What happened next is disputed. In his after-action report, Lieutenant Koe wrote:(14) At 18.20 hours the rebels signified that they wished to surrender and they were ordered to put up their hands and come out one by one. At 18.30 hours, six or seven rebels came out with their hands up and the crown forces went to meet them. On this fire was again opened by the remaining rebels in the house.(15) Fire was at once re-opened on the house by the Crown Forces, and, in the cross fire which resulted, it was inevitable that casualties should be inflicted on the rebels outside the house by both sides. The Crown Forces, having re-opened fire, rushed to the house. When the house was captured, there were eight men in it, four wounded and four unwounded. These were taken prisoner.In its official communique, General Headquarters merely stated that some of the IRA Volunteers "came running out of the house, with their hands up, while others continued to fire on the Crown Forces as they went to accept the surrender." But in his monthly confidential report, the local county inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary accused the Volunteers of treachery, saying that some "had tried to escape by a ruse. Some came from the building while those that remained inside opened fire on the police and military." By contrast, the surviving Volunteers claimed that their men had surrendered in good faith, and had come out with their hands up, only to be shot by the police without any provocation. Patrick Higgins, an IRA man who survived the killings, recalled: We were lined up alongside an outhouse with our hands up. The Tans came along and shot every man with the exception of three...who were saved by the officer in charge of the military party. A Tan put his revolver to my mouth and fired [he was wounded in the jaw]...Only for the military officer coming along, I would be gone. Opinion is divided amongst historians as to which version of the story to believe: Peter Hart, for example, wrote that, "The Irish survivors testified convincingly that there had been no treachery on their part." However, he also compared what happened at Clonmult to what happened at the
Kilmichael ambush on 28 November 1920, suggesting that Clonmult could be described as "Kilmichael in reverse", the IRA members intending to surrender but the security forces not realising it. In his book ''The Battle of Clonmult: The IRA's Worst Defeat'', Tom O'Neill suggests the shooting of IRA members may have been the result of a misunderstanding. Before the Volunteers gave up and came out, their commander had ordered them to throw their rifles into the fire: and what the police mistook for treachery may have been ammunition cooking off in the heat of the flames. "The other possibility," as O'Neill notes, "is that the British were just attempting to cover up their tracks with falsehoods." A total of twelve IRA Volunteers were killed in the action, with four more wounded and only four taken prisoner unscathed. Two of the IRA prisoners (
Maurice Moore and Paddy O'Sullivan) were later executed in the
Cork military barracks on 28 April. Patrick Higgins was sentenced to death but was reprieved due to the truce that ended the war on 11 July.
Hampshire Regiment historian Scott Daniell noted on the action that "like all the Irish operations, it was hateful to the British troops". ==Aftermath==