page_title: Burning of Cork
section_title: Investigation
hierarchical_section_title: Burning of Cork / Aftermath / Investigation
caption_attribution_description: English: Cork City Hall. Panoramic stitch from two images. Français&#160;: L'hôtel de ville de Cork, en Irlande. Image panoramique obtenue en assemblant deux clichés.
context_page_description: The Burning of Cork by British forces took place on the night of 11–12 December 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. It followed an Irish Republican Army ambush of a British Auxiliary patrol in the city, which wounded twelve Auxiliaries, one fatally. In retaliation, the Auxiliaries, Black and Tans and British soldiers looted and burnt numerous buildings in Cork city centre. Many civilians reported being beaten, shot at, and robbed by British forces. Firefighters testified that British forces hindered their attempts to tackle the blazes through intimidation, cutting their hoses and shooting at them.
  More than 40 business premises, 300 residential properties, the City Hall and Carnegie Library were destroyed by the fire. The economic loss was estimated as including over £3 million worth of damage, while 2,000 were left jobless and many more became homeless. Two unarmed IRA volunteers were shot dead in the north of the city.
  British forces carried out other reprisals on Irish civilians during the war, but the burning of Cork was one of the most significant. The British government at first denied that its forces had started the fires, and blamed the IRA.
context_section_description: Irish nationalists called for an open and impartial inquiry. In the British House of Commons, Sir Hamar Greenwood, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, refused demands for such an inquiry. He denied that British forces had any involvement and accused the IRA of starting the fires. When asked about reports of firefighters being hampered by British forces he said "Every available policeman and soldier in Cork was turned out at once and without their assistance the fire brigade could not have gone through the crowds and did the work that they tried to do".
  Bonar Law said "in the present condition of Ireland, we are much more likely to get an impartial inquiry in a military court than in any other". The British military launched its own inquiry, the "Strickland Report", but Cork Corporation instructed its employees and other corporate officials to take no part. The report pointed the finger of blame at members of the Auxiliaries' K Company, based at Victoria Barracks. The Auxiliaries, it was claimed, set the fires in reprisal for the IRA attack at Dillon's Cross. The British Government refused to publish the report.
  The Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress published a pamphlet in January 1921 entitled Who burned Cork City? The work drew on evidence from hundreds of eyewitness which suggested that the fires had been set by British forces and that British forces had prevented firefighters from tackling the blaze. The material was compiled by the President of University College Cork, Alfred O'Rahilly.
  K Company Auxiliary Charles Schulze, a former British Army Captain, wrote in a letter to his girlfriend in England that it was "sweet revenge", while in a letter to his mother he wrote: "Many who had witnessed scenes in France and Flanders say that nothing they had experienced was comparable with the punishment meted out in Cork". After the fire, K Company was moved to Dunmanway and began wearing burnt corks in their caps in reference to the burning of the city. For their part in the arson and looting, K Company was disbanded on 31 March 1921.
  
  There has been debate over whether British forces at Victoria Barracks had planned to burn the city before the ambush at Dillon's Cross, whether the British Army itself was involved, and whether those who set the fires were being commanded by superior officers. Florence O'Donoghue, who was intelligence officer of the 1st Cork Brigade IRA at the time, wrote:
  "What appears more probable is that the ambush provided the excuse for an act which was long premeditated and for which all arrangements had been made. The rapidity with which supplies of petrol and Verey lights were brought from Cork barracks to the centre of the city, and the deliberate manner in which the work of firing the various premises was divided amongst groups under the control of officers, gives evidence of organisation and pre-arrangement. Moreover, the selection of certain premises for destruction and the attempt made by an Auxiliary officer to prevent the looting of one shop by Black and Tans: 'You are in the wrong shop; that man is a Loyalist' and the reply, 'We don't give a damn; this is the shop that was pointed out to us', is additional proof that the matter had been carefully planned beforehand."
caption: The re-built Cork City Hall, completed in the 1930s
exif: {}