The Lloyd George Government and the Strickland Report on the Burning of Cork, 1920

Abstract

The burning of the city of Cork on the night of 11-12 December 1920 —a “truly staggering reprisal” — was one of many outrageous acts by British forces in Ireland in the late autumn of 1920 and indeed during the entire Anglo-Irish War. Known in Ireland at the time as “the troubles” and in Éire today as “the war of independence,” or “the war of liberation,” the Anglo-Irish War lasted two-and-one-half years from January, 1919, until the truce in July, 1921. Not only did that struggle mark the end of 750 years of Irish subjection under Britain; it served as a warning of the eventual collapse of British and Western imperialism throughout the world.Throughout the first eight months of 1919 the British government's policy was simply military suppression of the Republican Movement. Repeatedly, it misjudged Sinn Féin and the rising Irish Republican Army (I.R.A.) as nothing but a “murder gang” terrorizing the mass of the Irish people. Not until the Fall of 1919 did Lloyd George finally conceive a policy — one combining force with appeasement. The latter was offered to Ireland in the Fourth Home Rule Bill though it was to be rejected by a majority of the Irish press and people. From the fall of 1919 until the summer of 1920, Lloyd George stepped up coercion, not only by strengthening the military, but by introducing “Black and Tans” into the Irish police force and establishing a new administration at Dublin Castle in the spring of 1920.When, in late July, 1920, it became evident to the British cabinet that police action was losing to the I.R.A.'s guerilla tactics, they broadened the struggle even further by choosing, not appeasement along Dominion lines, but a policy of war. Though never officially declared, war was first implemented under the guise of restoring order in Ireland and later by martial law. Accompanying Lloyd George's war policy between the summers of 1920 and 1921 were systematic reprisals against Irish civilians and their property by British forces retaliating for the I.R.A.'s killing of their own men. These reprisals, which became official and regulated under martial law in 1921, were unauthorized — although not officially condemned — in 1919 and 1920. Unauthorized reprisals reached a peak in the fall of 1920 at Balbriggan, Groke Park, and in the burning of Cork.