Cork's Bloody Secret

The recent documentary by RTE called Cork’s Bloody Secret highlighted the plight of Southern Irish Protestants in the Cork area in 1922 when the IRA murdered innocent and inoffensive people just because they were Protestants. The Republican revisionists have to date been successful in re-writing history as they have potrayed the ‘old IRA’ as a non-sectarian guerilla movement who were not motivated by religious hatred and who wanted an All-Ireland State that would treat all of its citizens equally irrespective of their religious persuasion.

As usual the image that Irish Republican apologists like to promote is somewhat different from reality and the disappearance of the Southern Irish Protestants from Ireland was the result of a carefully organised campaign of religious genocide and religious persecution carried out by the ‘old IRA’ all across the country.

As one Irish journalist rightly stated the Irish Republican movement are experts at Suppression and Denial and they have suppressed the Southern Irish Protestants and to this day they deny that they were motivated by religious hatred and bigotry since the formation of their country in 1922. Thankfully after decades of Republican revisionism and deliberate airbrushing of the truth from the history books some historians and journalists are starting to tell the truth about what really happened to the Protestants left to the mercy of the IRA. Peter Hart’s book called the IRA And It’s Enemies and RTE’s documentary Cork’s Bloody Secret have shed some light on the shameful events that took place all those years ago.

The massacre of Cork Protestants started on 26th April 1922 when IRA gunmen led by Michael O’Neill broke into a house at Ballygorman owned by Thomas Hornibrook situated between Bandon and Cork. There were two other Protestants in the house with Thomas Hornibrook at the time, namely his son Samuel, and his son-in-law Captain Herbert Woods. When Michael O’Neill was going up the stairs a shot rang out and O’Neill was shot dead by one of the occupants of the house. The IRA then called for reinforcements and surrounded the house until the next morning when the three Protestants gave themselves up after the IRA promised them that they wouldn’t be harmed.

The IRA gang asked who fired the shot that killed O’Neill and when Herbert Woods told them he had fired the shot he was beaten unconscious. The three Protestants were taken away in a car and after being sentenced by an IRA kangaroo court they were all murdered in cold blood. Some reports suggest that Herbert Woods was tied to the back of a car before being dragged to death and the Hornibrooks were murdered the next day. The IRA apparently made them dig their own graves before murdering them and after Thomas Hornibrook dug his grave he threw looked his murderers in the face and told them to go ahead and kill him.

The three bodies were buried in secret and they were some of the first people to have ‘disappeared’ at the hands of the IRA. Ballygorman House was burned to the ground and the land was seized by locals and the property distributed amongst them and the event was never reported in any Irish newspaper and to the outside world the Hornibrooks and Woods had disappeared without a trace. There is little doubt that the same thing happened all over Ireland as the IRA destroyed all records of Protestants as they religiously purged the country.

These foul and cowardly murders were only the start as the IRA went on a killing spree in the following days in the Cork and Bandon area which left many Protestants dead and many more forced to flee for their lives. The first wave of attacks against innocent Protestants took place on the morning of the 27th April 1922, and the first Protestant murdered by the IRA was a chemist called David Gray who lived at Main Street, Dunmanway, with his family. There was banging at their door and David went down to see what was going on. His wife Alice heard shouting and then heard a shot and saw her husband falling and then she heard more shots as the gunmen kept firing at her husband as he lay on the ground.

A short time later further down the road another Protestant Francis Fitzmaurice, an elderly solicitor, was gunned down at his doorstep in front of his wife Elizabeth. The IRA gunmen also tried to murder his brother William who barely escaped with his life. They then tried to murder a draper called Willian Jagoe but he too managed to escape with his life. Another Protestant shopkeeper called George Bryan was confronted by two IRA gunmen at his home but when they pulled the trigger of the revolver the gun jammed and George Bryan ran into his garden and escaped in the darkness. The IRA gunmen also tried to kill a schoolteacher called William Morrison but he too managed to evade these cowardly assassins. They then tried to murder a merchant called James McCarthy but he too fled for his life.

At around one o’clock James and Clarina Buttimer were awakened by shouting and banging on their front door. Both James and Clarina went down to the door and the IRA gunmen told James that they wanted to talk to him and Clarina said, ‘Sure, you would not take an old man like him?’. They told her to go back to bed and then James said, ‘Surely boys you would not harm an old man like me?’. The IRA gunmen shot James in the face and he died at once with his brains blown out. A retired policeman called Tom Sullivan fled to the local cemetery for refuge and he heard the shooting and the weeping and crying of the relatives of those who had been shot.

