Massacre in West Cork (6 page)

What it was never possible to make the more extreme of our conferees appreciate was that we had not beaten AND NEVER COULD HOPE TO BEAT THE BRITISH MILITARY FORCES. We had thus far prevented them from conquering us, but that was the sum of our achievement.
⁶⁸

Effectively Collins was pointing out the inconsistency in Barton’s logic. Barton had willingly signed the Treaty, but later repudiated it, claiming that he had been forced by a threat of ‘immediate and terrible war’ to sign. This was particularly robust politics on Collins’ part, because he destroys Barton’s credibility by using his own words against him.

Collins also explained the British imperatives for a settlement, and his view is supported by the subsequent evidence from all the sources. He summed it up:

The important factors in the situation were known to all of us. We knew the Dominion Premiers were in England [for the imperial conference] fresh from their people. They were able to express the views of their people. The Washington Conference was looming ahead.
⁶⁹

Lloyd George’s Cabinet had its economic difficulties. England’s relationships with foreign countries were growing increasingly unhappy. Recovery of the good opinion of the world had become indispensable.
⁷⁰

Overall, one of the strangest things about the Irish War of Independence is that few modern historians actually examine it as a war. The traditional Irish history is the simplistic one of the gallant men of the ‘Old Brigade’ driving the British before them out of Ireland by force of arms alone. The quotation above shows that Collins knew that he had soldiers and no ammunition by July 1921 (or should have done if he was reading the reports from West Cork). The various attempts to land ammunition for the weapons had so far not come to fruition, and the ongoing manufacture of home-made rifle shells was never going to be sufficient to take the war outside a campaign of ambush and assassination. While the IRA would always hurt the British forces, it could do no more. The Irish could not be defeated, but neither could they win; there was therefore no benefit to continuing the war. Equally, some historians have recently tended to downplay the capacity of the IRA to maintain the war. In the face of the flood of primary evidence from both sides, including the witness statements and documents in the British archives, this argument cannot be sustained either.
⁷¹
Even if the IRA ran out of ammunition for a time, all it needed was one large shipment to restart operations. This was the essence of the problem for the British.

There were many elements to the war, and the Irish did enough to bring about a settlement, no matter how unsatisfactory it was. In the end this is all they had to do.
⁷²
It was the decisive phase in the long struggle of the disenfranchised Irish to regain parity with the English, who had conquered and subdued the country finally in 1651. Irish intellectuals at the heart of the struggle, like Terence MacSwiney, deduced that the only way to defeat British rule was to peel back its layers until all that was left was the military.
⁷³
To retain Ireland the British would have to use the military, and the closer the IRA got to an inevitable confrontation with the British military, the more intense the war became. The RIC did not put up a serious fight in defence of the status quo and the people were encouraged to turn away from the British courts system. The taxation system also broke down, much to everyone’s delight, and was symbolically cremated with the burning of the local tax offices in April 1920. The collection of the myriad of statistics, requiring the almost daily involvement of the British state with the people – from the number of potatoes planted in each parish to the number of people emigrating from the ports – also ceased, as this was part of the RIC’s job. By the middle of 1920 the British had become practically irrelevant, and the Irish revolution was over unless the British made a stand. Logically, they had no choice if they wished to keep their empire. However, because they lost control (or allowed themselves to lose control) of the forces they had sent to quell the Irish, they lost the propaganda war, and it was this that led to the Treaty.

A
FTER THE
W
AR:
E
NDINGS AND
B
EGINNINGS

There are difficulties in discussing the year between the Truce and the accepted starting date for the Irish Civil War – the day of the attack by pro-Treaty Free State forces on the anti-Treaty garrison that had occupied the Four Courts in the centre of Dublin.

