The ambush was carried out by the flying columns of the East and Mid Limerick Brigades IRA, some 40 riflemen, under the command of Donnocha O'Hannigan commander of East Limerick Brigade Flying Column and Richard O'Connell commander of the Mid Limerick Brigade.

Some time earlier the RIC had found the arms dump of the Mid-Limerick Brigade.

Three of the dead RIC officers were Irish and the rest were British Black and Tans.

In reprisal, British forces burnt ten homes and farms in the area.

[3] Particular suspicion for this alleged killing of prisoners has fallen on Maurice Meade, a former British soldier who was captured by the Germans in the First World War and had joined Roger Casement's Irish Brigade.