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Wed 4 Aug 2021, 8:57 AM 1049b. Former site of Tuckey Street RIC barracks, now the present day site of the St Vincent de Paul offices. (picture: Kieran McCarthy)
Remembering 1920: The gathering of intelligence Published: Last updated:
Wed 4 Aug 2021, 8:57 AM
The witness statements of the Bureau of Military History offer much insight into the Irish War of Independence. There is much to glean from the Cork context on IRA activity and the gathering of intelligence by Cork Brigade No. 1 across April and May 1920.
Michael Murphy (Commandant, 2nd Battalion Cork No. 1 Brigade, O/C, Cork No. 1 Brigade Active Service Unit/witness statement 1547) relates that early in the month of April 1920, an order was received from General Head Quarters Dublin, to the effect that all income tax offices should be burned at the same time on a fixed date. This action was to be taken all over the country.
The Crossbarry ambush restored IRA morale in March 1921, but could so easily have been a disaster.
The Parish of Clogagh had never seen a funeral like it. No parish in Ireland would ever see its like again.
In the pre-dawn darkness, down the rain-slicked road from the church to the cemetery, the cortege came. The coffin was borne by six men, and behind the coffin, six mourners walked.
Six mourners. At an Irish country funeral. It was as many as they dared bring.
Carried on the wind: the creak of leather, the soft shiiing-shiiing of metal upon metal, the murmur of boots on damp, hard-packed road – the unmistakable sound of heavily armed men on the move.