Madam, – Gerard Murphy’s meticulously researched book’s central contentious thesis is that some Cork city “Old” IRA men and women, particularly from units of the 2nd Battalion covering the south eastern Cork suburbs of Douglas and Blackrock Road area, kidnapped and executed “enemy spies” (some of them teenagers) after the Truce in July 1921 until the Free State National Army entered Cork in August 1922.
This callous terror campaign caused a sudden, calamitous permanent collapse of the Protestant population in this part of the city which deserves further indepth sincere evaluation and verification rather than an internet campaign of vilification against the author.
If Gerard Murphy’s contention of an unprovoked sectarian vengeful “land-grab”, masquerading under cover of the legitimate War of Independence, holds up, I as a proud passionate Corkman will be saddened and profoundly ashamed of my heretofore understanding of this period of Irish history. – Yours, etc,