Killings of Joseph Murtagh and
Tomas MacCurtain
Introduction from Chronology
RIC
Constable Joseph Murtagh is shot and killed at 11.00pm on Pope's Quay, Cork by
two IRA men. Lawlor says that the two
IRA men were Christy MacSweeney and J.J. O’Connell. O’Halpin and Ó
Corráin say that the name of the first was Christy MacSwiney.
Some hours later (on morning of 20th) Tomás MacCurtain, Lord Mayor of Cork and Commandant of Cork No. 1 Brigade, IRA, is shot dead in his Blackpool home by a group of men who were widely believed to be members of the RIC. His wife and five children (aged between ten months and ten years) were in their home at the time of his killing. (MacCurtain had received a death threat four days earlier written on stolen Dáil notepaper.) See Apr-20-20/1 for the result of the inquest.
Among
those suspected of involvement in the killing of MacCurtain was RIC
District-Inspector Swanzy. See Aug-22 to Sep-01-20/1.
More Detail and Comment
Hart
says that “The events of March [in Cork City] gave birth to a spirit of
murderous self-reliance with the city police, screened by a wall of silent
colleagues and superiors” (Hart (1998), pg 78).
Hart goes on to paint
a picture of the RIC in Cork City as “Undermanned and under siege behind iron shutters
and locked and chained doors, the men of the city force had long been left to
shift for themselves. There were few reinforcements or replacements” (Hart
(1998), pg 77. However, these statements
are difficult to reconcile with the
fact that before the killing of Constable Murtagh, only one RIC man had been
killed by the IRA in Cork City (see Mar-11-20/1) and one wounded (see
Mar-10-20/2). (Two other RIC men had
been killed by the IRA in Co. Cork by this point – see Dec-14-19/1 and
Feb-14-20/1.) If the RIC in Cork City
felt themselves under siege then it did not take them long to decide to break
the bounds of legality and take it upon themselves to summarily execute an IRA
leader (despite the fact that it was supposed to be their job to uphold law and
order.).
Up to this point, the IRA had
killed twenty members of the RIC but, as noted, only three of these in the
whole of Co. Cork (and only one in Cork City).
By March 19th 1920, the IRA had killed nine RIC men in Co. Tipperary.
However, the RIC in Co. Tipperary had not, as yet, decided to take it upon
themselves to kill IRA members but they were soon to start – see Mar-30-20/1 and Mar-30-20/4.
The RIC in Cork City were much quicker to develop, in Hart’s words, “a spirit of murderous self-reliance”. By
way of contrast, by February 19th, the IRA had killed six members of
the DMP in Dublin. Instead of forming a
‘death squad’ to revenge these killings, it would seem that the DMP decided to
withdraw from the conflict with the IRA.
Writing from the perspective of a serving RIC officer at the time, Regan (in his memoir) gives the following opinion of the MacCurtain killing. First, he states that “The police were thus in a position in which the policy of the Government was useless in affording them protection … and they themselves were being murdered with monotonous regularity”. He then goes on to say “It is only right that where the actual murderers of a policeman were unknown, those who were in command of the culprits, trained them, and directed the commission of the deed should be held responsible”. Specifically, with regards to MacCurtain, he says “On the 19th March, a policeman was shot in the neighbourhood of Cork. … His comrades … decided apparently (for I am sure that it was they who retaliated) that the brigade commander was primarily responsible. They shot MacCurtain, and if any reprisal in Ireland was justifiable this one undoubtedly was”. The key phrase used by Regan was “if any reprisal in Ireland was justifiable”. Is it up to the members of any police force to decide if a reprisal killing by the police force is ever justifiable? – it would seem that, at least in some situations, Regan thought so. Regan goes on to deplore that the RIC were put in this situation but without analysing what had led to the RIC being placed in this situation.
What had put the RIC in this
situation will be returned in future updates of this chronology.