On the 15th of February 1921, 13 members of the IRA, including the Officer in charge of the 3rd Brigade of the Cork IRA, Charlie Hurley, lay in wait to ambush a party of British soldiers at Upton train station.
The hastily gathered party of IRA Volunteers lacked the experience of the men of the West Cork Flying Column, who were deployed in the Western end of their operational area.
Buoyed up by the recent success of a train ambush at Drishane Beg near Kanturk, the volunteers planned to open fire on a party of soldiers in one of the train’s carriages.
Unfortunately, when the train stopped at Kinsale Junction train station, it was joined by another party of British soldiers, who were travelling onto Skibbereen.
It was fiercely disputed by both parties whether the British soldiers did in fact disperse among the civilians in the carriages, for operational reasons the military would always travel in separate carriages.
The scouts detailed to report on the number of soldiers on the train at Kinsale Junction were tasked to cycle from the train stop to Upton and report on any intelligence they had gathered.
Unfortunately, the plan was flawed as the cyclists were unable to outrun the train, as the scouts neared Upton station, the train had already reached a stop at the platform.
A fierce gun battle ensued, lasting at least ten minutes.
After the IRA withdrew, they had left three dead volunteers and several of their ranks were taken prisoner.
Of the volunteers that had escaped, several were seriously wounded, including the CO Charlie Hurley
However, in what was described as simply carnage on the platform by the papers of the day, in addition to an unknown number of civilians wounded, two railway staff had been killed and four passengers, including a woman, lay dead.
It ranks as the worst loss of civilian lives in the War of Independence that the IRA had been present at.
For the British, their casualties amounted to three seriously wounded men.
In the short-term, the ambush became part of black February for the IRA, but it also had long term consequences for many of those involved.
One of the IRA men, who participated in the attacking party, would later die in 1928 as a result of his wounds suffered on that day, and another man would spend years in psychiatric care.
The families of the civilians killed at Upton would continue to seek compensation, with one case being settled in the mid-1930s.
The ambush was later immortalised by the popular tune of the late 1960s. The Lonely Woods of Upton and by a monument unveiled in 1968, both of which never named the civilians killed on that day.
On March 29th at 3pm, JJ Hurley will deliver a lecture on the Ambush.
Eircode T12 AF89
