April 1920 started with the largest scale IRA activity to date in the War of Independence with the systematic targeting of abandoned RIC barracks and other buildings. It was a month during which the issue of Irish independence would be brought to an international audience, while it continued to be a time of terror in Ireland. The RIC remained the open target of the IRA, but on a number of occasions in April the RIC would claim victory. Elsewhere, land-related issues continued to flare as anarchy set in across the country. The upsurge in IRA activity in early 1920 resulted in heavy losses for the police and the military but few were carried out with the ruthlessness or efficiency as the killing of two police constables in Newport, County Tipperary on 8 April. Ambushed by 20 masked men, Constables, Finn, McCarthy and Byrne were cycling on patrol from their barrack when they were fired at when they reached a place called Lackamore Wood. This isolated and  ‘bleak part of County Tipperary’ gave the IRA perfect cover to carry out their ambush. Constable Byrne, who was leading, received a number of shots in the shoulders and back and fell into a ditch. His two comrades were shot in the head and killed. Constable Byrne climbed over a ditch and fired his revolver in the direction of his assailants, who fled immediately. In his testimony to the military, Byrne recalled that he saw nearly 20 men running through the wood. Although badly injured Byrne managed cycle back to Newport Station, raising the alarm and then collapsed. It is believed that 30 shots were fired at the three men. Although the area was quickly flooded with military, no arrests. A Police District Inspector later recalled the scene of the attack: ‘we found the late Constable Finn lying on his back in the centre of the road quite dead    – both eyes were blown away and the lower part of his forehead- brain matter scattered on the road and a large pool of blood. About five years in advance...we found the late        Constable McCarthy in a sitting posture against the wall of the road and a bullet wound in his neck’.

Download Source Irish Independent 10.Apri.1920

Irish Independent Friday, April 09, 1920