Dripsey Ambush: One of the bloodiest days of the conflict

The Dripsey ambush had been a major disaster for the IRA. From early in the morning of January 28, a large number of men had lain in wait at Godfrey’s Cross west of Dripsey to ambush passing lorries of Auxiliaries.

Their position became known in the area. One of those who heard of it was a Protestant lady, Mary Lindsay. Living in Leemount House in nearby Coachford, she was a widow, 60 years old and an ardent loyalist.

Mrs Lindsay was a personal friend of General Strickland, the military governor of Cork, and she resolved to go to Ballincollig to inform the authorities of the planned ambush.

Before she did she told Fr Ned Shinnick, the curate in Coachford, of her intentions, exhorting him to inform the ambushers saying: “You save your side and I will save mine.”

Fr Shinnick had word sent immediately to the ambushers that their positions were known and advised them to abandon their plans. A meeting of the officers was held.

Jackie O’Leary, the officer in command, favoured dispersing immediately. However, primarily at the urgings of second-in-command Frank Busteed, they decided to remain in position, believing that Fr Shinnick’s warning was nothing more than a ruse as he was well known to be opposed to the IRA’s methods.

It was a fatal mistake.

About 4.30pm, the ambushers were attacked in a pincer movement by troops from the Manchester Regiment stationed in Ballincollig. In the fighting that followed about 60 members of the flying column succeeded in escaping but 10 were taken prisoner, some of whom were wounded.

The captured men were first brought to Ballincollig and then to the Military Detention Prison in Victoria Barracks. Two weeks later, eight of them faced trial there by a military court, the other two being too badly wounded to be brought to court.

Three of the eight were acquitted and five convicted of “levying war against His Majesty”. The military court did not immediately publish the sentences it would impose but announced that it would do so at a later date.

The sixth man facing execution that morning was Seán Allen from Tipperary town. He had been arrested on January 19 at Kinross, four miles from the town. He was charged with possession of a revolver and 16 rounds of ammunition and with possession of seditious literature.

Since the proclamation of military law the previous December, possession of arms was deemed to be a capital crime. Seán Allen was transferred to Cork, tried by a military court at Victoria Barracks on February 7, convicted and sentenced to death.

Since the execution of Kevin Barry in Mountjoy Jail the previous November there had been only one other execution in Ireland. In a trial at Victoria Barracks, Cornelius Murphy of Rathmore had been convicted on January 17 of possession of a revolver and seven rounds of ammunition.

The first intimation that the public received of his sentence was when the official report from Victoria Barracks on February 2 announced that he had been executed the previous day.

There was immediate public outcry against the sentence of death passed on Seán Allen as being totally disproportionate to the offences.

With former Nationalist MP Tim Healy as his counsel, legal challenges were made to the authority of the military courts to issue the death sentence but the civilian courts declined to interfere with the decision of the military court.

That court decision was announced on Thursday February 24 and two days later, on Saturday, it became known that Seán Allen and the five Dripsey ambushers were to be executed the following Monday morning.

Frantic attempts were made to stop the executions.

A special meeting of Cork Corporation was called for Saturday afternoon. In the absence of the lord mayor, the meeting was chaired by Councillor Alfred O’Rahilly, registrar of UCC. He himself had only been released recently from Victoria Barracks having been arrested leaving a lecture in UCC the previous week.

In a highly fraught meeting, the members appealed for the condemned men to be treated as prisoners of war, saying that a state of war existed and executing prisoners would be contrary to all international rules of warfare.

Sir John Scott, a member of the minority Commercial Party on the corporation and leading unionist in the city, was clearly shocked and
distraught. The previous year he had accepted the government appointment as high sheriff of the city
when the Republican Corporation had refused to make a nomination.

He fully supported the pleas of the other members of the corporation and proposed a telegram be sent to General Macready, commander in chief of the military forces in Ireland and to General Strickland, military governor of Cork.

He appealed for politics to be set aside and that every human effort be made to save the men. After the meeting, he sent personal telegrams to the British prime minister, Lloyd George, to General Macready and to Sir Hamar Greenwood, the chief secretary for Ireland.

Church leaders also sought to intervene with both Cardinal Logue of Armagh and Bishop Coholan of Cork making direct appeals for the sentences to be commuted.

The first many knew of the impending executions was when prayers were requested for the men atMasses on the following day in churches in Cork and in many other dioceses throughout the country.

The appeals were of no avail. Neither the military nor the political authorities were in any mood for compromise or clemency.

In a final attempt to stop the executions, the IRA sought to make a direct contact with General Strickland.

