May 1920 ended with a number of crimes and outrages committed as part of ongoing land disputes throughout the country.   In Ballinrobe county Mayo the first Dail Eireann Land Court had met in May presided over by Arthur O’Connor and Kevin O’Sheil. One of the first cases before them involved nine people from Kilmaine who sought the division of land owned by the Magdalene Asylum in Galway. Every hope was...

  While counties such as Cork, Clare and Tipperary were notorious by this stage in the War of Independence, there were other areas which there was intense IRA activity.   In May 1920 the work of ‘Sinn Fein in Ulster’ was reported in daily newspapers including the attack on the RIC between Crossdoney and Ballinagh in county Cavan. On their way to the fair of Crossdoney Sergeant WG Johnston and Constable S...

After a month of outrages perpetrated against individuals and families, the five hour siege to attack RIC barracks throughout the county. When it was over three people were dead;   Sergeant Thomas Kane and Constable Joseph Morton and of the IRA attacking party, Liam Scully. Over 100 IRA men took part in the attack, one of the largest operations of the conflict and were ably supported in the process by the women of...

  In May 1920 agrarian trouble in county Mayo resulted in the brutal murder of herd. The victim, Michael Toole was in the employment of J. Fitzgerald Kenny a justice of the peace and owner of Ballyglass House.   Prior to this Toole had been warned not to work outside the Kenny demesne but when he failed to heed the notice and began sowing seeds in a field across the road from the demesne he fate was sealed. Re...

Throughout May 1920 the outrages and crimes continued. On 22 May Dublin Castle authorities reported that 100 outrages had been committed in Ireland in the previous three days. This quantity of crimes highlights the intensity of the IRA campaign, not to mention others who were taking advantage of the times. Two outrages in particular were particularly notable. In county Cork the members of the coroner’s jury who had found ...

  Towards the end of May 1920 the burning of Moorock House, near Ballycumber in county Offaly signalled the beginning of a phase of the destruction  arson of country houses in Offaly. Described as a ‘magnificent three storied mansion’ it belong to a Mr Moylett of Tuam county Galway. Rumours prevailed that the house was to be occupied by the military and so in the intervening period the IRA torched the mansion. All acro...

Attacks on women continued during May 1920, with county Galway accounting for a further one before the end of the month.   On the night of the 23 May about five miles from Tuam at a place called Cuslough, Castlemoyle a party of five men visited a house called Mannions at 11.30pm demanding to know where Anne Devine was. Strangers in the area the men presented themselves in a menacing manner and entered her bedroom af...

  The growing social anarchy and clamour for land reared its head in county Roscommon in May 1920 when a young man named Peter Kenny was murdered at a place called Aghagad, county Roscommon.   The dispute in question arose when a number of claims were made on Miss McConn who held nine or ten acres of land which had been let for grazing. On a number of occasion stocks of animals were driven off the land and when retu...

  In the month of May 1920 the IRA in south Kildare targeted the town of Athy and its hinterland. First the Customs and Excise Offices in the town were broken into in the middle of the month and all the documents relating to income tax were seized.   In a well-coordinated attack no other document was touched in the building. In the same week an aged couple called Loughman were raided by masked and armed men ...

    The murder of Mark Clinton in Meath in May 1920 sent shockwaves through the county and further afield.   Murdered while ploughing a field belonging to his uncle, Clinton was the victim of a widespread campaign to grab land and re-divide it. In this case of Clinton the perpetrators of the crime were former soldiers who used the anarchy then prevalent to try and seize the land. One of them, William Gordon, w...