Buried Lives Read online

  Following the murder of his father, William Good was murdered by the IRA on 26 March 1921 when he came home from Dublin to attend his father’s funeral. He had been a captain in the British Army in the Great War, a soldier who had been awarded the Military Cross. He was studying Engineering in Trinity College, Dublin. As Fleming recalled: ‘A pony drawing an empty trap was seen galloping along the Bandon Road. It had been driven by John Good’s son, his body was found in a ditch a few miles back, with a bullet through the head.’

  The mother and her daughter stayed on but were told to leave Ireland by the IRA and on 3 May, they fled. ‘They were unable to take any of their furniture or belongings, which had to be left in the house and were of course promptly stolen.’31 Both father and son were buried in the Church of Ireland graveyard in nearby Clonakilty. According to a local Protestant, their graves have been desecrated quite recently; we do not know where the mother and daughter ended up. Lionel Fleming said that he heard ‘long afterwards, that Good was thought to have given the soldiers information about some “wanted” men, but I do not know what truth there was in this.’ 32

  Another son of John Good, Thomas William Good, had to flee with his family. Good farmed some 25 miles away from Timoleague in Rosemount, Farran. He applied to the Irish Grants Committee for compensation, having been forced out of the country. He stated in his claim that ‘rebels entered his house by day and by night in 1922’, to the extent that he had to supply food and lodging free of charge. His wife broke down ‘as a result of the strain of keeping an open house’. He was constantly threatened and, fearing he would be murdered, finally sold his farm and house in 1923 for £3,100, much less than the market value. He took his family to England, where he had to take out a mortgage to buy a farm for £4,600 in Westfield, Steeple, Oxfordshire.33 He was not compensated; however, as the Irish Grants Committee thought he has not lost out on the sale of his farm. Significantly, there is a note in his file that Good was a ‘strongly pro-British and on intimate terms with CF intelligence officers’.34 It seems Thomas Good had been in contact with the Crown Forces before they left in early 1922 and he was targeted after this and forced to leave. But why intimidate and terrorise him and his family well after the Crown Forces intelligence men had left?

  The worst atrocity in the 26 counties during 1921 to 1923 occurred in the Bandon Valley in west Cork, when thirteen Protestants were murdered in April 1922. Peter Hart writes at length about this mini pogrom35 and surprisingly is the first historian to research this atrocity in depth, for which he has attracted a lot of sometimes ugly and personal criticism. A highly controversial and acrimonious debate resulted, the latest development being an article in Éire-Ireland.36 The descendants of the Protestants murdered at that time were willing to tell a Canadian, Peter Hart, what happened and his reporting in detail of these murders has raised a storm of controversy. Why there has been such a controversy about their telling these stories is surely a comment on the refusal of some historians, both professional and amateur, to accept that ‘the nationalist revolution had also been a sectarian one’.37 Hart’s arguments have proved highly contentious, and his work has become the subject of a protracted and sometimes bitter dispute unique in recent Irish history-writing.’38

  Gerard Murphy has suggested that for southern Protestants, ‘suppression was the price of survival’, and as Townshend has written, this ‘rings truer than the argument of those who hold that the failure of Protestant public bodies to protest against the killings proves that they did not happen’.39 At the Protestant Convention meeting in Dublin in May 1922, a leading Dublin Protestant, Sergeant Hanna, told the convention that ‘we are a defenceless minority in Southern Ireland, and all we ask, or have ever asked, is for liberty to live our … lives … But unless this campaign of murder, exile, kidnapping, confiscation and destruction of property comes to an end in Southern Ireland an exodus of Protestants must ensue.’40

  Brian Walker has accumulated a substantial body of evidence, gathered from Church of Ireland synods in 1921–23, dealing with attacks and murders and intimidation of members of the Church of Ireland indicating religion as a factor – even a sometimes determining factor – in hostility towards Protestants. Walker has also made the point that much of the worst violence against Protestants came after the War of Independence, in the early years of the Free State.

