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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. Pro- and anti-Treaty Sinn Féin representatives immediately 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% . During this period according to John Borgonove, the IRA executed at least twenty-six local civilians as informers.

The killings at Ballygroman

On Wednesday April 26, a group of IRA men, led by Michael O'Neill, arrived at the house of Thomas Hornibrook at Ballygroman, near Ballincollig, seeking to seize his car. Thomas Hornibrook was in the house at the time along with Samuel Hornibrook and a Capt. Herbert Woods. All three were "committed loyalist" and "extremely anti-Republican," who were in regular contact with the Bandon Essex, supplying information on the local IRA according to Meda Ryan. Thomas Hornibrook was a former magistrate, according to his daughter Matilda Woods, Herberts wife. Matilda described herself and her husband as "staunch Loyalists." Michael O'Neill demanded a part of the engine mechanism (the magneto) that had been removed by Thomas Hornibrook to prevent such commandeering. Hornibrook refused to give over the part, and after further efforts some of the IRA party entered through a window. Herbert Woods MC, a former British Army captain, then shot O'Neill, wounding him fatally. O'Neill's companion Charlie O'Donoghue took him to a local priest who pronounced him dead. The next morning O'Donoghue left for Bandon to report the incident to their superiors, returning with four military men, meeting with the Hornibrook's and Woods who admitted to shooting O'Neill.

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 described this report in the Morning Post as 'exaggerated.' Prior to this incident on the 13 April Michael Collins who expressed concern about newspaper reports particularly the Morning Post to Desmond Fitzgerald, saying that while some of its coverage was "fair newspaper comment" that the "strain of certain parts is very objectionable."

A local jury found Woods responsible and said that O'Neill had been 'brutally murdered in the execution of his duty.' Charlie O'Donoghue and Stephen O'Neill, who were present the night of the killing both attended the inquest.Hornibrooke's house was burned some time after the incident.

Alice Hodder, a local Protestant of Crosshaven, wrote to her mother shortly afterwards of Herbert Woods that, "His aunt and uncle had been subject to a lot of persecution and feared an attack so young Woods went to stay with them. At 2:30 am armed men...broke in...Woods fired on the leader and shot him... They caught Woods, tried him by mock court martial and sentenced him to be hanged...The brothers of the murdered man then gouged out his eyes while he was alive and then hanged him" The letter by Hodder also suggested that anti-Treaty IRA were acting on a policy of the Irish Transport Union, before asking, "When will the British Government realise that they are really dealing with savages and not ordinary normal human beings?" The letter was forwarded to Lionel Curtis, Secretary of the Cabinet's Irish Committee, on which he appended the comment "this is rather obsolete.". However, Matilda Woods, later testified before the Grants committee for £5,000 compensation 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 notes Ryan when her husband disappeared and as there is no record of their bodies being located, says that statements on the manner of their death must be, "read with caution."

Killings in the Dunmanway, Ballineen and Murragh

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.

Those shot were all listed as "helpful citizens" in Auxiliaries documents found in Dunmanway. However in the case of two of those shot only surnames appeared.

Dunmanway "find"

When the Auxiliaries ‘K Company’ evacuated Dunmanway workhouses were they were based, the IRA found confidential documents and a diary they left behind which included a list of informers names. The information according to Ryan was so precise ‘only a very well informed spy system could account for some of the entries in the book.” Flor Crowley who analysed the diary was cited by Ryan who concluded that ‘”it was the work of a man who had many useful ‘contacts’ not merely in one part of the area but all over it.” The Dunmanway discovery confirmed the existence of an espionage organisation.

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.

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. 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.

Paul McMahon has reported that the British Government authorised £2,000 to re-establish intelligence in southern Ireland, especially in Cork in early April 1922. 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 battalions of troops they had kept in Cork city on May 25 .

Aftermath

According to Niall Harrington, a Pro-Treaty IRA officer at the time, in the aftermath of the attacks, over 100 Protestant families fled West Cork in fear of further sectarian attacks. Alice Hodder in the same letter cited above wrote

"For two weeks there wasn't standing room on any of the boats or mail trains leaving Cork for England. All loyalist refugees who were either fleeing in terror or had been ordered out of the country...none of the people who did these things, though they were reported as the rebel IRA faction, were ever brought to book by the Provisional government."

One Cork correspondent of Irish Times who saw the refugees go through the city noted that, "so hurried was their flight that many had neither a handbag nor an overcoat."

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.” According to Tim Pat Coogan, Arthur Griffith echoed Hales sentiments though Hales was actively engaged in armed opposition to Griffith's government at this time.

Speeking on 28 April in the Dáil Griffith, President of the Irish Provisional Government, 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.

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. 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 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 .

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.

Conclusions

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. It is his opinion 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 and found to contradict his own assertions. According to Niall Meehan in Troubles in Irish History: A 10th anniversary critique of The IRA and its Enemies. 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, at least three of which carried her inquest statement. Also cited was a 1927 Grants Committee which included the statement from Buttimer which again reported the fact that she did ‘not’ recognise anyone.

