So, my latest project has been given. My fast is to produce a 12 page comic based around an event from 1900 - 1920, the events have to based in the Uk, with my target audience being a young adult.
So to begin with I started listing some events that happened within this era, I avoided the well known events such as the Titanic and World war 1, because they have been done so many times, I wanted to tell a different story, something people might not know about.
Below is a mind map i worked on to help me visually see all the events I was interested working with.
After looking into some of the events I was interested in doing the Burning of Cork, or the HMS Lolaire, i decided to do a little research on the two events to try and pick between the too, but both of them seemed like great events to work with. I decided to work on the burning of cork in the end because I felt like I could do some interesting visual image work with the images of Cork burning.
So after i decided to work with the Burning of Cork I did a little bit of research about the event.
Burning of Cork – during the irish war of
independence (1919 – 1921)
Cork was one of the major centres of the
conflict, many famous figures during the war came from Cork.
Notorious behavior of the black and tans
marked the period
Three best remembered episodes from Cork
during this period are, the burning of Cork City, death of Lord Tomas
MacCurtain, and the death of Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney.
The Black and tans was a force recruited to
assist the Royal Irish Constabulary, they were formed by former soliders
(RIC) The were created by Winston Churchill
The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) was
Irelands armed Police force.
Auxilary was a divison of the RIC.
Irish republican army (IRA) was a group of
rebels who faught the bristish forces, made up of Volunteers.
Burning of Cork
11th December night to
morining12 December 1920,
resembled a scene from the Blitz on London.
British forces deliberately set fire to
several blocks of buildings along the east and south sides of Saint Patrick’s
Street
City hall and the Carnegie library
completely destroyed in the fire.
The loss of records stored in City hall and
the library was a huge lose for future historians.
Other buildings destroyed wee Roche’s
Stores, Cash & Co, The Munster Arcade, Egan’s, The American shoe company,
Forrests, Sunner Chemist, and Saxone Shoes.
The Auxilliaries and the Black and Tans
were Allegedly taking revenge for an earlier attack on British Troops.
The Chief Secretary of Ireland, Sir Hamar
Greewood, Denited that Crown forces were responsible.
He also refused demands for Impartial
enquiry which was called by several public figures in Cork.
The Irish labour party and Trades Union
Congress published a booklet called “Who burnt Cork city?” in January 1921,
which featured eye-witness stories to the event, claimbing british forces where
responsible.
It was later proven that the fire was
started by renegade members of a company of Auxiliaries.
