Massacre in West Cork (7 page)

Two days after the burning of Cork city centre during the night of 11/12 December 1921, K Company of the Auxiliaries was posted to Dunmanway.
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The government suppressed the subsequent British Army report on the burning of the city.
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There is no doubt that K Company started the fires in revenge for an ambush at Dillon’s Cross, 200 metres from British headquarters at Victoria Barracks in Cork, during which bombs had been thrown into two Auxiliary trucks, killing Temporary Cadet Spencer Chapman and wounding twelve other Auxiliaries.
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On the same night IRA volunteers Jeremiah and Cornelius Delaney were shot while unarmed in their bedroom at Dublin Hill just north of the city. The men who carried out the ambush had been tracked to their house (apparently by bloodhounds) but had left before the Auxiliaries arrived.

K Company, Auxiliaries, at Kent Station, Cork (courtesy of Mercier Archives)

In Dunmanway, the Auxiliaries took over the workhouse and dispatched the inmates to the dispensary. After the regal comfort of Victoria Barracks, the cold, damp and draughty building was a big comedown. Once half the company had recovered from bronchitis, they amused themselves by burning corks and sewing them into their caps in honour of their success at Cork.

If they wanted to announce their presence in Dunmanway, they could not have done so in a more effective way than they did, on 15 December: Cadet Hart shot Tadg (Timothy) Crowley and Roman Catholic parish priest Canon Magner at Ballyhalwick, while K Company was on its way to Cork for the funeral of Hart’s friend Cadet Chapman.
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Hart stopped where Crowley was helping the resident magistrate in Bantry, Mr Brady, whose car had broken down.
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Hart pistol-whipped and shot Crowley. He then forced Canon Magner, who happened upon the scene, to the ground and shot him in cold blood.
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Hart’s comrades made no serious attempt to intervene until after the priest was shot. Mr Brady testified at the subsequent trial that he had run away through the fields back into Dunmanway, a mile to the west, after Canon Magner had been shot.
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He said that the Auxiliaries had fired after him. At the trial it was also said that Hart had been drinking all day because one of his best friends had been killed at the Dillon’s Cross ambush – this was confirmed by Sir Hamar Greenwood during a tetchy exchange in the House of Commons on 17 February 1921: ‘Yes, Cadet Hart was a chum and companion of Cadet Chapman, who was massacred in an ambush a few days before in Cork, and undoubtedly that had an effect on his mind.’
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Even after the Truce, O Company of the Auxiliaries, which was now stationed in Dunmanway, was involved in a number of aggressive actions against the IRA, in direct contrast to the attitude of the Essex Regiment and Black and Tans in Bandon. During Christmas week 1921, four IRA members called into a pub in Devonshire Square in Bandon and found three Black and Tans inside. Michael O’Donoghue recalled:

I called for a drink but before it could be supplied one of the Tans, a small thick-set Cockney, butted in. ‘Have a drink on me, matey. Do you mind?’ I agreed, so did the rest. He asked us individually what would we have. A glass of brandy was mine. He looked a wee bit startled. Mick Crowley chose likewise. Price and O’Connor had small whiskies. The Tans had beer. The drinks were filled and the Tan proposed the toast of ‘Peace in Ireland’. We all drank heartily. A second Tan then called for the same again, and after a little demur we all drank again – this time to each other’s health.
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The situation was so different in Dunmanway that Peadar Kearney, the senior IRA officer in the town, decided the Auxiliaries needed to be taught a lesson:

With two other men I patrolled Dunmanway town in a motor car one evening after dark. After passing to and fro on a few occasions, some of the Auxiliaries endeavoured to stop the car and, as we did not halt, they struck the windscreen with ash-plants. We retaliated with one revolver shot. They fired back half a dozen and with the aid of a carbine we drove them off the street. They brought out armoured cars and patrolled the town and, naturally, we retreated to the country.
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Three regiments of the British Army were stationed in West Cork during the war. The Manchester Regiment was based in Ballincollig, nine kilometres west of Cork city, and patrolled north-west Cork. The Essex Regiment was the first to arrive and was tasked with patrolling all of West Cork from December 1919 until the arrival of the King’s Liverpool Regiment in late 1920. After this the Essex was split between Kinsale and Bandon and generally patrolled as far west as Dunmanway. The King’s Liverpool Regiment occupied Bantry and dealt with the western end of the county.
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There was a marked difference in the way each of these regiments was viewed by the locals. One of the greatest puzzles of the war is why the Essex Regiment seems to have prosecuted its campaign with an aggression that made it infamous and the King’s Liverpool Regiment did not.

