Massacre in West Cork by Barry Keane Read Free Book Online

Acknowledgements
    No book is ever written by one person and this book is no different. I first was encouraged to pursue this subject while a postgraduate in the Geography Department of University College Cork and, even though it took a little longer than planned, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to Emeritus Professor W. J. Smyth, Professor R. J. N. Devoy and Dr K. Hourihan for their help at that time. More recently Dr Andy Bielenberg, Dr John Borgonovo, Dr John Regan, Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc, Dr Gerard Murphy and Niall Meehan have all been generous in sharing their research with me. Many of the more knotty problems have been resolved by their input.
    The staffs of the Cork City Library, Cork County Library, Cork City and County Archives, UCC, National Library of Ireland, National Archives of Ireland, National Archives UK and the Military Archives of Ireland are often not acknowledged, but in this story it was their encouragement, courtesy and unfailing kindness which made many of the linkages possible. Their knowledge of what they had in their boxes of dusty documents, and their willingness to make them available, made the hard slog of raw research much easier than it might otherwise have been. My colleagues and friends in Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh also deserve praise for listening and contributing to the story as it developed. To each and every one I am deeply grateful.
    Other people deserve special mention. Thomas Hornibrook’s great-grandson, Martin Midgley Reeve, provided a wealth of new information which forms the core of this book and was willing to engage with a story which could only have been painful for him to revisit. My great friend Henry O’Keeffe both listened to the story as it developed and critically read the documents along with me as they were found. Seán Crowley, Dr Martin Healy, Donal O’Flynn and Nora Lynch all took time and energy to tell their version of the story on more than one occasion when they had better things to do; they deserve special praise for their willingness to help. The photographs of Herbert Woods and Michael O’Neill provided by Donal O’Flynn are especially important as they rescue these men from being forgotten by time.
    Mary Feehan and the staff of Mercier Press have proved to be exceptional publishers. Wendy Logue deserves special praise for her sterling editorial work and immense patience. Initially, this book was only 35,000 words long and it was a great risk for Mercier to take it on as a project. I am delighted that Mary had the vision to see behind the initial manuscript to what was hidden and was able to get me to tell the entire story.
    Last, but not least, my family, Louise and Ella, have been fantastic supporters of this project. Research eats into all parts of family life and there has been more than one weekend wasted driving around the graveyards of West Cork looking for the right headstone. Ella has spent many ‘happy’ afternoons in the County Library, with all the patience of a six-year-old, and without Louise’s help this book would never have got past the initial stages.
    Permission for use of images was given by Dr Martin Midgley Reeve, Cork City Library, Irish Examiner Publications, the Military Archives of Ireland and Donal O’Flynn.

Foreword
M ARTIN M IDGLEY R EEVE (GRANDSON OF M ATILDA W OODS, GREAT-GRANDSON OF T HOMAS H ORNIBROOK)
    As you may know much better than I do, trying to research Irish history is not easy, especially when you don’t live in Ireland. My mother died on 12 June 2004, shortly before her eighty-fourth birthday. Amongst her papers I found a number of menu cards that had been on the tables of her wedding breakfast in 1939. The backs of these cards contained the signatures of all, or I assume most, of her guests. Some of the names were very familiar to me and others brought back vague memories of people I had met many years before. I set about trying to discover who the people were and if any were relations of mine. I contacted