Following the Dripsey ambush, the local IRA Battalion had discovered the role which Mrs Lindsay had played in alerting the RIC and the military to the planned attack.

At 1am on February 19 they attacked her house near Coachford and abducted her and her chauffeur, James Clarke.

The two captives were transported to a remote part of their area near Rylane and held there as hostages.

On the Saturday afternoon, an IRA member, Michael Ingerton, selected for his youthful appearance, cycled past Victoria Barracks. As he did so, the sentries noticed him drop a letter to the ground. When they retrieved it they found that it was addressed to General Strickland.

Inside the envelope was a letter from Mrs Lindsay warning of the serious consequences for her if the executions went ahead saying, “my life would be forfeited for theirs” and “I implore you to spare these men for my sake”. A cover letter from the IRA confirmed the threat.

General Strickland conferred with General Macready on this turn of events. They took the view that the IRA would not go so far as to harm their captive, an elderly woman, and they resolved to proceed with the executions.

Executions

By 7.30am on the Monday, the crowds outside Victoria Barracks had begun to swell. Families and relations of the men, including Seán Allen’s fiancee, had arrived, together with a large number of Cumann na mBan and other supporters.

They were faced by a whippet tank and a detachment of armed soldiers in readiness outside the barracks. An officer, with a revolver in his belt, was in charge of the party which cut off the Rathmore Road leading to the prison in which the six men were being held.

No one was allowed pass the tank and a number of young men who approached within a few yards were stopped by the officer and subjected to a thorough search.

One young girl had a picture of the Sacred Heart which she pinned to the barrack wall.

At 7.40am, Eilís MacCurtain, widow of the late Lord Mayor, Tomás MacCurtain, arrived. She carried with her a large statue of the Sacred Heart.

The statue was placed on a chair to create a makeshift altar and placed in front of the tank and Cumann na mBan members gathered around it with lighted candles.

Mrs MacCurtain, a stately dignified figure in a dark seal skin coat, led the recitation in Irish of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary and was answered in low vibrant tones.

As 8am approached silence descended on the crowd. The women held their lighted candles aloft and the men doffed their hats and went bareheaded.

A dull muffled volley from inside the barracks broke the silence and all dropped to their knees. The long silence that followed was broken by the voice of Mrs MacCurtain reciting the Litany of the Dead.

Praying continued for about 10 minutes and the crowd began to break into groups.

William Allen, father of Seán Allen, was heard to say: “I suppose they are all gone. We heard the volley.”

A few minutes later, another volley resounded from inside the barracks and the realisation came that the prisoners were being shot in groups.

There was a further volley at 8.30am indicating that the six men had been shot in pairs at 15-minute intervals.

Mrs Allen sat quietly crying in a chair surrounded by friends. Other mothers spoke of their sons — Mrs O’Brien of Thomas, who was born in Glanmire and worked in Dripsey Woollen Mills; Mrs O’Mahony, of Patrick, who had been educated in Presentation College and who had come home to work on the farm when his father died.

Inside the prison, the six men had been ministered to by two priests from the North Cathedral, Canon Michael O’Sullivan and Fr Willie O’Brien, who was also the chaplain to the prison.

Early that morning, Mass had been celebrated in one of the cells. All of the men were present and received Holy Communion. Afterwards they recited the Rosary and prayed the Stations of the Cross.

Shortly before 8am, the military guard appeared and two prisoners were informed that they were selected to be first to be brought to their executions.

Canon O’Sullivan later said they rose to their feet and took leave of their companions and blessed each other. Then, accompanied by the two priests and surrounded by the guard, they were marched slowly into the barracks where the executions by the firing squad took place.

When the shots were fired and the bodies fell to the ground, the priests moved to the prone figures and administered Extreme Unction.

The priests then returned to the cells to accompany the next two prisoners to their executions.

They did the same again 15 minutes later with the remaining two men.

At the conclusion of executions, the two priests conducted a full burial service.

Outside the prison,
relatives wrote a letter claiming the remains of the deceased men and at 8.50am entered the barracks to present the letter.

They were told they would have to wait for an hour to see the relevant officer. When they returned at the appointed time, they were informed that the bodies had already been removed.

Meanwhile, William Allen sent a telegram to General Strickland seeking the body of his son. He received back a telegram saying: “Regret exceptional treatment cannot be accorded in this case. Body has been disposed of in accordance with usual custom.”

The wire was signed “General”.

At 9.15am, two military ambulances, closed and sealed, and containing the six bodies, had left the barracks accompanied by two lorries of armed troops and an armoured car.

The convoy made its way through the city to the County Gaol on the Western Road where the six men were buried in a communal grave in the grounds.

