The Scramoge ambush was an ambush carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 23 March 1921, during the Irish War of Independence. The IRA ambushed a lorry carrying British troops and Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officers at Scramoge, near Strokestown in County Roscommon. Three British soldiers and an RIC officer were killed, while two RIC 'Black and Tans' were captured and shot dead shortly after. Following the ambush, the British carried out a sweep in which they captured three of the IRA volunteers involved, and killed another who had not taken part. Background County Roscommon was not one of the more violent areas of Ireland during the conflict. The local IRA argued to their GHQ that it was very difficult to conduct guerrilla warfare in the flat open countryside there. Prior to the action at Scramogue, the biggest previous incident had been in October 1920, when four RIC officers were killed in an ambush near Ballinderry. Sean Connolly had been sent by IRA GHQ from Longford to re-organise the Roscommon IRA and had chosen the ambush site at Scramoge (also spelt Scramogue). However, he was killed twelve days before the action, at the Selton Hill ambush in neighbouring County Leitrim. Preparing the ambush Both the North and South Roscommon brigades of the IRA took part, and were commanded by Patrick Madden. There were 39 volunteers in the flying column, but only 14 took part in the actual attack; the remainder were tasked with blocking roads to keep the IRA's line of retreat open. The IRA party was armed with 13 rifles (11 Lee–Enfields, 1 Winchester and 1 sporting rifle), 20 shotguns (though some of them in bad condition) and two or three Webley revolvers. This was the largest collection of arms that the IRA had assembled in Roscommon during the war and some of them had been borrowed from IRA units in Longford. Among the volunteers who took part were Martin Fallon, 'Cushy' Hughes, Frank Simons, Luke Duffy, Peter Casey, Peter Collins, Patrick Gallagher and Tom Compton. Several of the IRA men, including Hughes, had served in the Irish Guards in the First World War, but had been persuaded by Pat Madden to join the IRA on their return. The ambush site was carefully prepared. It was located at a sharp bend on the Strokestown–Longford road. A farmhouse and barn at the bend had been taken over and