Some historians argue that it was the turning point in An Cogadh na Saoirse.
On this day in 1920 on a lonely boreen in West Cork, an IRA flying column wiped out the elite of the Crown Forces.
The “Auxies” were the SAS of the day.
Technically they were policemen.
However, the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary were all ex-British Army officers.
They had been specially selected with one aim in mind; to annihilate the IRA.
This particular unit of “Auxies” had been terrorising the local populace in West Cork.
The tactics of the British were brutally transparent.
It was to use terror to break the will of the civilian population who were supporting the IRA.
This was the same rationale that would lead to the incineration of children in Dresden 25 years later.
In targeting civilians in this way the Crown Forces hoped that this would entice the Republican guerrillas into an open fight that the British would surely win.
Many years ago I found myself down in that part of the world and I swung the car in the general direction of Kilmichael.
There is an impressive monument there to commemorate the ambush.
I got out of my vehicle and walked up behind the structure.
It was a soft day and light was fading.
In the space of a few hundred splashy steps up the field, I was able to travel back in time and inhabit the vantage point of the IRA commander.
It was to look into the mind of a military genius.
As I had stated earlier this month, the First World War anniversary is complicated here in Ireland.
That is because some Irishmen who were in the uniform of the British King during that conflict came back and fought for Irish freedom in the ranks of the IRA.
One of them was Thomas Bernardine Barry.
Although he was initially suspected by local Republicans of having pro-British sympathies he eventually became the legendary commander of the West Cork Flying Column.
Tom Barry was all of 22 years of age when this iconic photograph was taken at an IRA training camp.
On this day in 1920 at Kilmichael, his objective was to wipe out the unit that had been inflicting great cruelties on the people of West Cork.
Unlike First World War general Barry led from the front.
If all warfare is based on deception then the IRA commander deployed this to great effect.
Wearing a trench coat and a Sam Browne belt Barry stood in the middle of the road and the first lorry slowed down.
They thought he was one of their own stranded in enemy territory.
Their hesitation was fatal.
Barry lobbed in a mills bomb hand grenade and it exploded
Kilmichael had begun.
When the gunfire stopped all of the British war criminals were dead.
There is a dispute among historians about whether or not there was a false surrender incident.
Here is the man himself on the matter.
In his memoir “Guerrilla days in Ireland” Barry vividly described the close in hand to hand fighting at Kilmichael.
He had no resources to train his men in the skills of Musketry, therefore, they had to engage the enemy at point blank range.
At least one Auxiliary was bayoneted in the fight.
Barry lost three Volunteers from his column at Kilmichael.
Pat Deasy, Michael McCarthy and Jim O’Sullivan.
Fuair siad bás as saoirse na hÉireann.
As the light starts to fade on this Irish hillside today I think of what the Barry and his men did for the Irish people on that lonely road in West Cork.
Lest we forget.
Yes, and all so that the Irish Republic could eventually cede it’s sovereignty and become a province of the E.U. : leaving one empire, then joining another.
Just like the SNP are intent upon implementing… wresting sovereignty from Westminster and duly handing it to Brussels. Perhaps Wee Nippy Sweetie needs to look up the definition of INDEPENDENCE in a dictionary – any dictionary will do. It doesn’t even have to be the “goto” dictionary of choice, the Oxford English Dictionary. The definition may not be verbatim across each one, but the definition is precisely the same. Effectively, it means GOING IT ALONE, FREE OF INTERFERENCE BY ANY 3RD PARTY.
The historian most associated with the false surrender argument was the late Peter Hart, who also argued that the IRA pursued a sectarian ethnic cleansing campaign in Cork. Hart’s research, however, was undermined when it transpired that his claim to have interviewed IRA members who were involved at Kilmichael was false. Bar one, they were all dead by the time he conducted his research, with the son of the only survivor, Ned Young, swearing that his father – who was ill having suffered a major stroke – had never met with Hart. Hart’s claim to have unearthed in the British national archives a document by Barry that suggested he had ordered the killing of all surviving Auxies was also probably false – there was no evidence to suggest that Barry wrote this account. In fact, the language and terminology in this document strongly suggested that it was in fact authored by a British source.
Hart’s ethnic cleansing argument was also undermined when it emerged he had edited primary source documents, which actually ran counter to the argument he was pursuing. He maintained that a British intelligence document noted how Protestants were useless as informers, and used this as an argument that a group of Protestants killed in Bandon in 1922 must therefore have been victims of a sectarian attack. In fact, the British made it clear in the same document – in the next sentence to the one quoted by Hart – that Bandon was an exception and that the local Protestant community there did contain informers. These were the people targeted by the IRA, not random Protestant civilians. Other historians, such as John Borgonovo have confirmed that there was a secret anti-Sinn Féin society in existence at this point in Cork, which was passing on information to the British and does not subscribe to Hart’s ethnic cleansing argument.
Hart’s research was used to fight political battles in the here and now by the likes of Kevin Myers and others of that ilk. Revisionist historians all over Ireland and Britain jumped on his work, praising it to the heavens, and it was on the back of that, that he carved out a career for himself in academia, winning awards along the way. He was a talented historian, but his work around Kilmichael and Cork was dishonest. Unfortunately, Peter Hart died at a young age, and cannot take part in these debates, but he still has his defenders. However, the historians Meda Ryan and Niall Meehan have demolished Hart on all of this and are useful sources for anyone wishing to read up on the Kilmichael controversy, and the real agendas that often lurk behind the writing of Irish history within academia.
Great read phil. Have visited kilmichael myself for the anniversery in 2010 when Martin Maguiness gave the oration. Last weekend I had the pleasure of visiting the sites of the west mayo column where I believe your grandfather took part in carrowkenneddy.We got a great tour and finished it at the grave of Michael Davitt.
My grandfather Joe was on the Brigade staff there and his brother-in-law (Michael Derrig) was in A Coy Westport IRA.
They weren’t in the Flying Column.
My grandmother prepared the dispatch on the Carrowkennedy ambush for GHQ and grandfather took it up on the train (he was a railway guard).
Ordinary people taking on an empire.
We should never forget.
Great piece Phil
Feel like an outcast that I didn’t know any of this.
Have taken Tom’s photo and stills from the video for future use as permanent backgrounds on my PC.
My dad b22 d83 sang the Kevin song all the time but that’s something else I suppose.
Great article Phil.I always loved the stories of those West Cork men but always think how hard it was for all the people down there in particular to live through the tyranny.The piper of Crossbarry,Flor Begley,being one of my favourites.If you ever get a chance,Graham Norton,the presenter from Bandon did an episode of Who do you think you are,a very revealing program into the divisions in Cork at that time