28 November 1920
In Co. Cork the Kilmichael Ambush took place. After Bloody Sunday, Kilmichael may be the war’s second best known event. The IRA were led by Tom Barry, who seemed to be out to make himself famous. The event is still somewhat controversial, with historians sniping at each other in the letter pages of newspapers, allegations being made made that the Auxiliaries surrendered and then resumed firing, that writers made up interviews with participants and that the IRA killed their prisoners after the battle.
The IRA Flying Column was mobilised on the day if Bloody Sunday and spent the week preparing for the ambush. Barry’s flying column numbered between 36 and 40 men armed with an assortment of weapons; Lee Enfield rifles, Ross rifles, revolvers, shotguns and some grenades. They had about 35 rounds of ammunition per man. Most of the IRA Volunteers wore civilian clothes, but some, like Barry himself, wore an Irish Volunteer tunic.
C Company Auxiliary Division RIC had been based at Macroom Castle since early September. As Auxiliaries went, they don’t seem to have been all that bad and had only killed the one man in that length of time. Their patrol commanders had fallen into the fatal flaw of using the set routes and times for their patrols.
Map of the Kilmichael Ambush
Barry had chosen an ambush site on the Macroom to Dunmanway road about 1.5 miles south of the village of Kilmichael, anticipating three lorries in the convoy. In fact two turned up and the site that was chosen was on a bend in the road so that the first lorry would be out of site of the following vehicles when the attack began. The ambushers moved into position before dawn on Sunday 28th November. It was a long cold wait until the Auxiliaries turned up at 4.30 in the evening. Barry deployed his men as shown in the map above.
Barry was standing by the side of the road. Some accounts said that he was wearing British army uniform, Barry himself said a Volunteer tunic. In the dusk the two were probably indistinguishable anyway. He presumably flagged down the lorry and ten initiated the ambush by throwing a grenade into the cab, killing the driver. The riflemen in the command post and in 1 Section opened fire at point blank range and all nine Auxiliaries in the first lorry were killed within minutes.
Photograph of part of the ambush site taken in the 1920s
The area where 2 Section was located at the rocky outcrop beside the road. The Auxiliaries second lorry stopped here and this is where the IRA’s three fatalities occurred. 3 Section was located near the camera’s position.
At 2 Section’s position the firing was again at close range. One IRA man was probably killed and at least one wounded here during the initial firefight. It is usually claimed that Mick McCarthy was killed after the "false surrender" Jack Hennessy who received a scalp wound but survived left a witness statement in which he recalled McCarthy being killed early on. After the occupants of the first lorry were dealt with, Barry had moved up from the Command Post with the three riflemen he had there to engage the second lorry. Here he later claimed to have witnessed the false surrender. The story was that an Auxiliary on the road threw down his rifle and called out that he was surrendering. Some men broke cover to take the surrender whereupon the Auxiliary either took back up his rifle or drew his revolver and resumed firing. Three men were hit in this burst of firing- John Lordan, Jim Sullivan and Pat Deasy. Sullivan's and Deasy’s wounds proved fatal. According to Barry he gave the order to continue firing until all the Auxiliaries were dead. The wounded, according to Hennessy’s witness statement, were finished off with bayonets and rifle butts.
A the end of the ambush 16 Auxiliaries were dead, along with three IRA men. One Auxiliary, Cadet HF Forde, was wounded, left for dead but survived. It is frequently said that Forde was left with permanent brain damage but this appears to be untrue. He appears to have married and had a couple of children. Forde lived until 1941 and died in Rhodesia.
Cadet Cecil Guthrie had escaped and was captured by an IRA unit while travelling on foot cross country back to Macroom. Guthrie was executed two days later and his body buried in a bog. In 1926 locals had him exhumed and he is interred in Inchegeela Churchyard not far from Kilmichael. Guthrie joined the RIC on 19th August 1920, Auxiliary no. 294. He had been a Lieutenant in the RAF, and was a native of Fyfe. He was the only one of the Kilmichael Auxiliaries to have been married and his wife was living in Macroom at the time of his death.
The Auxiliaries KIA were;
District Inspector Francis Crake MC, 27. joined the RIC 14th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 205. Ex Captain, Hampshire Regiment, and a native of Northumberland. Home address: 22 Westgate Road, Newcastle on Tyne. Buried at Elswick, Newcastle on Tyne.
