Massacre in West Cork (35 page)

44
See also Meehan, N., 2011, ‘Distorting Irish History 2, the road from Dunmanway: Peter Hart’s treatment of the 1922 “April killings” in West Cork’,
Spinwatch
, 24 May. Available at
http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Papers/618347
(accessed 31 January 2013), where this is discussed and the references footnoted; also upcoming research (as of May 2013) by Dr Andy Bielenberg on the Dunmanway murders.

45
Ryan (2003), pp. 156–63; Ryan (2005), pp. 211–15.

46
Despite some suggestions to the contrary as part of the ongoing ‘Peter Hart’ controversy, there is no doubt about the existence of the diary. Its provenance is recorded in the BMH’s
Index of Contemporary Documents
as ‘Accession No. 31’, which is accessible online at the BMH website, and photographs of each page of the diary (including the list of informers referenced by Flor Crowley in the
Southern Star
series) are in the Military Archives.

47
‘The Black and Tan diary’,
Southern Star
, 23 October to 27 November 1971.

48
‘Lot picked up’,
Southern Star
, 23 October 1971, p. 4, col. 1.

49
Crowley does not identify the person who loaned him the diary, Flor Begley, who was an intelligence officer for the West Cork Brigade and had possession of the document in 1947. See the
Southern Star
, 21 January 1922, p. 3, for evacuation by Auxiliaries, and the
Southern Star
, 1 September 1922, p. 1, for the burning of the workhouse by the anti-Treaty IRA.

50
As the 1922 men were not ‘known informers’ this does not refer to them.

51
‘The informers’,
Southern Star
, 27 November 1971, p. 6, col. 8. In a different article in the
Southern Star
, 27 November 1971, p. 5, col. 7, Crowley states that he knows some of the people listed by the writer of the diary: James Crowley, James Cronin, John Lynch, Patrick Murphy, Michael Cronin, Sam Jennings, George Chambers, Tim Crowley, Jerry Collins, C. McCarthy, C. Hurley and Jack — (illegible). However, this is not a list of informers as far as we know.

52
Ryan (2005), pp. 209–29.

53
Ibid
., p. 213. It is not explained which documents in the possession of Dan Cahalane are part of the ‘Dunmanway find’ and which are other documents. Neither is it explained whether Mr Cahalane got the documents from Flor Crowley or it was the other way around.

54
Hart (1998), p. 287. The reference is to the
Cork & County Eagle
(West Cork), which is available only in the National Library of Ireland and the Cork County Library, so it is particularly difficult to access.

55
‘Apology’,
Cork & County Eagle
, 1 August 1914, p. 4.

56
See census 1901 and 1911, Howe (Rushfield), Howe (Ballaghanure) and Chinnery (Castletown), which shows that Rushfield House was owned by the Howes; William Howe, Rushfield, and Rebecca Chinnery, Castletown, were brother and sister. See also Keane (2012) for ‘Picture of Chinnery Headstone’;
http://www.flyingphotons.com/gen/fuller.html
(accessed 22 August 2013) for details of Prospect Cottage; Ordnance Survey of Ireland map view for location of Prospect Cottage. 650 metres to the west of Castletown; 1911 census for outbuilding returns for Chinnery house in Castletown townland. Only one house in the townland beside Castletown House (still Hosfords) fits this description and is fifty metres from Robert Howe’s house. William Howe sold Rushfield House in 1929, according to the
Southern Star
, 9 February 1929.

57
Ryan (2005), pp. 226, 450 note 72. Other information, not as yet in the public domain, apparently suggests that he was a member of the All for Ireland League and supportive of the local IRA. As I have not seen this information, I cannot comment on it other than to note its existence. Philip Chambers, the Officer Commanding the local IRA company, lived next door to Robert Howe. He never suggests that either victim was in any way suspect. He comments that he was ordered to tie two locals to the gates of the Roman Catholic church (much to his disgust at the method) for attacking the rectory in Castletown-Kinneigh, which suggests that the IRA stamped down hard on any sectarian abuse, BMH WS 738, Philip Chambers, p. 10.

58
Southern Star
, 10 June 1950; however, the list of divisional officers in the Siobhán Langford papers does not mention him, Cork City and County Archives, U 169/B/(iii).

59
In the Irish Grants Committee statement of William Fitzmaurice he says he and his brother Francis, who was shot in Dunmanway, were providing information to the British; Bielenberg, A., 2013, ‘Exodus: the emigration of Southern Irish Protestants during the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War’, Past and Present 218, pp. 199–233.

60
BMH WS 812, Patrick O’Brien, p. 12.

61
‘General amnesty’,
Southern Star
, 18 February 1922, p. 2, col. 2; a copy also in a list of post-Treaty murders in Ireland prepared by British civil servant Mark Sturgis for cabinet.

62
Hart (1998), p. 302. In fact, McIvor’s ‘old farmers’ comment (Brewer, J. D., 1990, The Royal Irish Constabulary: an oral history (Belfast, Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast) p. 115) is ambiguous and may not refer to Bandon.