The sectarian killings by the IRA continued the next night, 28th April 1922, in the parish of Kinneigh which lay to the east of Dunmanway in the Bandon valley. At 10 30 pm two IRA gunmen arrived at the door of Robert Howe and shot him twice and they then went to his neighbour’s house were they gunned down Robert Chinnery. A few hours later the IRA gunmen arrived at the village of Ballineen were they shot 16 year- old Alexander McKinley three times in the back of the head as he lay in bed at his aunt, Frances Peyton’s house. They then tried to murder William Daunt but he too managed to escape from these assassins. Further down the Bandon Valley the IRA gunmen murdered a Church of Ireland curate on the rectory steps at Murragh Rectory.

At around 2 00 am the IRA gunmen arrived at the farmhouse owned by John Buttimer were they proceeded to murder him and a ‘feeble-minded’ farm labourer called Jim Greenfield. They also tried to murder John Buttimer’s son but he escaped after a determined pursuit. On the same night 16 year-old Robert Nagle was murdered by IRA gunmen as he lay on his bed in the presence of his mother. The IRA gunmen searched for his father Thomas Nagle but they were unable to find him. The IRA then tried to murder another Protestant called Richard Helen after they abducted him but he miraculously managed to escape. They also tried to kill a farmer called William Perrot but he too managed to evade the IRA death squads.

The sectarian slaughter continued when the IRA murdered a disabled farmer called John Bradfield when they broke into his bedroom and made him stand up before shooting him in the back of the head. The IRA gunmen then tried to murder John Bradfield’s neighbour and cousin Henry Bradfield but he too managed to escape. During the two nights the IRA murdered ten Protestants and tried to murder many more which proves beyond a doubt that they are motivated by religious hatred despite their pathetic denials to the contrary.

As a result of these vile murders thousands of Cork Protestants fled their homes in terror and went into hiding as news of these atrocities spread like wildfire in that area. The panic-stricken Protestants fled the area leaving farms and businesses abandoned and whole families fled the area to the safe havens of Belfast or England. The IRA had achieved exactly what they set out to achieve and that was the religious cleansing of the Southern Irish Protestants as they took complete control of the abandoned farms and property as they persecuted them out of the country.

The IRA revisionists are trying to justify the IRA genocide against the Cork Protestants by alleging that the innocents that they butchered were 'loyalist' plotters, but as Peter Hart rightly points out their victims were mostly old men or teenagers. For instance Alexander McKinley and Robert Nagle were both only 16 years old when they were murdered by the IRA and their families wrongly thought that the youthfulness of the lads would save them from assassination.

It appears that the IRA showed no scruples about murdering youngsters or elderly Protestants even though they were disabled or blind. They callously gunned down John Buttimer who was 59, Robert Howe who was 60, John Bradfield who was 69 and bedridden, Francis Fitzmaurice who was 70 and James Buttimer who was 82 and nearly blind.

After the murders in Cork dozens of threatening letters were sent to other Protestants in the area and Richard Godwil was told that he would be hunted out of the country and all other 'Orange dogs' with him. As one Protestant stated, 'If the campaign against Protestants which has been carried on since the end of last month is continued in similar intensity for a few weeks more, there will not be a Protestant left in the place. Presbyterians and members of the Church of Ireland, poor and well-to-do, old and young, widows and children, all alike have suffered in intimidation, persecution and expulsion.

The campaign is carried out in the nightime, by unnamed persons, who give no reason for their actions. The system which usually is followed is, first the dispatch of an anonymous letter giving the recipient so many days, or hours to clear out. If this notice is disregarded, bullets are fired at night through the windows, bombs are thrown at his house, or his house is burned down. In one case, an old man, who had not left when ordered to do so was visited by a gang, who smashed everything in his cottage, every cup and every saucer, and then compelled him to leave the town, with his crippled son, the two of them destitute.

The list of those proscribed is added to constantly, and every Protestant is simply waiting for his time to come'. The persecution of Southern Irish Protestants was relentless as they were religiously cleansed from the land of their birth but at last their experiences are being brought to the attention of the watching world and the sectarian nature of the Irish Republican beast is being exposed for all the world to see and it is not a pretty sight.