A week before the Kilmichael ambush, after IRA assassinations of British intelligence operatives in Dublin on Bloody Sunday, Auxiliaries fired on players and spectators at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park Dublin, killing fourteen civilians (thirteen spectators and one player). The Auxiliaries and the previously introduced Black and Tans rapidly became highly unpopular in Ireland due to intimidation of the civilian population and arbitrary reprisals after IRA actions – including burnings of businesses and homes, beatings and killings. In common with most of their colleagues, the Auxiliaries engaged at Kilmichael were World War I veterans. The force was raised in July 1920 and were promoted as a highly trained elite force by the British media. The Auxiliaries were recruited from former commissioned officers in the British Army.

It occurred one week after Bloody Sunday and marked an escalation in the IRA's campaign. The Kilmichael ambush was politically as well as militarily significant. Thirty-six local IRA volunteers commanded by Tom Barry killed sixteen members of the Royal Irish Constabulary's Auxiliary Division. The Kilmichael Ambush ( Irish: Luíochán Chill Mhichíl) was an ambush near the village of Kilmichael in County Cork on 28 November 1920 carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence.

The Red Book by Jerry O'Callaghan