‘Counter-Terror’: I.R.A Reprisals in the Anglo-Irish War
There can be no doubt as to why the death roll of the West Cork I.R.A. dropped so amazingly. It was solely because British terror was met by a not less effective I.R.A. counter-terror. We were now hard, cold and ruthless as our enemy had been since hostilities began. The British were met with their own weapons. They had gone down in the mire to destroy us and our nation, and down after them we had to go to stop them. The step was not an easy one, for one’s mind was darkened and one’s outlook made bleak by the decisions which had to be taken.
I’ve been reading Tom Barry’s Guerilla Days in Ireland, an account of his days in the Anglo-Irish War (or Irish War of Independence) of 1919-1921. Barry was a war hero and his carrying out of the successful Kilmichael Ambush was the high point for the I.R.A’s Flying Columns (there is an excellent writeup of that event here) but while the war stories are engaging (with Barry being thorough enough to list the failures as well as the successes), what most surprised me was his frank discussion of I.R.A counter-terror tactics. This wasn’t counter-terrorism in the sense in which we think of it today: attempting to stop terrorists before or during the act, but counter-terror where British attacks on civilians and executions of prisoners were met with an escalating response from the I.R.A. The goal was to present the British with a ladder of escalation and ask them which type of war they were really willing to fight. This is a book written from one man’s perspective and there are aspects of those events which are not mentioned in this book, but there is a lot in here about a dark chapter in the history of that war.
Death to the Essex Regiment
As much as Tom Barry hated the British occupation, as much as he hated the Auxiliaries and the Black & Tans, as much as he hated the town of Skibbereen, there was nothing he hated more than the Essex Regiment. Barry had fought in the First World War in the British Army, and in many cases he saw the men he was fighting as honourable enemies. As for the Essex Regiment “[t]here was never a unit in any army in any campaign which had disgraced the profession of arms as did those vulgar monsters who were the dregs of the underworld of London”. Stationed in Kinsale, Co.Cork these would be the men who saw the most action against the West Cork IRA. Barry had unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the company commander Major Arthur Ernest Percival (he doesn’t lose the opportunity to remind us that this is the man who surrendered Singapore in the Second World War), and in the following months Percival’s permissive attitude towards the torture and shooting of unarmed prisoners caused major problems for the effectiveness and morale of Barry’s column.
The West Cork I.R.A had an effective fighting force not much larger than 100 men at any one time, there were thousands of volunteers but few weapons and few really experienced fighters. And so, after the loss of 11 officers and men in the first 12 days of February 1921, without any victory to justify it, something had to be done. The British had taken note of Barry’s earlier successes ambushing small patrols on isolated roads. The Essex Regiment were not taking any risks this time, the IRA would need to venture into Bandon town to settle the score. Though the attempt to lure the Essex men from their barracks failed a returning patrol was caught off guard:
The gun fight commenced and that fearless and most competent officer, Mick Crowley, joined in from his position. The first to fall was the terrorist who was already swinging his revolver in his hand as he came into view. A second staggered across the road and also fell to the ground. I missed a third with a left handed snap shot as he sprinted past to the other side of the road. The fourth had bolted back for the barracks as the first shot was fired. The fifth, who was yelling unintelligibly, as indeed were all the others, had dropped to the ground unhurt. Now he leaped up and ran round the corner before I could fire at him. Then I was guilty of the most senseless act of my life, for I ran after him. He had a seven yards’ start as I turned the corner. He was of medium height but heavily built and his revolver was in his right hand as he thundered on towards the barracks. I gained rapidly on him and when only three or four paces behind, I pushed the short Webley revolver I had in my left hand into my tunic pocket, retaining the Colt automatic in the right. I have never understood since why I did not shoot him in that race up North Main Street as I was never more than a few yards behind him and I could not have missed him had I pulled the trigger. But call it blood lust arising out of hate, madness or what you will, I wanted to get my hands on him, hence the freeing of my left hand of the Webley revolver. It never occurred to me, and apparently not to him, that all he had to do to ensure his safety was to turn and pull the trigger. Sixty yards from the scene of the gun fight I grabbed his left shoulder with my left hand. Fright crazed he squealed and turned like a hare in the nearest door which I shot past before turning to follow him. As I ran into the small shop he was entering the kitchen immediately behind. Jumping the low counter gate, I too was in the kitchen a few yards from him, when common sense returned and I fired. His revolver clattered to the ground as he fell dead, but he was shot again to make certain that his terrorist days were over.
