Draft:Thomas D. Huckerby

Thomas Darrell Huckerby (5 January 1901 – 12 October 1921) was a RIC auxiliary constable, who is responsible for the killing of two to five Irish civilians during a five-month period in 1920 in County Limerick during the Irish War of Independence.

Personal Life
On 5 January 1901 Thomas Darrell Huckerby was born in Kingstown, Saint Vincent which was then a part of the British West Indies. Huckerby was the second of twelve children born to Thomas and Mildred Huckerby.

Thomas Huckerby was born in July 1869 in Burton upon Trent he was the son of Francis and Mary Huckerby, and was a Wesleyan minister becoming one in 1894, who went to St. Vincent on a missionary. Huckerby was also an amateur archaeologist and anthropologist who studied several sites on St. Vincent, and collected several artifacts which are now displayed at the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City, he also document and studied several petroglyphs in St Vincent. On 11 November 1927 he would die at 58 years of age in Kingstown, St. Vincent.

Mildred Mary Horne (Darrell) Huckerby was born on 24 January 1879, in Kingstown,. She was the daughter of Rev. James Horne Darrell, chairman of the St. Vincent district and Rebecca Mary (Lightbourne) Darrell. On 29 June 1977 she would die at 98 year of age in Half Way Tree, Jamaica.

Sometime after Huckerby was born his family moved to St. George's, Grenada. In 1915 Huckerby would enlist in the British West Indian Volunteer Force. On 29 September 1918, they would move to Dawley in the United Kingdom. Not long after they moved to the UK he would add his mothers maiden name, Darrell, to his name. About a month later he would enlist in the Royal Naval Reserve, and would leave in March 1919; on 2 September 1919 he would enlist in the Royal Air Force, but on 13 December, he would be honorably discharged due him being physically unfit. Huckerby would join the Royal Irish Constabulary on 30 April 1920.

On 12 October 1921, at 20-years-old Thomas Darrell Huckerby would pass away from jaundice, in London.

Irish War of Independence
On 7 July 1920, Huckerby would first be posted in Foynes, in County Limerick, during the first month of his deployment he allegedly shot a man named Reidy.

John Hynes shooting
On 25 August 1920, Huckerby and another constable William Hall were at a dispensary in Shanagolden, when were approached by eight armed IRA volunteers led by Timothy Madigan, and they demanded the two constables to give them their weapons, but upon finding out the two constables were unarmed, they were stripped of their uniforms which were burnt, and told to go back to barracks in Foynes. Later that night two Black and Tan lorries, came back to the village, and the Black and Tans including Huckerby burnt down several buildings, including the creamery, they had also forced a group of men playing cards to strip and walk home similarly to how Huckerby and Hall were.

In the early morning of 26 August, a constable shot and killed 60-year-old John Hynes while he was walking home from a pub in a field. The constables all claimed Huckerby was the one who shot and killed Hynes, and this caused him to be reposted to Abbeyfeale.

Abbeyfeale murders
In the days after the killing of Hynes, IRA commander Sean C. Finn would mark Huckerby for death, by passing an order for him to be killed, in repsonse for the murder of Hynes. On 19 September 1920, Finn would order his brigade to ambush a RIC patrol that Huckerby was routinely apart of, that night 50 men led by Sean Finn waited at a cross-roads near Mountmahon, and as they were waiting for Finn's order to shoot, one of them accidently broke a tree branch one of the constables John O'Mahony crossed over to investigate and was shot dead by the company's captain. The nine other constables then successfully fled to a nearby church. They later learned Huckerby was not in the patrol that night.

On the night of 19/20 September Black and Tans burnt down several buildings in Abbeyfeale in reprisal for the ambush.

Later on 20 September two young men 24-year-old Patrick 'Pat' Hartnett who was postman and his good friend 18-year-old Jeremiah Healy who was a blacksmith's apprentice, they were walking along Killarney Road in Abbeyfeale, because earlier Hartnett had found a dead horse that had been shot, and wanted to show Healy, Huckerby watched the two men from the barracks doors and then began to follow them for a short distance out of town he stopped the two and took them to a field and around 7 pm shot Hartnett and Healy in the temple and left their bodies in a field just outside of Abbeyfeale. Huckerby, for of this he was then transferred to Limerick a few hours later.

Grange Cross shootings
On 24 July 1920, the IRA led by William Barrett ambushed three RIC constables on Henry Street in Limerick, constable William and Albert Jones were injured, but constable Walter Oakley died from this injuries on August 2. On 17 August, two ex-servicemen of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, 23-year-old James O'Neill and Patrick Blake were arrested for Oakley's murder.

On 19 November 1920, at their trial that was held in Dublin, James and Patrick were court martialed for Oakley's murder, when they found no evidence linking the three men to the IRA, after the trial concluded, Patrick and his brother, 36-year-old Michael Blake who was also a ex-serviceman of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, got a taxi while James and his wife Kitty got on a bus and would split off from each other at Limerick Junction, while they were at the junction however they noticed a yellow car following them. A little while later Patrick and Michael were stopped at a roadblock at the Pallasgreen RIC barracks but were allowed to continue shortly after this, Patrick who was in the passenger seat of the taxi decided to switch places with who was in the backseat Michael, because he was felling cold. While they were at the Grange Crossroads at Grange East near Pallasgreen, they were stopped by several masked and armed men which tuned out to be auxiliary constables, the constables had two cars on the side of the road one of which was the same yellow car from Limerick Junction, two auxies approached the taxi and fired into the passenger seat killing Michael instantly. The constables then approached the bus and ordered James off, they blindfolded him with a silk scarf and took him to a nearby railway bridge and shot him four times in the head. It's believed the person that led the constables were either Huckerby or head constable Thomas Hannon, both of whom took part in the killings.

Huckerby was moved to Cork shortly after the Grange Crossroads shootings. Over a month later on 26 December 1920, Huckerby would resign from the RIC, due to pending disciplinary charges and would move into a police hostel in London.