Massacre in West Cork (17 page)

Once the Civil War started, all possibility of investigation ceased. It was very unlikely that people fighting against each other would co-operate as to the whereabouts of the three men. The case was taken up again only on 9 February 1923, when the Duke of Devonshire wrote to the Governor-General from the Home Office in Downing Street, stating that the office had received a request from the government of New Zealand for full particulars of the ‘shooting of Mr Thomas Henry Hornibrook J.P. of Ballygorman [sic] House, Ovens, Cork, on 26th April last’. The request was made by a ‘Mr Hornibrook, of Ngaire, Taranki in New Zeland [sic]’.
³⁸
The letter was forwarded to the Department of Home Affairs.

On 15 February the Secretary of Home Affairs set out what had happened in the earlier investigation, and the fact that on 22 June 1922 Wynne & Wynne had suggested that they contact the Department of Defence instead. The Department of Home Affairs had done nothing since 22 June 1922, and it now closed its file with the classic, callous, civil service observation that: ‘for reasons over which this Ministry had no control it was not possible to obtain details in the present case. As you [Cosgrave and the Governor-General] have now referred the matter to the Ministry of Defence for immediate attention there is no reason why we should communicate with him [Hornibrook] again.’

At 4 p.m. on 16 February, following a telephone conversation with W. T. Cosgrave, the Commander-in-Chief of the Free State Army wrote to the army’s Director of Intelligence demanding that information about the fate of the Hornibrooks be made available before the following Saturday. The Duke of Devonshire’s letter reached the Director of Intelligence on 17 February, with a comment that the President (William T. Cosgrave) was ‘pressing very strongly for an answer before evening’. This eventually got results, even though the Director of Intelligence wrote back saying it was impossible to fulfil the request immediately.

Two weeks later, on 5 March, the Commander-in-Chief’s office wrote again, demanding an answer to his two letters of 16 February, and his letter of 20 February.
³⁹
A hand-written note on the text of the 5 March letter states that another reminder was sent on 7 March. At 12.20 p.m. on 7 March a coded message was sent from the Director of Intelligence to the Intelligence Officer in Cork, stating: ‘Please reply at once to my radio of 17th Feb. Re: shooting of Hornibrook J.P. President and C-in-C pressing for report.
Most urgent
.’ At 3.30 p.m. the Commander-in-Chief ordered the Director of Intelligence to call personally ‘for my letters 16th and 17th, and 5th inst. regarding the shooting of Mr Thomas Hornibrook and see that a definite reply reaches me at the earliest possible moment about this case’. He also noted that a special reminder had been received by the Governor-General from the ‘secretary of the colonies [sic]’ in connection with the matter, and the President had ‘made personal representations to this Office with a view to getting a reply’. Finally, at 8.20 p.m. on 7 March 1923, the command Intelligence Officer in Cork replied in code, which was translated in Portobello Barracks (headquarters) at 9.30 p.m. before being delivered to the Director of Intelligence at 9.55 p.m.:

Hornibrook’s daughter was married to Woods of Cork City an ex British Army Officer of Bandon. I.R.A. under Commandant Michael O’Neill for some obscure reason raided Hornibrook’s about midnight April 26th 1922. Hornibrook refused to open door. Raiders entered by window of dining room. Woods was armed with Bulldog 45. Woods fired at raiders and O’Neill was killed. Hornibrook and Woods were taken prisoners and executed by raiders. Motive obscure! This report has been previously sent.

The Commander-in-Chief added his thoughts the following morning:

The Irregulars under a Michael O’Neill, who styled himself ‘Comdt’, raided Mr Hornibrook’s house for some obscure reason, and both Hornibrook and Woods were then taken prisoners by the raiders, and executed, probably out of revenge. The Director desires me to state that at the time this crime was committed, the perpetrators of it were in covert revolt against the Government.

No mention is made in either report of the third man, Samuel Hornibrook.

On 26 April 1922 there were technically no Irregulars (a derogatory name for anti-Treatyites) and the Four Courts had been occupied only a week previously. The Civil War did not begin until late June, but even at this stage, divisions had emerged within the IRA. The Free State investigation concluded that members of the anti-Treaty IRA had executed the men in revenge for the killing of Commandant O’Neill.

The reply that Governor-General Tim Healy made to Devonshire in March 1923 said Woods and Hornibrook had been taken away by Irregulars and murdered in revenge for Michael O’Neill’s death, which leaves no doubt about who killed them.
⁴⁰
In November 1922 the British government accepted that the Irish government was unlikely to get to the bottom of some killings and that these murders would have to be dealt with by way of the Irish Grants Committee.
⁴¹
This is what happened in the Hornibrook case.

The Free State identified the killers as members of the anti-Treaty IRA, and both the British government and the Woods family accepted this. All sides acknowledged that the result was not at all satisfactory, but if the killers were unwilling to reveal themselves, then at the time there was little more could be done.

