1921 May 15. 6 soldiers were walking along the road between Bantry and Castletownbere at around 6pm. Three of the soldiers were shot dead and another wounded when ambushed. The soldiers were off duty and unarmed at the time. It is reported that a group of three local girls had invited the soldiers to walk to a local waterfall with them, the girls disappeared just before the IRA arrived.
The three dead men were as below, and there was a further injured man Pte A Edwards
About 2 miles from Castletownbere is a golf course, and beside the golf course is Furious Pier. At this pier, at 3pm the ambush took place. The attack was part of a series of synchronised IRA assaults on Crown Forces at ten different points throughout West Cork. The Furious Pier slayings were carried out by men led by Michael Og O'Sullivan. There were two other skirmishes in the area on this day, but there were no casualties at the other two, which were against armed patrols of British troops
I suspect that this particular ambush and the resulting deaths of these 3 soldiers was not the IRAs finest hour, and historically it is glossed over by most Irish reference books. Tom Barry mentions it briefly