63
Ryan provides a comprehensive list of sources for the existence of an Anti-Sinn Féin League in Ryan (2007), p. 244, footnote 28; Regan, J., 2012, ‘The History of the Last Atrocity’, Dublin Review of Books: 
http://archive-ie.com/page/90903/2012-07-08/http://drb.ie/more_details/12-06-22/The_History_of_the_Last_Atrocity.aspx
(accessed 18 July 2013); Borgonovo, J., 2007,
Spies, Informers and the ‘Anti-Sinn Féin Society’: the intelligence war in Cork city, 1920–1921
(Dublin, Irish Academic Press).

64
McDonnell (1972), p. 185.

65
University College Cork, Boole Library and Archive, CO 904/114, p. 839. See also BMH WS 1741, Michael V. O’Donoghue, Part 1, p. 85, who provides further evidence of the city Anti-Sinn Féin Society.

66
Hart (1998), p. 303, note 81; National Archives, Kew,
PRO 30/59/3, ‘Sir Mark Beresford Russell Grant-Sturgis: diary
part 3’, 14 December 1920; Sturgis, M. and Hopkinson, M., 1999,
The Last Days of Dublin Castle: the Mark Sturgis diaries
(Dublin, Irish Academic Press), pp. 90–1.

67
BMH WS 1741, Michael V. O’Donoghue, Part 2, p. 227. I am grateful to Henry O’Keeffe for finding this reference. As everyone who is known to have died was shot, only the Hornibrooks and Woods could have been hanged.

68
‘Letter from Dan Breen, Tom Hales, H. Murphy, S. O’Hegarty, Seán Mullan, R. A. Mulcahy, Owen O’Duffy, Gearóid O’Sullivan, Michael Collins to Four Courts garrison to end occupation and allow a plebiscite on the Treaty’,
The Irish Times
, 2 May 1922.

69
BMH WS 730, Seumas O’Mahony, p. 3; O’Donoghue accompanied Mick Crowley to his brother Patrick’s funeral in February 1921; Pádraig Ó Caoimh’s capture by the British is accurately described by O’Donoghue, BMH WS 1741, Part 1, pp. 86–8; Irish Press, 14 April 1952, p. 1, col. 3;
Dungarvan Leader & Southern Democrat
, 19 April 1952, p. 1; Dáil Éireann, 25 October 1956, vol. 160, no. 2, p. 31, col. 213, File Number D.1531. O’Donoghue records a supernatural experience while in Kinsale Barracks in early 1922 and the men who interviewed him for the BMH were sceptical of the detail recorded in his enormous 377-page statement.

70
‘An area of twelve miles be declared and that 10 Free Staters be executed in that area for every one of our men executed’, cited in Harrington, M., 2009, The Munster Republic: the Civil War in North Cork (Cork, Mercier Press), p. 105.

71
Hart (1998), p. 291.

72
The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland was founded in 1798 to defend Protestants against attacks on them. Its members came to dominate politics in what is now Northern Ireland and it was central to the partition of Ireland in 1921;
http://www.grandorangelodge.co.uk/what-is-the-orange-order
(accessed 22 August 2013).

73
Southern Star
, 10 June 1922, p. 1;
Southern Star
, 17 June 1922, p. 3. Cllr McCarthy identifies W. J. as William Jagoe. It should be remembered that Jagoe had been warned the previous August that truce or no truce seven men would be shot in Dunmanway including himself.

74
The election was a triumph for the pro-Treaty party in the combined constituency of North, Mid and West Cork, with Michael Collins getting 17,000 votes; Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin 25,403, anti-Treaty Sinn Féin 12,587, Labour 10,737 and the Farmers 6,372. Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin took 3 seats, Labour 2, anti-Treaty 2 and Farmers 1, giving a 6:2 majority for the pro-Treaty parties. While the West Cork IRA was anti-Treaty, 77 per cent of the electorate voted the other way.

75
Hart (1998), p. 286.

76
In the case of Robert Nagle and John Bradfield, the original targets were not available so Nagle and Bradfield were shot instead.

77
British Houses of Parliament Archives, Lloyd George papers, LG/F/10/2/72, ‘Mark Sturgis, Irish Office, to Mr. Churchill, Enclosure: (a) List of outrages committed since the Truce (b) List of cases which have been brought to the notice of the Irish Distress Committee’, 25 May 1922.

78
National Archives, Kew, ADM 188/806/424, ‘James Bennett Birthplace Ballineen Date of Birth 20-01-1899 J79924’; National Archives, Kew, ADM 188/684/327, ‘Walter Bennett’.

79
Churchill updates these figures on 26 June in reply to a parliamentary question. Serving members of the Royal Irish Constabulary 15, Ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary 8, Soldiers 8 (these figures do not include the three officers and the soldier kidnapped at Macroom, or the soldier kidnapped at Rathdawney in January), Ex-soldiers 3, Civilians 15; House of Commons debate, 26 June 1922, vol. 155, cols 1664–6:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1922/jun/26/murders
(accessed 26 July 2013).

80
One was political/agrarian. The second was a raid in which the victim ignored an order to put his hands up and was shot; he had a revolver in his pocket and this was the purpose of the raid. A third was a blacksmith who took up tongs to attack IRA raiders at his forge. In the last case the killers were unknown.