There were widespread protestations at the executions. Newspaper editorials castigated the government, warning the prospects for peace had been setback.

The Bishop of Cork, Dr Coholan, lamented that his appeal for clemency had been ignored and spoke of misgovernment and of driving men into the ranks of the IRA.

The Archbishop of Dublin issued a press statement branding the executions as barbarous and the manner in which they had been carried out at intervals of a quarter of an hour as a “refinement of cruelty” to the men who had to wait to face the firing squad.

Reprisals

The response of the Cork IRA was swift and ruthless.

Tom Crofts, the officer in command of the IRA in the city, had witnessed the passage of the ambulance convoy through the city. He later said his immediate response was to seek a Lewis gun and open fire on the troops — but more considered counsels prevailed.

Orders were issued to the two city battalions, the 1st Battalion on the north side and the 2nd Battalion on the south side, to mobilise all the Cork companies for that evening. Their instructions were to organise small armed patrols in the city centre and suburbs and to shoot any uniformed soldiers or police they met, irrespective of whether they were armed or unarmed.

Shooting broke out almost simultaneously at 7pm in many city centre streets and in the suburbs.

Volleys of shots rang out in different parts of Patrick Street, which had been assigned to A Company of the 2nd Battalion, the UCC company. It was just dusk and the flashes of the guns were plainly visible.

In panic, people rushed wildly seeking shelter in shops, doorways and fleeing down side streets. The street very quickly cleared.

One of the first to be shot was 30-year-old Private Thomas Wise. A native of Cork from the Blarney Street area, he was home visiting his family while on furlough from the Royal Army Service Corps where he was a driver.

He was shot in the middle of Patrick Street and ran a short distance towards the ruins of Cash’s department store, recently destroyed in the Burning of Cork. Bleeding profusely, he collapsed there.

Ambulances were called when the firing died down and he was brought to the Mercy Hospital but died soon after he arrived.

Laurence Cahill, a civilian living in Kyrl Street, had been standing near Thomas Wise and he too was shot and severely wounded and was brought to the North Infirmary.

Near the Patrick’s Bridge end of the street, Privates Gill and Bettesworth, both of the Second Hampshire Regiment, were in a music shop buying a mouth organ. Two men followed them in and ordered them out at gun point.

Outside, they were confronted by four gunmen who fired at them, killing William Gill. The other soldier was wounded but survived.

Further along the street, two soldiers from the South Staffordshire Regiment, Privates Price and Rollason were fired at from behind.

Private Price was shot in the arm and back and fell to the ground, feigning death. As he lay there he was shot again in the head.

Both soldiers survived and were brought off the street into Lesters Chemists. Another wounded soldier was treated in Burke’s Chemists near the junction of Patrick’s Street and the Grand Parade.

In the north east of the city, A Company of the 1st Battalion mobilised 12 men. With Victoria Barracks in their area, they sought out off-duty soldiers in the vicinity, particularly in Ballyvolane and Hayes’s Lane.

At the edge of the city near St Joseph’s Church, Hayes’s Lane linked the Mayfield Road and the Middle Glanmire Road. Almost a half mile long, with few houses, tree lined at the Mayfield Road side and with high estate walls of Montenotte at the other side, it was a favoured walk of courting couples.

Just after 8pm that evening, Lenten Devotions were in progress in St Joseph’s Church with the elderly Fr Tierney in the pulpit leading the Rosary.

Two latecomers entered and made their way up the church and handed Fr Tierney a note. The note informed him that they had found the body of a soldier in Hayes’s Lane near St Joseph’s.

Fr Tierney continued and finished the Rosary and then told his congregation that he would not proceed with the Benediction. He advised them to go home immediately as there was trouble in the city.

Fr Tierney left the church with the two men and went to the RIC Barracks in Empress Place on Summer Hill to ask the police to telephone for an ambulance. He then returned with one of them to Hayes’s Lane.

It took some hours and more phone calls before the body was collected. All of the ambulances in the city were busy that night and Fr Tierney didn’t get home until close to midnight.

The dead soldier was Signalman George Bowden. 

Earlier that evening at about 6.30pm he had met his girlfriend of three months and walked to Hayes’s Lane. Two men approached them from up the lane creeping along the wall until they were quite close and then sprang at the couple.

Holding pistols about a foot from Signalman Bowden they both fired simultaneously at him. He fell to the ground crying out his girlfriend’s name as he did so. Wounded in the leg, his girlfriend ran up the lane to get help. As she did so she heard more shots.

There were in fact two soldiers killed in Hayes’s Lane that night, one at either end.

