Mick Clifford: Cold-blooded Civil War mass murders reverberate around Kerry a century later

Mick Clifford tells the shameful story of the murder by Free State troops of five young men — and how a senior garda and a civil servant helped thwart the subsequent attempt to cover it up

The former workhouse at Bahaghs near Caherciveen, Co Kerry was used as a makeshift detention centre during the Civil War. In March, 1923, National Army troops took out five republican prisoners, shot them in the legs, and then blew them up. Picture: Alan Landers

In the first two weeks of March 1923, the conflict in Kerry turned from ugly to savage.

In the south of the county, members of the Kerry No 3 IRA brigade had, for the most part, the run of the hills and mountains of the Iveragh Peninsula. The Free State army held the main town of Caherciveen and Waterville village.