  The Dunmanway victims included small farmers, businessmen, shopkeepers, a clergyman (wounded), a 16-year-old lad, a farm servant who was mentally handicapped and a post office clerk. It is still not clear why these murders took place. Joseph O’Neill in Blood-Dark Track suggests that there may have been old resentments about land but, as he points out, none of the men murdered were associated with the landlord class. Undoubtedly there had been tensions for some time between some Protestants and their neighbours, but this was before the Treaty. The directive issued by IRA headquarters to all brigades at the time of the Truce made it clear that there were to be no attacks on civilians. The Truce had brought hostilities to a close.

  Meda Ryan maintains that these men had been informers and spies. But Kevin Myers has pointed out in an article in the Irish Independent:

  How could members of the little Protestant communities of the Bandon valley possibly know anything about the activities of a clandestine terrorist army? Moreover, since the main attack on Protestants in Cork occurred in May 1922, nearly ten months after the Truce which ended the lunacy of the 1919–21 war, to whom and about what were the unfortunate Protestants informing? If the IRA targets were simply ‘informers’ why did no Catholics perish in the murderous purge of that terrible week? And since there was a lawful government in Dublin, by what right did the IRA go around killing anyone, never mind a dozen or so defenceless Protestant men?

  Meda Ryan’s claim that those killed had once informed on the IRA is based largely on ‘unrecorded evidence – folk memory’.41 Ryan tells us of an ‘informers’ dossier’ left behind in a workhouse in Dunmanway by K Company of the ADRIC (Black and Tans) in 1922. This dossier purports to contain the names of ‘helpful citizens’ who were spies. This list (if it existed) has not been kept and a list in the Bureau of Military Archives in Dublin, reference CD 31, gives no indication of any loyalists who were ‘helpful’. Furthermore, there is no evidence of a Loyalist Action Group in the area that, she informs us, was mentioned in the alleged document. As Bielenberg, Borgonovo and Donnelly tell us: ‘… these documents are not publicly available. Unfortunately, if they cannot be reviewed, they cannot be considered as evidence in this debate.’

  The ‘Anti-Sinn Féin Society’ explanation for the 1922 killings is also at variance with republican evidence. With the exception of Michael O’Donoghue’s Bureau of Military History statement, IRA sources do not link the 1921 Anti-Sinn Féin group with the civilians killed in 1922. No such counterintelligence justification emerged from the IRA at the time of the 1922 killings.42

  In his 1990 biography of Michael Collins, Tim Pat Coogan characterised the Bandon Valley killings as one of the worst outbreaks of sectarian homicide during this period. Peter Hart’s conclusion that the killings were sectarian therefore echoed a perception that had been circulating among historians, republicans, churchmen and unionists since April 1922.

  When Archbishop Gregg, the Archbishop of Dublin, and Bishop Miller of Cashel – both acting for the General Synod – saw Michael Collins and William Cosgrave in Dublin after these murders, Collins said ‘the murders in Belfast had an effect on the present situation but that the Belfast massacres could not be considered any justification for the outrages [notice Collins did not use the word ‘massacres’] to which the deputation had alluded’.43 However, Peter Hart has pointed out that west Cork Protestants had publicly condemned the Belfast murders.

  The debate continues. A recent contribution from the historian John Regan conjectures that Hart failed to take into account that four British soldiers had been held by the IRA during the period of the killings and executed, the implication being that t
hey may have given names of Protestant spies to their captors, two of whom were intelligence officers.44 The suggestion is that the Bandon Valley Protestants who were murdered were on the list of informers extracted from the intelligence officers. But if this is so, and there is no evidence it is, why were Catholic informers not killed? This unsubstantiated intervention by Regan is dismissed by Bielenberg, Borgonovo and Donnelly, who state: ‘Their abduction in Macroom is unlikely to have directly influenced the subsequent ten killings, other than to increase anxiety within the IRA.’45

  More tellingly, Gerard Murphy has questioned John Regan’s arguments in his blog of 23 October 2011.46 There is the difficulty of Regan not providing facts to support his suggestion that the intelligence officers gave the names of informers pre-Treaty to the IRA, and his criticisms of Peter Hart are based on speculation. In addition, the timings do not convince. The first murders of Protestants took place on 26 or 27 April, and the British officers were captured at about 4 p.m. on April 26. It is not credible that the names of Protestant spies were extracted in such a short time and that the men from the 1st Brigade who interrogated the intelligence officers could have gone on to shoot three Protestants in Dunmanway that night, not knowing the layout of the town.

