 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).