I was in beautiful Cork over the weekend and very moved by our trip to the new exhibition, Cork 1920 – The Burning of a City, which runs for the year at St Peter’s Cork on the North Main Street. A visit to this is strongly recommended.
It was a tumultuous year for the nation obviously and with everything happening the murder of Tomás McCurtain and the sacrifice of Terence MacSwiney and all the tit for tat incidents culminating in the burning of Cork City were some of the years most harrowing episodes. 100 years on and without any sign of a government, one of the principle reasons being some of our political parties refusal to move on from history, it is worth reflecting on where and indeed who we are. So with a little help from our partners at wiki there I just did a little timeline as a memorial to those who fought and died from the rebel county.
Bullet points
*Ireland is a nation to be proud of
*Terence MacSwiney is one of Irelands most heroic figures
*Cork people are every bit as great as they think they are
- 12 February 1920: An IRA unit led by Seán Hales attacked Allihies RIC barracks, County Cork, killing an RIC officer. Afterwards, the RIC abandoned several small barracks in the area.[35]
- 14 February 1920: An IRA unit led by Diarmuid Hurley captured Castlemartyr RIC barracks, County Cork.[35]
- 11–12 March 1920: RIC Constable Timothy Scully (aged 64) was shot dead when his patrol was ambushed returning to barracks in Glanmire, County Cork. In reprisal, RIC officers attacked homes in Cork City.[40]
- 19 March 1920: RIC Constable Joseph Murtagh (aged 45) was shot dead in an IRA ambush in Cork city while he was returning from a colleague’s funeral.[12]
- 20 March 1920: Tomás Mac Curtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork and commander of the IRA’s 1st Cork Brigade, was shot dead in front of his wife at his home, by men with blackened faces later reportedly seen entering the local police barracks.
- 24 April 1920: the IRA shot dead a DMP sergeant in Clonakilty, County Cork.[42]
- 25 April 1920: the IRA ambushed and killed two RIC officers (Sgt Cornelius Crean, aged 48, and Constable Patrick McGoldrick, aged 59) near Ballinspittle, County Cork.
- 24 April 1920: the IRA shot dead a DMP sergeant in Clonakilty, County Cork.[42]
- 25 April 1920: the IRA ambushed and killed two RIC officers (Sgt Cornelius Crean, aged 48, and Constable Patrick McGoldrick, aged 59) near Ballinspittle, County Cork.
IRA volunteers destroyed Blarney and Carrigadrohid RIC barracks in County Cork.[58]
–17 July 1920: British Colonel Gerald Smyth[66] was assassinated by the IRA in a Cork City country club. Smyth had told RIC officers to shoot civilians who disobeyed orders. Railway workers refused to carry Smyth’s body back to his native Banbridge, County Down. The assassination provoked retaliation by loyalists against Catholics in Banbridge and Dromore.[ citation needed ]
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25 July 1920: An RIC intelligence officer, D/Sgt William Mulherin (aged 38), was assassinated by the IRA outside a church in Bandon, County Cork.
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27 July 1920: An RIC constable was shot dead by IRA volunteers in Clonakilty, County Cork.
–31 July 1920: The IRA captured Brigadier-General Cuthbert Lucas, commander of the British 17th Infantry Brigade, along with two colonels, near Fermoy, County Cork. One of the colonels was wounded in an escape attempt from a moving car, and the other was released to attend to him. Lucas was held for a month before escaping
–12 August 1920: Terence McSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, was arrested. McSwiney began a hunger strike in protest and was joined by ten other prisoners. IRA officers Liam Lynch and Seán Hegarty were also arrested, but mistakenly released by the British.
–10 October 1920: A Royal Air Force lieutenant was killed at an ambush near Bandon, County Cork.[
–* 22 October 1920: IRA 3rd Cork Brigade personnel attack a lorry carrying British troops from the Essex Regiment at the Toureen Ambush, on the road between Bandon and Cork. Two soldiers were killed, including Lt W.A. Dixon, and another four wounded, one of them mortally.[95] Ten more were captured, disarmed and then released.[96]
–* 25 October 1920:
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Terence MacSwiney dies in Brixton Prison, London, on hunger strike. Two other Cork IRA volunteers, Michael Fitzgerald and Joseph Murray died on hunger strike. Both men, along with eight others, had been arrested along with MacSwiney. They were known as the Cork Ten because all ten went on the hunger strike together. After Fitzgerald and Murray died, Arthur Griffith called off the hunger strike and the other eight recovered.
–6 November 1920: Auxiliaries Section Leader Lt L. Mitchell and Tem. Cadet Lt. B.V.A. Agnew attached to Company “C” A.D.R.i.C at Macroom coming back from a 24-hour pass to Cork City are captured at Emmet Place and shot dead.[110]
–17 November 1920: RIC sergeant James O’Donoghue was assassinated by IRA volunteers in White Street in Cork city.
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18 November 1920: Three civilians shot dead in Cork city by masked men in reprisal for the killing of RIC sergeant James O’Donoghue the previous day.[ citation needed ]
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19 November 1920:
- Four IRA officers captured by the Auxiliaries in Durris, County Cork. Only the intervention of a colonel of the King’s Liverpool Regiment prevented the men from being summarily executed.
–28 November 1920: Kilmichael ambush. The West Cork unit of the IRA, under Tom Barry, ambushed a patrol of 18 Auxiliaries at Kilmichael, killing 17. Three IRA volunteers were killed in the action.
10 December 1920:
- Four IRA officers captured by the Auxiliaries in Durris, County Cork. Only the intervention of a colonel of the King’s Liverpool Regiment prevented the men from being summarily executed.
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Martial law was proclaimed in Cork
–11 December 1920: The Burning of Cork. A lorry of Auxiliaries was ambushed by the IRA near Dillons Cross: one Temporary Cadet, Spencer Rougier Chapman, was critically wounded and died a few days later. Several other cadets were also wounded but survived. That night, Crown forces killed two Cork IRA volunteers (the Delaney brothers killed in their home), set fire to the commercial centre of Cork city, and burned City Hall and the Carnegie Library.[ citation needed ] The next day, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork, Daniel Colahan, issued a decree saying that “anyone within the diocese of Cork who organises or takes part in ambushes or murder or attempted murder shall be excommunicated” . The edict goes unheeded.[122]
–15 December 1920: An Auxiliary officer, identified as Vernon Anwyl Hart,[125] killed a Catholic priest (Very Rev. Canon Thomas J. Magner PP) who “got a note from the Tans telling him to toll his bell on Armistice Day or else. He refused and the bell tolled for him on a quiet road near Bandon on 15 December”. A young parishioner, walking with the priest, Tadgh O’Crowley was also shot dead.[126] Hart, who had been a close friend of T/Cadet Chapman who had been killed by the IRA, was discharged and declared insane by the British authorities. Hart died in 1937 in Cape Town
– 17 December 1920: Glenacurrane Ambush, just north of Mitchelstown, County Cork. Two Lorries of 20 soldiers of the Lincolnshire Regiment at ambushed by East Limerick Brigade Column with help from Castletownroche Battalion Column (Cork No. 2) and Mitchelstown Company (Cork No.2 Brigade). 2 soldiers killed and four wounded; the other soldiers surrender and their arms are taken from them [55]
–29 December 1920:British government sanctioned “official reprisals”. They were begun with the burning of seven houses in Midleton, County Cork in reprisal for an IRA ambush earlier in the day