  John Regan is quick to criticise Peter Hart and in the words of Gerard Murphy:

  His basic argument is that Hart’s research is flawed because he was guilty of ‘elision’, that is to say of ‘ignoring problematic evidence’ when it did not suit his thesis – his thesis according to Regan being that the Bandon valley massacre was primarily motivated by sectarianism. ‘Others said that the killing had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with spying against the IRA. Hart dismissed this,’ Regan states. Now if this is true it is a very serious allegation. If Hart ignored evidence that those shot were ‘spies’ or ‘informers’ then he would indeed be guilty of ‘elision’ and worse than that, he would be guilty of gross manipulation of data.47 But Hart did not ignore the capture of four British Army men by the IRA. He considered it had no bearing on the murders.

  The eminent historian Eric Hobsbawn believed that academic history ‘was correct in opposing generalisation insufficiently supported by fact, or backed by unreliable fact.’48 There seem to be ‘unreliable fact’ to support Regan’s speculative interpretation of events and the evidence to support Peter Hart’s interpretation of events is strong.

  Hart judged that these killings constituted ‘ethnic cleansing’, something one of his critics has denied, stating the murders were ‘controlled military violence’.49 However, the total of people targeted was twenty-eight or more,50 not thirteen, indicating an intent to murder more unarmed Protestant civilians on a large scale, arguably constituting ‘ethnic cleansing’ on a minor scale. If this was ‘controlled military violence’ then the killings had an undeniably sectarian motive: only Protestants were targeted, with the exception of retired RIC man Thomas Sullivan, who managed to escape and flee Dunmanway. However, the Protestants who were murdered and targeted posed no military threat to the anti-Treaty IRA. So it seems that it was a spontaneous outbreak of unapproved IRA revenge killings, triggered by the killing of Michael O’Neill. The evidence for spying is weak and even if soundly based, why did the IRA carry out revenge killings for alleged spying in the period 1921–22, approximately three months after Dáil Éireann had accepted the Treaty?

  Although thirteen people died, attacks with varying degrees of murderous intent were made on twenty-nine men during this period.51 The IRA attempted to murder Irish curate Revd Ralph Harbord outside the Church of Ireland rectory in Murragh, near Bandon, whilst he was visiting his father, Richard Harbord, rector of Murragh.

  He was shot on the rectory steps when his back was turned. He was lucky to live, but ill health plagued him for the rest of his life. His daughter described him as a kindly man who gave what he could to people in trouble, including his own clothes. But silence descended on the family, as on all Protestant families who had suffered. No apology was made, nor explanation given, by the IRA for this attempted murder. Harbord’s daughter wrote: ‘I don’t know why anyone would have wanted to kill my dad, he always considered he was Irish.’52

  She pointed out in a letter to the author that ‘Ralph was with his brother Charlie when the incident occurred. They were returning from a fishing trip. Charlie was on leave from the British Army. He must have seen the IRA men approaching and jumped over the railings into the basement of the rectory. He was fitter than Ralph.’ Perhaps Ralph was mistaken for Charlie or shot in frustration that their man had got away? Was it Charlie they were after? We do not know.

  What started this killing campaign? Most of the facts are now well known. Michael O’Neill, the acting commandant of the Bandon battalion, visited the house of loyalists in Ballygroman. He was accompanied by Stephen O’Neill – not a relative – and colleagues Charles O’Donoghue and Michael Hurley. The owner of the house was Thomas Hornibrook, an outspoken loyalist, who lived with his son Sam Hornibrook and Captain Herbert Woods, the nephew of Thomas Hornibrook’s son-in-law. They were in the house when the IRA party arrived at 2.30 on the morning of 26 April.

