Listowel mutiny

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The Listowel mutiny occurred when police officers under the command of County Inspector O'Shea refused to be relocated out of their rural police station in Listowel, County Kerry and moved to other areas where they would be in a position to assist the British security forces.

The uprising started on 17 June 1920, and has been cited as finishing when the local Divisional Police Commissioner for Munster, Lt.-Col. Gerald Bryce Ferguson Smyth was killed by IRA hitman a month later on 17 July. By this time many police officers in the area had moved into service with the IRA or decided not to engage the IRA, for a variety of reasons. On 19 June, in an attempt to defuse the situation emerging in the area Smyth came to reassure the police about their future role.

In the course of his attempts to change the minds of the police officers, he mentioned that, in their duty they would be given the power to shoot IRA suspects on sight. However, it is likely that the leader of the mutiny, Constable Jeremiah Mee (in his account of the events at Listowel published in the Sinn Féin underground newspaper Irish Bulletin) exaggerated what Smyth was implying about the treatment of IRA soldiers. Order No. 5, which was issued on 17 June, stated that the police could shoot if a suspect failed to surrender 'when ordered to do so'. One of the apparent reasons why the constables rose up, was because they suggested that they were horrified by the thought of killing fellow Irish brothers "on sight".

The mutiny was hailed as an Irish republican success. Smyth was assassinated when six IRA men shot him dead in the smoking room of the Cork and County Club.