One aspect of this is Northern Ireland, which had been set on its own course before the Truce with the Government of Ireland Act 1920, but it was not until later that the separation between north and south became formal. There was never any doubt as to the outcome, and Sir James Craig had made it clear that this was going to be the case in July 1922.
⁷⁴

One of the biggest difficulties is the problem of deciding when the Truce actually ends and the Civil War starts.
⁷⁵
From April 1922 the IRA officers had split and were engaged in a ‘hot’ war long before the shelling of the Four Courts.
⁷⁶
Did the Civil War start when a volunteer decided to take up arms against the Free State, when the firing started, or was it necessary to wait until historians ‘blew the whistle’ for the official off in June 1922?
⁷⁷
General Adamson of the Free State Army was shot in Athlone by republican forces on 24 April 1922, but because negotiations to stave off civil war were still going on in Dublin, this shooting is seen as an unfortunate incident and not as the opening engagement of the Civil War. According to Lady Augusta Gregory, the Civil War in Gort was effectively over by the middle of May 1922, having been won by Seán MacEoin in a preemptive strike on Galway.
⁷⁸
Speaking for the army, Seán O’Hegarty warned Dáil Éireann on 1 May that what was needed was a truce, yet the Civil War started in June, didn’t it?
⁷⁹

Even Winston Churchill, the highly experienced and notoriously volatile Secretary of State for the Colonies, couldn’t seem to understand the fundamental change he had made by signing the Treaty in December 1921.
⁸⁰
Despite having met with the envoys plenipotentiary of the elected government of the Irish Republic on 11 October 1921, Churchill was still issuing a diktat to the Irish in the House of Commons ten months after the War of Independence had ended in July. On 12 April 1922 he told the House:

Whatever happens in Ireland, however many years of misfortune there may be in Ireland, whatever trouble; the Treaty defines what we think should be the relations between the two countries, and we are prepared, and will be prepared, to hand over to any responsible body of Irishmen capable of governing the country the full powers which the Treaty confers. Further than that, in no circumstances will we go, and if a republic is set up, that is a form of government in Ireland which the British Empire can in no circumstances whatever tolerate or agree to.
⁸¹

While he was technically correct, the only way he could enforce his views was by an extremely difficult re-conquest. Yet, despite the slaughter of the previous six years, and with the situation in Dublin on a knife-edge, the British minister with direct responsibility for Ireland failed to temper his language sufficiently to give the pro-Treaty Provisional Government some breathing space.
⁸²
What Churchill was telling the Commons was that Irish independence was in the gift of the British parliament and could be taken away again. Churchill was claiming ‘the right to fix the boundary of a nation … Thus far shalt thou go and no further.’
⁸³

Although this may have gone down well with the House of Commons, the message was not lost on the Irish. Even the
Southern Star
, a newspaper that had a relentlessly local focus, reported the speech on 15 April.
⁸⁴
Central to the Irish agreeing to the Treaty negotiations had been the principle that the Treaty would be an agreement between two equal nations. At the time of Churchill’s speech, Collins was trying to sell the Treaty on the basis of it being a stepping stone to real freedom. In this speech, Churchill was repudiating this. These comments, intentional or otherwise, had put Ireland back in its little box, and plans were being made in London for a re-invasion if necessary.
⁸⁵
Is it any wonder that on 14 April 1922 republican forces, led by Rory O’Connor, in opposition to the Treaty, occupied the Four Courts?
⁸⁶

The main compromise imposed by the Treaty that led to the point of civil war in Ireland was the imposition of an oath to be faithful (not loyal) to the king of England.
⁸⁷
The settlement also meant that the ancient kingdom of Ireland was no longer united, and nationalists had not succeeded in gaining their republic. Many nationalists were caught on the wrong side of the border with Northern Ireland, and there was a great shame among members of the IRA that they had failed to defeat partition. Southern unionists had equally been betrayed and were bitter that their political allies had cut them off, although some made the best of the situation. One letter in the Siobhán Langford papers points to the delicacy of the situation and the uncertainty of the future. It was written by Rev. George Sydney Baker to the IRA on 27 January 1922 seeking the return of a gun ‘requisitioned’ in 1920. His form of address is a significant concession to the new authorities, even if he cannot quite bring himself to acknowledge their legitimacy:

A Cara,

I wish to make application for the return of a shot-gun … I have learned that guns and other property have been restored in several cases to their owners and feel sure that under the new regime in Ireland it is desired that all should be treated equally.

