MS. description of the Burning of Cork 11-12 Dec 1920
TeidealMS. description of the Burning of Cork 11-12 Dec 1920
TagairtU404A/01
Dáta
5 March 1921
Dáta táirgthe 1921 - 1921
Scóp agus Inneachar[Partial Transcript] “To get a correct idea of the ordeal that the city of Cork & its people passed through during the period ending on the 11th Dec when the great burning took place, it is necessary to go back to the beginning of November when the Auxiliaries were drafted into the city.
Immediately after their arrival they started in groups of three or four men in different parts of the City....the principle business streets...as well as the poorer districts, & at the point of their revolvers held up men, women, & children, & robbed them of money & jewels. No-one was spared...from one of Dwyer & Co's travellers...they took £90 belonging to his firm. From a student at the College they took 2d, they went into a poor woman's shop & took over £20….One afternoon they held up a lot of jarveys on their side cars in Patrick St, took their whips & started lashing the passers-by with them….they smashed into a public house in the North Main St….Over McGurks shop was a Sinn Fein Club….mad with drink they set fire to McGurk’s house & burnt it to the ground. At least three other houses were destroyed during this period before Nov 26th…
A determined effort was made to burn out Messrs Dwyer & Co. Washington St…after curfew it was attacked and entered, huge quantities of valuable furs, bales of silk & other stuffs were removed to motor lorries, then the place was sprinkled with petrol & fired. It was saved by an elaborate ‘sprinkler’ apparatus…
A few nights after the came into Patrick St, & broke into Cahill & Co. drapers at the corner of Princes St, they looted it and set it on fire as well as the Blackthorn House next door…The Fire Brigade managed to get the fire under control…
All this time the highway robbery was proceeding gaily during the day. When I was taking money to or from the Bank…I had a scout ahead & another behind to see if the coast was clear….
On…27th Novem. I arrived in Cork at 840 from Blackrock. I met Tom our porter, who told me we had been attacked during the night…[they] had thrown a bomb in through a back window…& blew a hole in the stairs…
When I got into Patrick St, I found a crowd of slum dwellers, attracted by the prospect of loot in Forrests, being kept at bay by IRA Volunteers, who had a large street hose which they were using vigorously. After breaking in the back door of Forrests…they looted the place, took away quantities of fur, dresses, silks…. left some bombs to explode & set the place on fire. There were six young ladies, assistants with the caretaker living at the top of the house… hustled into the street in their night clothes at 4am Nov 27th, 1920. The fire brigade arrived & started to work. Some members of the RIC gathered, in jovial mood, turned off the cocks, got in the way of the firemen, drove off civilian volunteers… I met Councillor Sean French, and we got about 30 men to guard Forrests & keep back the poor creatures who had come out of their dens for loot. I next motored up to the Bishop…to procure a Chaplain to go with each body of Volunteer (IRA) police in search of loot in different parts of the city… Denis Barry , chief of police, was organising gangs of volunteers. They went through the city …& recovered between £3000 & £4000 worth of stock which had been stolen…
We filled two large horse lorries…with the stock of silver and plate…& sent them to places of safety….
…Fr. Fidelis of the Holy Trinity Church told us he had word that at the Black and Tan headquarters they had been heard saying they were going to attack us again….
…they threw a bomb on the floor over the back shop…ruining about £500 worth of church mission goods, prayer books, rosary beads etc.
….the B & Ts on the night of 27th Nov made an attack on the Thomas Ashe Sinn Fein Club on Morrisons Island
…on 1st Dec…the Christmas season was on, & by the following Thursday, the 9th…, there was a hint of martial law…we reckoned that it would be some kind of law, as opposed to the anarchy of the previous five or six weeks…Saturday [11th Dec]…we got back and arranged nearly all our stock, to be ready to open monday morning…Sat. evening…my brother & I locked up, & walking home through King Street ran into three little black and tans rushing out of the soldier’s home, shouting like madmen, carrying rifles & evidently under the influence of drink…a few minutes later heard a number of rifle shots in King Street…about 545pm . The alleged ambush [at Dillon’s Cross] took place about 7pm about a mile away…my wife arrived. She had been on King St when the shooting started. There was a terrible scene of panic as the street was crowded.
