For some time after the death of Anthony Mayne, the murdered R.M., Petty Sessions Courts ceased to be held in Ballybor, and the Sinn Fein Courts reigned supreme. At length Mayne’s successor arrived, and endeavoured to start the Courts in his district again, but found that not only were the country people too terrorised to bring any cases before a British Court, but that most of the magistrates had resigned, and none of the few remaining ones would face the bench.
However, Fitzmaurice, the new R.M., stuck to it, and in the end a retired officer, living just outside Ballybor, became a magistrate for the county; and suddenly, to the intense excitement of the whole town, it was given out that some countryman had had the audacity to defy the edict of Dail Eireann, and to summon a neighbour to appear before the British magistrates.
The court-house at Ballybor is a most curious-looking edifice of an unknown style of architecture, shabby and dismal outside 121and like a vault inside. On the day that the Court reopened the place was packed to the doors, and when the clerk stood up to announce the Court open, and ending with the words, “God save the King!” the silence could be felt.
It was what is known in the west of Ireland as a “saft day”—a day of heavy drizzling rain and a mild west wind off the Atlantic, and after a time the crowded court-house of countrymen in soaked home-spuns and women with reeking shawls over their heads literally began to steam, and the strong acrid smell of turf smoke from the drying clothes became overpowering. At first all eyes were fixed on the two magistrates sitting on the raised dais at one end of the court-house, and many, remembering poor Mayne’s end, wondered how long the two had to live. The R.M., they knew, was well paid by the British Government, but the second magistrate’s unpaid loyalty must surely be a form of madness, or most likely he received secret pay from the Government.
After the disposal of cases brought by the police for various offences, the only civil case on the list—in reality the beginning of a trial of strength between Sinn Fein and the British Government—came on for hearing, and in due course the magistrates gave a decision in favour of the complainant, a herd by name Mickey Coleman.
Taking advantage of the suspension of the law, a neighbour, Ned Foley, had thought to 122get free grazing, and day after day had deliberately driven his cattle on to Coleman’s land. Coleman, having remonstrated repeatedly with Foley in vain, consulted a Ballybor solicitor, who advised him to bring Foley into a Sinn Fein Court, where, he assured him, he would get full justice. This Coleman refused to do, and after consulting a second solicitor, brought the case before the Ballybor Petty Sessions Court.
Coleman appears to have been a man of great determination and courage, as he had been repeatedly warned by the Volunteers that if he persisted in taking Foley into a British Court they would make his life a hell on earth; and as he left the court after winning his case, a note was slipped into his hand to the effect that the I.R.A. neither forgets nor forgives.
Coleman had started life as a farm labourer, eventually becoming herd to a Loyalist called Vyvian Carew, whose ancestors came over to Ireland in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and who lived alone in a large house about eight miles from Ballybor, where he farmed his own demesne of four hundred Irish acres.
Carew belonged to a class of Irishman fast dying out in the west, and considering that it has always been the policy of every Liberal Government to throw them to the wolves, it is almost beyond belief that any are left in the country. A type of man any country can ill afford to lose, and all countries ought to be proud and glad to gain. After serving throughout the late war in the British Army, Carew 123had returned home, hoping to live in peace and quiet for the rest of his days, but had soon been undeceived. Though working himself as hard as any small farmer, and farming his land far better than any other man in the district, it was decided by men who coveted his acres that he possessed too many, and the usual steps in the west were taken to make him give up three of his four hundred acres, and if possible force him to sell out all.
Coleman started with a heavy heart for his cottage in Rossbane, Carew’s demesne, and from the moment he left the court-house until he lifted the latch of his door found himself treated as a leper by townsfolk and country people alike. Probably some of the people would have been willing to speak to him, and most likely many admired his pluck, but a man who comes under the curse of the I.R.A. is to be avoided at any costs. No man can tell when that sinister curse, which is often a matter of life and death to a peasant, may be extended to an unwary sympathiser.
In the evening, when going round the cattle, he met his master, who, on being shown the threatening note, at once wanted Coleman to bring his family up to the big house; but he refused, knowing that if he did his cottage would probably be burnt and his own few cattle either stolen or maimed.
Soon after eleven that night there came a loud knock at the door, and Coleman, who had been sitting by the fire expecting a visit, rose up to meet his fate, but was caught by 124his terrified wife, who clung to him with the strength of despair. At last Coleman succeeded in opening the door, and to their utter astonishment in walked a British officer, dressed in khaki topcoat, steel helmet, and with a belt and holster. The officer explained that he came from Castleport, that he had a large party of soldiers on the road outside, and that he was going to scour the countryside for rebels that night. Lastly, he said that he had been told Coleman was well disposed, and would he help him by giving information?
