RIC Auxiliary Cadet Lieutenant Cleve Lindsay Soady

RIC Auxiliary Cadet Lieutenant Cleve Lindsay Soady (aged 38) from Hampshire (Coolnacahera or Coolavokig near Macroom)

Date of incident: 25 Feb. 1921

Sources: CE, 26, 28 Feb., 3 March 1921; FJ, 26, 28 Feb., 2, 4 March 1921; CC, 26 Feb., 1 March 1921; CCE, 26 Feb. 1921; New York Times, 26 Feb. 1921; II, 28 Feb. 1921; Military Inquests, WO 35/159A/31 (TNA); Weekly Summary of Outrages against the Police (CO 904/148-50, TNA); Military Inquests, WO 35/151A/31 (TNA); Seán Culhane’s WS 746, 15 (BMH); Jeremiah Murphy’s WS 772, 7-8 (BMH); Charles Browne’s WS 873, 33-38 (BMH); Patrick O’Sullivan’s WS 878, 15-16 (BMH); Daniel Harrington’s WS 1532, 12-15 (BMH); Patrick J. Lynch’s WS 1543, 15-18 (BMH); Edward Neville’s WS 1665, 5-8 (BMH); Abbott (2000), 203-4; ‘The Irish Rebellion in the 6th Division Area’, Irish Sword, 27 (Spring 2010), 142; Kautt (2010), 131-38; Ó hÉalaithe (2014), 161-80, esp. 176, 191-92; irishmedals.org (accessed 28 July 2014); http://www.theauxiliaries.com/men-alphabetical/men-s/soady-cl/soady.html; http://www.theauxiliaries.com/INCIDENTS/coolavohig-ambush/coolavohig-ambush.html (accessed 27 Sept. 2015); http://irishconstabulary.com/topic/894/Temporary-Cadet-Cleve-Lindsay-Soady-J-Company-Auxiliary-Div#.VxU_LJFN1Zg (accessed 18 April 2016).  

Note: Among the British casualties in the IRA ambush at Coolnacahera or Coolavokig was Auxiliary Cadet Lieutenant Soady, who had been shot in the mouth. He died of his wounds at the Cork Military Hospital on 1 March. See Weekly Summary of Outrages against the Police (CO 904/148-50, TNA).

Soady was second in command of British forces at the Coolavokig ambush. Besides recording his date of death, his gravestone in the old Church of Ireland graveyard in Macroom notes that the monument had been erected by his comrades of J Company of the RIC Auxiliary Division, and that Soady had served in the Great War in the Royal Naval Reserve; the top of his gravestone depicts two anchors.

The Cork Examiner of 28 February 1921 serves as a rebuttal of grossly exaggerasted reports of British fatalities at the time and later. Its correspondent insisted that other reports of twenty to thirty Auxiliary deaths in this ambush were inaccurate. The names of six wounded Auxiliaries were given, and all of them were said to be ‘progressing favourably’. The worst case of exaggeration of British losses at Coolavokig is the republican memorial marker at the site of the ambush, which reads as follows: ‘Here on Feb. 26th 1921 in a fight lasting over four hours an invading force of more than 100 British Auxiliary Cadets was beaten back by men of the First Cork Brigade Column I.R.A., and the British force was only saved by the arrival of some hundreds of British reinforcements. British casualties were admitted at 28. Irish casualties nil.’  Compensation evidence indicates that ten Auxiliaries were wounded at the ambush in addition to those killed.  See http://irishconstabulary.com/topic/894/Temporary-Cadet-Cleve-Lindsay-Soady-J-Company-Auxiliary-Div#.VxU_LJFN1Zg (accessed 18 April 2016).