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THERE ARE FEW as authoritative voices on the Irish War of Independence as Florence O’Donoghue. Chief of Intelligence for Cork Brigade No. 1 of the Irish Republican Army, he later devoted himself as a historian to the task of compiling the history of that tumultuous period.
In his story of the Cork City fire on the night of December 11, 1920, he would correctly define the destruction of a significant part of the Cork core as “the most colossal act of vandalism committed in the entire period of the national struggle” .
By the closing weeks of 1920, a policy of retaliation – first officially denied and then sanctioned by the state – was firmly in place in Ireland. In the House of Commons, a young MP named Oswald Mosley, later destined for notoriety as the leader of the British Union of Fascists, crossed the room in protest, insisting that “all the rules of good military conduct” had been abandoned. In Ireland.
Politicians fought to defend the seemingly random nature of retaliation, and Sir Hamar Greenwood, Ireland’s Chief Secretary, insisted that rural dairies burned by the Crown Forces “were not always innocent institutions, allied with daily maids. .. Sometimes they are the headquarters of the murderers. “
However, the burning of rural dairies, or even the rampant destruction of factories and houses in Balbriggan in September, would be largely overshadowed by the flames engulfing Cork, leaving behind some £ 3 million in damage (in estimates by 1920), and the destruction of dozens of commercial properties and important civic buildings.
The Road to Retaliation: Kilmichael and Dillon’s Cross
Less than fifteen days before the Cork City Fire, the IRA had inflicted a significant military defeat on the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Police, or the “Auxiliaries”, at Kilmichael in rural West Cork.
Stephen O’Neill, a young participant in the ambush, later recounted the scene of chaos, as “the weapons and ammunition, so precious to us, were carefully collected. The trucks were burned; seventeen Helpers lay dead on the road.
When we were withdrawing, the rain, which had been threatening all day, fell in torrents ”. The events that unfolded on a rainy day in rural Cork sent a chilling message to Westminster, where a new fear of the IRA’s abilities led to barriers being erected at both ends of Downing Street and the observation gallery of Westminster will be closed to the public. .
What had been condemned as a ‘killer gang’ by the prime minister was increasingly proving its capabilities both in urban settings (like the Bloody Sunday morning killings) and in rural terrain.
Around 8 p.m. on December 11, an IRA ambush of two Auxies trucks at Dillon’s Cross, less than a kilometer from Victoria Barracks, is widely seen as the catalyst for the violent destruction of parts of the city that night.
Tom Barry, IRA Flying Column leader who led the Kilmichael Ambush.
One auxiliary was fatally injured in the attack, while a dozen more were injured. When the IRA raiding party managed to escape, immediate retaliation was inflicted on those who gathered at O’Sullivan’s tavern in Dillon’s Cross.
Innocent of any involvement in the ambush, the men were arrested and subjected to brutal humiliation, according to historians Gerry White and Brendan O’Shea, noting that “one of them was dragged to the center of the crossroads, naked, repeatedly whipped and forced to sing God Saves the King until he collapsed on the road. “
It was an ominous sign of what was to come in the center of the city.
The Burning of Cork: “The entire horizon was a shifting orange glow.”
In December, the city of Cork lived under a strict night curfew, and one volunteer reported that starting at 10pm, “at least 1,000 soldiers would leave Victoria Barracks at this time and take full control of the city. “.
While Florence O’Donoghue and others recognized the British military superiority over resources, she insisted that “one thing the IRA lacked was generously the cooperation of the people, and without it, they were blind and powerless. . “
The deep mistrust of the civilian population and the psychological damage inflicted by attacks such as Kilmichael’s were undoubtedly factors that contributed to the scope of violence on the night of December 11.
The destruction of Cork City began around 9:30 pm, less than two hours after the Dillon’s Cross ambush. Despite this, he appeared to be very coordinated, Alan J. Ellis of the Cork Examiner later recalled: “some of the attackers, although not hiding their uniforms, wore scarves on their faces.”
