IRELAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 April 1921, Page 6

IRELAND.

J MAOROOM HORROR. A graphic account of the Macroom massacre is given by Lieutenant H. F. Forde, M.C., who is the sole survivor of the party of sixteen Auxiliary Cadets, ambushed on November 25. Lieutenant Forde, by what is little less than a miracle, survived the prolonged maltreatment of the attackers, and in January was reported as making good progress towards recovery.. Lieutenant Forde (says the Wellington Post) is a nephew of Mr. H. Stewart Pollen, of Khandallah. He received a bullet wound in the head, the bullet entering just over the Idft eye. It travelled round inside his skull, leaving a wound of exit at the back of the right side of the head. He also suffered from a fractured skull caused by a blow from the butt-end of a rifle while he lay semi-eonseious. The site of the ambush had been cleverly chosen. The Sinn Feiners were well protected, but the Cadets had not a scrap of shelter. As a result every man was killed or severely wounded within ten minutes.

“I believe it was about ten minutes later,” says Lieutenant Forde, who by then had "been shot in the head, “when I heard a whistle blown loudly and a cry to eease Are. Then a large number of attackers from both sides rushed into the road, shouting in the foulest language. They wore the uniform of British soldiers. They handled us very roughly, not excepting those who were dead. Afterwards they called upon us to stand up and hold up our hands. After about two minutes two of the, party managed “to stagger to their feet, and were immediately shot down again at very close range. Then one of the Cadets quite near me who had been lying on his back groaned heavily and turned over. One of the civilians, who had a rifle and bayonet, immediately walked up to him and plunged the bayonet into his back, as near as I could see between the shoulder-blades. I muttered something, and he turned to me and said it would be my turn next. Others were going through the clothing of the Cadets and treating them .brutally. The next thing I remember is that one of them walked up and rolled me over roughly to see, I suppose, whether I was not dead. He swung his rifle and gave me a blow with the butt-end of it on the back of the head. When I woke again it was pitch dark. The ambushers had then returned to their previous position, and 1 only remember that now and again, when they heard movement, they flred a few shots. It was bn the afternoon of the following day when the rescuing party arrived, and'. I was taken in a state of semi-consciousness to a hospital at Cork.’ 1