Aviator James Fitzmaurice (1898-1965) and aerial bombing in the Irish Civil War (1922-1923)

Famous Blue Raincoat

As this month, March, is the centenary of the most deadly month of the Irish Civil War I went to one of the History Ireland Decade of Centenaries Hedge School talks on the Irish Civil War in Gonzaga College SJ. One of the panellists, when answering a question on technology used during the War, spoke about an aerial bombing between Leap and Drimoleague in west Cork. The following, from Independent.ie, has the essence of what the speaker said:

"The new Irish Army’s air service also saw action that week, reportedly bombing and machine-gunning anti-Treaty “Irregulars” — between Leap and Drimoleague in west Cork. Flying a single-seater Martinsyde scout aircraft, Lieutenant James Fitzmaurice was on the lookout for men who had earlier that day attacked Free State forces and killed a sergeant. He spotted a column “in a bleak, wild place on the side of a mountain, affording plenty of cover to the Irregulars”.

Fitzmaurice told the Cork Examiner: “I had not long been bombing when I observed the column in a state of wild confusion, terror stricken, and panicky.” Some ran for cover in gorse bushes that he also bombed — “with excellent results”.

Others made it to a wood: “I raked the wood and gorse bushes with heavy machine gun fire.” He pointed out that soldiers of the National Army “were being shot down, ambushed and mutilated in the most shocking way by the minority in opposition, and that brutality would not be tolerated”.

Fitzmaurice was one of three men who later made the first ever transatlantic flight from east to west, in the Bremen, flying out of Baldonnel in 1928." [https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/bittersweet-celebration-of-a-freedom-born-in-brutality-42193574.html]

Fitzmaurice, a former British officer, doesn't seem to have been a nice individual. I googled and found that he was also personally implicated in at least one other savage action during the Civil War, from his base in Mallow. Frank Bouchier Hayes, writing in The Irish Times in 2003: '... On opening the door, they saw three Republican prisoners being systematically beaten by an unknown officer with the butt of his revolver. They had almost decided to leave the army on witnessing this brutal act because, as Pinkman wrote, they "knew how unspeakably cruel it was to beat and torture helpless prisoners" and furthermore they "believed that if it was necessary to do so, a man should be shot, but in no circumstances should he be tortured". Then it was reported that the OC, Tom Flood, had returned to the hotel.

Pinkman confronted Flood and told him that the person responsible "wasn't an officer from our own crowd" but was "a fellow who arrived here only recently" whose name was "Fitzmaurice . . .James Fitzmaurice". Pinkman told Flood that Fitzmaurice "deserved to be shot", whereupon Flood tactfully asked that he be given 24 hours to remove Fitzmaurice from the area." [https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/less-heroic-side-of-james-fitzmaurice-aviator-1.356621]

There is also this 1962 RTÉ interview with James Fitzmaurice, about his transatlantic flight (no mention of his Civil War record!): https://www.rte.ie/archives/category/environment/2022/0815/1315806-colonel-james-fitzmaurice/

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It doesn't give the date or year of this aerial bombing in west Cork, but presumably is was late 1922/early 1923 when the Irregulars had abandoned the Munster towns and fled to isolated parts of the province? I find it absolutely fascinating that aerial bombing was used in the Irish Civil War against Anti-Treaty forces, some 15 years before Guernica was bombed in 1937. How extensive was this? One of the speakers said most of the aeroplanes were used for reconaissance, and operated out of Collinstown airport (now named Dublin airport), and that the British had left the new Irish Free State these planes. How many planes did they leave them in total? And were there other planes also left behind elsewhere in Ireland? How many more planes or pilots were involved in bombing attacks on anti-Treaty forces, as opposed to mere search missions? Surely there are other sources for this bombing - like the Anti-Treaty forces in Leap-Drimoleague whom Fitzmaurice said were victims of his "heavy machine gun fire" from the air? An aerial bombing attack in west Cork, or anywhere in Ireland, in 1922-23It surely would be the sort of attack any survivor could not forget. How much evidence do we have of other aerial bombings in the Irish Civil War?

Mick Tator

Try the Bureau of Military History database

donaghs

Interesting. I didn't know he was involved in the Civil War. The Civil War was a bitter time, and its interesting how many involved preferred not to talk about it. In comparison to the preceeding Anglo-Irish war.

Aerial bombing wasn't new at that point. It had been used in the Balkans, Libya and Mexico pre-ww1. And became commonplace in WW1. Guernica was on another level compared with a bi-plane dropping some bombs and machine gunning a column of men on a hillside