page_title: Macroom
section_title: War of Independence
hierarchical_section_title: Macroom / History / Modern period / War of Independence
caption_attribution_description: English: Image shows a mass protest rally around 1894 of small tenant farmers and agrarian labourers demanding their rights in the Market Square of Macroom, County Cork, Ireland, while displaying Irish Land and Labour Association ILLA banners.
context_page_description: Macroom is a market town in County Cork, Ireland which formed in the valley of the River Sullane, about halfway between Cork city and Killarney. Its Irish Gaelic may translate as "meeting place of followers of the god Crom" or "crooked oak", the latter a reference to a large oak tree that apparently grew in the town-square during the reign of King John. Its population has grown and receded over the centuries as it went through periods of war, famine and workhouses, forced emigration and intermittent prosperity. The 2016 census recorded an urban population of 3,765 people. Macroom is part of the Cork North-West.
  Macroom began as a meeting place for the Druids of Munster. It is first mentioned is in 6th-century records, and the immediate area hosted a major battle c. 987 involving the Irish king Brian Boru. During the middle ages, the town was invaded by a succession of warring clans, including the Murcheatach Uí Briain and Richard de Cogan families. In the early modern period the MacCarthy's took control and later the area found prosperity via milling. The MacCarthys built a series of tower houses, many of which survive.
context_section_description: Macroom was the main base in Cork for the British Auxiliary Division during the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence. The Irish Republican Army was highly active in the county, especially in the areas around Macroom, Bandon and Dunmanway. Royal Irish Constabulary police in the town described the area as "practically in a state of war". After a series of burnings of local police barracks and courthouses a curfew was imposed on the town, with a ban on public meetings and market fairs. A local IRA member wrote of a "hinterland unpoliced and unwatched". The local police felt they had lost control and the Auxiliaries were called to intervene. The townspeople treated army personnel with hostility, and there were instances of patrols being stoned. The Brits were embroiled in a guerrilla battle in the Muskerry hills, coming under fire from the Ballyvourney IRA cell, and lost three men – two of them officers – in one attack.
  In 1920 at Kilmichael, on the road between Macroom and Dunmanway, 17 members of the Macroom Auxiliary "C Company" were ambushed and killed by a local IRA cell led by the prominent general Tom Barry. In the aftermath of the attack, the British military were given the power to execute anyone found carrying arms and ammunition, to search houses, impose curfews, try suspects in military rather than civilian courts and to intern suspects without trial. On 11 December, in reprisal, the centre of Cork city was burned by Auxiliaries, British soldiers and Black and Tans.
  Macroom Castle was burned out on five separate occasions; the last occasion was on 18 August 1922 following the evacuation of British Auxiliaries from the town. Members of anti-treaty forces, including Erskine Childers and Frank O'Connor, retreated from Cork City to Macroom, burning the castle before leaving.
  Mount Massey, now ruined, was the 18th and 19th century home of the members of the Massey family, and is located north by Kilnagurteen and gave the townland of Masseytown its name. The family were major landowners with land covering 13,363 acres, extending from Clondrohid to Drishane. During the 19th century they tried to temper nascent nationalism by sponsoring the local town fair. Later their home was sieged and eventually burned in December 1920, during the War of Independence.
  The revolutionary soldier and politician Michael Collins was killed in 1922 in an ambush near Béal na Bláth. Lady Olivia Ardilaun, a descendant of the McCarthys, and widow of Lord Ardilaun, sold the castle demesne in 1924  to a group of local businessmen, which they put in trust for the town.
caption: c. 1894 mass meeting, organised by the ILLA supported by small tenant farmers and agrarian labourers in the Market Square
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