  It is not clear why they visited. But when refused entrance at the front door, they entered by a window and Michael O’Neill mounted the stairs seemingly not saying the purpose of his unwanted visit. Herbert, having had military training as part of his service in the First World War, shot O’Neill and he was taken away in the car in which he had arrived and driven back to Bandon, dying on the laneway from Ballygroman House, where a monument to him has since been erected. Later, O’Donoghue returned with two colleagues and the three men surrendered on the condition that their lives would be spared. Perhaps Woods would have been prepared to shoot it out with the Hornibrooks (if they were armed) had they not got a promise of their lives being spared. Woods admitted he had fired the shot that killed O’Neill, was beaten unconscious and one story is that he was dragged by a car until dead. The Hornibrooks were shot and buried and their graves remain undiscovered to this day.

  There is a mystery about why O’Neill went to Ballygroman. He was ‘acting OC’ of Bandon Battalion, and the Hornibrooks were in an area under the Ovens Battalion of Cork No.1 Brigade. If he was acting on brigade orders, which brigade, and with brigade leaders in Dublin, at that time, under whose orders? His own Cork 3 Brigade or Cork 1 Brigade?

  One theory is that O’Neill had come to get a magneto for his car, or borrow the Hornibrook car. Yet when he was dead, O’Donoghue was able to drive him back to Bandon in their car. Michael O’Regan of the Ovens IRA was on friendly terms with the Hornibrooks and regularly borrowed their car, so if O’Neill wanted a car, surely all he had to do was to talk to O’Regan.

  Perhaps O’Neill wanted Herbert Woods. He had worked after demobilisation in the Victoria barracks in Cork and may have had information that led to the arrest of some IRA members, but this is conjecture. If he had been wanted by the IRA, why did the Cork 1 Brigade not take action?

  The killings outside Dunmanway around Ballineen were probably conducted by the local leading members of the IRA and were copycat. It is extremely unlikely that the Dunmanway Irish Republican Police was unaware of what was happening in the town on Tuesday night, given the amount of gunfire and screaming. In Clonakilty, the local battalion commander may have directed the murders there but if not, he would have been aware of what was going on. In Skibbereen, local IRA leader Neilus Connolly supported the Treaty, so would not have ordered attacks on Protestants.

  What is known is that the killings were carried out by the IRA, but it stretches the imagination too far to attribute the murder of thirteen men and attempted murder of sixteen more to revenge for the killing of one IRA man, Michael O’Neill. Resentments had no doubt accumulated over past incidents during the War of Independence, when Protestants were opposed to IRA activities and may well have given information to the RIC, Auxiliaries and Black and Tans. This may have played a part in the sudden planned outbreak of violenc
e, unsanctioned by the IRA command of Tom Barry and Tom Hales, the commander of the West Cork Brigade. Some have suggested that old scores were being settled. Michael Collins, for example, thought that the Belfast sectarian murders had inspired a tit-for-tat response. This makes it clear that, in Collins’ opinion, the murders were inspired by sectarianism, a reaction to the murders of Catholics in Northern Ireland. Many saw these killings in this way, but the Belfast murders had nothing to do with Southern Protestants at the other end of the island. It is unlikely that the prime motivation was retaliation for the thirty-five Catholics murdered in Northern Ireland in April 1922. As mentioned earlier, the Protestant communities in west Cork distanced themselves from the sectarian murders in Northern Ireland: ‘The Protestant communities of Schull and Clonakilty publicly dissociated themselves from sectarian violence in Ulster, insisting that such tensions were absent in the South.’53 Perhaps this was glossing over the reality that the Protestant and Catholic communities in Ireland and west Cork were not without tensions on both religious and political grounds. However, ‘undoubtedly, the Northern situation heightened ethno-religious tensions in West Cork and other parts of Ireland. Nevertheless, no evidence has yet emerged that events in the North provided a primary motive for the West Cork killings.’54

  Much has been made of the orders of Barry and Hales to have guards placed on Protestant houses on their return from Dublin but, as Hart points out, ‘these statements were not issued until it was all over and had little practical significance’.55 However, John Bradfield was killed some 36 hours after Hales issued his orders. What was more telling is that those who committed the murders were not investigated nor punished by Barry and Hales, indicating they were respected for their past loyalties and opposition to Michael Collins. Whatever the reasons for not punishing them, it can hardly to be doubted that they were untouchable.