Motivation for the attack

At the time the Press including Belfast Newsletter, (1 May 1922) Irish Times (29 April 1922) and New York Times speculated that the killings at Dunmanway were in reprisal for the ongoing killings of Catholics in Belfast

However Peter Hart has written that the killing of O'Neill, in his opinion "undoubtedly sparked" the subsequent killings of Protestants. Tim Pat Coogan also suggests that, 'It started when an anti-Treaty IRA commandant, O'Neill was shot dead and over the next week the latent sectarianism of centuries of ballads and landlordism claimed ten Protestant lives' .

According to Meda Ryan, because the men were all Protestants, and the majority of the IRA were Catholic an insinuation has been made that the motive was sectarian. Peter Hart, while accepting that those killed "had been marked out as enemies," Ryan notes that Hart concludes the motive was sectarian rather than "disloyality to the Republican cause by informing on their fight for freedom activities."

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 because 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..

However Brian Murphy osb, in a review of Hart's book in The Month, a Review of Christian Though and World Affairs, noted that Hart "by maintaining that Protestants did not have sufficent knowledge to act as informers, Hart hightens the suspicion that they were killed for religious motives." In Peter Hart the issue of Sources, Murphy notes that Hart cites A Record of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1920-1921 (Jeudwine Papers, 72/8212, Imperial War Museum). Hart writes "the truth was that, as British intelligence officers recognised in the south the Protestants and those who supported the Government rarely gave much information because, except by chance, they had not got it to give." However Hart does not give the next two sentences according to Murphy which read "an exception to this was in the Bandon area where there were many Protestant farmers who gave information. Although the Intelligence Officer of the area was exceptionally experienced and although the troops were most active it proved almost impossible to protect those brave men, many of whom were murdered while almost all the remainder suffered grave material loss." Murphy concludes that "this British source confirms that the IRA killings in the Bandon area were motivated by political and not sectarian considerations. Possibly, military considerations, rather than political, would have been a more fitting way to describe the reason for the IRA response to those who informed."

According to Niall Meehan, Peter Hart ignores aspects of British Army documents which suggest an active loyalism working with the British army in the area were the killings took place. Meehan suggests that if the killings were carried out for political, military purposes or revenge it undermines Hart's suggestion of sectarianism.

Meda Ryan for her biography of Tom Barry told her that those killed had done, "untold damage to the IRA." She says that they were all connected with the "Murragh Loyalist Action Group", known locally as the "Protestant Action Group". Ryan states that this group was involved in espionage and that 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.

However, Niall Meehan also suggests Peter Hart ignored "significant publicly available" Protestant statements which "emphatically denied" there was an anti-Protestant campaign of violence. They stated that the events in West Cork were "exceptional" and these statements were carried in The Irish Times which was a unionist paper at the time. Meehan also cites a Church of Ireland cleric who writing in The Irish Times in 1994 reported Protestant support for a member Fianna Fail in 1930 because he was a member of the IRA leadership who protected potential loyalist victims in 1922 and took "decisive action to end the killings."

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. 211-213
10. Tim Pat Coogan, Pg.359 say this occured on the 25th of April.
11. Meda Ryan Pg. 212
12. Tim Pat Coogan, Pg.360
13. Meda Ryan Pg. 212
14. Tim Pat Coogan, p359
15. Meda Ryan, Pg.447
16. Meda Ryan Pg. 210-213, 447
17. Petr Hart, Pg.272-76
18. Meda Ryan, Pg.213
19. Meda Ryan, Pg.209-210
20. Meda Ryan Pg.164
21. John Borgonove, Pg.3
22. Meda Ryan, Pg. 213
23. Paul McMahon, Pg.66
24. Niall C Harrington Pg.8
25. Coogan, p359
26. Irish Times, 1 May 1922, cited in Hart, p277
27. Tim Pat Coogan, Pg. 359
28. Meda Ryan Pg. 215
29. Coogan, p359
30. Debate of 28 April, see pp.332-333.
31. Meda Ryan Pg. 215
32. Dorothy Macardle, Pg. 705
33. Meda Ryan Pg.215
34. Paul MacMahon, Pg.75
35. Meda Ryan Pg. 215
36. Meda Ryan Pg. 217
37. Peter Hart, Pg.280-284
38. Brian P Murphy osb & Niall Meehan, Pg. 24
39. Hart p277
40. New York Times May 1922
41. Peter Hart, Pg.279
42. Tim Part Coogan, p359
43. Meda Ryan, Pg.212
44. Peter Hart, Pg.279-288
45. Brian Murphy osb, The Month, a Review of Christian Though and World Affairs, September-October 1998
46. While Hart has described A Record of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1920-1921 as the "the most trustworthy" that we have, no where according to Murphy does he give an explanation why the two sentences had been omitted in The IRA and Its Enemies. Irish Political Review Vol 20 No. 7 July 2005 (ISSN 0790-7672 pages 10-11
47. Brian P Murphy osb & Niall Meehan, Pg.25
48. Meda Ryan Pg.213
49. Brian P Murphy osb & Niall Meehan, Pg. 24

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
• Brian Murphy osb, The Month, a Review of Christian Though and World Affairs, September-October 1998
• Brian Murphy osb, Irish Political Review Vol 20 No. 7 July 2005 (ISSN 0790-7672 pages 10-11

• Irish War of Independence
• War crimes in Ireland
• 1922 in Ireland
• History of County Cork
• Disappeared people