On the afternoon of November 15th 1920 two plain clothes Auxiliaries arrived in a motorcar at the Johnson & Perrott garage on Emmet Place ( formally Nelsons Place.)
They left their vehicle there for a service and then headed across town to the South Mall where they checked into The Imperial Hotel for the night.
Auxiliary cadets Bertram Agnew and Lionel Mitchell were on 24 hour leave from their barracks in Macroom Castle. They arrived in the city wearing their civvies and they were carrying cameras. They also carried service revolvers.
Following breakfast in The Imperial Hotel on the morning of November 16th Agnew and Mitchell went to collect their car. When they arrived at Johnson & Perrott they were met by volunteers from the First Cork Brigade who were laying in wait for them.
The Auxies did not put up much resistance. Agnew and Mitchell, along with their vehicle, were taken to Rusheen on the northern outskirts of the city and handed over to IRA E Company.
Mitchell was a 23 year old from Somerset who served as a Lieutenant with the Royal Berkshire Regiment in Flanders during WWI where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In August 1920 he joined the Auxileries and became a section leader. Agnew was a 24 year old from Lancashire and a former Navy Reserve sailor. He had joined the Auxiliary Division just two months before he was captured on Emmet Place.
Sing Sing Prison at Knockraha cemetery in North Cork.
The IRA had information that the two Auxies were in the city on intelligence work. It did not help their case that they were both based in Macroom Castle which hosted the worst of the worst in enemy uniform. The fates of Agnew and Mitchell were sealed and after some time spent in Sing Sing, the two men were taken to the Rea Bog where they were shot and buried.
The authorities in Macroom sent search parties to the city on the 20th of November but their search proved fruitless as neither car nor men were ever recovered.
Both Agnew and Mitchell remain buried in the Cork bog to this day. In the mid 1920s the bodies of several enemy soldiers who were shot and buried by the IRA were returned to their families. Agnew and Mitchell were the exception for some unknown reason.
The man in charge of 'disappearing' people in the Rea Bog was Martin Corry. Known as the Cork IRA's 'chief executioner' it is thought he oversaw the burial of up to 30 bodies in the north Cork bog near his home. Corry later enjoyed a long career as a Fianna Fail councillor and TD.
As for the auxie's motorcar, it was taken to a mechanic in a mountainy area of Muscrai where the chassis was used in the making of the IRA's armoured car called The River Lee which would serve against Free State troops during the Civil War.
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