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Tag Archives: Victoria Barracks


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The Burning of Cork

The burning of Cork by British forces takes place on the night of December 11, 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. It follows an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in the city, which wounds twelve Auxiliaries, one fatally.

IRA intelligence establishes that an Auxiliary patrol usually leaves Victoria Barracks (in the north of the city) each night at 8:00 p.m. and makes its way to the city centre via Dillon’s Cross. On December 11, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue receives intelligence that two lorries of Auxiliaries will be leaving the barracks that night and travelling with them will be British Army Intelligence Corps Captain James Kelly.

A unit of six IRA volunteers commanded by O’Donoghue take up position between the barracks and Dillon’s Cross, a “couple of hundred yards” from the barracks. Their goal is to destroy the patrol and capture or kill Captain Kelly. Five of the volunteers hide behind a stone wall while one, Michael Kenny, stands across the road dressed as an off-duty British officer. When the lorries near he is to beckon the driver of the first lorry to slow down or stop.

At 8:00 p.m., two lorries, each carrying 13 Auxiliaries, emerge from the barracks. The first lorry slows when the driver spots Kenny and, as it does so, the IRA unit attacks with grenades and revolvers. The official British report says that 12 Auxiliaries are wounded and that one, Spencer Chapman, a former Officer in the 4th Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), dies from his wounds shortly after. As the IRA unit makes its escape, some of the Auxiliaries fire on them while others drag the wounded to the nearest cover: O’Sullivan’s pub.

The Auxiliaries break into the pub with weapons drawn. They order everyone to put their hands over their heads to be searched. Backup and an ambulance are sent from the nearby barracks. One witness describes young men being rounded up and forced to lie on the ground. The Auxiliaries drag one of them to the middle of the crossroads, strip him naked and forced him to sing “God Save the King” until he collapses on the road.

Angered by an attack so near their headquarters and seeking retribution for the deaths of their colleagues at Kilmichael, the Auxiliaries gather to wreak their revenge. Charles Schulze, an Auxiliary and a former British Army Captain in the Dorsetshire Regiment during World War I, organizes a group of Auxiliaries to burn the centre of Cork.

At 9:30 p.m., lorries of Auxiliaries and British soldiers leave the barracks and alight at Dillon’s Cross, where they break into houses and herd the occupants onto the street. They then set the houses on fire and stand guard as they are razed to the ground. Those who try to intervene are fired upon and some are badly beaten. Seven buildings are set on fire at the crossroads. When one is found to be owned by Protestants, the Auxiliaries quickly douse the fire.

British forces begin driving around the city firing at random as people rush to get home before the 10:00 p.m. curfew. A group of armed and uniformed Auxiliaries surround a tram at Summerhill, smash its windows, and forced all the passengers out. Some of the passengers, including at least three women, are repeatedly kicked, hit with rifle butts, threatened, and verbally abused. The Auxiliaries then force the passengers to line up against a wall and search them, while continuing the physical and verbal abuse. Some have their money and belongings stolen. One of those attacked is a Catholic priest, who is singled out for sectarian abuse. Another tram is set on fire near Father Mathew‘s statue. Meanwhile, witnesses report seeing a group of 14–18 Black and Tans firing wildly for upwards of 20 minutes on nearby MacCurtain Street.

Soon after, witnesses report groups of armed men on and around St. Patrick’s Street, the city’s main shopping area. Most are uniformed or partially uniformed Auxiliaries and some are British soldiers, while others wear no uniforms. They are seen firing into the air, smashing shop windows and setting buildings on fire. Many report hearing bombs exploding. A group of Auxiliaries are seen throwing a bomb into the ground floor of the Munster Arcade, which houses both shops and flats. It explodes under the residential quarters while people are inside the building. They manage to escape unharmed but are detained by the Auxiliaries.