Mise A Cara

G. S. Baker

Kilshannig Rectory.
⁸⁸

While Rev. Baker was willing to make his accommodation with the new reality, the War of Independence and its resolution had created great bitterness and fear on all sides. There was also great anger among the young men of the IRA – who had sacrificed lives, futures, friends and families – when they looked at what they had actually achieved. This anger had to find its way to the surface. Did it contribute to the Dunmanway killings? To understand fully the origins and context of the massacre, it is now necessary to examine how the war was fought in West Cork.

3
West Cork’s War

While the main theatre for operations during the War of Independence was in Dublin, the West Cork IRA Brigade took part in two of the most famous and significant actions of that conflict. The first was at Kilmichael, when an IRA flying column ambushed two lorry loads of ‘invincible’ Auxiliary police on 28 November 1920, killing sixteen, with three casualties on the IRA side.
¹
This forced Lloyd George to recognise that the rebels had moved from assassinations to full-scale military operations, and he proclaimed martial law in the south on 10 December. Truce contacts were recommenced within days of Kilmichael. The second action was the escape of 100 members of the flying column from encirclement by 1,300 British troops at Crossbarry.

An understanding of how the War of Independence was fought in West Cork is crucial in explaining what happened at Ballygroman and Dunmanway in April 1922. The people most likely involved in the killings were also involved in the War of Independence, and the conduct of the war in the Bandon Valley had a major bearing on why the killings were carried out.

Nowhere outside Dublin was the War of Independence fought with such intensity as it was in Cork city and West Cork. There were good reasons for this. First, the terrain suited guerrilla warfare. Second, there was a long British military tradition in County Cork and this created a reservoir of talent and experience which was available to manage the rebellion there. Tom Barry, who led the IRA column in West Cork, had fought in the British Army in Mesopotamia during the Great War. Third, there was a larger imperial loyalist community in West Cork than in the rest of southern Ireland, and as they were expected by both sides to support the British rather than remain neutral, the IRA had to contend with a greater range of potential opponents. Fourth, many Cork loyalists were intermarried with the British and had strong links with the regiments sent to quell the rebellion. For these families the war was personal, as defeat would lead to the loss of prestige, power and money. (The fate of the Earl of Bandon – he lost his mansion, his servants, his judicial functions, the use of his estate, his prime position as Lord Lieutenant of County Cork and his coronet – explains why the stakes were so high for him.)
²
Fifth, many West Cork loyalists were English born and viewed a war against their fellow countrymen with disbelief and horror.
³
To succeed, the IRA had to neutralise this group.
⁴
Sixth, arms, and more importantly ammunition, were relatively easy to acquire from the large British Army bases in Cork.
⁵
Seventh, while County Cork as a whole was target-rich for the IRA – with a peacetime British military presence of over 7,000 and more than double that during the war – inland West Cork was virtually empty of the enemy, except the RIC, 500 Essex Regiment soldiers stationed in Bandon and 100–200 Auxiliaries. This comparative emptiness allowed all-important safe zones, where the guerrillas could rest and recuperate, to survive throughout the war; this situation was unique to West Cork and set it apart from the rest of the country. Military strategists have identified the need for these insurgent ‘safe zones’ as critical to the success of any rebellion, and to concede this advantage to the IRA without a fight was an enormous tactical and strategic blunder by the British.
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Finally, there was a long tradition of Fenianism, agrarian struggle and general lawlessness embedded in West Cork culture, which lent it to be ‘agin the government’, no matter who was governing.
⁷
It didn’t take much to persuade these rebels to rebel.