About 10.30 that night we saw a terrific glare of fire…about 12 midnight it had subsided…In the morning some of our staff came down to say half Patrick St was burnt out & still blazing…a lot of shooting by drunken Black and Tans going on. We started in but were turned back by refugees, running out of town from the fire & the shooting. At 10.30 we went in. King Street was full of Black & Tans, dishevelled, dirty, drunken, carrying rifles and revolvers, some with caps down over their eyes, more with regulation police caps. We walked through to Bridge St, & there we had the sight of our lives. From Merchant St. to Maylor St the block was still burning. Cash’s was in ruins. Thompsons Toy Shop..blazing furiously; every place west of that up to Victoria Hotel was in ruins. The street was cleared of Black & Tans. It was crowded with people. The fire brigade had a single hose on one building- Wolfes drapery shop, blazing away. The effort was pathetic. Hoses were lying around the street- cut. The Brigade was in the last stages of exhaustion….The military fire brigade remained in the barracks….idle. The British Army looked on the whole night through- they were directly over it, on top of Patrick’s Hill. Numbers of officers came down to the town to get a better view…
…At 7.30 am Wm Egan and Sons Ltd was a heap of ruined smoking ashes. It went down with all it held & gave up nothing to the enemy. The fire at the back caught the woodwork of back windows & ran through the whole place. In such a fashion was the work of a hundred years in a few short hours laid in ruins. The life work of three generations apparently destroyed. The mainstay of fifty or sixty families broken. On Monday morning when our staff of workers gathered round us, the look of fear in the eyes of grown men who had large young families was worse than the actual burning. The prospect of hungry children, shivering in the cold, is the crulest fact to face in life. These men could have blamed Sinn Fein, but there was never a murmer. Nor in all Cork did I find one. We… [secured] the metalworking room in the School of Art for a workshop….two rooms at the Victoria Hotel…two more at the Father Mathew Hall…two airy rooms for semi-permanent workshop for our watchmakers & jewellers, so that in a few days…we only lost half a week- despite the biggest effort of the British Government & forces to wipe us out. When the strongroom cooled, we got out our books, safe, and all the jewellery & church plate. And with our books, ledgers & entry books, the spirit of our business was saved…."
Immediately after their arrival they started in groups of three or four men in different parts of the City....the principle business streets...as well as the poorer districts, & at the point of their revolvers held up men, women, & children, & robbed them of money & jewels. No-one was spared...from one of Dwyer & Co's travellers...they took £90 belonging to his firm. From a student at the College they took 2d, they went into a poor woman's shop & took over £20….One afternoon they held up a lot of jarveys on their side cars in Patrick St, took their whips & started lashing the passers-by with them….they smashed into a public house in the North Main St….Over McGurks shop was a Sinn Fein Club….mad with drink they set fire to McGurk’s house & burnt it to the ground. At least three other houses were destroyed during this period before Nov 26th…
A determined effort was made to burn out Messrs Dwyer & Co. Washington St…after curfew it was attacked and entered, huge quantities of valuable furs, bales of silk & other stuffs were removed to motor lorries, then the place was sprinkled with petrol & fired. It was saved by an elaborate ‘sprinkler’ apparatus…
A few nights after the came into Patrick St, & broke into Cahill & Co. drapers at the corner of Princes St, they looted it and set it on fire as well as the Blackthorn House next door…The Fire Brigade managed to get the fire under control…
All this time the highway robbery was proceeding gaily during the day. When I was taking money to or from the Bank…I had a scout ahead & another behind to see if the coast was clear….
