In late October, MacSwiney, at this stage freedom fighter seen as an international cause célèbre, died on his 74th day on hunger strike. Later that month, Oswald Swanzy, the RIC commander believed to be responsible for MacCurtain’s death, was gunned down in his hometown, Lisburn, by volunteers acting on orders from Michael Collins. He refused to recognize the British courts and went on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in London. In August, his replacement as mayor, Terence MacSwiney, was court-martialed for sedition. The lord mayor of Cork, Tomas MacCurtain, was shot dead on March 20, 1920, near his home in Blackpool, almost certainly by a group of rogue RIC officers. Often they resorted to reprisals, including torturing civilians and burning the homes of suspected IRA members or sympathizers.Ĭork was a hotbed of resistance to British rule in Ireland. The three branches of the RIC-Tans, Auxies and regular police officers, and army contingents too-buried their dead but, usually, couldn’t find the killers. They dismissed the IRA as cowards who wouldn’t stand and fight. Understandably, the hit and run guerilla tactics of the revolutionaries drew serious condemnation from the establishment forces.
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