The topography of West Cork is overlooked in most studies of the War of Independence and yet this was crucial to the success and survival of the insurgents. It consists of a series of long, level ridges running east–west, with a series of wide valleys with the best land and all of the urban centres. At the western end of the county the land rises to almost 1,000 metres and is heavily glaciated, with plenty of exposed rocks to act as hiding places – the war was mainly fought around ditches, hedgerows and bends in the road. It is often forgotten that there is a direct line of sight from the site of Cork Airport as far west as the Paps mountains, sixty-five kilometres away outside Killarney, and the Galty mountains, fifty kilometres to the north. Similarly, in the Bandon Valley, Nowen Hill, just to the west of Dunmanway, can also be seen from the airport. If the British left Ballincollig, for example, and headed towards Macroom to the west, all local IRA commanders knew this in seconds from scouts blowing bottles or waving from hilltop to hilltop.
⁸

As the main IRA travel-and-information route was the long ridge to the south of Cork city, stopping movement here should have been an absolute priority for the British commanders. Yet, while the Macroom Auxiliaries were frequent raiders along the ‘communications route from Newcestown to Kealkill’, the British never attempted to control this high ground.
⁹
They set up their bases in the towns to the north and south of this ridge (Ballincollig and Bandon), but never stationed troops in Newcestown, where they could have completely disrupted IRA activity. Had they done this, their rate of attrition and difficulty of supply would have been higher, but if they had been serious about winning the war it would have been worth it.

They were warned about this by the increasingly strident and panicked calls of the RIC Divisional Commissioner for Cork West Riding in Bandon. Throughout the early months of 1921 he called for the area to be ‘flooded with troops stationed everywhere in strong detachments with every equipment for war, aeroplanes etc. etc.’, so that ‘the rebels could not dominate large tracts of the Riding completely, as really is the case now’. His March report ends: ‘Hence, the IRA is rampant and meets with little opposition.’
¹⁰
If he was correct, while the IRA had ‘not been able to drive the enemy out of anything but a fairly good-sized police barracks’, it appeared to have driven them out of large parts of West Cork and was winning the war there.
¹¹

In response the British eventually created their own flying column of around 100 lightly equipped soldiers who moved from village to village. They also instituted occasional week-long mass sweeps by up to 5,000 troops brought in from Cork, Kinsale and Ballincollig. While this was a little more successful in disrupting IRA communications and ambushes, it still failed to deal with the topography. Led by Major Percival of the Essex Regiment, it was also rarely able to achieve surprise.
¹²
At the Crossbarry ambush, which was the last major engagement fought by both sides, the encirclement began, and was spotted, at 1 a.m. IRA Brigade Commander Charlie Hurley was shot at approximately 3.30 a.m. and the IRA column was in defensive position at 5.30 a.m. Two-and-a-half hours later the first main action took place; the amount of time between detection and action gave the defenders a major tactical advantage.

It would be very easy to say that there are no rules in a guerrilla war. Yet the notion of playing by the rules is central to the interpretation of the war in West Cork. Generally, both sides were trying to work within their interpretation of their law as best they could. The obvious exceptions were the uncontrolled British paramilitary forces. (Based on their experience in both Ireland and Palestine, the British now accept that these forces can have a negative effect, due to a lack of proper control structures and discipline.)
¹³
Both sides set out their rules in 1919, and much of the debate in both Dáil Éireann and the House of Commons revolved around breaches of the ‘rules’ of the war. Women, clergy and children were generally off-limits, but combatants on both sides could expect no mercy. The only problem was identifying who was a combatant.

Both sides also decentralised a good degree of tactical flexibility to local commanders and this led to different interpretations of what was allowed. In many cases it came down to the personality of individual commanders, who sometimes became irritated by attempts at central control. Many of the disputes between IRA Chief of Staff Richard Mulcahy in GHQ in Dublin and the field commanders stemmed from Mulcahy’s insistence on receiving prompt reports of actions so that they could be analysed for mistakes or possible improvements, and the field commanders’ view that this was too much bureaucracy. The fact that Mulcahy inadvertently became a major source of British intelligence finds after a series of raids on his headquarters did not improve relations.
¹⁴

Overall, in West Cork the War of Independence was a short, sharp, savage affair. While there were incidents in early 1919, the war turned increasingly ‘hot’ with the arrival of the Black and Tans in early May 1920,
¹⁵
the appointment of Tom Barry as leader of the flying column in September,16 and the banishment of K Company of the Auxiliaries to Dunmanway after they burned Cork on 12 December 1920.

