Auxiliary Division - Controversy

Controversy

Many of the Division's Temporary Cadets did not cope well with the frustrations of counterinsurgency: hurriedly recruited, poorly trained, and with an ill-defined role, they soon gained a reputation for drunkenness, lack of discipline, and brutality worse than that of the Black and Tans. They were disliked by members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who considered them "rough." They seem to have been unpopular with the British Army as well. One British officer, who served as adjutant for the 2nd Battalion, Cameron Highlanders, wrote in his memoirs that the Auxiliaries "were totally undisciplined by our regimental standards." Macready wrote in his own memoirs that "those companies that had the good fortune to have good commanders, generally ex-Regular officers, who could control their men, performed useful work, but the exploits of certain other companies under weak or inefficient commanders went a long way to discredit the whole force."

Like the ordinary police, the Auxiliaries sometimes took reprisals in the wake of attacks by the IRA. On the evening of Bloody Sunday, for example, Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy were killed by their Auxiliary captors under very suspicious circumstances: the official explanation, that the two insurgents tried to escape, is widely disbelieved. But perhaps the most notorious reprisal involving the Auxiliary Division was the burning of Cork on 11 December 1920. At 7:30 p.m. that evening, a truckload of Auxiliaries from newly-formed K Company was ambushed at Dillons Cross: a grenade was thrown onto their truck, wounding ten Auxiliaries and killing one, Temporary Cadet Chapman. Later that night, police and Auxiliaries took revenge by setting fire to the city's commercial centre, preventing the fire service from attending the blaze, and shooting seven people.

Two IRA men, Cornelius and Jerimiah Delaney, were killed in their beds at home in Dublin Hill (though Con Delaney survived to December 18). Five civilians were shot on the streets. Damage amounting to $20 million was inflicted. The Cork Fire Brigade did not have the resources to deal with the fires: law and order, it seemed, had completely broken down. The British Government at first claimed the citizens were responsible for the arson, but a military court of inquiry known as the Strickland Report later found that the fires had been started by the Auxiliaries. Its findings were suppressed by the government, but K Company was disbanded. Allegedly, some Auxiliaries took to wearing pieces of burnt cork on their caps afterwards, to celebrate the occasion.

A few days later, near Dunmanway, there was an ugly postscript to the Cork fires: an Auxiliary called Hart went berserk and killed a young man and a seventy-year old priest, whom the Auxiliary patrol met on the road near Dunmanway. A third civilian, a local magistrate, escaped by taking refuge with the other Auxiliaries. Hart was arrested and court-martialled: at his trial, it was revealed that he had been a "particular friend" of TC Chapman, and had been drinking heavily since 11 December. A number of expert medical witness testified that Hart was insane at the time of the murders and the Courtmartial concluded that he "was guilty of the offenses with which he was charged, but was insane at the time of their commission".

While Hart was apparently confined to a Criminal Lunatic Asylum, other Auxiliaries literally got away with murder. On 9 February 1921, James Murphy and Patrick Kennedy were arrested by Auxiliaries in Dublin. Two hours later, constables of the Dublin Metropolitan Police found the two men lying shot in Drumcondra: Kennedy was dead, and Murphy was dying. Murphy died in Mater Hospital, Dublin on 11 February, but before the end, he declared that he and Kennedy had been shot by their Auxiliary captors. A military court of inquiry was held, and Captain W L King, commanding officer of F Company ADRIC, was arrested for the killings. King was court-martialled on 13–15 February, but acquitted, after Murphy's dying declaration was ruled inadmissible, and two officers from F Company provided perjured alibis for Captain King at the time of the shootings. Just short of two weeks later at the Clonmult Ambush in county Cork, an Auxiliary company were accused of killing seven IRA men after they had surrendered.

But while the authorities often turned a blind eye to reprisals, they were less tolerant of crimes against "civilians" - loyal and non-political people. A number of Auxiliaries were dismissed and prosecuted for theft, including a one-armed former Temporary Cadet, Major Evan Cameron Bruce, who was imprisoned for robbing a creamery, after being dismissed from the Division for striking a civilian without cause. On 19 February 1921, Commandant Crozier resigned after a dispute over discipline with the Police Adviser. Crozier had dismissed twenty-one Temporary Cadets accused of looting a licensed grocery store belonging to Protestants in County Meath. When General Tudor reinstated these men pending an official inquiry, Crozier left the Force. He was replaced by his assistant, Brigadier-General E A Wood, who commanded the Division until it was demobilized.