The Cork City Fire Brigade is informed of the fire at Dillon’s Cross shortly before 10:00 p.m. and are sent to deal with it at once. On finding that Grant’s department store on St. Patrick’s Street is ablaze, they decide to address it first. The fire brigade’s Superintendent, Alfred Hutson, calls Victoria Barracks and asks them to tackle the fire at Dillon’s Cross so that he can focus on the city centre. The barracks take no heed of his request. As he does not the resources to deal with all the fires at once, he has to prioritize the order in which the fires are addressed. He oversees the operation on St. Patrick’s Street and meets The Cork Examiner reporter Alan Ellis. He tells Ellis that “all the fires were being deliberately started by incendiary bombs, and in several cases, he had seen soldiers pouring cans of petrol into buildings and setting them alight.”

British forces hindered the firefighter’s attempts to tackle the blazes by intimidating them and cutting or driving over their hoses. Firemen are also shot at, and at least two are wounded by gunfire. Shortly after 3:00 a.m. on December 12, reporter Alan Ellis comes upon a unit of the fire brigade pinned down by gunfire near City Hall. The firemen say that they are being shot at by Black and Tans who have broken into the building. They also claim to see uniformed men carrying cans of petrol into the building from nearby Union Quay barracks.

At about 4:00 a.m. there is a large explosion and City Hall and the neighbouring Carnegie Library go up in flames, resulting in the loss of many of the city’s public records. According to Ellis, the Black and Tans had detonated high explosives inside City Hall. When more firefighters arrive, British forces shoot at them and refuse them access to water. The last act of arson takes place at about 6:00 a.m. when a group of policemen loot and burn the Murphy Brothers’ clothes shop on Washington Street.

After the ambush at Dillon’s Cross, IRA commander Seán O’Donoghue and volunteer James O’Mahony make their way to the farmhouse of the Delaney family at Dublin Hill on the northern outskirts of the city, not far from the ambush site. Brothers Cornelius and Jeremiah Delaney are members of F Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Cork Brigade IRA. O’Donoghue hides some grenades on the farm and the two men go their separate ways.

At about 2:00 a.m., at least eight armed men enter the house and go upstairs into the brothers’ bedroom. The brothers get up and stand at the bedside and are asked their names. When they answer, the gunmen open fire. Jeremiah is killed outright, and Cornelius dies of his wounds on December 18. Their elderly relative, William Dunlea, is wounded by gunfire. The brothers’ father says the gunmen wore long overcoats and spoke with English accents. It is thought that, while searching the ambush site, Auxiliaries had found a cap belonging to one of the volunteers and had used bloodhounds to follow the scent to the family’s home.

Over 40 business premises and 300 residential properties are destroyed, amounting to over five acres of the city. Over £3 million worth of damage (1920 value) is caused, although the value of property looted by British forces is not clear. Many people become homeless and 2,000 are left jobless. Fatalities include an Auxiliary killed by the IRA, two IRA volunteers killed by Auxiliaries, and a woman who dies from a heart attack when Auxiliaries burst into her house. Several people, including firefighters, are reportedly assaulted or otherwise wounded.

Irish nationalists call for an open and impartial inquiry. In the British House of Commons, Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, refuses the demand for such an inquiry. He denies that British forces had any involvement and suggests the IRA started the fires in the city centre.

Conservative Party leader Bonar Law says, “in the present condition of Ireland, we are much more likely to get an impartial inquiry in a military court than in any other.” Greenwood announces that a military inquiry would be carried out by General Peter Strickland. This results in the “Strickland Report,” but Cork Corporation instructs its employees and other corporate officials to take no part. The report blames members of the Auxiliaries’ K Company, based at Victoria Barracks. The Auxiliaries, it is claimed, burned the city centre in reprisal for the IRA attack at Dillon’s Cross. The British Government refuses to publish the report.

(Pictured: Workers clearing rubble on St. Patrick’s Street in Cork after the fires)


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Death of Florence O’Donoghue, Historian & Member of the Irish Republican Army

Florence O’Donoghue, historian and head of intelligence of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence, dies on December 18, 1967, in Mercy University Hospital, Cork, County Cork.

