Massacre in West Cork (13 page)

Hitchcock also reports that Herbert took part in the fifth Battle of Ypres and was at the Front on 29 September 1918 with the Trench Mortars, trapped at the railway line between the destroyed village of Hooge and Ypres under systematic strafe and shrapnel fire from the German artillery. They were literally in the same place in which they had been in September 1915. From this battle on, however, their war became somewhat of a stroll to Cologne, which they formally occupied on 9 December 1918.
¹⁵

His file states that he was discharged from the army on 1 November 1920 with the rank of lieutenant, and went to Homeville in Crosshaven, where Edward and Matilda were living.
¹⁶
However, a
London Gazette
entry suggests that he re-enlisted and remained in the army until September 1921, although the linkage has not been proven beyond doubt so must be treated with great care.
¹⁷
What he was doing during this later appointment does not appear in his file, so the person to whom this entry refers may not be him. What is clear is that by April 1922 he was in Ballygroman House.

T
HE
O
’
N
EILLS OF
K
ILBRITTAIN

The BMH statements make it plain that the O’Neill household was central to the operations of the Kilbrittain IRA. The O’Neill family were farmers from Maryboro, south of Bandon. In the 1911 census, Maryboro was in Rathclairn district electoral division and there were ten in the family, with two servants. The father’s name was Patrick and the mother’s Norah (Hanora). The daughters were named Mary (Molly) and Margaret (Maud), and the sons Jeremiah, Denis (Sonny), Patrick, Daniel, John (Jack) and Michael. Their house was a newly built Land Commission house with five windows in front, a kitchen, a parlour and three bedrooms – similar to many that still dot the countryside in Ireland today. They were relatively well off, with no less than eight outhouses keeping both cattle and goats.
¹⁸

Daniel Manning formed the Irish Volunteer company in Kilbrittain. It was a democratic, if ineffectual, army, and it was not until January 1918 that proper arms training was attempted. The students included Michael and John O’Neill. The family regularly provided food and shelter to the Volunteers and then the IRA, and Maud O’Neill is often mentioned as having carried dispatches, so it is clear that the whole family were involved in the republican movement. Mary was the captain of the Kilbrittain Cumann na mBan and provided a statement under her married name to the BMH.
¹⁹
Her statement is far more personal and detailed than those of the surviving male members of the Kilbrittain company and provides extraordinary details of the capture of her brother Daniel and the shooting of Volunteer Pat Crowley.

Michael O’Neill (courtesy of Donal O’Flynn)

After the Kilmichael ambush, Tom Barry was taken ill at Kilmoyarne near Ahiohill with a possible heart attack.
²⁰
Once Dr Fehily had treated him, Mary O’Neill, who was a trained nurse, nursed him there and in her own house at Shanaway, further evidence of the family’s trusted role within the republican movement. She moved him on 9 December to Granure, where she handed over the patient to Bébé Lordan, also a nurse.

The reports about the Kilbrittain IRA make it obvious it was the epicentre of the War of Independence in West Cork. Charlie O’Donoghue’s statement shows that twenty-four of the thirty-seven officers and men killed in the 3rd Cork Brigade were in the 1st Battalion (Bandon/Kilbrittain).
²¹

Until the release of the BMH files in 2003 it was difficult to gain any clear picture of Michael O’Neill and his family. In an Evening Echo article, Liam Deasy explained that in the first action by the Kilbrittain IRA in May 1919 – only two of them were armed – they surprised six members of the RIC at Kilbrittain pier with the express purpose of seizing their rifles. Five of the RIC officers were successfully disarmed, but the sixth, who was a little behind the rest, managed to unshoulder his rifle and was in the act of getting ready to fire. Michael O’Neill spotted this and attempted to wrestle him to the ground, but the RIC officer broke loose and hit him on the head with the stock of the rifle, splitting open his skull. Despite this serious wound, O’Neill continued to wrestle until his colleagues could intervene; he then collapsed, semi-conscious. Having finally disarmed the six RIC men, the IRA retreated, without a shot being fired.
²²

The leaders of the Kilbrittain IRA gave a detailed statement to the BMH, which explained that Michael O’Neill remained at Ahiohill for a number of weeks while he recovered.
²³
All the raiding party’s houses were raided within twenty minutes of the ambush by the military garrison in Kilbrittain Castle, which was 200 metres from the village. Over the next weeks:

… the homes of O’Neills and Mahonys were raided on 17 occasions; those of Mannings and Crowleys on 25 occasions; those of J. Fitzgerald and J. O’Leary, 4 miles distant, were raided regularly at 7 a.m. every morning, while there were numerous raids on the houses of several other Vols., the raiders everywhere searching for a wounded man and inquiring the whereabouts of Con Crowley who had been ‘on the run’ since the previous March.
²⁴

In March 1920, after a thirty-minute firefight, the military arrested Michael O’Neill and Daniel Manning at Maryboro and they were interned.
²⁵
Michael escaped to Ireland from Marylebone Infirmary on 8 May after a hunger strike in London’s Wormwood Scrubs. Upon their return the Kilbrittain Company captured the Howe’s Strand Coastguard Station a mile south of the village, without serious injury to either side. After the first raid the barracks was reinforced with five marines and a patrol boat, which moved out of the harbour during the day. In a second raid O’Neill smashed the door with a sledgehammer while under fire from the marines.

