Massacre in West Cork (9 page)

The IRA was also demanding, rather than requesting, loyalty by January 1921. Most of the ‘hostile’ civilian trouble focused on the collection of the IRA levy from September 1920, as this was to be used to buy arms to fight the British. Tom Barry said in
Guerilla Days in Ireland
that as long as Protestants and loyalists remained neutral they were left alone. He does not seem to have understood that asking loyalists for money to buy guns to fight the British Army was forcing them to take the side of republicans against their own beliefs and, in many cases, their own families. Picking a safe course through these conflicting demands required fine judgement on all sides, and clearly there was an absence of this on many occasions.

Tadg O’Sullivan was the quartermaster of the 3rd Cork Brigade. In his witness statement he outlines the extent of the levy, with ‘£12,000 being secured in the period November, 1920 to June, 1921’.
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It is clear from his statement that the levy was not voluntary in West Cork.
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There is no doubt that loyalists were subject to intimidation and harassment by the IRA as a result of their refusal to pay the levy. The case of William Sweetnam – a Catholic in Lissangle, Caheragh, to the east of Skibbereen, who claimed £100 compensation – was reported in the
Cork & County Eagle
in January 1921.
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He had refused to pay the IRA levy of £7 on 20 November and was summoned to appear before the republican court. He refused. When his sister (who actually owned the farm) attended the republican court, she was informed that he had been fined £2 for non-payment. The overall claim was £13 by January, and hay ricks were burned in an effort to enforce the judgement. He was visited by up to twenty armed men on a number of occasions, who threatened him, and early in January he was kidnapped, terrorised, beaten and threatened with shooting at an IRA court-martial on the side of a mountain. Sweetnam’s solicitor, Jasper Travers Wolfe, noted that the issuer of the Sinn Féin judgement was Fee McCarthy from Corliss, who was ‘a mark’, that is he had the money to pay the £100 compensation that Sweetnam was now claiming. This case shows a clear escalation in intimidation and also that the republican courts were functioning as efficiently as the petty sessions, despite repeated British claims that they had been closed down.
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In some cases the IRA simply seized the property of people who refused to pay. John McCarthy of Bridge Street in Skibbereen lost a horse from just outside the town because he had refused to pay the levy. The same week Mrs Townshend of Myross Wood lost a hunter for the same reason, but this was returned as being of much higher value than the original levy.
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Evidence from the Bandon area confirms that there was a sizeable hostile loyalist community there and reveals the apparent difficulty faced by the IRA when attempting to collect money in Inishannon, at least according to Cornelius O’Sullivan:

During the months of October and November we were mainly engaged in the collection of the Arms Fund Levy from friendly people resident in the area. There were a large number of British loyalists in the area who were hostile to us and the collection of the levy in their case was deferred to a later date.
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In contrast, Patrick Cronin of Aherla, according to his witness statement, had no difficulty in collecting the levy. Interestingly he notes that Protestants had to pay more. This could be interpreted as sectarianism, but the point he is making is that the Protestants had the best land or the largest farms: ‘We collected money for general purposes for the Volunteers and we taxed householders 1/6d in the pound according to the valuation. The Protestants’ valuation was always higher but they never grumbled at having to pay the levy. There never had to be seizures.’
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However, there is really no suggestion that the levy was voluntary.

Another source, in the Florence O’Donoghue papers, suggests that many people paid up out of fear, no matter who they were. Jeremiah Keane of Crookstown, writing to O’Donoghue in 1927, said: ‘The Army levy was compulsory – at least in the country – and the majority subscribed more through fear than love.’ He owned a substantial business premises in the village, and while there is no doubt that he actively supported the IRA, his letter gives an unvarnished view of the times. It is also noteworthy that he acted as a republican judge in a case involving an ex-JP who had ‘condescended to recognise’ them. While the fact that the plaintiff was wearing his best clothes amused the ‘judges’, they found in his favour ‘as he had right on his side’. Keane also complains that ‘people who would have been openly hostile at the time had they dared’ were ‘better off than we are today’.
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The IRA levy was not the only problem that loyalists faced. The following testimony from Richard Collins in Schull deals with the problem of private enterprise and explains not only the breakdown in law but also the climate of fear that can be created during any period of civil strife:

… individuals in our area formed themselves into a gang to carry out several robberies. They always operated at night and raided only the homes of Protestant families. To make matters worse, the raiders always informed their victims that they were acting for the I.R.A. threatening dire penalties should the victims inform anybody of the raids … However, one of the men – Thomas Love, Crookhaven – whose house had been raided, mentioned the matter to Con O’Reilly … In conjunction with the officers of Lisagriffin Company, I undertook an investigation of the report and, within a few days, we had discovered and arrested the culprits. They were tried by court-martial.
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There is no doubt that loyalists found themselves in a terrible position. In
Guerilla Days in Ireland
Tom Barry made it clear that there was a deliberate policy of burning the houses of loyalists in reprisal for the burning of republican houses, in an effort to force the British to stop using this tactic.
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Percival, on the other side, recognised the problem: ‘in a struggle of this nature the existence of a large number of loyalists among an otherwise hostile population is, and always will be, a powerful weapon in the hands of the rebels’.
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Michael J. Crowley of Kilbrittain Company was a member of one of the main IRA families in the area. His brothers, Pat and Con, are central to the story at the heart of this book and they were neighbours and close personal friends of the O’Neills, whose family member Michael O’Neill would be shot at Ballygroman House. In his BMH witness statement, Michael J. Crowley shows that while loyalist houses were initially targeted for arms raids, this had changed by 1921. He states: ‘At the latter part of the campaign, we billeted when possible on the wealthy “loyalists”, or forced contributions from them of cattle, which were killed and dressed by the column butcher and distributed to billets.’
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Crowley claims that the flying column ‘lodged’ with their perceived loyalist enemies in an effort to spare the poor among their own supporters.