O’Donoghue is born in Rathmore, County Kerry, on July 22, 1894, the son of farmer Patrick O’Donoghue and Margaret Cronin. He moves to Cork in 1910, where he works as an apprentice in the drapery trade.

The 1916 Easter Rising is a watershed in O’Donoghue’s life. In December 1916, he joins the Cork branch of the Irish Volunteers. In early 1917, he is elected unanimously First Lieutenant of the Cyclist Company and as a result devotes all his spare time to Volunteer work. He begins writing weekly for two years for The Irish World newspaper. By May 1917, he is sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and in October, Tomás Mac Curtain appoints him head of communications of the Cork Brigade. He replaces Pat Higgins as Brigade Adjutant in February 1917. He is a key organiser in the sensational jailbreak of Captain Donnchadh Mac Niallghuis on Armistice Day 1918 and takes personal responsibility for his protection. Michael Collins is the last officer from Volunteers General Headquarters to visit Cork shortly after Christmas 1919, until the truce in 1921.

O’Donoghue builds up an intelligence network and agents which includes his future wife, Josephine Marchment. She is head female clerk at the 6th Division Headquarters at Victoria Barracks, Cork, and passes on secret British Army correspondence to him. He recruits people to open letters, tap phone lines and intercept telegrams. The Irish Republican Army has 2,000 active members in Cork which are also used for intelligence gathering. By March 1920, after killing a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Inspector, he is on the run and serving full-time in the IRA. In November of that year, the Cork Brigade kills six British Army officers and executes five Cork civilians on suspicion of spying.

After two and a half years of fighting, a truce is agreed upon on July 11, 1921. When the Dáil approves the Anglo-Irish Treaty, in January 1922, the IRA splits into pro- and anti-Treaty camps. Over the coming months and after being elected onto the army’s executive as Adjutant General, O’Donoghue warns of the dangers of an Irish Civil War. In June 1922, he resigns from the army’s national executive and a month later, on July 3, 1922, from the army. Civil war does break out on June 28, 1922 between pro- and anti-Treaty factions, much to his dismay.

During the Irish Civil War, O’Donoghue remains neutral and tries to organise a truce to end the fighting. In December 1922, he forms a group called the “Neutral IRA”, along with Seán O’Hegarty, composed of pro-truce IRA men. He claims he has 20,000 members in this group. He campaigns for a month’s truce between the two sides, so that a political compromise could be reached. However, his efforts come to nothing and in March 1923, he winds up the “Neutral IRA,” judging that its objectives cannot be achieved. The Irish Civil War ends on May 24, 1923.

O’Donoghue serves as major in the Irish Army from 1939-1946. He forms a Supplementary Intelligence Service that is to remain behind enemy lines in the event of an invasion. He also teaches guerrilla warfare tactics to new army recruits.

O’Donoghue marries Josephine Brown (née Marchment) in April 1921 and they have four children. The couple also adopts two children from Josephine’s first marriage, including Reggie Brown, whom O’Donoghue kidnaps from his grandparents in Wales in 1920. He becomes a rate collector and remains outside politics.

In later years O’Donoghue becomes a respected historian. While in the army he edits An Cosantóir, the Irish Army’s magazine. He convinces Éamon de Valera to establish the Bureau of Military History to record personal accounts from the Irish War of Independence. He is a recording officer until 1948. His most famous work is his biography on Liam Lynch, entitled No Other Law.

O’Donoghue dies on December 18, 1967, and Tom Barry gives the graveside oration. His papers are in the National Library of Ireland (NLI) and his statement to the Bureau of Military History is in the Military Archives.


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Birth of Josephine Bracken, Common-law wife of José Rizal

Marie Josephine Leopoldine Bracken, the common-law wife of Philippine national hero José Rizal, is born in Victoria Barracks in Victoria, British Hong Kong, on August 9, 1876.