T/Cadet William Barnes DFC, 26. joined the RIC 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 269. Ex Lieut. RAF, and a native of Surrey. Home address: 47 Glebe Road, Sutton, Surrey. Buried at Bexhill Churchyard, Sutton
T/Cadet Cyril Bayley, 22. joined the RIC 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 328. Ex Lieut. RAF, and a native of Lancashire. Home address: 24, Reynard Road, Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.
T/Cadet Leonard Bradshaw, 22. joined the RIC 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 297. Ex Lieut. Royal Field Artillery, and a native of Lancashire. Home address: 24 , Larkhill Terrace, Blackburn.
T/Cadet James Gleave DFC, 21. joined the RIC 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 266. Ex Lieut. RAF, and a native of Worcester. Home address: Crundale near Canterbury.
T/Cadet Philip Graham, 31. joined the RIC 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 274. Ex Captain, Northumberland Fusiliers. Home address: 14 Wooton Road, Abingdon, Berkshire. Buried at Abingdon.
T/Cadet William Hooper-Jones, 24. Auxiliary No. 413. Ex Lieut. Northumberland Fusiliers, and a native of Hampshire. Buried at Holcombe near Bury.
T/Cadet Frederick Hugo OBE MC, 40. joined the RIC on 16 November 1920, Auxiliary No. 820. Ex Major Royal Engineers & Indian Army, and a native of London. Home address: Grove House, Southgate. Buried at Southgate.
T/Cadet Albert Jones, 33. joined the RIC on 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 268. Ex 2nd Lieut Shropshire Regiment, and a native of Northamptonshire. Home address: 56 Swindon Road, Wroughton, Wiltshire.
T/Cadet Ernest Lucas, 31. joined the RIC on 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 292. Ex 2nd Lieut Royal Sussex Regiment, and a native of Sussex. Home address: 42 Fox Street, Shaldon, Tidworth
T/Cadet William Andre Pallister, 25. joined the RIC 22 October 1920, Auxiliary No. 822. Ex Captain, West Yorkshire Regiment, and a native of Yorkshire. Home address: 71 Primrose Avenue, Sheffield. Buried at Burngreave Cemetery, Sheffield.
T/Cadet Henry Oliver Pearson, 21. joined the RIC 31st May 1920 as a Defence of Barracks Sergeant, Auxiliary No. 835. Ex Lieut. Yorkshire Regiment, and a native of Co Armagh.
T/Cadet Frank Taylor, 22. joined the RIC 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 331; Ex Lieut. RAF, and was a native of Kent. Home address: 21 Seaview Road, Gillingham, Kent.
T/Cadet Christopher Herbert Wainwright, 36. joined the RIC 18th August 1920, Auxiliary No. 330. Ex Capt Royal Dublin Fusiliers and Royal Irish Rifles. He had 10 years army service, and was a native of Lancashire. Home address: 13 Brunswick Road, Gravesend.
T/Cadet Benjamin Webster, 30. joined the RIC 16th November 1920, Auxiliary No. 832. Ex Lieut. Black Watch, and was a native of Lanark. Home address: 300 Langside Road, Crosshill, Glasgow.
Constable Arthur Poole, 21. joined the RIC 24th September 1920, ex Motor Fitter RAF, and was a native of London. Home address: Muriel Street, Kings Cross, London. Buried on 06.12.1920 at Kensal Rise Cemetery, London. He and four brothers came through the war unscathed. You’ll notice from his rank that Poole wasn’t an Auxiliary but a Black and Tan.
IRA Casualties
Commandant Michael McCarthy Vice OC 3rd Bn, Cork No 3 Bde. McCarthy was from Dunmanway, aged 25. He had been released from Wormwood Scrubs earlier in the year while on hunger strike.
Lieutenant James O’Sullivan, 23, a farmer from Kilmichael and a member of Kilmeen Coy, Cork No 3 Bde
Volunteer Patrick Deasy, aged 16, from Bandon. 1st Bn, Cork No 3 Bde.
All three are buried in Castletownkinneigh Cemetery, Co. Cork.
C Company ADRIC
Kilmichael Ambush
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