These examples suggest a much greater (and believable) nuance in attitudes within the loyalist and nationalist, Protestant and Catholic, Planter and Gael communities towards the IRA than is suggested by some scholars. Clearly they were not supported wholeheartedly by the entire Roman Catholic community, nor were they actively opposed by the entire Protestant community. Given the difficulties of telling who was friend or foe, it is unsurprising that some innocent people were swept up in the storm along with active combatants.

Perhaps the most exceptional example of this confusion of identities within members of the population is illustrated by Lady Albina Broderick. In June 1921 Castle Bernard was burned and Lord Bandon abducted as a hostage against British executions. Following this, Lady Broderick, his first cousin, arrived in Bandon to seek his release.
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Albina Broderick, who was English-born, had joined Sinn Féin as early as 1917 on the grounds that it promised equality for women. Her revulsion at the poverty she found in Kerry when she moved there in 1901 had radicalised her; she built a hospital for the local Kerry people and lived in profound poverty herself. She is better known in Ireland as Gobnait Ní Bruadair and was not alone among her class in taking the nationalist side.
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Broderick had probably walked from her home in Derrynane, West Kerry, to visit Lady Bandon. She was a most unwelcome visitor, as this extract from Mary Gaussen’s diary recalls:

The following Sunday evening, Lord Bandon’s cousin Albina Broderick arrived on a visit. She was dressed as a nurse as she was looking after IRA wounded and giving shelter to men on the run in her cottage hospital in Kerry. D. [Lady Bandon] finally consented and that terrible woman came in.
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According to Major Percival, Broderick warned Lady Bandon that Lord Bandon would be shot unless the British gave in to IRA demands.
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Mary Gaussen, who witnessed the conversation between the two women, was outraged at a suggestion from Broderick that Lady Bandon should put pressure on the British government for a truce and told Broderick that this was blackmail. Despite the low opinion of her within the Bernard family, Broderick’s mission to the IRA in Coomhola was successful.

According to Anna Walsh, whose brother Frank had been arrested and shot by the British Army in May:

Shortly after the date of the Truce, a lady called to the house to see me [she is mistaken about the date here]. It was the Hon. Albina Broderick, a strong friend of the National movement. She was the sister of the Earl of Midleton and first cousin of the Earl of Bandon. The latter had been captured at Castle Bernard some time before the Truce and was still a prisoner. I brought the little lady in and gave her a cup of tea and she explained that she had walked the whole way out from Bandon to ask me to put her in touch with the Column as she wished to intercede for the safety of her cousin. She had been directed to me by the Cumann na mBan in the town and that was good enough for me, so while the Hon. Albina was having her tea I arranged for a pony and trap and driver to bring her on her way to Coomhola where the Column was at the time. She set off and eventually, travelling by relays of traps, she got to her destination away beyond Bantry and there interviewed the Brigade Staff.
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The Earl was released from captivity in Rathbarry and returned to the gates of Castle Bernard the day after the Truce.

To understand the events of April 1922, it is also necessary to examine the overall quality of IRA intelligence gathering in West Cork during the War of Independence. One of the best examples of the IRA’s ability to break into British lines of communication can be found in a statement from Denis Lordan, which not only explains why the Peacocke house was burned in June 1921, but also shows how well the IRA had infiltrated the enemy communication system by that stage:

A residence overlooking Innishannon [sic] Bridge on the Bandon river, which was the property of Lieut.-Colonel Peacock [sic] (this Lieut.-Colonel Peacock had been executed by the I.R.A. for conveying information to the British Forces) was to be occupied by a force of the Black and Tans at 6 o’clock in a morning in May.
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A coded telegraph order was sent to the Black and Tans in Bandon on the previous evening and a copy of the code message was passed out by our agent in the Bandon Post Office and reached Brigade Headquarters about 7 o’clock that evening. Orders were immediately issued to the Officer Commanding, Ballinadee Company; to mobilise sufficient of his men and to proceed to Peacock’s house and destroy it. These orders were carried out and on the following morning when the convoy of Black and Tans moved out from Bandon to Innishannon for the purpose of occupying Peacock’s residence they only found smouldering ruins.
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If this source is correct, then IRA intelligence capacity in West Cork was astounding. Its veracity is supported by the following examples. According to Thomas Reidy, intelligence officer in Bantry and Skibbereen, the IRA was reading all British military communications from early in 1920:

About this time, R.I.C. and military messages being transmitted through the Post Office were sent in code. The Brigade I.O. (Seán Buckley, Bandon) supplied me with a copy of the key to this code so that messages could be deciphered. At the time I had an arrangement with the members of the staff at Bantry Post Office (Jim O’Sullivan and Patrick J. Lynch and Seán Buckley) whereby copies of all messages for military or R.I.C. were sent to me by messenger before they were dispatched to the addressees. This information was, in most cases, sent to me at least 30 minutes before it was transmitted through official channels to the appropriate addressee. This interval of 30 minutes enabled me to transmit necessary instructions to I.R.A. personnel affected by the messages or to communicate the details of the message to my superior officers …
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