March 20th , 1920
Tomás Mac Curtain (20 March 1884 – 20 March 1920) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician who served as the Lord Mayor of Cork until he was assassinated by the Royal Irish Constabulary. He was elected in January 1920.
On 20 March 1920, his 36th birthday, Mac Curtain was shot dead, in front of his wife and son, by a group of men with blackened faces, who were found, by the official inquest into the event, to be members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). In the wake of the killing, Mac Curtain’s house in Blackpool was ransacked.
The killing caused widespread public outrage. The coroner’s inquest passed a verdict of willful murder against British Prime Minister Lloyd George and against certain members of the RIC. Michael Collins later ordered his squad of assassins to uncover and assassinate the police officers involved in the attack.
On 22 August 1920, RIC District Inspector Oswald Swanzy, who had ordered the attack, was fatally shot with Mac Curtain’s own revolver, while leaving a Protestant church in Lisburn, County Antrim, sparking what was described by Tim Pat Coogan as a “pogrom” against the Catholic residents of the town (see The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922)).
Mac Curtain is buried in St. Finbarr’s Cemetery, Cork.
His successor to the position of Lord Mayor, Terence MacSwiney, died while on hunger strike in Brixton prison, London.
MacCurtain Street in the centre of Cork City is named after him.
