Wildest of all the wild Donegal coast is the region lying between
Fannet Lighthouse and Knockalla Fort. There are impassable bogs and
mountain fastnesses which strangers cannot explore, but that are safe
resorts for illicit distillers, the blue wreaths of smoke from whose
stills may be seen curling against a dark background. In the years ’97
and ’98 these fastnesses were favorite haunts of the United Irishmen.
Fannet had a particularly bad name in those unsettled times. The Church
Protestants were, of course, loyal, but they formed only a handful of
the population; and the Presbyterians were, many of them, banded with
the rebels. The Fannet landlords raised a company of yeomen, consisting
of the Protestants aforesaid, and placed themselves at their head.
Help was at hand. Lord Cavan was sent over from England in command of
soldiers; Knockalla Fort was garrisoned; and the yeomanry were called
up to receive their arms and ammunition.
“You needna be giving the like of us arms, my lord,” said old Anthony
Gallagher, “for the Catholics will take them from us.”
Lord Cavan was amused at the fellow’s outspokenness, and replied that
he had come over to make Fannet so quiet that not one of the rebels
would venture so much as to speak. The yeomen got their guns and
bayonets, and the soldiers were ready to support them. Lord Cavan, a
stern and fierce soldier, kept his word; he quieted Fannet so that the
Catholics did not dare to speak. The Protestants had been reduced to an
abject state of terror before his arrival by the horrible murder of Dr.
Hamilton their rector, a zealous magistrate, who was followed to the
house of a neighboring clergyman and shot. He went to spend the night
with a brother-rector at some distance from Fannet, and the rectory was
surrounded by United Irishmen, who clamored that the Doctor should be
given up to them.
“Those are Fannet men; I know their voices,” said he. The door was soon
burst open; the attacking party rushed in, found the family in the
garrets, and dragged their captive downstairs. He clung with both hands
to the banisters, and one of the women servants took a candle and held
the flame to his fingers till he was forced to let go his hold. He was
taken to the lawn and his brains were blown out.
This atrocity had determined the Government to send troops to Fannet.
It was soon after this that Anthony Gallagher and the troop he served
in were at Kerrykeel fair and were attacked by a party of the rebels.
The yeomen were commanded to draw their bayonets and beat them off, and
all the United Men retreated and got away except a man called Micky
O’Donnel from Ballywhoriskey, at the Bottom of Fannet. He was found
dead on the street, pierced through the heart. Lord Cavan rode up at
that moment, followed by men from the Fort. “Take that corpse with you,
boys,” said he, “an’ hang it in chains from the walls of Knockalla
Fort. It will be a warning to the rest of the villains.” Anthony and
two soldiers were left in charge of the corpse, but the villagers
assembling in force, there was a rescue, and Micky O’Donnel was carried
off before the yeomen got back, attracted by the noise of shouting, to
protect their comrades. Lord Cavan was in a rage when he heard what had
happened, and swore a round oath that that corpse should yet hang in
chains from Knockalla Fort as a warning to the rest of Fannet; and he
despatched a party to recover it.
It was known that Micky O’Donnel belonged to the Bottom of Fannet, so
the party set out along the banks of Mulroy, where they fell in with
the yeomen, and all went on together. But every house along the road
was empty, and there were no men at work in the fields; it was like a
country of the dead.
Along the wild Atlantic shore; among the bent-covered sand hills;
up to the miserable row of hovels called the town of Shanna, went
the soldiers; but still not a human being was to be seen. The whole
population had taken to the mountains.
At length they reached the last cabin in the village of Ballywhoriskey,
and there they discovered the dead man laid out on the wretched bed,
with two tallow candles burning at his head.
“Feen a crathur” (we quote the words of Anton Gallagher, our informant,
son of the Anthony who was present at the scene)—“feen a crathur was
in the house but the corpse on the bed an’ two ould women waking it.
The women cried an’ lamented, an’ went on their knees to the officer
to lave the poor corpse where it was to get Christian burial; an’ the
gentleman thought it a pity o’ them, an’ left the wake wantin’ Micky
after all. It was my father tould me the story.”
“Have you got your father’s gun and bayonet?”
“Ay, ma’am, in troth I have! If you ladyship honors me wi’ a visit
you’ll see them hanging up over the chimney. I wouldna part wi’ them
for goold. There’s many a winter’s night the Catholics coming home
frae the market will stop at we’er door an’ cry, “King William’s men,
come out!” an’ then it’s all the mother an’ me can do to keep the
boys from taking down their grandfather’s gun, an’ going out to meet
them.”—_Belgravia._