Coleman, who at the sight of a British officer in a steel helmet, when he expected a Volunteer with a black mask, had been overcome with joy, at the mention of that sinister word “information” regained his senses, and answered that he had none to give; that he was only a poor herd striving to do his work and keep a wife and a long weak family, and that he had nothing to do with politics.
The officer said nothing, but sat down by the fire on a stool and started to play with the children; presently he returned to the charge again, and asked the herd where the Foleys lived, and if they were Volunteers. The mention of the name of Foley confirmed Coleman in his growing suspicion, and he replied that he knew the Foleys for quiet decent boys, and he believed that they had nothing at all to do with politics.
Shortly afterwards the officer wished them good-night, leaving Coleman and his wife a prey to conflicting emotions. If he really was 125a British officer, then at any rate they were safe for that night, but if not, then probably some terrible outrage was brewing. Only a week before the Volunteers had set fire, while the inmates were in bed, to the house of a farmer, who had bought the farm a few days previously at a public auction, contrary to the orders of the I.R.A.; and though the inmates just managed to escape in their night attire, their two horses and a cow were burnt to death, and their charred bodies could still be seen lying amid the ruins from the main road—a warning to all who thought of disobeying the I.R.A.
After the time it would take to walk to the Foleys’ house and back there came a second knock, and the officer entered again, pushing one of the young Foleys in front of him with his hands up. “Here’s the young blighter,” said the officer to Coleman, “and if you will give the necessary information about him, I’ll have him shot by my men outside at once.”
But Coleman, whose suspicion by now was a certainty, refused to be drawn, and replied that he knew nothing against the Foleys, and that they were quiet respectable neighbours.
For some time the officer tried his best to get Coleman to give evidence against Foley, but at last, finding it was useless, left, taking his prisoner with him.
By now the Colemans were too unhappy to go to bed, and sat round the fire in silence. After an hour there came a third knock, and again the officer appeared; but this time 126Coleman could see quite a different expression on his face, and in a brutal voice, not taking the trouble to hide his brogue, he bade the unfortunate herd “get up out of that and come outside.”
Coleman followed his tormentor outside, and there found a mob of young men and boys waiting for him, who proceeded to kick him along the road for a mile, when he could go no farther, and fell on the road. They then tied his hands and ankles, and left him in the middle of the road for a police car to run over him. And here he lay all night in the rain.
The next day was market-day in Ballybor, and many of the country people started early in their carts for the town, and though none drove over the herd, yet one and all passed by on the other side.
Luckily, when the herd was nearly gone from cold and exposure, the good Samaritan appeared in the shape of Carew driving to Ballybor, and in a short time he had Coleman back at Rossbane in front of a big turf fire; and after placing him in charge of the cook, brought the herd’s family to a cottage in the yard, and then drove into Ballybor to see Blake. But the D.I. had his hands too full to be able to give protection to individuals.
At this time, next to Sinn Fein, the Transport union was the strongest party in the west, and being composed of landless men, its main object was to gain land for its members by all and every means in its power, with the result that their attention was concentrated 127on outing all men with four hundred acres or more in their possession, and next would come the men with three hundred acres, and so on down the scale.
The farmer with forty acres or thereabouts—the best class of small farmer in the west, and if let alone the most law-abiding, as they are numerous and possess something worth holding on to—soon realised where this would lead to, and tried to apply the brakes. They would have succeeded but for their younger sons, who, in the ordinary course of events, would have found good employment in the States, but under present circumstances have to remain at home helping to make small fortunes for their parents. It is this class of young men who, with the shop boys, form the rank and file of the I.R.A., and in the case of the farmers’ sons it is the western peasants’ usual characteristic of “land hunger” which forms the chief driving power.
At one period it looked as though Sinn Fein and the Transport union would come to loggerheads; but Sinn Fein proved too strong, and the two became partners to all intents and purposes.
A few days after he had returned from his fruitless visit to Blake, Carew received a letter from the secretary of the local branch of the Transport union calling upon him to dismiss Coleman, and that if he did not comply at once the union would call out all his men. Carew ignored the letter and the threat.
The Owenmore river runs through Rossbane, 128roughly dividing it into two equal parts, and after a fortnight Carew received a letter from the I.R.A. calling upon him to attend a Sinn Fein Court the following Sunday night at Cloonalla Chapel, and saying that the part of his demesne separated from the house by the river was to be taken from him, and if he wished to claim “compensation” he must attend the “Court.” And again Carew ignored the letter.
A week afterwards all his farm hands and servants, with the exc............