As the IRA attempted to make the country ungovernable, in July the Military struck back with almost daily raids on houses and business premises, stopping people as they went about their daily life.

Their idea was to make the country unliveable and to deny the IRA the use of its civilian support network, which of course was crucial to their success in the war. A series of raids were carried out in county Cork in July 1920 which both antagonised and enraged the local population. In Castletownroche, during a raid on the O’Neill home, three sons of the owner were placed against the wall and threatened that they would be shot. Raids were carried out on almost a dozen houses in the village of Killeagh in East Cork and a man named Brown arrested. When four men in the village of Grenagh, near Mallow were arrested without cause by the military one of the men was mauled by a bloodhound. In Cork City a man named Doherty was shot while standing outside a church where he was talking to a number of people. In Cork city there was widespread displeasure at the military announcement that a curfew between 10pm and 3am would come into affect within three miles of the city’s general post office.  

Source: Irish Bulletin, 17 July 1920 page 2

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