Barry is open about being overcome by hatred in the heat of battle, and some of this surely leaked into the orders he had given preceding it:
They had almost killed in us, too, the virtue of mercy. From January, 1921, I was to know no pity for this Essex Regiment, though I was to grant mercy to other British forces who were our prisoners, but against whom murders were not proved. The orders issued by me in 1921 were to shoot every member of the Essex at sight, armed or unarmed, and not to accept their surrender under any circumstances. Up to then those troops were immune from attack when unarmed and off duty. On their return from a foray where they might have killed unarmed Irishmen and burned out houses, they would go out immune to public houses or promenade outside the suburbs with the few unfortunate women who alone would consort with them. They felt they were safe while unarmed as we had tried to play the game of war by the rules accepted by the civilised world. But now immunity was at an end.
But the hatred was not indiscriminate, orders were obeyed. After the ambush Barry found that his men had killed and wounded some unarmed Essex soldiers but had captured two Naval Warrant officers unharmed. These men were released on condition that they carry a letter to the Commanding Officer of the Essex Battalion in Bandon detailing I.R.A grievances and threatening reprisals for any further outrage committed against it. For Barry “the only way to make British troops behave with even a modicum of decency, was to pump those principles of humanity into their bodies with bullets attached”. As much as Barry pokes fun at his enemy’s cowardice the point of this wasn’t to break the will of the enemy soldiers, but to negotiate some mutually respected rules for this war by showing what happens when they are broken. The moral justifications for reprisals are subject to debate, the military justification rests on whether or not they worked. Barry is happy with the results:
The total casualties inflicted by the West Cork Brigade were considered, in all the circumstances, as very satisfactory. The British had paid for their official and unofficial executions. The question arises as to what effect they, together with those inflicted in Cork 1, Kerry 1 and West Limerick Brigades, had on the British policy of executions. Except for the usual British Imperialist yells of “ Outrage,” no official comment was made by them as to their future behaviour, but it is significant that no other I.R.A. man was executed in Cork after May 14th, except Dan O'Brien, already sentenced to death before our counter-attacks took place.1
Meeting Fire with Fire
In the second year of the war the Black & Tans (a militarised police force that ended up making up half of the Royal Irish Constabulary) started waging ‘economic war’ against the I.R.A. The I.R.A found many of its recruits in the sons of farmers and so the British turned to targeting creameries, farmhouses and meeting halls when they were frustrated in their attempts to find armed I.R.A men. This escalated to the looting and burning of villages throughout the country (most notably the Sack of Balbriggan) and most notoriously the burning of Ireland’s third largest city.
Barry mentions one important difference between the Anglo-Irish War and the Boer War. While the British in South Africa could force the surrender of Boer riflemen by burning their homesteads and imprisoning their families without fear of reprisal, Britain could not wage unrestricted war in Ireland without risking the wealth and safety of a fair portion of their upper class. Ireland was “studded with the castles, mansions and residences of the British Ascendancy”, including many ex-officers and politically connected people. Conscious of this weakness, Barry sent a note to the British Military Commander in West Cork, informing him that “for every Republican home destroyed from that date the homes of two British Loyalists would be burned to the ground.”
So, when suspected a Republican farmhouse, cottage or shops fell to the British ‘fire-gangs’, the I.R.A burned down two Loyalist houses. When the British ignored the threats and burned down four Republican houses, the I.R.A burned down the eight largest loyalist homes in the area. When these Loyalists tried to sell their homes and retreat to their residences in Britain, the I.R.A enforced a ban on the sale of homes without their permission. The Loyalists could flee but they would forfeit their property if they did. Monetarily it wasn’t a fair trade, the Loyalist homes being worth 10 or 20 times those of the Republicans. Barry describes how far he was willing to go in this “competition of terror”:
Our only fear was that, as time went on, there would be no more Loyalists’ homes to destroy, for we intended to go on to the bitter end. If the Republicans of West Cork were to be homeless and without shelter, then so too, would be the British supporters. West Cork might become a barren land of desolation and misery, but at least the Britishers would have more than their full share of the sufferings.
Once again the dual motivations of hate and pragmatism are in play:
The native Irish were being justly chastised for their refusal to bow to British overlordship and would soon be brought to heel again. But now it was their turn to watch the flames from their own homes light the darkness of the West Cork skies, and their appeals to the British forces to stop their burning campaign were long and loud. From this I.R.A. counter-terror the British could not protect them, for the I.R.A. never once failed to carry out in full the programme of reprisal. British peers in their House of Lords and members of the House of Commons, dyed in the wool Imperialists, who would gladly have destroyed the home of every Irish Nationalist, echoed those appeals. They declared they were speaking on behalf of British Loyalists in Ireland and pointed out that the British burnings were suicidal and bad policy, as the I.R.A. destroyed two large mansions for every farmhouse or cottage burned by the British. (. . .) This outcry had its effect, and although British burnings were never officially called off, they were slowed down considerably and even halted for a time. Once again the British had reacted to the only sure method of meeting their terrorism, an effective counter-terror; and hundreds of homes of West Cork Republicans were saved from destruction.
