On the night of November 23rd 1920 the loyalist Anti-Sinn Fein Society with the aid of Auxiliaries/Tans/RIC torched the Sinn Fein club known as MacCurtain Hall at the bottom of Shandon Street.
No.69 marked - the Sinn Fein Club had rooms on the upper floors. This photo shows what it looked like before it was set on fire.
The arson at Shandon Street was part of a week long spate of arson attacks carried out by the Anti Sinn Fein Society in Cork city. Also attacked on the same night was the Sinn Fein club on Watercourse Road and the following night the Sinn Fein rooms on Hardwicke Street also suffered from arson.
Holly sellers at the bottom of Shandon Street in the 1920s. No.69 in the background to the left of "O'Connors" after it was rebuilt following the 1920 fire.
The Sinn Fein club had been raided numerous times before the arson attack. In one raid led by local RIC constables they seized membership cards of northside Republicans who later had their homes raided.
69 Shandon St today
The rooms at No.69 Shandon Street continued to be used by Republicans in the decades after the end of the War of Independence and Civil War. In the 1930s it served as Cork Cumann na mBan HQ.
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