Bodies of three men murdered during Truce secretly reburied

The bodies of three Protestants killed by the IRA in Co Cork during the Truce were exhumed and secretly reburied in a local graveyard to avoid controversy, according to a local historian.

Barry Keane has discovered new material which suggests the State colluded with the Church of Ireland to cover up the exhumation and reburial of the three Protestant men.

New documentation

Mr Keane, who last year published

Massacre in West Cork – The Dunmanway and Ballygroman Killings

, has found new documentation on the Ballygroman killings.

It is generally accepted Thomas Hornibrook, his son Samuel, and Capt Herbert Woods were shot by the anti-Treaty IRA on April 26th, 1922´, during the Truce, said Mr Keane, a history teacher.

The killings are generally believed to be in retaliation for the shooting dead of IRA commandant Michael O’Neill at the Hornibrook home at Ballygroman in mid-Cork.

Anti-treaty IRA men are believed to have abducted all three men and they were believed to have been shot and buried in a bog hole in Newcestown, said Mr Keane.But last month, Mr Keane was contacted by Dublin diocesan archivist Noelle Dowling, after she found a letter written in 1948 by Cork solicitor John Stanton about the killings.

"The letter stated the Hornibrooks' family solicitor, Barry O'Meara & Co, had been contacted some time previously by An Garda Síochána about the killings," said Mr Keane.

“The gardaí told Mr O’Meara the bodies had been found in a bog and they wanted to know if Capt Woods’s widow, who was living in the UK, should be informed about the discovery.

“Mr O’Meara contacted the Protestant rector in the locality and it was decided ‘there was no good raking up the whole matter so the bodies were quietly buried in a Protestant cemetery’.