Top Issue 1-2024

17 April 2015

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The police assassination of Tomás Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, 1920

THE ASSASSINATION of Tomás Mac Curtain, the first republican Lord Mayor of Cork, in March 1920, at the height of the Tan War, shocked public opinion throughout Ireland and abroad.

Mac Curtain, the youngest of a family of 12, was born at Ballykockane, County Cork, in March 1884. Educated at Burnford National School, and later at the North Monastery School, after the family moved to Cork City, he joined the Blackpool branch of Conradh na Gaeilge in 1901, becoming its secretary the following year.

In 1907, he joined Sinn Féin and shortly afterwards became a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). When Fianna Éireann was established in Cork in 1910, he acted as treasurer and Irish teacher until 1914.

With Terence MacSwiney (his successor as Lord Mayor who was later to die on hunger strike in Brixton Prison) he joined the Irish Volunteers on their formation in Cork in December 1913. During the following years he was responsible for organising the Volunteers in preparation for the forthcoming rising.

Under the leadership of both Mac Curtáin and MacSwiney, who were eager for action, the Volunteers in Cork were mobilised at Crookstown on the eve of the Easter Rising. On receiving Eoin Mac Neill's countermanding order, Mac Curtain, in order to avoid further confusion among the Volunteers, carried out manoeuvres before eventually ordering them to disperse.

Arrested in early May, following the collapse of the Rising in Dublin, he was imprisoned in Wakefield, Frongoch and Reading jails.

Elected Sinn Féin councillor for Cork North-West in the January 1920 local government elections, Mac Curtáin, the commander of the IRA's Cork No 1 Brigade, became the first republican Mayor of Cork at the end of the month.

Two months later, at 1.12am on the morning of Saturday 20 March, his 36th birthday, he was assassinated in his bed in front of his wife by a gang of masked raiders – members of the Royal Irish Constabulary in semi-disguise.

At the inquest into his death the following month, the jury found that he had been murdered by the RIC and brought in a verdict of murder against the British Government and its agents – the Viceroy Lord French, District Inspector Swanzy – and other members of the RIC.

French, in an attempt to blacken Mac Curtain's name, maintained that he had been killed by "extreme" republicans because he was too moderate, but most people realised that the Lord Mayor of Cork had been the victim of a deliberate RIC reprisal.

At the inquest into the death of Tomás Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, the jury returned a verdict of murder again the British Government and its agents – Viceroy Lord French, RIC District Inspector Swanzy – and other members of the RIC.

The inquest was held on 17 April 1920, 95 years ago this week.

The following August, Swanzy, the RIC officer in charge of the raid on Mac Curtain's home, was executed on the orders of the IRA's Director of Intelligence, Michael Collins.

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