At about 6.40pm, Bandsman Bert Whitear had met his girlfriend on Summer Hill. They walked to St Lukes and the Middle Glanmire Road and were a few yards into the lane when they were confronted by two men with revolvers. They told the girlfriend to move away and then shot Bandsman Whitear.

His girlfriend fled and sometime later returned with other people to assist her. They found pools of blood on the ground and a man from a nearby private house came out and told them that they had taken Bandsman Whitear into the house.

He was lying on the floor in the house supported by pillows, badly wounded and barely conscious. He died soon afterwards.

Shooting across the city

On the south side of the city, other soldiers were shot and killed. At about 7pm, Lance Corporal John Beattie and his girlfriend were walking on Infirmary Road near the Blind Asylum, eating chocolates which they had just purchased in a shop in Anglesea Street.

Members of C Company of the 2nd Battalion on patrol in the area, encountered the couple as they walked along and fired five shots at Lance Corporal Beattie before fleeing the scene.

Another soldier and some civilians who were close by brought him into the nearby Victoria Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

About an hour later, Corporal Leonard Hodnett was shot on the Douglas Road near the junction with the Cross Douglas Road. He was with his fiancee who was living nearby.

Members of her family had advised him to change out of his uniform and into civilian clothes because they had heard rumours during the day that soldiers were to be attacked that night. He made light of the advice and left the house with his fiancee at 8.15pm.

They had only gone a short distance when they were attacked by a group of men who said they had been waiting for him. His fiancee was forcibly pulled away and Corporal Hodnett shot and then shot again as he lay on the ground.

He died about an hour later in a nearby doctor’s house.

There was also shooting in many other parts of the city including Barrack Street, Blarney Street, MacCurtain Street, Military Road and Western Road and shooting flared up again for a short time later in the night in city centre streets.

Initially there was considerable confusion about the number killed and wounded.

The official curfew report signed by Major Bernard Montgomery (later General Montgomery in the Second World War) said that “the city had been quiet”.

Later reports spoke of six dead and 11 wounded and later again of six dead and six wounded.

Soldiers who returned to the barracks having been out on passes for the evening were incensed by what had happened.

A large group of them tried to attack “The Cages”, compounds within the barracks in which a large number of IRA prisoners we held. They were only prevented from doing so by the strong and armed intervention of the military police.

Another prisoner in the Military Hospital was not so fortunate. Lying in a bed in a hospital ward he was set upon and subjected to a severe beating with revolver butts and left seriously injured.

But the killing for the day was not yet over.

Glanmire Railway Station was well known to military intelligence as a place where a large number of the employees were active members and supporters of the IRA. Just before midnight three armed and heavily disguised men entered the station.

Charles Daly from the Lough Road and a member of E Company of the 2nd Battalion was on duty in the Parcels Office. The station was very quiet at that hour of the night.

While another employee was held up, Charles Daly was forced out of the office at gunpoint and brought to the mouth of the tunnel. Moments later shots rang out which appear to have killed him instantly, although
it was some hours before anyone dared to enter the tunnel to see what had happened.

The following week, on March 9, the trial took place in Victoria Barracks of Denis Murphy who had also been captured at the Dripsey ambush but who had been too badly injured to stand trial until then. He too was convicted and sentenced to death but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.

Jim Barrett, also captured and severely wounded at Dripsey, and probably the man beaten in bed in the Military Hospital, died in the hospital on March 22.

Mrs Lindsay and James Clarke had continued to be held captive in the 6th Battalion area and were moved to a house in Donoughmore. After the trial of Denis Murphy they were brought from the house to the remote mountainous area of Annagannihy near Nadd.

There they were both shot and buried in the same grave in a bog. Their bodies were never recovered.

Around the same time, Mrs Lindsay’s house, Leemount in Coachford, was burned down.

Many years later, with Alfred O’Rahilly now president of the college, UCC acquired the County Gaol site which adjoined its campus. In doing so it also acquired the Republican Grave Plot in which the six men, along with others, were interred.

A Memorial Committee had been established under the chairmanship of Tom Crofts who was the officer in charge of the IRA in the city at the time of the executions, to provide a suitable monument to be erected over the graves.

Éamon de Valera was invited to unveil the monument at a ceremony on July 11, 1948. An estimated 10,000 people attended the unveiling. The ceremony was preceded by a march from the Grand Parade of IRA veterans wearing their service medals, together with five bands and headed by Mr de Valera.

The graves and the monument were formally handed to the care of UCC and in accepting them, an emotional Alfred O’Rahilly recalled his own imprisonment and of hearing the firing squads carrying out the executions.

To him they were one of the treasured possessions of the college.