On…27th Novem. I arrived in Cork at 840 from Blackrock. I met Tom our porter, who told me we had been attacked during the night…[they] had thrown a bomb in through a back window…& blew a hole in the stairs…
When I got into Patrick St, I found a crowd of slum dwellers, attracted by the prospect of loot in Forrests, being kept at bay by IRA Volunteers, who had a large street hose which they were using vigorously. After breaking in the back door of Forrests…they looted the place, took away quantities of fur, dresses, silks…. left some bombs to explode & set the place on fire. There were six young ladies, assistants with the caretaker living at the top of the house… hustled into the street in their night clothes at 4am Nov 27th, 1920. The fire brigade arrived & started to work. Some members of the RIC gathered, in jovial mood, turned off the cocks, got in the way of the firemen, drove off civilian volunteers… I met Councillor Sean French, and we got about 30 men to guard Forrests & keep back the poor creatures who had come out of their dens for loot. I next motored up to the Bishop…to procure a Chaplain to go with each body of Volunteer (IRA) police in search of loot in different parts of the city… Denis Barry , chief of police, was organising gangs of volunteers. They went through the city …& recovered between £3000 & £4000 worth of stock which had been stolen…
We filled two large horse lorries…with the stock of silver and plate…& sent them to places of safety….
…Fr. Fidelis of the Holy Trinity Church told us he had word that at the Black and Tan headquarters they had been heard saying they were going to attack us again….
…they threw a bomb on the floor over the back shop…ruining about £500 worth of church mission goods, prayer books, rosary beads etc.
….the B & Ts on the night of 27th Nov made an attack on the Thomas Ashe Sinn Fein Club on Morrisons Island
…on 1st Dec…the Christmas season was on, & by the following Thursday, the 9th…, there was a hint of martial law…we reckoned that it would be some kind of law, as opposed to the anarchy of the previous five or six weeks…Saturday [11th Dec]…we got back and arranged nearly all our stock, to be ready to open monday morning…Sat. evening…my brother & I locked up, & walking home through King Street ran into three little black and tans rushing out of the soldier’s home, shouting like madmen, carrying rifles & evidently under the influence of drink…a few minutes later heard a number of rifle shots in King Street…about 545pm . The alleged ambush [at Dillon’s Cross] took place about 7pm about a mile away…my wife arrived. She had been on King St when the shooting started. There was a terrible scene of panic as the street was crowded.
About 10.30 that night we saw a terrific glare of fire…about 12 midnight it had subsided…In the morning some of our staff came down to say half Patrick St was burnt out & still blazing…a lot of shooting by drunken Black and Tans going on. We started in but were turned back by refugees, running out of town from the fire & the shooting. At 10.30 we went in. King Street was full of Black & Tans, dishevelled, dirty, drunken, carrying rifles and revolvers, some with caps down over their eyes, more with regulation police caps. We walked through to Bridge St, & there we had the sight of our lives. From Merchant St. to Maylor St the block was still burning. Cash’s was in ruins. Thompsons Toy Shop..blazing furiously; every place west of that up to Victoria Hotel was in ruins. The street was cleared of Black & Tans. It was crowded with people. The fire brigade had a single hose on one building- Wolfes drapery shop, blazing away. The effort was pathetic. Hoses were lying around the street- cut. The Brigade was in the last stages of exhaustion….The military fire brigade remained in the barracks….idle. The British Army looked on the whole night through- they were directly over it, on top of Patrick’s Hill. Numbers of officers came down to the town to get a better view…
…At 7.30 am Wm Egan and Sons Ltd was a heap of ruined smoking ashes. It went down with all it held & gave up nothing to the enemy. The fire at the back caught the woodwork of back windows & ran through the whole place. In such a fashion was the work of a hundred years in a few short hours laid in ruins. The life work of three generations apparently destroyed. The mainstay of fifty or sixty families broken. On Monday morning when our staff of workers gathered round us, the look of fear in the eyes of grown men who had large young families was worse than the actual burning. The prospect of hungry children, shivering in the cold, is the crulest fact to face in life. These men could have blamed Sinn Fein, but there was never a murmer. Nor in all Cork did I find one. We… [secured] the metalworking room in the School of Art for a workshop….two rooms at the Victoria Hotel…two more at the Father Mathew Hall…two airy rooms for semi-permanent workshop for our watchmakers & jewellers, so that in a few days…we only lost half a week- despite the biggest effort of the British Government & forces to wipe us out. When the strongroom cooled, we got out our books, safe, and all the jewellery & church plate. And with our books, ledgers & entry books, the spirit of our business was saved…."
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