A Church of Ireland service has taken place to remember the Bandon Valley massacre which took place 100 years ago this week.
The service took place in St Mary's Church of Ireland church in Dunmanway, Co Cork. Presided over by the Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, Dr Paul Colton, it remembered 14 men who were killed locally between April 26th and April 28th in 1922. Thirteen of them were Protestants.
They were Thomas and Samuel Hornibrook, Herbert Woods, James Buttimer, David Gray, Francis Fitzmaurice, Robert Howe, John Chinnery, Robert Nagle, Alexander Gerald McKinley, John Buttimer, James Greenfield and John Bradfield. All were shot, the youngest was 16, and the oldest 82.
An IRA commandant, Michael O'Neill, from Timoleague, Co Cork, was killed by Herbert Woods, sparking the bloodbath.
The killings by unidentified armed men, which happened after the Truce but before the start of the Civil War, were condemned by both pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty leaders, including president of Dáil Éireann Arthur Griffith and leading anti-Treaty figure Éamon De Valera.
The question if the motivation for killing the men was solely sectarian has never been definitively established.
In advance of the event President Michael D Higgins hoped remembrance of such events would be done "ethically and with moral purpose, allowing for an inclusive reflection, open to all sides, including those who left our shores, those left below, and those who were left in a minority status, North or South, to suffer discrimination in any aspects of life".
