ROINN COSANTA. BUREAU OF MILITARY HISTORY, 1913-21 ...

17.The members of the Bantry Company were practically oncontinuous service at this period. They were engaged nightlyinraids of one kind or another on enemy stores passing throughBantry to Bere Island military post. Amongst the militarygoods seized at this time was a large consignment of boots,shirts, underwear, socks. These were seized in a raid onBantry railway stores. They were carried around by the Strandto a dump in Newtown and were later removed to dumps wherethey could be used by the brigade column.During July 1920, a number of ambushes were laid for amilitary curfew patrol operating in the town of Bantry, butthe enemy never entered the ambush positions. At this periodguards were posted on the homes of I.R.A. men and theirsupporters, which were likely to be burned as reprisals bythe enemy. The provision of guards of this nature threwadditional work on the members of the local companies as wellas on the officers of the battalion staff who usually tookcharge. The normal training and organisation continued andall units were now, more or less, on a war footing men beingspecially trained in the use of the rifle and smallarmsas 3/4well as in the manufacture of bombs and mines. Several raidswere carried out during this period on the mails; both localand provincial, but no information of military value came tolight.At this stage the main Bantry-Glengarriff road had beenunder observation by me for some days to cheek on the routineof a British military convoy which travelled the road. Ieventually decided that I had sufficient information andselected an ambush position at Snave, about 5 miles from Bantry.The column of men on the run were billeted at Connally's, HollyHill, where we made a road mine by filling a 12" sewer pipewith concrete, shrapnel. We charged it with aboutcwt.of