Scramogue Ambush The Scramogue Ambush was an ambush carried out by the Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) on 23 March 1921 , during the Irish War of Independence . It took place in the townland of Scramogue ( aka Scramoge ) , County Roscommon . Background . County Roscommon was not one of the more violent areas of Ireland during the conflict . The local IRA argued to their GHQ that it was very difficult to conduct guerrilla warfare in the flat open countryside there . Prior to the action at Scramogue , the biggest previous incident had been in October 1920 , when four RIC policemen were killed in an ambush near Ballinderry . Sean Connolly had been sent by IRA GHQ from Longford to re - organise the Roscommon Volunteers and had selected the ambush site at Scramogue . However he was killed twelve days before the action at the Selton Hill ambush in neighbouring County Leitrim . Preparing the ambush . Both the North and South Roscommon IRA Brigades took part , and were commanded by Patrick Madden . There were 39 volunteers in the column , but only 14 took part in the actual attack , the remainder were tasked with blocking roads to keep the IRA ' s line of retreat open . The IRA party was armed with 13 rifles ( 11 Lee Enfield s , 1 Winchester and 1 sporting rifle ) , 20 shotguns ( though some of them in bad condition ) and 2 or 3 Webley revolver s . This was the largest collection of arms that was assembled in Roscommon during the war and some of them had been borrowed from IRA units Longford . Among the volunteers who took part were Martin Fallon , ' Cushy ' Hughes , Frank Simons , Luke Duffy , Peter Casey , Peter Collins and Tom Compton . Several of the IRA men , including Hughes , had served in the Irish Guards in the First World War , but had been persuaded by Pat Madden to join the IRA on their return . The ambush site was carefully prepared . It was located at a sharp bend on the Longford – Strokestown road . A farmhouse and barn at the bend had been taken over and loopholed , and a trench was dug behind a hedge alongside the road . Only a mile from the IRA ' s position , the Ninth Lancers regiment was garrisoned in Strokestown House . The ambush . The IRA waited in their position all day for British forces to come from Strokestown . Just as a troop lorry finally appeared , two civilians came up the road in a pony and trap and had to be frantically waved out of the way . The lorry carried a nine - man British Army and Royal Irish Constabulary ( RIC ) patrol travelling on the Strokestown – Longford road . The British inquiry into the incident was to question why the lorry was unescorted , as their practice was not to travel in lone vehicles . The IRA opened fire from very close range , killing the driver and halting the lorry in its tracks . Several of the soldiers and policemen were hit and they scrambled for cover behind a wall along the road . The lorry had a Hotchkiss machine gun , bolted onto it , but its gunner got off only one burst before being badly wounded and the gun put out of action . The commander of the patrol , Captain Roger Greenville Peeke , was hit in the lorry but tried to run to safety , only to be hit again 400 yards down the road and killed . The other officer with the party , Lieutenant Tennant , was also killed by a shotgun blast . After the death of the two officers , the surviving British , several of whom were wounded , surrendered . Just as the firing was dying - down , another lorry - an RIC / Black and Tan patrol - approached the ambush site but turned back after coming under fire . Four of the British force were killed – this included two British Army officers ( Roger Grenville Peek and John Harold Anthony Tennant ) , an RASC driver , and one RIC man ( Constable Edward Leslie ) . Two men in civilian clothes were also found in the lorry . They turned out to be Black and Tans who had been placed under arrest by the soldiers ( Constable Buchanan and Constable Evans ) – they were made prisoners by the IRA . The ambush party , after taking the British arms , including the Hotchkiss gun , and burning the lorry , made their escape over the hill of Slieve Bawn . Aftermath . The IRA leaders – Pat Madden , Luke Duffy and Frank Simons – decided to kill the two Black and Tans , despite their offering to show the IRA how to use the captured machine gun . The IRA officer ' s reasoning was that if the prisoners identified the IRA men who had taken part in the ambush , the Volunteers would be at risk of being executed if captured . The two were taken to remote locations and shot over the next two days . The British garrison in Roscommon town mounted a sweep directly after the ambush with eight lorries an one Whippet Tank . Three volunteers who had taken part were arrested afterward . Pat Mullooly and Brian Nagle , both from the North Roscommon Brigade were arrested , as they tried to get away from the scene of the ambush , as was " Cushy " Hughes , who was picked up when he was drawing his soldier ' s pension in Roscommon . Pat Mullooly and Nagle were badly beaten by their captors on the road to Roscommon . The next day , another Volunteer , Michael Mullooly ( brother of Pat ) was shot dead in his home by the RIC .