On Monday 13 December 1920 ‘crown forces’ wrecked and sacked in full daylight the town of Ballinalee, county Longford following an attack on the police barracks by the IRA.   The destruction of the house of Mr Heraty, partially destroyed on 10 December during the IRA attack was finally flattened. The farmhouses, stables and crops of J Hannigan and P Bracken were destroyed, while P Earley and Miss Hannigan’s sh...

The town of Thurles, county Tipperary began December 1920 reeling from the news of the murderous attack made on two young men who had been playing cards in the a house at a place called Mullaunbrack.   In total, four young men, all known in local GAA circles assembled in the house of Patrick Ryan, a farmer. The card players heard a military lorry approaching and when a man dressed in civilian clothes called to the door a s...

What did Ireland’s newspapers say about the revolution which was occurring in every town and village around the country in December 1920. The Irish Newspaper Archive and the Radical Newspaper Archive has the answers. Following the month of death and carnage which had proceeded it many believed that December would be a quiet month. However, the opposite transpired.   Although there had only been a few ‘outragesâ€...

The murder of Captain Joseph T. Thompson (aged 32) of the 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment in Ballincollig, county Cork on 20 November how ruthless the IRA had become as they were determined to put an end to the military’s reign of terror over the civilian population.   Thompson left Ballincollig on the afternoon of 20 November ‘in a motor bicycle to visit some friends’ but was soon afterwards ambushed by th...

Some outrages and murders throughout the month of November 1920 failed to generate the same level of condemnation as Kevin Barry, Bloody Sunday or Kilmichael.   One such murder was that of Constable James Wood who was shot at Ballybrack Railway Station, near Killarney and died six days later on 15 November. Woods, aged 29 had been returning from leave when he was attacked by an armed group at the railway station. Co...

The murder of Fr Michael Griffen (aged 28) in Galway in November 1920 was seen by many as one of the most grotesque acts carried out by either side in the Irish War of Independence.   On the night of 14 November Griffen was lured from his house in Galway city on the pretence of assisting a person who lay seriously ill. Three men played their part in the ruse but more were involved in the interrogation that followed....

Espousing the cause of Labour became a dangerous position throughout the autumn and winter of 1920 as union members became the target of the military and the police.   In some cases the Black and Tans as they marauded through the countryside paid little heed to who was who and often targeted the offices of prominent local officials. In November 1920 the secretary of the ITGWU in Ardee, county Louth, James Dolan was ...

Amidst all of the bloodshed which November 1920 brought, the cause of labour and the work of unions continued, protecting the rights of workers.   However, within that remit of protecting workers the unions by this stage were also involved in the wider Republican campaign which was waging throughout the country. In November 1920 the newspaper The Watchword of Labour publically condemned those who had gone to work on...

In November 1920 Sir Hamar Greenwood, in the course of the discussions in the British House of Commons described the Irish Bulletin newspaper as the organ of the ‘murder gang’ claiming that it espoused outrage and sympathised with murder. This may have been true in some respects but it did condone the murder of innocent civilians and the damage to property. On the contrary, it actively engaged in reporting the crimes, w...

In an effort to highlight the rapacity of the British military, and in particular the actions of the Black and Tans in reprisal, newspapers such as Irish Bulletin published the names and details of those who had been subjected to extreme violence or who had been murdered. In November 1920 the Bulletin carried the following information about the terror campaign in Ireland:   Murder of Denis Carey of Nenagh, taken fro...