Following the foiled Dripsey ambush in January 1921, the IRA volunteers who were captured there by crown forces were executed a month later at Cork County Gaol (Today's UCC).
Large crowds assembled outside the gaol near the Western Road on the morning of the executions. The widow of Tomas MacCurtain set up an altar and led the assembled in prayer. From 8am a volley of shots were heard at 15 minute intervals.
Ballad composed in 1921
Volunteer Thomas O'Brien aged 20 from Model Village, Volunteer Dan O'Callaghan aged 22 from Dripsey, Volunteer John Lyons aged 27 from Aghabullogue, Volunteer Tim MacCarthy aged 21 from Donoughmore and Volunteer Pat O'Mahoney aged 30 from Berrings were executed and buried in the prison yard.
Today a memorial marks the grave of those executed at Cork County Gaol now UCC.
Following the executions the First Cork Brigade carried out reprisal shootings across the city that night. The shooting party met in a premises on Oliver Plunkett Street where an accident saw the removal of one of the party.
As the IRA men were preparing their weapons Sean Lucey was accidentally shot in the leg. He was taken to the South Infirmary where he recovered. This accident did not derail their plans and at 6pm the party set off, each man armed with a revolver and revenge.
Memorial at the Dripsey Ambush site.
The first shooting took place near the military barracks just after 6.30pm when Signaller Bowden of the Royal Corps of Engineers was wounded by a number of shots fired by the IRA. Private Whitear of the Hampshire Regiment was shot on Lovers Lane and managed to get into a nearby house where he then died.
Witness Statement of Commandant Mick Murphy.
Private Thomas Wise was standing at the ruins of Cash's which had been burned a year previously by crown forces during the Burning of Cork. He was with a lady friend when a number of men with revolvers approached and fired at him.
The ruins of Cash's following the Burning of Cork in 1920.
Private Wise was a 30 year old from Blarney Street who joined the Munster Fusiliers before joining the Royal Irish Regiment and went to France as an army driver during the end of WWI. In 1919 he was back in Cork with the Motor Transport Company at Victoria Barracks. When he was shot he managed to run down a nearby laneway known as Conkleys Lane where he then collapsed and died.
Thomas Wise
Cash's following its rebuilding in the late 1920s.
The shooting party then moved up Pana and shot Private William Alfred Gill and private Bettesworth at the top of Academy Street. Gill was a 21 year old Londoner and a member of the Hampshire Regiment who served in Germany at the end of WWI. He and Bettesworth were killed instantly as they stood in their uniform at the junction of Academy Street and Patrick Street.
Private Gill.
More shots were fired at British uniforms on the Grand Parade and South Mall as the IRA shooting party moved through the city. On Infirmary Road Lance Corporal Beattie was shot dead while Corporal Hodnett of the Royal Army Service Corps was killed by shooters on the Douglas Road.
Pana in the early 20th century.
The shootings ended sometime after 10pm.
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