Barry is perhaps a bit unfair to British politicians here (though he praises the efforts of British sympathisers to the Irish cause in general later on in the book). The Labour Party did set up a commission to ‘inquire into the whole question of “reprisals” and violence in Ireland’ and their final report on British actions were damning:
Terrorism and outrage on the part of members of the forces of the Crown in Ireland are condoned, defended and justified. Deeds of a similar character perpetrated by other people in Ireland are denounced by the men who gave their support to “reprisals”, by “Black and Tans” and Auxiliary Police, as brutality, murder and assasination. The fact that men are alleged to be acting in support of law and order and under the authority of a government does not place them above the law. It does not elevate murder to the level of a virtue. Murder in cold blood, the callous and brutal treatment of innocent children, incendiarism, and theft are crimes and offences against the moral law, even when they are committed under the auspices of the British Empire and in the name of law and order. Sir Hamar Greenwood has applied the term “murder gang” to the “gunmen” of Ireland. The epithet can be applies to those individuals who, in the pay of the British government, kill people in cold blood.2
Barry is right to say that making Loyalists pay a price gave the British government reasons to be more careful about the military’s policy of reprisals, but simply drawing attention to the matter by escalating things helped too. This was another important difference between the Irish and the Boers, the Irish had sympathisers and the British already had longstanding divisions amongst themselves on the question.
Whether the reprisals were out of true pragmatism or mere revenge is worth asking. I have to think that Barry knew that I.R.A tactics were only feasible under certain rules of war, and that fighting an unrestrained British Army would surely end in defeat as it did for the Boers. As much as I.R.A reprisals risked escalation into this lawless form of warfare the I.R.A had to make any step by the British in that direction as painful as possible and saddle their commanders with the responsibility of choosing which type of war they wanted. Unrestrained I.R.A terror-tactics would not have placed responsibility in the hands of the British and would have given them a blank cheque to use any means necessary to put down an indiscriminate mob. Each act had to be a response to something the British had done to establish a clear link between I.R.A actions and British actions.
It’s always hard to attribute causation with these things, but it’s worth noting that of the hundreds of creameries in Cork only four were burned down by British forces, none of these in Tom Barry’s territory of West Cork3:
Spies and Informers
By January,1921, not a single Senior Officer was in any doubt as to the seriousness of the menace of this ring of spies. Either those spies and informers would die or the I.R.A. would be wiped out. There was no alternative.4
Intelligence played a crucial role in the I.R.A’s war against the British and, behind persistence, it was one of the few things they had an advantage on over the British. The majority of the credit goes to Michael Collins in Dublin and his outwitting of the G-Men’s investigators and outgunning of the Cairo Gang’s assassins, but the I.R.A in rural parts of Ireland dealt with their own share of spies and informers.
