RIC Constable Clarence Victor Chave

RIC Constable Clarence Victor Chave (aged 24) from Sheerness, Scotland (Patrick Street near Academy Street, Cork city)

Date of incident: 3 Oct. 1920

Sources: CC, 4 Oct. 1920; CE, 4, 5, 6 Oct. 1920; II, 4, 6 Oct. 1920; CCE, 9 Oct. 1920; RIC County Inspector’s Monthly Report, Cork City and East Riding, Oct. 1920 (CO 904/113, TNA); Weekly Summary of Outrages against the Police, Oct. 1920 (CO 904/148-50, TNA); ‘The Irish Rebellion in the 6th Division Area’, Irish Sword, 27 (Spring 2010), 139; Abbott (2000), 129.

Note: Constable Chave was found shortly after midnight lying in a pool of his own blood near Academy Street shortly after Volunteers fired shots at him and three other constables from shop windows in a building containing the Blackthorn House, a shop in Patrick Street in Cork. In this attack two other constables were injured, but Chave ‘died from his wounds—a large gaping wound through the body in the region of the heart—about an hour afterwards in the Military Hospital’—at about 1:30 a.m. on 3 October 1920. His death came on a Saturday-to-Sunday night [2-3 October 1920] that ‘was remarkable for the most sensational happenings since the order [was issued] that all citizens must be indoors from 10 o’clock at night to three o’clock next morning’. Soon after Chave’s death police and/or soldiers retaliated by trying to blow up the Blackthorn House. A deafening explosion was heard, the second within a week. Two Mills bombs were reportedly found on the premises in the morning. See CE, 4 Oct. 1920. Constable Chave had only three months of service with the RIC; he had earlier been a soldier and a tailor. He had been attached to the RIC barracks at Empress Place in Cork city. See Abbott (2000), 129.