According to Martin Midgley Reeve, his aunts, who would only have been children at the time, remembered that the family left Ireland in 1922 after the shootings in Ballygroman, taking with them only a green trunk that was in the attic. They sat on the trunk while on the boat between Ireland and England. Once again there is some confusion about the date they left. According to his statement to the Irish Grants Committee, Edward Woods recalled that he had left Ireland in 1921. This is possible, but it would have been unlikely that the children went with him if he left at this time. It is also possible that he had returned after the Truce and had to flee a second time after the killings. Matilda was still living in ‘Glenbrae’ in April 1923 when her father’s estate was probated. It is possible that the family left after this date, or she may have been staying there simply for the court case to get a court order to probate the estate.
⁴²

An article, with information supplied by Matilda, in the local Southend newspaper at the time of Edward’s death in 1933 gives more details, although its accuracy is somewhat questionable:

In 1922 during the Sinn Féin disturbances, Mrs Wood’s father, a Justice of the Peace, her brother, and a nephew, were killed in Cork by the rebels. Mr and Mrs Woods, who lived some distance away, were given 24 hours to leave the country. They fled for their lives and the distillery business at Cork was destroyed.
⁴³

They left with little or nothing, no matter when they left. After all, the Cook Street business had been burned by the Black and Tans in December 1920, and little or no compensation had been paid out at this stage to the victims. Between late 1922 and 1927 they lived in Wickford in Essex, but by the time of their statements to the Irish Grants Committee in 1927 they had moved to live in ‘Eastwood’, Crowestone Road North, Westcliff-on-Sea. This was a substantial house, which suggests that their fortunes had improved. Matilda died in 1934 and the terms of her will were published in the
London Gazette
:

Notice is hereby given that all creditors and other persons having any debts, claims or demands against the estate of Matilda Warmington Woods, late of Burlescoombe House, Burlescoombe Road, Thorpe Bay, in the county of Essex, deceased (who died on the 3rd day of March, 1934, and whose Will was proved in the Principal Registry of the Probate Division of His Majesty’s High Court of Justice on the 20th. day of April, 1934, by National Provincial Bank Limited, of 15, Bishopsgate, in the city of London, the executors therein named), are hereby required to send the particulars, in writing, of their debts, claims or demands to us, the undersigned, the Solicitors.

Dated this 27th day April, 1934. Dennes, Lamb and Drysdale, 41, Clarence Road, Southend-on-Sea, Solicitors for the Executors.
⁴⁴

When Matilda died her estate passed on to her children. Martin Midgley Reeve explained that the National Provincial Bank became trustee of the four children until they had made ‘good marriages’.
⁴⁵
In 1949 her remaining property in Ireland was disposed of, and Ballygroman House was sold for £120, according to a deed of probate in the Irish National Archives, and the money was divided between her daughters.
⁴⁶

No amount of compensation could ever repay loved ones for the loss of family members, and there is no doubt that both Edward and Matilda were traumatised by what happened. As part of their claim for compensation, Matilda had to submit to a medical examination by the Grants Committee doctor, who agreed that her mental condition was poor as a result of the stress of trying to find her father and brother in the years after their disappearance.

While there have been suggestions that the family’s lands were seized by the Irish Free State, these are clearly untrue.
⁴⁷
She and her brother, Thomas Henry Hornibrook, were given the farm and the house in 1923.
⁴⁸
In 1926 Matilda and Edward returned to Ireland to see if they could track down her father and the others. They visited the house to find it burned and looted, and the fences torn down. Trees of a value of some £200 had also been cut down according to Edward in their joint claim to the Irish Grants Committee in 1927. A house unoccupied for three years was always likely to be a target, but as we have seen, Michael O’Regan’s evidence suggests that the house was stripped shortly after the kidnappings. Matilda and Edward’s main reason for returning was to attend the circuit court in Cork on 29 July, where Matilda claimed £1,606 12s for the destruction of the house. During this hearing she stated that the second attack on the house on the morning after Michael O’Neill’s shooting was a ‘fierce attack with machine gun and rifle fire’. She went on to say that the three occupants ‘suffered the extreme penalty and subsequently the house was destroyed’. Her claim was granted with a 15 per cent discount for depreciation, which her architect agreed was a fair amount, and she was awarded £1,362. As previously stated, Matilda said that she and Edward had visited her father two weeks before the kidnappings.
⁴⁹
A second claim for £2,654 for the furniture and farm machinery was adjourned until two days later. They were awarded for £1,963 for this claim.
⁵⁰

On 31 January 1927 the couple made a joint claim to the Irish Grants Committee (a lot of claimants made applications despite already having received compensation).
⁵¹
The graphic details that appear in Matilda’s claim for damages before the Grants Commission in London are mentioned in no court report, which presumably means she did not reveal them. Matilda told the Grants Committee: ‘Herbert Woods it was ascertained afterwards was hung, drawn and quartered in the presence of my father and brother. Then my father and brother had to make their own graves and were shot and buried.’ The Woods were granted £6,575 in compensation between them after a protracted hearing.
⁵²
The final payments were not made until 10 March 1929. According to the committee’s terms of reference, as Matilda did not have a housing need and did not suffer any personal material loss, she would have been entitled to only a small amount of compensation for the trauma she suffered at the deaths of her family. A valuation for the Ballygroman property, by George Joyce of Cork on 18 August 1926, confirms that she was in sole possession of the burned house, the intact steward’s house and a small cottage, along with the land which was not being farmed. She was in dispute with the Irish government, which wanted the house rebuilt as per the regulations for compensation, while she wanted to use the money for property elsewhere.

In a 1928 report titled ‘Taken away by armed party’, Matilda probates the estate of Samuel Hornibrook through an affidavit before Justice Hanna. This confirms that she was his half-sister and generally summarises what happened again.
⁵³
It appears that Thomas Henry Hornibrook Jnr made a claim from New Zealand in 1931 for a share of the Hornibrook estate.

In the final analysis it is up to the reader to effectively act as juror and decide which of the pieces of testimony recorded in this chapter are valuable and which can be discarded.

Having spoken to Matilda Woods’ grandson, Martin Midgley Reeve, I am in no doubt that what hurts him most is having no grave marker for his family and no bodies to mourn. Anyone who has searched for a missing person will understand his feelings; in my view, his wish that the location be disclosed should be granted. Other bodies from this time also lie in the bogs of Ireland, and more than enough time has passed for those who can help to recover these to do so.