The West Cork I.R.A executed 16 suspected informers, spies, and ex-British officers during the war, 5 were Catholic and 11 Protestant. The unpaid informers and ex-officers were the most dangerous to the I.R.A - the former were wealthier landowners who were educated, well-connected and who hated everything the I.R.A stood for. Some were arrested by the I.R.A and released due to lack of evidence, others were executed on the spot after being deceived into confessing, a few were armed or had bodyguards and had to be dealt with on the spot via ambush. To spare the families the shame of having a relative named as a traitor Barry only tells the story of three and removes their names from his accounts. To spare you some reading I’ll share one and include the others at the end of this post for those interested:
The second instance is of “B,” aged over forty, a large farmer, a Protestant and an unpaid informer. Unlike “A” who was not under suspicion, this informer had been the subject of many adverse reports by the local I.R.A. On the evening following the execution of “A” an I.R.A. officer called at “B’s” house, leaving three of his men concealed outside it. The officer was wearing an Auxiliary’s tasselled beret obtained at Kilmichael, a trench coat, leggings and equipment, and was readily accepted by “B” as a newly arrived officer of the Dunmanway Auxiliaries. “B” waved away the trimly uniformed maid who had opened the door and ushered the visitor into the drawingroom where he invited him to join in a whiskey and soda. This was refused by the officer, who explained that he never drank spirits until after dinner. An offer of tea was also refused on the grounds that some Auxiliary officers were waiting on the road and that the visitor had not much time since the raiding party was on an urgent job. Then “B” said it took the authorities long enough to come out in answer to the message he had sent two days before. The I.R.A. officer replied it was to check on that information he had called and, producing a notebook, he asked “B” to repeat the message. “B” then stated that his message was about three of the I.R.A. he had seen crossing country, two of whom carried rifles. He had tracked them to a barn where they slept in a bed of hay and blankets. He named two of the men, described where the barn was situated and suggested the best time and manner they could be surrounded. He again grumbled about the delays in acting on his previous message, and said that the I.R.A. would have been finished in his locality long ago if the military and police acted quicker on the information that had been sent to them. He remarked it was strange that the Essex could act quickly in other districts, as they did when they finished those two Republican ruffians a few days previously near Courtmacsherry. Warming to his subject as he poured his second drink, he said it was a scandal that so many I.R.A. were still at large in the locality. He correctly named the ranks of many local I.R.A. and then went on to speak of several of the senior officers, including his visitor, about whom he had heard but did not know personally. He referred to them as “The Big Shots.” The I.R.A. officer tried to draw him about his associates and the informer let two names drop as reliable men who were helping the authorities.
At the end of half an hour when “B” was drinking his third whiskey and had switched back to discussing the Battalion Officers, the end came. The informer had asserted that John Lordan was the Battalion O.C. of the Bandon Battalion, and the officer, feeling that he could expect no further useful information, was considering whether to shoot the informer as he sat drinking or to arrest him. Then the visitor remarked that his information was that Lordan was Vice O.C. and not the O.C. This was strongly contradicted by the informer, who said he knew better and that Lordan was the Boss. To this the I.R.A. Officer replied,“ But I still say you are wrong for, you know, I am _________, whom you have already mentioned as a Big Shot, and John Lordan’s Senior Officer.”
It was several seconds before “B” realised the full significance of those words. The glass fell from his hand, his jaw dropped and a pallor spread over his face. He quickly obeyed the order to place his hands on the table, but was still stunned when the party of I.R.A. who were outside appeared in answer to a whistle blast, to lead him away. That night he was court-martialled. He admitted making all those statements about his treacherous activities, but did not further incriminate his associates. He was shot a few hours later.5
After the loss of their volunteer informers the British responded by drafting informers from the general population:
“In order to prevent outrages by strangers taking place in Dunmanway and district, it has been decided that six male inhabitants shall be held responsible each week for informing the O.C. Auxiliary Police at the Workhouse, Dunmanway, of any suspicious stranger arriving in the Town, or of any occurrence or circumstance which points to contemplated outrage. This plan is further intended to protect other inhabitants from intimidation and to render it possible for any LOYALIST to give information without the rebels being able to trace its source. The following individuals will be held responsible for providing information from and including 16th February, 1921, up to and including 22nd February, 1921……………… Should any outrage occur in Dunmanway, or within two miles of the Market Square, the whole of the above mentioned will be placed under arrest.
“Lieut.-Col., 1st D.Q.,
“K. Company, Aux. Div., R.I.C.
“Dunmanway.
“Removal of this notice will entail punishment for the entire District Council.”
Counter Terror
The decision to employ these tactics was part of a pattern for Tom Barry: when the British adapt their tactics, the morale of the IRA is at risk and he has to prove that they can still win. Some of these counter-tactics are straightforward military affairs, some are ‘counter-terror’. When the feared Auxiliary units are sent in to Ireland and start causing high casualties for the IRA, the Kilmichael Ambush shows that they can still win. When the British frustrate ambush tactics by staying in fortified barracks, travelling in large groups and attempting encirclements, the Crossbarry Ambush (where 100 or so I.R.A men came out favourably against 1300 British) and heavy explosives on barrack doors open another avenue for attack. When the British start a campaign of burning down farmhouses and cottages, Barry responds by burning down 2 loyalist houses for every republican house lost. When civilians in country towns are forced to repair roads and inform on any suspicious movements on pain of imprisonment, Barry shoots at their feet to convince them that they have a choice between jail or death. When the Essex regiment gets a reputation for killing the wounded and unarmed, Barry announces that no mercy will be given in return. This was counter-terror.
