and shot him dead in front of his wife, who was still in bed. Fourteen gunmen were sent to 28 Pembroke Street to take care of the large number of officers staying there. Admitted by a maid, they proceeded to the rooms and began their business. Some were shot as they answered their doors, others refused to answer and were shot in bed. Sensing that some of his men were growing nervous with the killing, the leader of the gunmen led the last four British officers down to the cellar, asked them their names, and shot them in the sides of their heads. He then told the rest of the gunmen to disperse. Several of the intended targets were not found; one's mistress was beaten when the gunmen could not find him. When the operation was completed by 9:30 A.M. twelve suspected British officers and two Auxiliaries of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) lay dead.
News of the killings spread quickly throughout Dublin and the government forces were quick to take their revenge. Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy were dead by nightfall. The authorities said that they had been killed while trying to escape; friends who claimed the bodies asserted that both had been badly beaten and shot at close range. In the afternoon, a detachment of Black and Tans (RIC recruits from Britain) went to the Croke Park Sports Ground, ostensibly to search for weapons among the crowd gathered for a football match. At some point, however, one member of the detachment began firing a machine gun into the crowd and others joined in. When the shooting stopped, twelve civilians lay dead and seventy were wounded; unlike the morning's killings, those at Croke Park received little attention in England. Just as the violence did not start with Bloody Sunday, it did not end either with it either. Three weeks later, the IRA staged another large ambush at Kilmichael; that evening, enraged and drunken police went on a rampage in the town of Cork, looting and burning the business ...