In October 1920 the Kilbrittain Company attended an armed training camp at Ballymurphy; while returning from this to organise the Toureen ambush, Michael O’Neill’s military career during the War of Independence came to an end:

Michael O’Neill and John Fitzgerald returning from Ballymurphy to Clonbogue where they were to arrange some matters re Toureen ambush were arrested by military raiding party soon after entering Coy. area. Held in Cork for some weeks, after which they were interned in Ballykinlar until the general amnesty, Xmas 1921.
²⁶

On his release in January 1922, Michael O’Neill was immediately appointed as second-in-command to Tom Hales in the 3rd Brigade, which is a good example of the esteem in which he was held. However, during a tribute to him on 5 May at Cork County Council after his death, it was also suggested that he was reckless with his own safety, and this may have contributed to the events that led to his death – entering a house uninvited in the countryside at night at any time was likely to end in a shooting.
²⁷

An incident in February 1922, recorded by Michael O’Donoghue, casts further light on the character of Michael O’Neill. A Black and Tan radio operator named Carley from Claudy in Derry had a girlfriend in Bandon. After the Essex Regiment had evacuated the town he returned on a clandestine visit to his ‘lady-love’. The local Irish Republican Police were informed and he ‘was roughly seized by [Jack] O’Neill, Con Crowley and two others and hustled out. I was aghast at the savagery of my comrades and pitied the poor shivering wretch as he was dragged away.’

O’Donoghue then relates:

The Tan was taken to the barracks. Tom Hales, Brigade O/C, convened a kind of drumhead court-martial at once in the brigade office. About nine senior I.R.A. officers were present and there was no formal prosecution, defence or procedure. The Brigadier presided. The Tan was questioned about his presence in Bandon in disguise (he was in ‘civies’ [sic], well-dressed and muffled up). He said he slipped away from Cork city (where he was now quartered) down to Bandon to meet his lady-love in her own house secretly; that he infringed his own police regulations and discipline in doing so, that he never thought that the I.R.A. – even if they did detect him – would molest him now … Then the court-martial went into session to decide his fate. For an hour or more, we argued about what to do. Three or four of the more bloodthirsty revengeful officers – Con Crowley and Jacky O’Neill among them – hardened and envenomed by the ferocity of the fight in West Cork, were all for executing the poor Tan and burying him and no more about it.

‘Why execute him?’ I asked. ‘What crime has he committed and been found guilty of?’

‘Oh, he’s a bloody Tan and deserves only a bullet. What brought him back here again?’

‘Love’, I said, ‘but that’s no reason to kill him.’

Tom Hales said that if we were to execute him, we would do it officially and that he would, openly, as Brigade O/C, take responsibility for the detention, trial and execution of the Tan if the Court decided on his execution. I asked the Brigadier ‘on what charge was the fellow being found guilty’. He could not define any definite charge. I then asked him what reason would he give to the public press and the people to justify the execution. He was just as vague. I then stated that I saw no reason for the killing of the Tan except brutal revenge on a helpless and perhaps innocuous individual for the misdeeds of the Tans in general; that to execute him on that excuse would be murder and cowardly murder at that, and that by a deed like that we would bring disgrace on the name and character of the I.R.A. in West Cork. That impressed Hales. Some of the others too, especially Mick [Michael] O’Neill, Vice O/C 1st Battalion, recently released from prison, and brother of Jacky, were reasonable and fair-minded and anxious to be just in their attitude. They supported my contention that the Tan should be freed and permitted to depart without molestation. At length, Brigade O/C Tom Hales accepted our advice and decided on the Tan’s release. I, accompanied by Mick O’Neill, went to the guardroom and announced to the Tan that he was free to go.

We escorted him from the barrack, down a back-lane by a short cut to a footbridge over the Bandon and safely within sight of his sweetheart’s house … On our way back, we encountered three I.R.A. men who were laying in wait to beat him up, if not worse. When we accosted them, they admitted their treacherous purpose and, on learning that O’Neill and I had escorted their intended victim safely to his fiancée’s house, they became very surly and angry. We insisted on seeing them back in barracks before us and into their own quarters.
²⁸

This statement by O’Donoghue gives an insight into the personality of Michael O’Neill, who was only twenty-four when he died, and shows that two of the more restrained and thoughtful members of the Bandon IRA, after the departure of O’Donoghue, were not available when they were needed most: Michael O’Neill was dead and Tom Hales was in Dublin. Their absence turned out to be critical.