Instigator of a city’s torching identified

PAINSTAKING work collecting all the records of the 2,265 men who fought with the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (ADRIC) finally helped identify the man who instigated the burning of Cork city 90 years ago today.

Of those ADRICs, 55 were members of the infamous ‘K’ Company which torched the city in reprisal for the death of one of their colleagues in an IRA ambush a few hours earlier.

Historian and genealogist Jim Herlihy collected the ADRIC records for a book on the Auxiliaries which he will publish next year.