The ‘old’ RIC was effectively neutralised in West Cork by the middle of 1920.
¹⁷
Most barracks had either been burned or besieged by then, rendering them useless as British control centres. Carrigadrohid Barracks was burned in January 1920. Inchigeela was attacked on the same night but survived, only to be ‘surrounded by barbed wire entanglements for a depth of ten yards’ to prevent inevitable attack.
¹⁸
(It would be evacuated days after the assassination of Sergeant Maunsell in late June.) Allihies Barracks was destroyed on 12 February 1920 and the police evacuated it the following morning; this meant a large area of the Beara Peninsula was empty of British forces and was a safe area for recuperation and training for the IRA. Farther south, Timoleague and Courtmacsherry Barracks were destroyed by the end of April 1920, leaving only the navy to watch the coastline. Ballyvourney was also destroyed in April, and Farran Barracks was burned on 21 June. Most importantly, the obscure but strategically crucial stations in the heart of the Newcestown safe zone at Farranavane and Kilmurry were burned in June 1920. After this the IRA held the countryside and the British held the towns; the force that had been the eyes and ears of the British in every parish became mostly irrelevant in West Cork’s war.

John Ainsworth has argued that British security policy degenerated into a desperate attempt to hold on to Ireland and initially many of the main players were tolerant of Auxiliary excesses. By the time these players accepted the advice of Macready and Wilson that the Auxiliaries were doing far more damage to the all-important propaganda war and British military discipline than they were doing to Irish solidarity, it was too late.
¹⁹

While there is ample evidence presented by the Irish of Auxiliary brutality and reprisals, there are few actual records of any Auxiliaries or Black and Tans being brought before a court for misbehaviour.
²⁰
Much of the Irish evidence was, of course, disputed, denied and deliberately ‘blackened’ by the Dublin Castle propaganda department.
²¹
However, the available evidence suggests that the Auxiliaries’ reputation was well earned.
²²
For example, in an infamous April 1921 shoot-out at Castleconnell in County Limerick, they raided a hotel and ended up fighting with other RIC and Auxiliaries who had stopped for a drink. Three people were killed in this incident, including the owner, Denny O’Donovan, originally from Skibbereen, who was killed in the yard ten minutes after the shoot-out. There is no doubt that he was shot out of hand by the Auxiliaries:

It was a most harrowing spectacle. No one could see the yard, the scene of the shooting, or the bar, blood smeared about the woodwork and passages damaged in the firing – no one could witness these things without the sickening sense of horror which the spectacle presented.
²³

Lord Parmoor’s brother, who was a guest in the hotel on the night, witnessed all this.
²⁴
Lord Parmoor read three letters from his brother into the record of the House of Lords a week later; the details included the Auxiliaries using a Lewis machine gun inside the hotel. As the writer was pro-government, there can be no doubt about his impeccable British credentials.
²⁵

Further confirmation of the Auxiliaries’ behaviour was provided by Major Whittaker, who interviewed locals during his fact-finding mission for Churchill in 1922:

Of the methods adopted by the British Government there is strong and undying criticism. Some of this may be due to a natural dislike for efficient methods and a definite policy, but the greater part of the criticism and hate has been caused entirely by the ‘Black and Tans’ [Auxiliaries] whose conduct was undoubtedly often reprehensible. Ill-considered killings, very frequent drunkenness and bad discipline are the chief reasons why the ‘Black and Tans’ failed to link respect with the definitely produced fear … Old women too stupid to temper the truth with the national propaganda say that on many occasions British regiments saved them (in some cases by a display of force) from outrage by the ‘Black and Tans’.
²⁶