As we reach the end of this nasty year of pandemic, it’s worth remembering that the Christmas/New Year period hasn’t always been a time of peace and goodwill. The months from October to the end of December 1920 were particularly difficult in County Cork, from the death by hunger strike in Brixton Prison of the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence McSwiney in October, to the Kilmichael Ambush in November, then the burning of Cork by Auxiliaries, and, at the very end of the year, the Midleton ambush and the reprisals that followed from it. The whole sequence of events in Midleton took place in three ‘acts’ – the ambush, the reprisals and a mysterious fire.

Ambush

Perhaps the best account of the ambush comes from Patrick Whelan who worked in what was then Patrick Hallinanan’s Midleton Garage and Engineering Works (now ‘Neville’s Garage’), of which more later.

Bear in mind that the town was then regularly patrolled by the police and the auxiliary division of the police – the Royal Irish Constabulary, which was an armed police force. The Royal Irish Constabulary was based on Bridewell Lane (now Oliver Plunkett Street) in what is the current Garda Station. But they were supported by a body of Auxiliaries (popularly, but incorrectly, called ‘Black and Tans’ – these were two different bodies of men). The Auxiliaries were based in The Grange (previously the Rectory) on Cork Road, now the site of the Midleton Park Hotel.

Whelan was born in Wexford but his family moved to Queenstown (now Cobh) when he was very young. During the War of Independence he served in ‘B’ (Midleton) company of the 4^th Battalion of Cork No1 Brigade, and also in the 4^th Battalion Flying Column under Diarmuid Hurley, known as ‘The Gaffer’ for his position as a foreman in Cuddigan’s Yard. According to Whelan….

…the whole column…..moved into Midleton under cover of darkness, and assembled at a saw-mills in Charles Street [now Connolly Street]. From the saw-mills, Jack (Aherne) and I continued on to the main street. We arranged that I would take up position at the corner of Charles Street which is situated about midway in the main street, and at right-angles to it. Jack posted himself further down the main street, in the vicinity of the Midleton Arms Hotel.

The Midleton Arms Hotel is now JJ Coppinger’s Pub. What the above indicates is that the Flying Column entered Midleton under cover of darkness via the Dungourney road and met at what was then Wallace’s coffin workshop on Free School Lane – a building that still exists. Whelan and Aherne covered the lower (southern) end of Main Street. The police and Auxiliaries were located at the northern end of the street, and it was from this direction that they conducted their nightly patrol.  Bear in mind that the only (poor) street lighting came from the widely spaced public gas lamps. Whelan continues….

 I was only about five minutes at my post when I saw a patrol of Black and Tans, marching slowly towards me. They move in pairs, about six paces apart and on both sides of the street, four pairs on my side and two pairs on the opposite side, together with an old R.I.C. man named Mullins. All were armed with rifles and revolvers, with the rifles slung on their shoulders.

When the patrol passed, Whelan collected Jack Aherne and they reported back to Diarmuid Hurley, who immediately issued his orders. There were sixteen men involved, all knowing Midleton imtimately. Ten men took positions in doorways between Charles Street and along about forty yards of Main Street up to the Midleton Arms Hotel. The remainder were on the opposite side of the street. Diarmuid Hurley was at the Midleton Arms Hotel end of Main Street. It was decided that, when the patrol was between the Midleton Arms and Charles Street on the return journey, Hurley would open fire, and this was to be the signal to go into action. Each one of the party was armed with a revolver. According to Whelan, the Column was….

……..about five minutes in position when the patrol returned – still in the same order as I had seen it earlier. Hurley judged his shot to perfection, and at once all of us opened fire. The patrol was taken completely by surprise and, in comparatively short time, the attack was over. Some of the Tans did fire back at us, and there were a few narrow escapes on our side. Dan Cashman of Midleton was fortunate to be carrying a cigarette case in his vest pocket – it was badly dented by a bullet, but it probably saved his life. Jim McCarthy of Midleton, although not a member of the column, took part in the attack, and was wounded in the wrist. Otherwise, we escaped unscathed.

One wonders if Dan Cashman’s cigarette case has survived…. Apparently he was standing in the doorway of McCarthy’s shop (54 Main Street, more recently Midleton Chiropody) next door to the Midleton Arms Hotel.

But what of the patrol? Constable Mullins was shot dead, and about six other Tans wounded, some of whom died later from their wounds. Some of the patrol threw their rifles on the street and ran away. “Gordie” escaped uninjured, and somehow I was glad of this as I still think he was not of an evil nature. Two of the Black and Tans were lying on the footpath near me, bleeding profusely.

‘Gordie’ was a constable known to Whelan and who had exhanged a friendly greeting with Whelan as the patrol had passed Whelan earlier in the evening.

One wounded policeman was close to Whelan, who…..knelt down beside the Tan and spoke to him. He told me his name, which I have now forgotten, and said he was from Liverpool. He said he would resign if he recovered from his wounds. He then offered me his wallet. I took it from his hand and put it back in the breast pocket of his tunic, and told him I was doing so. I then got the uniform which Sergeant Moloney had dropped, folded it and placed it under the Tan’s head. The poor fellow lost a lot of blood, and I expect he was one of those who eventually died of wounds.

Whelan noted that this attack took place only a few hundred yards from the R.I.C. barracks and about five hundred yards from the military post. The whole affair lasted about twenty minutes. We withdrew by the same route as we had arrived. All the boys were in great form, and they had every right to be, but I recall having mixed feelings, due to my intimate contact with the wounded Black and Tan.

The Flying Column vanished into the night taking the route out of Midleton after a rendezvous at the saw mill and then, taking the Dungourney road, went to Kilmountain, near Castlemartyr, where they hid in a safe house.

