Massacre in West Cork (36 page)

81
Helen’s statement to the Irish Grants Committee, quoted in Meehan (2011). See also National Archives, Kew, CO 762/33, ‘Richard Helen’; Hart (1998), p. 286, passim.

82
‘Clonakilty-Kilgariffe union’,
Southern Star
, 29 April 1922, p. 7, col. 3.

83
Southern Star
, 20 May 1922, p. 3, col. 2; funeral quotation from ‘Miss L. Helen’,
Southern Star
, 23 January 1926, p. 4.

84
Southern Star
, 27 June 1925, p. 4, for his election to the Urban District Council; his term as chairman ended in June 1928. The
Southern Star
, 23 October 1937, p. 12, col. 2, reports that the will of Richard James Helen (bachelor) was probated and that he lived on Pearse Street (formerly Sovereign Street). He died on 19 January 1937. His obituary confirms that Richard James is R. J.,
Southern Star
, 30 January 1937, p. 9, col. 4.

85
Southern Star
, 1 April 1922.

86
Professor Stockley was a Protestant nationalist and had been shot at on the night that Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomás MacCurtain, was killed.

87
Southern Star
, 8 April 1922, p. 2.

88
‘Clonakilty notes’,
Southern Star
, 22 April, p. 2, col. 4.

89
‘At the end of March, 1921, it had been established that Fred C. Stennings … was acting as a spy. A party … was assembled to arrest him on the night of March 30th 1921. As Stennings dashed away, he drew a revolver and opened fire on his pursuers, who … shot him dead.’ BMH WS 1591, Richard Russell, p. 21. See also
Southern Star
, 3 April 1915, p. 5, and 21 June 1913, p. 7.

90
BMH WS 1234, Jack Hennessy, p. 12.

91
For example, see
Southern Star
, 10 August 1912 and 23 August 1913. Given the miserable scores by the teams, the matches would not have lasted that long.

92
Con Crowley from Kilbrittain is also known as Conny, Connie, Cornelius and Conneen.

93
BMH WS 1741, Michael V. O’Donoghue, Part 2, pp. 290–1.

94
BMH WS 560, James O’Mahony, Denis Crowley, John Fitzgerald.

8
T
HE
M
ACROOM
K
ILLINGS

1
It has also been suggested that they had lunch at the Hornibrooks, three kilometres up the hill to the south, or the Tonson-Ryes at Cloughduv, just to the south of the Thady Inn, where Frank Busteed claims he captured the officers. Neither claim is supported by the evidence. For information on Farran House, see
http://www.farranhouse.com/location
(accessed 22 August 2013).

2
Regan, J. M., 2011, ‘The Bandon Valley massacre revisited’, paper presented at Trinity College, Dublin. Available at:
http://www.academia.edu/1710059/_The_Bandon_Valley_Massacre_revisited_TCD
(accessed 8 December 2012).

3
BMH WS 1633, James Murphy, p. 15. Two of these men are mentioned in BMH WS 1521, Michael Walsh, p. 17: ‘I was interrogated by three British intelligence officers named Henderson, Hendy and Hammond (these were later shot by the Cork I.R.A.) … One of the officers (a one-armed man) then attacked me. While the two others held me he tried to force a small grenade into my mouth.’ For a detailed account of the Macroom murders, see
http://www.cairogang.com/other-people/british/castle-intelligence/incidents/kilgobnet%201922/kilgobnet-1922.html
(accessed 9 July 2012).

4
National Archives, Kew, CAB 24/136. The case is covered in each of Macready’s reports to cabinet up to 30 May, when Michael Collins confirmed their deaths to the Prime Minister. They were exhumed and received a full military funeral at Aldershot in December 1923.

5
General Sir Peter Strickland, 26 April 1922, Strickland papers, Imperial War Museum, London.

6
O’Callaghan (1974), pp. 189–91.

7
BMH WS 1457, Daniel McCarthy, Rylane, Co. Cork, p. 9.

9
A
FTER THE
K
ILLINGS

1
National Archives, Kew, CAB 23/30, ‘Cabinet conclusions’, 30 May 1922; National Archives Kew, CAB 24/136/56, ‘Report by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief on the situation in Ireland for the week ending 29 April 1922’.

2
As this was based on the Sturgis briefing note of newspaper reports, he was referring to military, police and loyalist deaths. The actual figure is forty-four, but seven are not attributed.

3
House of Commons debate, ‘Written answers “murders”’, 29 May 1922, vol. 154, cols 1717–8:
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1922/may/29/murders#S5CV0154P0_19220529_CWA_43
(accessed 18 July 2013).