Informer “A”
The first is “ A ” of Castletown-Kenneigh, aged about thirty, an ex-British soldier, a Catholic and a paid British spy. It will be recalled that the Brigade Flying Column lay in ambush at Mawbeg on January 22nd. At twelve o’clock on the previous night three Senior Officers left the Flying Column to travel six miles to inspect the ambush area. They rode three horses and came on to the main road near the ambush positions at 1 a.m. The night was bright and they rode slowly along, endeavouring to gauge the size of fields, strength of ditches, the position of houses, byroads and the other factors which influence the selection of an ambush site. After travelling a few hundred yards the leading horse shied violently, nearly throwing his rider, and it was only when the horse was turned round and forced back that the leading rider observed a man lying on the grass by the roadside. Dismounting, he shook the man, who awoke, sat up and looked at the I.R.A. Officer. In reply to a question as to what he was doing there, the man again looked at the I.R.A. Officer and said : “ It is all right, sir. I am one of yere own and I have just left Bandon Barracks. The Major knows me well, as I work for him.” He then gave his name and address. Then the officer realised that because he was wearing full field equipment over his trench-coat he had been mistaken for a British officer. “A” was not drunk, but was obviously recovering from the effects of liquor. The second I.R.A. officer was then called up and asked if he had ever seen “A” in Bandon Barracks. He replied that he had not. “A” was then told he would have to be examined further before he would be released, as he might be a “ Shinner,” the British nickname for an Irish Republican. He was asked to walk along to the byroad, where the talk could proceed with less danger of observation from passers-by. During the next twenty minutes he told the two officers the sordid story of his treachery over a nine months’ period. It all came out : the arrests he had been responsible for, the coups he had missed, his list of local I. R. A. who were still evading arrest, and the amount of pay he was receiving : “ Five pounds every week, and sometimes more, if I have good news.” That day, after reporting to the British Battalion Intelligence Officer, “A” had been drinking in the military canteen until after curfew hour. Then, free from observation, the Essex had driven him six miles and dropped him near where we had found him. Overcome by liquor, he had lain down before completing his journey home and had fallen asleep.
Then one of the I.R.A. Officers was sent back to bring up the third, alleged to be a prisoner, who would not give any particulars about himself. When “A” was asked if he recognised this prisoner, he called the questioning officer aside and said—
“I do not know his name, but he is one of them. I saw him with the Lordans and others and he is high up in them.” The spy was then told that the prisoner would be brought to Bandon barracks where he would be forced to talk. At this “A” got very excited and again calling the officer aside said—
“You can’t bring this fellow into Bandon as he might know me and get a message out about me. Shoot him. Shoot him now, here.”
The I.R.A. officer replied that he did not like shooting prisoners himself and he would wait until some of his troops came up. Then the spy showed the viciousness of his character for he eagerly volunteered to do the shooting. He asked for the officer’s gun and reached greedily for it, but the time had come to tell him that the play had ended. This spy was a Catholic and the local priest was called to minister to him before he was shot on the roadside at Mawbeg seven hours later. Strange are the ways of destiny. Incidents which appear of little importance may cause death to some and allow life to remain with others. In all probability, but for the shy of a nervous horse, this spy would still be alive and many other members of the I.R.A. would have met their deaths as a result of his activities.
Informer “C”
The third instance is that of “C” of Innishannon, aged about thirty-seven, a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the British Army. This Britisher was not only an important organiser of espionage against the I.R.A. but guided in person raiding parties of the Essex Regiment. He wore a mask and was dressed as a civilian during many of his early expeditions with the raiders, but one night, in the house of one of his victims, his mask slipped. From that night in December, 1920, we wanted him very badly, but he knew he was in danger and practically lived with the British Military Officers in barracks. When on occasions he ventured back to Innishannon, he was invariably guarded by Black and Tans and his movements were most irregular. On the night of May 30th he went home to sleep at Innishannon, and on the following morning two of the Column went to shoot him. Stealthily approaching “C’s” house, they hid in the laurels until he came out of the hall door and crossed to his garage. One of the I.R.A. then walked up to him, spoke and shot him three times as he tried to pull his gun. The two Volunteers then ran for the gate, but fire was opened on them by the guard of four Black and Tans who were on duty in the house. Returning the fire with revolvers, they reached the road to retire in safety at their leisure, as the Black and Tans made no attempt to emerge from the house to pursue them. The death of this “retired ” Lieutenant-Colonel was greatly welcomed. He had long been a menace to the I.R.A. and the people of that locality.
Chapter XXII, Counter Terror
https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/9491/1/PB_creamery.pdf
https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/9491/1/PB_creamery.pdf
Chapter XVI, Execution of Spies
Chapter XVI, Execution of Spies