Political context The Irish War of Independence was brought to an end by negotiations in mid-1921. The truce between British Forces and the IRA came into effect on 11 July 1921, after talks between the British and
Irish political leaders. Under the terms, British units were withdrawn to barracks and their commanders committed to "no movements for military purposes" and "no [use of] secret agents noting descriptions of movements". For its part, the IRA agreed that "attacks on Crown forces and civilians [were] to cease", and to "no interference with British Government or private property". Under the terms of the treaty, a Provisional Government was set up to transfer power from the British regime to the
Irish Free State. British troops began to be withdrawn from the Free State in January 1922, though they retained the option to intervene in Irish affairs should the Treaty be rejected and the
Irish Republic re-established. On 26 March 1922, part of the IRA repudiated the authority of the Provisional Government on the basis that it had accepted the Treaty and disestablished the
Irish Republic declared in 1919. April saw the first armed clashes between pro and anti-Treaty IRA units, including the anti-Treaty occupation of the
Four Courts in Dublin, the killing of a pro-Treaty IRA officer in
Athlone and a gun attack on government buildings in Dublin. According to historian Michael Hopkinson, "the transitional [Free State] government lacked the resources and the necessary acceptance to supply effective government". In this situation, some IRA anti-Treaty units continued attacks on the remaining British forces. Between December 1921 and February 1922, there were 80 recorded attacks by IRA elements on the
Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), leaving 12 dead. Between January and June 1922, twenty-three RIC men, eight British soldiers and eighteen civilians were killed in West Cork, part of the area which would become the
Irish Free State.
In County Cork West Cork, where these killings took place, had been one of the most violent parts of Ireland during the
Irish War of Independence. It was the scene of many of the conflict's major actions, such as the
Kilmichael and
Crossbarry ambushes. It contained a strong
Irish Republican Army (IRA) Brigade (the
3rd Cork Brigade) and also a sizeable Protestant population – roughly 16%, some of whom were
loyalists and affiliated to a loyalist vigilante group. The local IRA killed fifteen suspected informers from 1919–21, nine Catholics and six Protestants. They responded to the British burning of republican homes by burning those of local loyalists. British intelligence wrote that "many" of their informers in West Cork "were murdered and almost all the remainder suffered grave material loss". Republicans suspected the involvement of a local "Loyalists civil wing" in the killing of two republicans, the Coffey brothers, in
Enniskean in early January 1921. The discovery of documents in Dunmanway by republicans later supposedly confirmed the existence of counter-insurgency espionage in the area, which resulted in many purported informers getting safe passage to England. British forces were withdrawn from west Cork in February 1922. The only British forces left in the county were two battalions of the British Army in
Cork City. The local IRA was almost unanimously anti-Treaty and not under the control of the Provisional Government in Dublin in April 1922. At the time of the Dunmanway killings, none of the leaders of the Anti-Treaty Cork IRA were in the county.
Tom Hales and
Sean Moylan were in
Limerick, along with much of the Third and Fourth Cork IRA Brigades, trying to prevent the occupation of that city's military barracks by Pro-Treaty troops.
Tom Barry and
Liam Deasy were in Dublin attending an Anti-Treaty IRA meeting. They returned to Cork on 28 April, purportedly with a view to stopping any more killings. Paul McMahon wrote that the British Government had authorised £2,000 to re-establish intelligence in southern Ireland, especially in Cork, in early April 1922. On 26 April, the day after the raid on Hornibrook home, three British intelligence officers (Lts Hendy, Drove and Henderson) and a driver drove to
Macroom with the intention of gathering intelligence in west Cork, where they entered an inn. There, the officers were drugged and taken prisoner by IRA men, taken out of the country to Kilgobnet and then shot and their bodies dumped.
In Dunmanway In Dunmanway itself, a company of the
Auxiliary Division evacuated their barracks in the
workhouse. The IRA found confidential documents and a diary they left behind: these included a list of names. The information – according to historian Meda Ryan – was so precise "only a very well informed spy system could account for some of the entries in the book".
Flor Crowley, who analysed the diary, said "it was the work of a man who had many useful 'contacts' not merely in one part of the area but all over it." The list, however, did not contain any of the names of the Protestants killed. The IRA's Third Cork Brigade had killed 15 informers between 1919 and 1921, according to
Tom Barry, adding "for those who are bigots" that the religious breakdown was nine Catholics and six Protestants. Ryan writes, by way of justification, that the Auxiliaries' files showed that some Protestants in Murragh had formed a group known as the Loyalist Action Group, affiliated to the Anti-Sinn Féin League and the
Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland. The IRA suspected the group of passing information to British forces during the War of Independence. These included a
Black and Tans military intelligence diary. This diary was reproduced with the names excised in
The Southern Star newspaper, from 23 October to 27 November 1971, in consecutive editions. Photographs of the diary were published in
The Southern Star, which published them again with another article on the intelligence haul in its Centenary Supplement in 1989. ==Killings in Ballygroman==