Three R.I.C. and Black and Tan patrol men died as a result of the nights actions. These were Constable Martin Mullen, twenty-one year old Constable Ernest Dray and twenty-three year old Constable Arthur Thorp.

As the ambush was underway, the manager of the Southern Star Cinema (currently the furniture outlet opposite the Courthouse) heard the shooting – an easy enough matter given that movies were then silent. Realising that this was dangerous, he rushed into the projection room as the film was ending and told the projectionist to put on another reel to keep the audience in their seats until all was safe again. This ensured that civilian casualties were avoided. The Southern Star Cinema had only been opened a few months earlier in 1920.

Reprisals

The ambush in Midleton led Brigadier-General Higginson to order the first official reprisals conducted by the British military during the War of Independence. On the afternoon of 1^st January, leaflets were distributed around the town informing residents that a number of houses would be burned in response to the attack. All residents were to go indoors and draw down their blinds. The properties targeted were the houses of John O’Shea (now O’Shea Solicitors), Paul McCarthy and Edmond Carey of Midleton (now Walsh Pharmacy), as well as four properties outside the town. 

Paul McCarthy’s shop (no 54) provided a moment of defiance from the elderly Mrs Eliza McCarthy. Troops burst in and gave the family 30 minutes to gather essential belongings and clear out. No furniture could be removed. A soldier took an axe to the top of the family piano. However, Eliza McCarthy refused to go. They could burn the house down but she was staying put. The officers knew that the international outrage from burning an elderly widow in her home would be horrific for both the army and the UK government, so having thrashed the place, including damaging all the furniture, they left the property alone, apart from the damaged piano. Paul McCarthy later claimed that the damage was such that the place was uninhabitable, but at least it could be quickly repaired.

The Mysterious Fire

Then, at ‘About midnight, the Midleton Garage and Engineering Works, owned by Mr P Hallinan, were enveloped in flames.’ So reported the Kilkenny People on Saturday 8^th January 1921, a week after the incident.

The Midleton Garage and Engineering Works stood opposite the town’s Courthouse, between the red brick Munster & Leinster Bank (now Allied Irish Banks) and the new (erected in 1920) Southern Star Cinema (more recently Luxury Carpets & Interiors). It was a mysterious fire for which nobody claimed responsibility. Initial suspicions were cast on the Royal Army but they had conducted their operation much earlier in the afternoon of that day and had left the town by late afternoon.

The Midleton Garage and Engineering Works was established by the Hallinan family between 1914 and 1916 – it is first mentioned in Guy’s City and County Directory of Cork  in the latter year. At the time it was directly managed by John Fitzgibbon of the Cork Road.

The managing director and business proprietor was Patrick Hallinan of Cloonmullin on Mill Road, although the property was owned by his father, Edward Hallinan JP of Avoncore Mills.  Edward Hallinan was a prominent Catholic businessman and Justice of the Peace in East Cork.  Patrick had been summoned before the local Petty Sessions court in 1904 on a charge of dangerous driving, but the Resident Magistrate dismissed the matter on hearing evidence that Hallinan had driven carefully and correctly from his residence at Cloonmullin to the town.

There is a priceless irony in that one of the IRA men who participated in the ambush on 29^th December was Patrick Whelan who was an employee at Midleton Garage & Engineering Works.

As the Kilkenny People noted, the origin of the fire was, ‘however, a matter of surmise.  The building burned rapidly, and meanwhile local police, with the limited means at their disposal, did everything possible towards preventing an extension of the fire. Adjoining the garage are the premises of the Munster and Leinster Bank. The manager, recognising the dangerous position in which the building stood, at once summoned by telephone the assistance of the Cork Fire Brigade, who made a quick journey to the scene. These with the assistance of the local police were, after a couple of hours work, successful in saving the bank, but the garage and works were burned out.’ The manager of the Munster & Leinster Bank at the time was Mr JJ Walshe.

The fire had not only destroyed the garage but also the vehicles stored inside, including a steam-powered tractor and young Eric Hallinan’s motorbike as well as a number of other vehicles and stores. Edward Hallinan put in a claim for compensation with the British government for £10,000. It seems that he didn’t get all of that amount. The owners of the other vehicles also applied for compensation. The garage was soon rebuilt using parts of a prefabricated storage shed from the former US Naval Air Station in Aghada – a structure similar to the adjacent cinema building, which had been built just a few months earlier.

It has been alleged that Edward Hallinan was a Unionist, but this is entirely untrue. In its edition of July 18^th, 1914, The Cork Examiner reported that he had presented Dr John F. Walsh of Midleton with a cheque for the sum of £25 for the National Volunteers ‘and has expressed his entire sympathy with the movement.’ In effect, Hallinan was a moderate nationalist and supporter of John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party (Irish Home Rule Party) in the Westminster parliament. The National Volunteers were actually the Irish Volunteers founded in 1913 as an armed body of Home Rule militia established in response to the establishment of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1912. The name given in the Examiner is unusual because they only became the ‘National Volunteers’ when the Irish Volunteers split following John Redmond’s speech at Woodenbridge in County Wicklow in which he called upon the volunteers to enlist in the British army and fight in the European War that had commence in August. Redmond’s supporters broke from the Irish Volunteers and became known as the National Volunteers, most of whom enlisted in the British army.

It appears likely that republican nationalists may have set the fire, but it could well have been an accident since the volatility of petroleum products was not properly understood at the time.

Between the ambush on Main Street on 29th December and the reprisals on 1st January, and the total destruction of the Midleton Garage and Engineering Works, Midleton had endured a Christmas/New Year period of terror exactly a century ago this year. A few weeks later matters came to a head with the Battle of Clonmult in February.