4
‘The Prime Minister said that in the south there was no dispute about the responsibility; it was the IRA.’ National Archives, Kew, CAB 23/30/8, p. 15, Cabinet, 30 May 1922.

5
The Belfast ‘pogroms’ peaked in February 1922, so why retaliation occurred at the end of April 1922 would need to be reconsidered as a cause.

6
National Archives, Kew, CAB 24/136/56, ‘Report by the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief on the situation in Ireland for the week ending 20 May 1922’.

7
National Archives, Kew, CAB 43/6, ‘Conference on Ireland between ministers of the British government and members of the Provisional Government of Ireland’, 1 Jan. 1922–30 June 1922.

8
Ryan (2005), p. 215. On this issue see also the report from the Dublin Peace Conference between pro- and anti-Treaty sides, which failed to agree on anything but ‘its horror at the terrible events that have taken place in Dunmanway, Ballineen and Clonakilty’,
Cork Examiner
, 1 May 1922, p. 4; the comments about Dunmanway of Arthur Griffith, Seán McEntee and Éamon de Valera in a Dáil Éireann debate, Friday 28 April 1922, vol. S2, no. 6 – though in de Valera’s case the comments are ambiguous:
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1922/04/28/printall.asp
(accessed 22 August 2013); the report of a speech in Mullingar which contains no ambiguity where de Valera condemns the killings outright:
Cork Examiner
, 2 May 1922; ‘A Warning’ for de Valera Mullingar report,
Southern Star
, 6 May 1922, p. 7, col. 2; and Doherty, G. and Keogh, D., 1998,
Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State
(Cork, Mercier Press), p. 176 for the relevant quote.

9
The Irish Times
, 1, 2 May 1922. One of the best sources for both what happened and the consequences is The Irish Times, 1 May 1922, p. 6.

10
It was stated by Peter Hart that only the killing of Michael O’Neill was condemned and that local councils passed two separate motions to ensure that the Protestant deaths were not condemned. This is not true. The Cork Corporation minute book shows that only one was composed extempore at the start of the meeting and passed unanimously. ‘Of Belfast’ is inserted into the original motion showing that it was being composed in the meeting and not beforehand, as is normal: Cork City and County Archives, ‘Minutes of Cork Corporation 1921–1923’, p. 246;
Southern Star
, 29 April 1922, p. 5 carried a report of the motion from the night before.

11
‘Corporation resolution: endorsed by Bandon Town Commissioners’, Cork Examiner, 5 May 1922, p. 5.

12
O’Leary (1975), p. 92, shows that the Hawkins family of Geragh, who were still in residence in 1975, had provided a pony and cart for injured IRA volunteer Jim Hurley to escape an Essex Regiment raid on 14 May 1921. The 1911 census shows that the Hawkins family were Cork-born native Church of Ireland. Many of the other local histories for Cork have similar stories.

13
The Irish Times
, 9 May 1922, p. 5.

14
See Cork Examiner, 2 May, pp. 5–6 and
Cork & County Eagle
, 6 May.

15
Cork & County Eagle
, 6 May 1922, p. 2, beneath the Tom Hales warning of capital punishment for any further attacks.

16
Many members of the IRA outside the column did want to end the campaign on foot of the Bishop’s pronouncement. The leadership put many of these men on charge, and they were put doing ‘hard labour’ for this lapse of discipline. The officers of the Schull company resigned as a result of the Bishop’s decree, BMH WS 1519, Charlie Cotter, p. 6; the decree annoyed Tom Barry so much he was still fuming about it in 1974, Cork City and County Archives, U16/1/3.

17
Coogan (1992), p. 361.

18
Southern Star
, 1 April 1922, p. 5, col. 2.

19
They could justifiably argue that as the Free State was an illegal entity created by British diktat, opposition to it was legal and did not go against the rule of law.

20
The Irish Times
, 19 May 1922, p. 5. This was in complete contrast to what Tom Barry had in mind for the large estates when he ordered that those which had been abandoned should be broken up without being sold or compensated, Barry (1949), p. 116.

21
‘Report of the Minister for Agriculture, Wednesday, 10 May 1922’:
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1922/05/10/00008.asp
(accessed 12 July 2012).

22
Southern Star
, 27 May 1922, p. 4, col. 4.

23
William Wood’s wife, Rebecca, was John Chinnery’s first cousin.

24
‘Dunmanway doings’,
Southern Star
, 27 May 1922, p. 5, col. 1; this was regarded as a very good price in the locality. Smith later sold it at a loss.