Clonmult Ambush The Clonmult Ambush took place on 20 February 1921 , during the Irish War of Independence . Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) volunteers occupying a farmhouse in Clonmult , County Cork were surrounded by a force of British Army , RIC and Auxiliaries . In the action that followed , twelve IRA volunteers were killed , four wounded and four captured . It is alleged that many of the IRA casualties were killed after they had surrendered . The IRA suspected that an informer was to blame and a spate of shootings of suspected informers followed . A total of 22 people died in the ambush and subsequent executions – 14 IRA members , 2 Black and Tans and 6 civilians . Background . The 4th battalion of the IRA First Cork Brigade , under Diarmuid O ' Hurley and based around Midleton , Youghal and Cobh , had been a successful unit up until the Clonmult ambush . They had captured three RIC barracks and carried out an ambush in Midleton itself . In January 1921 , the unit took possession of a disused farmhouse overlooking the village of Clonmult . O ' Hurley planned to ambush a military train at Cobh Junction on Tuesday 22 February 1921 and at the time of the Clonmult action was scouting a suitable ambush site . However , according to historian Peter Hart , they " had become over - confident and fallen into a traceable routine " . An intelligence officer of the British Army Hampshire Regiment traced them to their billet at the farmhouse in Clonmult . The Battle . British troops ( a party of the 2nd Battalion , Hampshire Regiment under the command of Lieutenant A . R . Koe ) surrounded the house . Two IRA volunteers noticed the advancing troops and opened fire . Both were killed , but the shooting had warned those sheltering inside the house , and a siege began . A sortie from the house was attempted in the hope of gaining reinforcements from the local IRA company . The acting IRA commander , Captain Jack O ' Connell , managed to get away but three other Volunteers were killed in the attempt But O ' Connell was unable to bring help in time . The Volunteers trapped inside made a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to escape through a narrow opening in the gable . Their hopes were dashed when British reinforcements arrived instead — regular RIC police , Black and Tans and Auxiliaries . The police had also brought petrol , which an Army officer used to set the thatch ed roof of the farmhouse alight . With the farmhouse burning around them , an attempt was then made by the IRA to surrender . " Kilmichael in Reverse " . What happened next is disputed . In his after - action report , Lieutenant Koe wrote : ( 14 ) At 18 . 20 hours the rebels signified that they wished to surrender and they were ordered to put up their hands and come out one by one . At 18 . 30 hours , six or seven rebels came out with their hands up and the crown forces went to meet them . On this fire was again opened by the remaining rebels in the house . ( 15 ) Fire was at once re - opened on the house by the Crown Forces , and , in the cross fire which resulted , it was inevitable that casualties should be inflicted on the rebels outside the house by both sides . The Crown Forces , having re - opened fire , rushed to the house . When the house was captured , there were eight men in it , four wounded and four unwounded . These were taken prisoner . In its official communique , General Headquarters merely stated that some of the IRA Volunteers " came running out of the house , with their hands up , while others continued to fire on the Crown Forces as they went to accept the surrender . " But in his monthly confidential report , the local county inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary accused the Volunteers of treachery , saying that some " had tried to escape by a ruse . Some came from the building while those that remained inside opened fire on the police and military . " By contrast , the surviving Volunteers claimed that their men had surrendered in good faith , and had come out with their hands up , only to be shot by the police without any provocation . Patrick Higgins , an IRA man who survived the killings , recalled : We were lined up alongside an outhouse with our hands up . The Tans came along and shot every man with the exception of three . . . who were saved by the officer in charge of the military party . A Tan put his revolver to my mouth and fired [ he was wounded in the jaw ] . . . Only for the military officer coming along , I would be gone . Most historians have accepted the IRA ' s version of events : Peter Hart , for example , wrote that , " The Irish survivors testified convincingly that there had been no treachery on their part . " In his book " The Battle of Clonmult : The IRA ' s Worst Defeat " , however , Tom O ' Neill suggests that the shooting of IRA prisoners may have been the result of a misunderstanding . Before the Volunteers gave up and came out , their commander had ordered them to throw their rifles into the fire : and what the police mistook for treachery may have been ammunition cooking off in the heat of the flames . " The other possibility , " as O ' Neill notes , " is that the British were just attempting to cover up their tracks with falsehoods . " A total of twelve IRA Volunteers were killed in the action , with four more wounded and only four taken prisoner unscathed . Two of the IRA prisoners ( Maurice Moore and Paddy O ' Sullivan ) were later executed in the military barracks in Cork on 28 April . Patrick Higgins was sentenced to death but was reprieved because of the Truce that ended the war on 11 July . The Aftermath . The IRA suspected that an informer had led the British to the billet of the column wiped out at Clonmult , and over the following week , six alleged spies were executed by the IRA in the surrounding area . Mick Leahy , a local IRA officer , commented that " things went to hell in the battallion " after Clonmult . Diarmuid O ' Hurley , the commander of the battalion , was not at Clonmult but was later killed on 28 May 1921 .