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| Captain Herbert Woods M.C. (centre) |
On 26 April 1922, a group of anti-Treaty IRA men, led by Michael O'Neill, arrived at the house of Thomas Hornibrook, a former magistrate, at Ballygroman, East Muskerry, Desertmore, Bandon (near Ballincollig on the outskirts of Cork City), seeking to seize his car. Hornibrook was in the house at the time along with his son, Samuel, and his nephew, Herbert Woods (a former Captain in the British Army and MC).
O'Neill demanded a part of the engine mechanism (the magneto) that had been removed by Thomas Hornibrook to prevent such theft. Hornibrook refused to give them the part, and after further efforts, some of the IRA party entered through a window. Herbert Woods then shot O'Neill, wounding him fatally. O'Neill's companion, Charlie O'Donoghue, took him to a local priest who pronounced him dead. The next morning O'Donoghue left for Bandon to report the incident to his superiors, returning with "four military men", meeting with the Hornibrooks and Woods, who admitted to shooting O'Neill.
A local jury found Woods responsible and said O'Neill had been "brutally murdered in the execution of his duty". O'Donoghue and Stephen O'Neill, who were present on the night of the killing, both attended the inquest. Some days later, Woods and both Hornibrook men went missing, and in time were presumed killed. The Morning Post newspaper reported that "about 100" IRA men returned from Bandon with O'Neill's comrades and surrounded the house. It reported that a shootout ensued until the Hornibrooks and Woods ran out of ammunition and surrendered. Meda Ryan claims the report in the Morning Post was "exaggerated". Peter Hart writes that the Hornibrooks and Woods surrendered on condition their lives be spared. When Woods admitted it was he who fired the shot that killed O'Neill, he was beaten unconscious, and the three hostages were "driven south into hill country", where they were shot dead. Some time later the Hornibrook home was burned, the plantation cut down and the land seized.
On 13 April, Michael Collins had complained about British newspaper reports on attacks against Protestants in Ireland to Desmond Fitzgerald. Collins said that while some of the coverage was "fair newspaper comment", the "strain of certain parts is very objectionable".
Alice Hodder, a local Protestant from Crosshaven some 23 miles to the south east, wrote to her mother shortly afterwards about Herbert Woods,
His aunt and uncle had been subject to a lot of persecution and feared an attack, so young Woods went to stay with them. At 2:30 am armed men ... broke in ... Woods fired on the leader and shot him ... They caught Woods, tried him by mock court martial and sentenced him to be hanged ... The brothers of the murdered man then gouged out his eyes while he was alive and then hanged him ... When will the British Government realise that they are really dealing with savages and not ordinary normal human beings?
The letter was forwarded to Lionel Curtis, Secretary of the Cabinet's Irish Committee, on which he appended the comment "this is rather obsolete". Matilda Woods later testified before the Grants Committee, while applying for £5,000 compensation in 1927, that her husband had been drawn and quartered before being killed and that the Hornibrooks were taken to a remote location, forced to dig their own graves and shot dead. Both Ryan and Hart note that Matilda Woods was not in Ireland when her husband disappeared and there is no record of his body ever being located.
Captain Woods’s family, who lived on Crosses Green in Cork City, ran a wine shop on Cook St which was looted and burned by the Black and Tans in December 1920, forcing the family into hiding afterwards.
The Murdered Men
Thomas Hornibrook, R.M. (1843-1922)
Captain Herbert Woods MC (1891-1922)
Samuel Hornibrook (1877-1922)
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