Massacre in West Cork by Barry Keane Read Free Book Online Page A

distant cousins of my father and some of my mother’s relations, and slowly I started to build family trees. Finding my English relations was relatively easy, but my Irish relations have been much more difficult.
    On 6 May 1928 my English grandfather, Dr H. Midgley Reeve, died of a heart attack, and in the following months his large house was put on the market. It was bought by Edward Woods, who had been born in Bandon, County Cork, and his family. The Reeve family then moved to a smaller house nearby and a friendship arose between the two families. In 1939 Beryl Woods, the third daughter of the late Edward and Matilda Woods (daughter of Thomas Hornibrook), married Bernard, the second son of Dr H. Midgley Reeve and his wife, Mabel.
    I am one of the five grandchildren who are descendants of the four daughters of Edward and Matilda Woods. Sadly only four of us are still alive and none of us ever knew our Irish grandparents. My Irish grandfather died in 1933 and my grandmother died just over a year later, in 1934. She was aged forty-eight, and it was said that she gave up living after her husband’s death. My mother was daughter number three. She was born in Cork city in August 1920, some four months before my Irish grandfather’s shop was burned to the ground during what is known as ‘The Burning of Cork’. My Aunt Doreen was the youngest daughter and she was born in Essex, where the family first moved when they had to leave Ireland; she was the last of the four daughters to survive and she died in January 2012.
    Apart from my mother and her sisters, the only other Irish relation that I have met and been able to talk to about family history was one of the sons of Fred Nicholson, a cousin of Matilda Woods. His son’s knowledge about my family history was very limited. In more recent times I have ‘met’ other relations on the Internet and they have helped to fill in many of the gaps in my knowledge.
    It has been a difficult journey for me to find out about my Irish heritage, but visits to Ireland and reading have helped to fill in a few small pieces of a very large jigsaw. This new book by Barry Keane has greatly added to my knowledge of these events and the jigsaw puzzle is starting to take shape!

Appendix 1
    LIST OF THOSE KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN ATTACKED DURING THE MASSACRE PERIOD
    1. Francis Fitzmaurice: he and his brother were giving information to the British according to his brother W. J. Fitzmaurice’s statement.
    2. W. J. Fitzmaurice was allegedly sought but this does not appear to be the case from the inquest evidence.
    3. David Gray: Eileen Lynch suggested he was gathering information.
    4. James Buttimer: nephew called J. Buttimer identified as a spy in 1921.
    5. John Buttimer: lived next door to Sunlodge Manch Bridge where a Buttimer had been identified as a spy in the Dunmanway diary. May be related to the J. Buttimer reference on the 1921 spy list.
    6. John Greenfield: shot with John Buttimer.
    7. Robert Howe: Robert lived within 2 km of William Howe, Rushfield House, Castletown-Kinneigh, who was identified as a likely informant in the Dunmanway diary.
    8. John Chinnery: John was William Howe’s nephew. Risteard Ó Glaisne claimed after the fact that John was giving information to the British.
    9. Alexander Gerald McKinley: there is a suggestion in Hart (1998) that Tom Nagle and Alexander’s uncle (Holtsbaum?) were hiding the valuables of the Masonic Lodge in Clonakilty on 28 April 1922. This is the only possible connection other than a suggestion, also in Hart, that he was ‘a friend of the police’, and Gerard Murphy’s tenuous suggestion about a connection to his theory about Freemasons being shot in Cork which he now suggests is more to do with internal church politics.
    10. Robert Nagle: shot in place of his father, who appeared on a 1st Southern Command list of informers according to Hart (1998), p. 286.
    11. Reverend Ralph Harbord: shot at Murragh Rectory on 27 April; he survived. His brother Alfred