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 on 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, roughly 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 exception of
the cook, Katey Brogan, simply vanished, and Carew found himself with
only Katey and Coleman to keep going a large house and a
four-hundred-acre farm. Nothing daunted, he took the Colemans into the
house, made Mrs Coleman cook and Katey housemaid, whilst Coleman and he
determined to carry on with the farming as best they could.
A few days after a little girl brought a message that Katey’s father was
very ill, and that her mother wished her to go home at once; so Katey
left immediately, and the following day Carew rode over to see if he
could help the Brogans, knowing that they were miserably poor.
The Brogans lived in a two-roomed hovel on the verge of a bog, and on
entering a terrible sight met Carew’s eyes. The old man lay dead in one
bed, Katey dead in the second bed with a large bullet-hole through her
forehead, and the old mother crooning over the fire ashes, stark mad.
He then tried to find out what had happened from two neighbouring
cottages, but in each case the door was slammed in his face with a curse
of fear. After wandering about for over an hour he met a small boy, who
told him the details of the worst murder the country had yet seen.
It appeared that Katey must have written to the police in Ballybor with
reference to the treatment of the Colemans, and that the letter had
fallen into the hands of Sinn Fein agents in the post office.
Using old Brogan’s illness to decoy Katey home, the murderers waited
until midnight, when they knocked at the door. At the time Katey was
sitting by the fire making broth for her father, and at once opened the
door, to be confronted by eight armed men wearing white masks and black
hats, one of whom said, “Come with us.” Apparently Katey refused,
whereupon they seized her, bound her wrists, and dragged her screaming
and struggling to a field some hundred yards from her home.
Here they tried her by court-martial, convicted her, and no time was
lost by the assassins in carrying out the death sentence. They then
flung her body outside the cottage, where it was found by her mother,
whose cries brought old Brogan out of his bed, and between them they
managed to carry their murdered daughter in. The shock was too much for
the old man, and he died shortly after he returned to bed, which finally
turned the old woman’s brain.
Then followed weeks of misery. Every night Carew’s cattle were driven,
his gates taken off their hinges and flung into the river, trees were
cut down, fences smashed, and the showing of a light at any window was
the signal for a volley of shots. Life in the trenches on the Western
Front was often fearful enough, but to realise the life Carew and his
herd led at this time one must remember that they had to carry on week
in week out, with no rest billets ever to retire to, apart from the fact
that at any moment sudden death in some horrible mutilating form might
be their lot.
The first fair at which Carew tried to sell cattle warned him of the
futility of attending any more. Sinn Fein “policemen,” with green,
white, and yellow brassards on their arms, took care that no buyers came
near him, while all the corner boys in Ballybor amused themselves by
driving his cattle backwards and forwards through the fair until they
could hardly move. Directly Carew would make for one set of tormentors,
a fresh lot would appear behind his back and take up the chase.
After starting Coleman on his way home with the weary cattle, he went to
the grocer he had dealt with for years, meaning to lay in a good stock
of provisions. On entering the shop the owner took Carew into a private
room, and explained that if he sold one pennyworth of food to him his
shop would be burnt over his head that night, and that all the
shopkeepers had received the same orders from the I.R.A. Carew then went
straight to the police barracks, where the police soon bought all that
he required.
It was nearly dark when Carew drew near to his entrance gate, and as his
horse started to walk four men darted out from the shadow of the demesne
wall, two seizing the horse, while the rest, covering him with
shot-guns, ordered him to get out.
Carew had no alternative but to comply, whereupon his captors led him
down a lane towards the river, where they were joined by a crowd of men
and boys. On reaching the river a violent argument started, one section
being for drowning him out of face, while another wished to give him a
chance of his life if he would swear to give up his land. In the end
they compromised, and two tall men took Carew by the arms and waded out
into the river with him until they were over their waists.
The leader then called out to Carew that if he would not agree to
surrender all his lands and promise to leave the country they would
drown him there and then. In order to gain time Carew pretended to be
greatly frightened, and started a whining altercation with the leader on
the bank. As he expected, his would-be executioners soon joined in
heatedly, so much so that shortly one let go of his arm, and throwing
the other off his balance with a quick wrench, Carew dived, and swimming
down and across the river under water was soon in safety on the far
bank. As soon as the crowd realised that their prisoner had escaped,
they opened fire on the river at once, hitting one of the men in the
water, whereupon the wounded man’s friends turned on another faction and
a free fight ensued.
Once across the river, Carew ran as hard as he could for the house of a
friendly farmer living on the main road on the east side of the river,
borrowed a bicycle from the man, and set off for Ballybor.