The Essex Regiment had a wealth of experience dealing with insurgents.
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It was always at the cutting edge of empire building and the first of its eighteen campaigns began in India with the Assam War in 1824. By the time the regiment arrived in Bandon it had fought for 100 years against peoples whom British military doctrine stated should be repressed with any means necessary. Callwell, Britain’s expert on dealing with insurgents, had long made it clear that ‘uncivilised races’ needed to be ‘thoroughly brought to book and cowed or they will rise again’.
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Major Percival of the Essex Regiment had quickly gained notoriety for robust action against the IRA: on 27 July 1920 IRA men Tom Hales and Pat Harte had been tortured by officers of the regiment.
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Hales said he was beaten and had his fingers and other parts of his body crushed with pliers in an effort to get him to talk.
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He also lost four teeth after both he and Harte were caned and then beaten by two of the officers for refusing to divulge information. He received five years in prison in England and was released after the Treaty was signed.
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Harte broke down as a result of his torture. After the Truce Dr Vincent Ellis collected Harte from Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum and brought him to Grangegorman Mental Hospital in Dublin before his transfer to Cork. He reported, ‘I found that Harte was in a very bad state mentally, that he was almost in a state of dementia, refusing food and not co-operating in any way.’
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Harte’s great friend Michael Collins had him placed in a private ward of the Cork Mental Hospital after this.
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Percival is a uniquely monstrous figure in the BMH witness statements, but this does him a disservice, as this culture permeated the entire regiment. William Desmond, who was picked up as an unidentified British prisoner at Crossbarry, provides not only a unique insight into the battle from the British ranks, but a detailed account of his brutal imprisonment while held in the Essex headquarters at Bandon Barracks. The key point is that at the time of this treatment the British were not sure that he was in the IRA. In the following extract he discusses what happened in the first couple of hours:

Major Arthur Percival (courtesy of Mercier Archives)

We, the less fortunate ones, found ourselves in Bandon in the hands of the enemy. On the way in in the lorry I was beaten with the butts of rifles and threatened with a nasty end if there was any attack along the road. When the lorry stopped on the barrack square the four dead Volunteers were just thrown out on to the ground. I was kicked out after them and fell on the bodies. All the soldiers standing around swore and cursed at me … I was handed a pen and told to sign my name in a book … I was just about to do so when I received a blow across the bridge of my nose from a revolver held by a soldier. My blood spurted and spattered all over the book … All the prisoners were together in the one cell and all showing signs of ill-treatment. Humphrey Forde had a very bad black eye.
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Desmond’s true identity was confirmed after two weeks. He was brought before Percival, who informed him that he was to be shot the following morning. However, the prisoners were taken to Victoria Barracks in Cork, where the physical abuse stopped. He noted that when he was then transferred to Cork Prison his treatment improved.

Another volunteer, Frank Neville, describes an incident that occurred in December 1920, in which he was arrested by Percival in Knockavilla. It was ordered that he be taken to Cork. The two others captured were sent to Bandon. On Neville’s journey to Cork, the lorry stopped and he was forced out at gunpoint. One soldier:

… urged me on up the boreen at the point of a revolver until the two of us were out of sight of the lorry on the road. I knew what was intended and that the excuse for what was about to be done would be ‘shot while attempting to escape’. At the critical moment, as if by instinct, I turned sharply and he fired at the same moment. I could see a flame from the muzzle of the revolver almost touch my chest and I made a spring.
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Neville was surprised that Percival had so much knowledge about him, including the ‘jobs’ he was involved in, which suggests that Percival had good-quality sources of information and it is likely that some came from within the IRA. However, Neville believed that a Mr Jagoe was the culprit, as the man left the area shortly afterwards.
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Neville’s evidence also suggests that Percival knew what was intended for him by putting him alone in the lorry for Cork. Historians must take care with any testimony, but in this case Neville knew that both he and Percival would be dead before this testimony came out, so he had no reason to lie.

One of the first detailed accounts of the Essex Regiment in West Cork to become available was that of Kathleen Keyes McDonnell in 1972.
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She came from a well-off nationalist family and her father-in-law was a JP. McDonnell’s account is not only a detailed record of what happened to her, but is also a key source for many of the other incidents of the War of Independence in the Bandon area.

McDonnell’s home at Castlelack outside Bandon – with only McDonnell, her nurse and her children inside – had been raided on eleven successive nights after an ambush at Toureen in September 1920. On the eleventh night she had stood in the hall being questioned and insulted by the raiders while the clock struck 4 a.m. Her description of what happened might once have been claimed to be greatly exaggerated propaganda, but now – in the light of the admissions of the Palestinian police in their oral history – it seems more far more plausible.
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According to McDonnell, on 29 November 1920 – the day after the Kilmichael ambush – the Essex Regiment visited her home at Castlelack yet again. She wrote: