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The Dunmanway Massacre refers to the killings of ten Protestant civilians, and the disappearance of another three, by maverick elements of the Irish Republican Army, in and around Dunmanway, County Cork between 26 April and 28 April, 1922, apparently triggered by the killing of a member of the IRA, Michael O'Neill, Acting Officer Commanding of the Bandon Battalion by one of those subsequently killed. The IRA and all pro- and anti-Treaty Sinn Féin representatives, immediately and vociferously condemned the killings.

Background

The killings took place after the acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and before the outbreak of the Irish Civil War in June 1922. During this period, the IRA was left in effective control over much of Ireland due to the withdrawal of British troops and the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) to barracks and the absence of any Irish authority to fill the power vacuum. In addition the Irish republican movement was split over the Treaty. In March 1922, much of the IRA had repudiated the authority of the Dail on the basis that it had disestablished the Irish Republic declared in 1919. In this situation, several IRA units continued attacks in spite of the truce that came into force on 11 July 1921. Between December 1921 and February of the next year, there were 80 recorded attacks by the IRA on the soon to be disbanded RIC, leaving 12 dead. Between January and June, twenty three RIC men and eight British soldiers would be killed .

West Cork, where the killings took place had been one of the most violent parts of Ireland during the 1919-1921 conflict. It contained a strong IRA Brigade, (Third Cork Brigade) and also a sizable Protestant population - roughly 16%, some of whom had been loyalists during the conflict. . During this period the IRA executed at least twenty-six local civilians for spying.

The killings

At two AM on April 26, a group of IRA men, led by Michael O'Neill, arrived at the house of Thomas Hornibrook, a Protestant, former magistrate and "outspoken loyalist", seeking to seize his car. They demanded a part of the engine mechanism that had been removed, presumably to prevent such commandeering. Hornibrook refused, after further efforts some of the IRA party entered through a window. There was a dispute in the hall of the Hornibrook's home and Herbert Woods MC, a former British Army captain, shot O'Neill, wounding him fatally. O'Neill's companions took him to a local priest before he died and then left for Bandon to report the incident to their superiors. A local jury found Woods responsible and said that O'Neill had been 'brutally murdered in the execution of his duty.'

Some days later Capt Woods, Thomas Hornibrook and his son Samuel went missing, and in time were presumed killed. The Morning Post newspaper reported that, 'about 100' IRA men returned from Bandon with O'Neill's comrades and surrounded the house. It reported that a shootout then ensued until the Hornibrookes and Woods ran out of ammunition and surrendered. Historian Meda Ryan has concluded that this report in the Morning Post was 'exaggerated.' Matilda Woods, Capt Woods wife, later testified to a compensation hearing in 1927 that her husband was drawn and quartered before being killed and that the Hornibrookes were taken to a remote location, forced to dig their own graves and then shot dead . Matilda Woods was not in Ireland when her husband diappeared and Meda Ryan suggests that her statement must be, "read with caution" and that, 'definite records are not available to confirm their deaths'. The Hornibrooke's house was burned some time after the incident.

The incident at the Hornibrookes' house was the beginning of three days of bloodshed in west Cork.

Over the next two days ten Protestant men were shot and killed in the Dunmanway, Ballineen and Murragh area. In Dunmanway on the 27th April, Francis Fitzmaurice a solicitor and land agent was shot dead along with David Gray a chemist, and James Buttimer a retired draper, in the doorways of their homes on the Main St. in Dunmanway and a number of other Protestants in Dunmanway were attacked. In the Ballinee area. Also on the 27 April, James Bradfield, a post office official, was shot dead. Revd Ralph Harbord was shot and killed, he was the son of the Revd Richard C. M. Harbord from the Murragh area.

Next evening, two men Robert Howe and John Chinnery were shot dead at their farms in Ballaghanure, east of Dunmanway. In the nearby village of Ballineen, a 16 year-old, Alexander McKinley was shot dead. In a house in Caher (to the west of Ballineen) John Buttimer and Jim Greenfield were shot dead. Ten miles away, Robert Nagle was shot and killed in his home in MacCurtain Hill in Clonakilty. Other houses in Clonakilty were raided.The following night (28 April), John Bradfield was shot dead in his home in Killowen, east of Murragh and other Protestant homes were raided.

Aftermath

In the aftermath of the attacks, over 100 Protestant families fled West Cork in fear of further sectarian attacks.

Commandant of O’Neill’s Brigade (3rd Cork), Tom Hales, ordered all arms be brought under control while issuing a statement promising “all citizens in this area, irrespective of creed or class, every protection within my power.”

The perpetrators of the massacre were never identified or prosecuted. It is not clear who ordered the attack or carried it out. Peter Hart has written that the killers were identified by eyewitnesses as local IRA men. He concludes that from two to five separate groups must have done the killing, due to the geographic dispersal of the attacks. He says that they were "acting on their own initiative", but that the IRA garrison in Dunmanway failed to stop them. However Hart's sources have been challenged. . Hart reported Clarina Buttimer saying she ‘seems to have recognised’ one of the attackers of her husband, yet in her inquest statement she states that she did ‘not’ recognise anyone. Hart cited newspaper reports of the killing on a number of dates and a 1927 Grants Committee statement from Clarina Buttimer. The 1927 Grants Committee cited by Hart fails to support his contention and at least three newspaper reports all cited Clarina Buttimer inquest statement.

Local IRA commanders, Tom Barry, Liam Deasy and Seán Moylan, ordered that armed guards be put on the homes of other known former loyalists to prevent further violence. Tom Barry, who had returned immediately from Dublin on hearing of the killings, ensured that some who attempted to take advantage of the situation by stealing livestock owned by Protestants were firmly discouraged. For this he earned a friendship and respect of Protestant families in the area lasting until his death in 1980.

Motivation for the attack

At the time the it was speculated that the killings at Dunmanway were in reprisal for the ongoing killings of Catholics in Belfast Historian Peter Hart has written that the killing of O'Neill, in his opinion "undoubtedly sparked" the subsequent killings of Protestants.

Another explanation for the massacre was that those killed had been British spies during the War of Independence. Dunmanway had been garrisoned during the 1919–1921 conflict by a company of the Auxiliary Division. When they evacuated their barracks, situated in the old workhouse, in early 1922, the IRA had discovered intelligence documents that were left behind, including a list of local loyalist activists and informers.The Auxiliaries' files showed that some Protestants in Dunmanway had formed a group known as the "Loyalist Action Group" or "Protestant Action Group", affiliated to the Anti-Sinn Féin League and the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland. The group was suspected of passing information to the British forces during the fighting. Those killed in the massacre were all named as formerly active loyalists in the Auxiliary intelligence documents. These included a ' Black and Tan Diary' - reproduced with informers' names excised in The Southern Star newspaper, from October 23 to November 27, 1971, in consecutive editions. Photographs of the diary were also published in The Southern Star, which published them again with another article on the intelligence haul in its ' Centenary Supplement ' in 1989.

A possible reason for the sudden attack on informers and loyalists in April 1922 was the attempted re-activation of British intelligence in the area. In early April, the British government authorised £2,000 to re-establish intelligence in southern Ireland, especially in Cork. On April 26, the same day as the raid on Hornibrooke's house, three British intelligence officers (Lts Hendy, Drove and Henderson) along with a driver, drove to Macroom with the intention of gathering intelligence in west Cork and entered an inn. There they were drugged and taken prisoner by IRA men, then taken to Macroom Castle where they were held for four days and then shot and dumped in a 'lonely bog.' The raid on the Hornibrooke's house took place on the night of the 26th, several hours after the abduction of the British officers. The subsequent killings of alleged informers occurred while the officers were being held and interrogated. The British evacuated the remaining two battallions of troops they had kept in Cork city on May 25 .

That those killed were informers is disputed by Peter Hart, who claims that the Protestant community had been "notably reticent" about giving information to Crown forces during the conflict and of the Loyalist Action Group, that, "there is absolutely no evidence that such a conspiracy existed". He concluded, "these men were shot becuase they were Protestants. No Catholic Free Staters landlords or spies were shot or even shot at". Moreover, he suggests, any useful information given by the dead men to the British forces would have been given before the Truce signed in July 1921, seven months earlier..

Locals interviewed by Meda Ryan for her biography of Tom Barry told her that those killed had done, "untold damage to the IRA." They were all connected with the "Murragh Loyalist Action Group", known locally as the "Protestant Action Group". It was involved in espionage and local republicans suspected them of involvement in the killing of the two Coffey brothers, republican activists killed in Enniskeane in February 1921. However in two cases, the brother and son of those named were killed. In their case, exceptionally, the British Auxiliary intelligence document had listed surnames only, without first names.

There was no provision in the Truce, nor any instruction from any Irish authority after it, that such former spies were to be killed. The IRA's Third Cork Brigade had killed 15 informers during the 1919-1921 conflict, of whom nine were Catholics and six Protestants, but the April 1922 killings were not a sanctioned IRA operation. . However, John Borgonove has noted that during this period the IRA executed at least twenty-six local civilians for spying.

Condemnation

The Dunmanway massacre was condemned on 28 April in the Dáil by Arthur Griffith, President of the Irish Provisional Government, who stated:

Events, such as the terrible murders at Dunmanway ..., require the exercise of the utmost strength and authority of Dáil Éireann. Dáil Éireann, so far as its powers extend, will uphold, to the fullest extent, the protection of life and property of all classes and sections of the community. It does not know and cannot know, as a National Government, any distinction of class or creed. In its name, I express the horror of the Irish nation at the Dunmanway murders.

There was little the Provisonal government could do about the killings however, as most of Munster was under the control of the Anti-Treaty IRA.

Speaking immediately afterwards Seán T. O'Kelly said he wished to associate the "anti-treaty side" in the Dáil with Griffith's sentiments. Speaking in Mullingar on April 30th, the Anti-Treaty leader Éamon de Valera also condemned the killings. The condemnation of the nationalist movement's leaders indicates that the killings were planned and committed locally on an ad-hoc basis without orders from a higher authority. A general convention of Irish Protestant Churches in Dublin released a statement saying that:

"Apart from this incident, hostility to Protestants by reason of their religion, has been almost, if not wholly unknown, in the 26 counties in which they are a minority."

However, the incident certainly provoked long-held fears on the part of Protestant loyalists in southern Ireland. A deputation of Irish loyalists that met Winston Churchill in May 1922 told him that there was, "nothing to prevent the peasants expropriating every last Protestant loyalist" and that they feared a repeat of the massacres of Protestants that had suffered in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and the 1798 Rebellion .

Notes

1. Tim Pat Coogan, Pg. 359
2. Meda Ryan Pg.212
3. Tim Pat Coogan, Pg.359
4. Meda Ryan Pg. 211-212
5. Niall C Harrington, Pg. 8
6. Paul MacMahon, Pg.71
7. Peter Hart, Pg.289
8. John Borgonove, Pg.3
9. Meda Ryan Pg. 211-212
10. Tim Pat Coogan, Pg.359
11. Meda Ryan, Pg.329
12. Meda Ryan Pg. 212
13. Meda Ryan Pg. 210-213, 447
14. Petr Hart, Pg.272-76
15. Niall C Harrington Pg.8
16. Tim Pat Coogan, Pg. 359
17. Meda Ryan Pg. 215
18. Peter Hart, Pg.280-284
19. Niall Meehan in Troubles in Irish History: A 10th anniversary critique of The IRA and its Enemies
20. Brian P Murphy osb & Niall Meehan, Pg. 24
21. Meda Ryan Pg. 215
22. Meda Ryan Pg. 217
23. New York Times May 1922
24. Peter Hart, Pg.279
25. Meda Ryan, Pg. 213
26. Paul McMahon, Pg.66
27. Peter Hart, Pg.279-288
28. Meda Ryan Pg.213
29. Meda Ryan Pg.164
30. John Borgonove, Pg.3
31. Debate of 28 April, see pp.332-333.
32. Meda Ryan Pg. 215
33. Dorothy Macardle, Pg. 705
34. Meda Ryan Pg.215
35. Paul MacMahon, Pg.75

References

• Niall C Harrington, Kerry Landing, August 1922: An Episode of the Civil War, Anvil Books, 1992:8. ISBN 0947962700
• Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins, Arrow Books (1991), ISBN 9780099685807
• Meda Ryan, Tom Barry, IRA Freedom Fighter, Mercier, 2005 (paper back edition), ISBN 1 85635 480 6
• Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic, 1999
• Peter Hart, The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923, Oxford University Press (1999), ISBN 0198208065
• Paul McMahon, British Spies and Irish Rebels - British Intelligence and Ireland 1916-1945, (Boydell 2008), ISBN

978-1-84383-376-5

• John Borgonove, Spies, Informers and the 'Anti-Sinn Féin Society,' Irish Academic Press (2007), ISBN 0 7165 2833 9
• Brian P Murphy osb and Niall Meehan, Troubles in Irish History: A 10th anniversary critique of The IRA and its Enemies, Aubane Historical Society (2008), ISBN 978 1 903497 46 3

• Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from January 2009
• Irish War of Independence
• War crimes in Ireland
• 1922 in Ireland
• History of County Cork
• Disappeared people