Ellis ran into Fred Huston, Chief of the Cork Fire Department, “trying valiantly to organize his men. He told me bluntly that all the fires were being deliberately set by fire bombs and, in several cases, he had seen soldiers pouring gasoline cans into buildings and setting them on fire. “
The worst damage was on Saint Patrick’s Street, noted fire department historian Pat Poland that “by 11 pm most of the south side of St Patrick’s Street was on fire.
The columns of flame now moved further south, their unstoppable force feeding greedily at the buildings on Morgan Street, Robert Street, Oliver Plunkett Street (north side), Cook Street, Winthrop Street, Winthrop Lane, Caroline Street, Maylor Street and Merchant’s Street. . “Poland describes the flames, for those in the inner city, noting that” the entire horizon was a shifting orange glow. “
Firefighters unable to do their job
In almost all the first-hand accounts of the fire that swept through Cork that night there are references to the Cork firefighters being unable to do their job.
Ellis, the Cork Examiner journalist who witnessed much of the destruction, wrote of hearing reports that “soldiers ran their bayonets through fire hoses.”
Ellis quickly entered the scene when, at 4 am, “City Hall and the adjoining Carnegie Library, with its hundreds and thousands of priceless volumes, suddenly became a sea of flames.”
Men from the Dublin Fire Brigade who responded to Cork’s call for help
Source: Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
Ellis saw Cork firefighters struggle to get to the scene with an intact hose, but was horrified to see the soldiers who “put out the fire hydrant and refused to allow the firefighters access to the water.
The protests were met with laughter and abuse. Shortly after six o’clock, the City Hall tower crashed into the burning ruins below. “Cork City Hall, which had become a symbol of political revolution through its connections to the late Lord Mayors Mac Curtain and MacSwiney, no longer existed.
Several Cork firefighters were injured overnight, after being attacked and physically assaulted while on duty. Its director had asked other fire services for help, with men dispatched from Limerick and Dublin.
Poland notes that “the Dublin contingent traveled on a specially commissioned train from Kingsbridge (now Heuston) station, accompanied by a large body of press.” As had happened in the looted city of Balbriggan, the press and photographers would be vitally important in ensuring that images and reports on the burned shell of the city of Cork reach the international public.
The scarred buildings, from the Manchester Guardian to the New York Times, said all there was to say. Human stories were largely underreported, including that of the Delaney brothers, two active IRA volunteers living in Dublin Hill, who were shot and killed in their homes by the Helpers when the carnage in the city was underway.
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A calculated act of revenge
Some of those IRA men who participated in the Dillon’s Cross ambush lived with guilt, feeling that their actions had directly contributed to the deaths of the Delaney brothers and the destruction of Cork City.
However, the way the regiment carried out the operation to burn down Cork City suggests a lot of premeditation and a plan that had been worked out beforehand, O’Donoghue noted “the deliberate manner in which the work of shooting the various local groups were divided under the control of officers gives evidence of organization and previous arrangements “.
Kilmichael’s humiliation, as well as the ambush at Dillon’s Cross, may have motivated the night of madness inflicted on Cork.
The Helpers’ letters, sent home from Cork, suggest mixed emotions after the incident. For some, it was an act of revenge, while one informed his mother “I have never experienced such orgies of murder, arson and looting as I have witnessed in the last sixteen days.”
Surprisingly, General Frank Percy Crozier, commander of the Auxiliary Division, would resign his post in 1921, feeling that force had been “used to murder, rob, loot and burn the innocent because they could not catch the few guilty who were fleeing. “. . “
Mocking the city of Cork and all those who had lost homes and livelihoods to the flames, some Helpers began to wear burnt corks attached to the crest of their Glengarry hats, a badge of honor that marked one as participant in the butcher shop.
In Parliament, Sir Hamar Greenwood solemnly insisted that the Cork people had burned down their own city. In truth, the world knew otherwise.
Donal Fallon is a historian and author whose publications include Revolutionary Dublin: A Walking Guide (with John Gibney). Host the Three Castles Burning podcast.
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