midleton-Cork road when they came up with a crowd of bowl-players. On the approach of the patrol the civilians stood aside apparently to let the cyclists pass. But as soon as these had got well abreast the ‘bowl-players’ suddenly closed in and, drawing revolvers, overpowered the patrol and captured their entire equipment. Ten volunteers took part –seven armed with revolvers and three unarmed. This cycle-patrol idea appeared to emanate from General Higginson, then in Cork. In a circular signed by him a short time previously (captured by the I.R.A. in a raid on Midleton Post Office) it was stated that the British intended to establish a system of blockhouses five miles apart with cycle patrols in between. A company of Cameron Highlanders were sent on to Midleton for this purpose but the evening they met the ‘bowl players’ saw the first and last cycle-patrol which went out in that area.
Some time subsequently a lorry of military was ambushed at Shangarry. A few of the soldiers were wounded but they managed to get away as the road trench was too narrow to stop the lorry. Soon afterwards, in late August , a military lorry was attacked at Cahermore, Midleton, but a tree intended to hold up the party fell a fraction of a second too late and the lorry made off. The driver was killed and a few others wounded The I.R.A. suffered no casualties.
Returning to the northern side of the county we find a group of neighbours, one morning in the Summer of 1920, gathered in easy conversation at Corracunna Cross, about one mile north of Mitchelstown. A lorry of military happened to drive towards them and, without a pretence of excuse, the soldiers fired point blank into the group, mortally wounding two men.
In June, 1920, the ‘Black and Tans’ were introduced into Ireland. These were demobilised British soldiers, many of a most depraved character. When they first came over to this country there was a scarcity of military uniforms and they had to be attired partly in ‘civies’ and partly in khaki; and the contrasting colours of this garb –black and tan- earned for the wearers the name by which they were in future to be known. Cardinal Logue, in reference to them in January,1921, stated that the authorities ‘have turned loose on the country a horde of savages, some of whom, if not all, are simply brigands, burglars, and thieves.’ The ‘Auxillaries.’ Or Auxillary police, followed some time afterwards. The majority of these were demobilised officers; and they too had their fair share in the atrocities which took place during their stay in this country.