Atlas of the Irish Revolution: The War in Cork and Kerry

In the theatre of war of the turbulent years from 1919 to 1921, Cork was the main act, writes John Borgonovo

From 1919 to 1921 County Cork was the most violent county in Ireland. The republican insurgency against the British administration produced numerous episodes that galvanised political opinion in Ireland and Britain, and briefly earned Cork an international reputation for armed resistance against the British Empire.

Statistical evidence supports the prominence awarded to ‘Rebel Cork’ during the War of Independence. County Cork possessed 9 per cent of Ireland’s population in 1911 but was over-represented in various measurements of revolutionary intensity.