Here's more background material for those interested.

28 Nov 1920        Seventeen RIC Auxiliaries ("Auxies") were killed in an IRA ambush at Kilmichael in County Cork by Tom Barry's "Flying Column". It was the Auxies greatest single loss. (O'Brien, B., @ 22-23)(Oxford Comp., 1998 @ 40) The IRA commanding officer, Tom Barry, assembled his unit of thirty-six men at Ahilina at 2:30 am that Sunday morning, then marched them ten miles through the rain and by 09:00 am had them in position for the ambush at Kilmichael Cross, on the road between Macroom and Dunmanway, County Cork. Barry's unit, soaked from the rain, lay on the wet ground until, in the gathering dusk, at 4:30 pm, two Crossley tenders with 18 Auxilaries drove into their carefully laid ambush. In a fierce, 30-minute gun battle, which ended in hand-to-hand fighting, 17 Auxilaries were killed and the eighteenth was mortally wounded. Barry's column of Volunteers suffered three casualties: Pat Deasey from Kilmacsimon; Michael McCarthy from Dunmanway; and Jim O'Sullivan from Rossmore. All three were killed by a number of Auxilaries who had pretended to surrender during the battle [a point disputed by some]. Barry burned the tenders on-site, then marched off with captured equipment at 11:00 pm, to Granure, some eleven miles away, where they camped for the night. Following a three-day march south, zig-zagging all the way to avoid enemy patrols hunting for them, the column dispersed and the volunteers returned to their various units. (An Phoblacht; 30 Nov 2000). The event is immortalized in the song "The Boys of Kilmichael."