From The Times: August 30, 1922
The Publicity Department of the South-Western Command has issued the following statement: “At 3.35pm yesterday a boat arrived in Valencia Harbour and the Irregular occupants proceeded to cut the Transatlantic cables. They had succeeded in cutting one of them when troops arrived in another boat, and the cable cutters departed. Mr Childers was in charge of the Irregulars and directed their activities.”
There were hundreds of visitors to the grave of General Collins in Glasnevin Cemetery today. The gates were opened at 8 o’clock, and the admissions were regulated by national troops. At midday the crush was so great that the gates had to be closed for a time. Among the early arrivals were Mr John Collins, the dead general’s brother, and other relatives from the County Cork.
The author Erskine Childers c 1920
Now the Irregulars in the South have been driven from the towns they have embarked on a campaign of guerrilla warfare in mid-Cork and parts of Co Kerry. Ambushes are laid on roads used by National troops, and heavy fire directed on every military vehicle. A young officer of the National Forces has just been killed in the Macroom district. He had gone out to reconnoitre with a small party of men and ran into an ambush. They engaged their attackers and sent to Macroom for help. Before the reinforcements arrived, Lieutenant Lee was shot in the head and died.
When the Irregulars retreated they left behind rifles, revolvers, and ammunition. Another body of Irregulars attacked an outpost near Bandon. They were caught in the rear by other troops and three are reported to have been killed. Edward Isherwood, motor-car driver, 22, an Englishman, was taken from his residence at Blackpool, Cork, early yesterday by armed men, taken to a field some miles away, shot, and left for dead. He escaped, however, with two wounds, and is in Cork hospital. A card was tied to his breast bearing the words “Convicted spy. IRA. Beware.”
Isherwood frequently drove cars for the National forces. Before shooting him, masked men charged him with driving the late General Collins when the fatal attack was made on him at Bealnablath. They mentioned the names of six other motor men whom they intended to shoot and “would soon be in heaven with him.”
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