Bracken is born to Irish parents James Bracken, a corporal in the British Army, and Elizabeth Jane McBride, of Belfast. After her mother dies shortly after childbirth, her father gives her up for adoption. She is taken in by her godfather, the American George Taufer, a blind, and fairly well-to-do engineer of the pumping plant of the Hong Kong Fire Department, and his late Portuguese wife. He later remarries another Portuguese woman from Macau, Francesca Spencer, with whom he has another daughter.

After the second Mrs. Taufer dies in 1891, Taufer decides to remarry again but the new wife turns out to be difficult to deal with for Bracken. She spends two months in the Convent of the Canossian Sisters, where she previously attended early years of school. She decides to go back only after Taufer calls at the convent’s door pleading with her to come back home as his third wife turned out to be a bad housekeeper. A few months later she has trouble again with the third Mrs. Taufer and haunts her out of the house.

Bracken later recommends that her blind adoptive father see José Rizal, who is a respected ophthalmologist who had practiced at Rednaxela Terrace in Hong Kong. By this time, he is a political exile in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte in southern Philippines. The family sails to the Philippines and arrives in Manila on February 5, 1895, and later that month Bracken and Taufer sail to Dapitan.

Taufer’s double cataract is beyond Rizal’s help, but he falls in love with Bracken. Taufer vehemently opposes the union but finally listens to reason. She accompanies Taufer to Manila on his way back to Hong Kong, together with Rizal’s sister, Narcisa, on March 14, 1895. Rizal applies for marriage but because of his writings and political stance, the local priest Father Obach, will only agree to the ceremony if Rizal obtains permission from the Bishop of Cebu. Either the Bishop does not write him back or Rizal is not able to mail the letter because of Taufer’s sudden departure.

Before heading back to Dapitan to live with Rizal, Bracken introduces herself to members of his family in Manila. His mother suggests a civil marriage, which she believes to be a lesser “sacrament” but free from hypocrisy — and thus less a burden to Rizal’s conscience — than making any sort of political retraction. Nevertheless, Bracken and Rizal live together as husband and wife in Barangay Talisay, Dapitan, beginning in July 1895. The couple has a son, Francísco Rizal y Bracken, who is born prematurely and dies within a few hours of birth.

On the evening before his execution on December 30, 1896, on charges of treason, rebellion and sedition by the Spanish colonial government, the Catholic Church claims that Rizal returned to the faith and is married to Bracken in a religious ceremony officiated by Father Vicente Balaguer, S.J. sometime between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM, an hour before his scheduled execution at 7:00 AM. Despite claims by Father Balaguer and Bracken herself, some sectors, including members of Rizal’s family, dispute that the wedding had occurred because no records are found attesting to the union.

Following Rizal’s death, Bracken joins revolutionary forces in Cavite province, where she takes care of sick and wounded soldiers, boosting their morale, and helping operate reloading jigs for Mauser cartridges at the Imus Arsenal under revolutionary general Pantaleón García. Imus is under threat of recapture, so Bracken, making her way through the thicket and mud, moves with the operation to the Cavite mountain redoubt of Maragondon. She witnesses the Tejeros Convention on March 22, 1897, before returning to Manila, and is later summoned by the Spanish Governor-General, who threatens her with torture and imprisonment if she does not leave the colony. Owing however to her adoptive father’s American citizenship, she cannot be forcibly deported, but she voluntarily returns to Hong Kong upon the advice of the American consul in Manila.

Upon returning to Hong Kong, Bracken once more lives in her father’s house. After his death, she marries Vicente Abad, a Cebuano mestizo, who represents his father’s tabacalera company in the British territory. A daughter, Dolores Abad y Braken, is born to the couple on April 17, 1900. A later testimony of Abad affirms that her mother “was already suffering from tuberculosis of the larynx” at the time of the wedding.

Bracken dies of tuberculosis on March 15, 1902, in Hong Kong and is interred at the Happy Valley Cemetery.