By great good luck, as Carew reached the barracks in Ballybor, he found
Blake on the point of setting out on a night expedition with a Crossley
load of police. On hearing his story Blake at once agreed to return with
him, in the hope that they might be in time to save Rossbane.
In order to surprise the Volunteers, Blake went by the road on the east
side of the river, and on reaching Carew’s demesne hid the car inside in
the shadow of some trees. Carew then swam the river, brought back a
boat, and ferried the police across in three parties.
The farm buildings and main yard of Rossbane lie between the house and
the river, and on entering the yard the police found Coleman lying
insensible and surrounded by his weeping wife and children. Learning
from the woman that the Volunteers were on the point of setting fire to
the house, the police, led by Blake and Carew, who was armed with rifle
and revolver, and by now in a white heat of fury, made for the house in
two parties, one under Carew for the front entrance, and the other under
Blake for the back.
The last thing the Volunteers expected was a brutal assault by the
police, and after eating and drinking all they could find and looting
what happened to take their fancy, they had just sprayed petrol over the
hall and set it on fire when the police entered.
It is not often that the R.I.C. have the pleasure of coming to grips
with the elusive I.R.A., but when they do they put paid in capital
letters to the accounts of their murdered comrades, men shot in cold
blood in their homes, or dragged unarmed out of trains and butchered
like cattle.
The R.I.C. are probably one of the finest fighting forces to be found in
a continent where, at the present day, practically every man is trained
to arms, and most people have seen the fight cornered rats will put up.
The main hall of Rossbane was in the centre of the house, and after
setting fire to it the Volunteers had started to leave, some by the
front door and others through the kitchen, with the result that they ran
into the arms of the police, who did not waste time with futile shouts
of “hands up,” but proceeded at once to business.
At first they fought in darkness; but soon the flames gathered strength,
and their glow silhouetted the forms of the Volunteers, giving the
police as good targets as man could wish for.
In a short time the Volunteers broke; some rushed upstairs never to be
seen alive again, while others fled into the drawing-room which opened
off the hall, only to find escape cut off by heavy barred shutters. By
now the centre of the house was burning fiercely, and all the police had
to do to complete the rout was to wait outside the two exits and let the
flames act the part of ferrets. Ten minutes more saw the end, and with
it the few Volunteers who escaped with their lives, handcuffed together
in a miserable group in the big yard, covered by two Black and Tans. And
when the captain of the Rossbane Company of the I.R.A. revised his
company roll, his pen must have been busy with “gone to America” after
many names.
Dawn broke on a sight worthy of modern Russia, on the smouldering ruins
of the fine old house, on the wretched groups of singed and blackened
Volunteers, and on the group of still weeping Colemans huddled in a
corner of the yard as far from the fire of the Volunteers as they could
get.
Carew, still undaunted, though wounded in a leg and shoulder and soaked
to the skin for hours, wished to stay on in the cottage in the yard; but
as soon as the fight was over, Blake had sent half his force back to
Ballybor in the Crossley to bring out more transport, and the argument
was settled by the arrival of two Crossleys and three Fords, in which
Blake returned to barracks, taking Carew and the Colemans with him as
well as the prisoners. It was impossible to leave any police at
Rossbane; the wounded had to be attended to, and Blake rightly guessed
that the Volunteers had had a dose that night which would keep them
quiet for some time to come.
Carew’s wounds were only slight, and the following day he was determined
to return to Rossbane. Poor Coleman had no option but to go with his
master, having no money, a family to provide for, and knowing full well
that he might as well ask for the crown of England as seek employment
elsewhere in the west, while emigration to the States was out of the
question.
Blake was now in an awkward dilemma. Unable to give Carew protection, he
feared that if he returned the chances were that both he and the herd
would be murdered. However, Carew was determined to go, so Blake gave
out on the quiet that if anything happened to either of them the
Auxiliaries would be called in, and let him go.
For some time Carew lived in peace. The fight at the burning of Rossbane
had put the fear of God into the local Volunteers, and most of them
would as soon have faced a Lewis gun as face Carew in a fighting mad
temper, while the threat of the Auxiliaries stayed the hands of the
“shoot him from behind a wall brigade.”
At length Carew went up to Dublin to find out about the payment of his
malicious injury claim for the burning of Rossbane, and on his return
was met at Ballybor Station by Blake with the news that some I.R.A.
flying column had beaten Coleman to death and burnt all the outbuildings
at Rossbane, not leaving a wall standing.
Carew wished now to put up a wooden hut at Rossbane and endeavour to
carry on alone; but Blake refused to let him go, and in the end he was
persuaded, greatly against his will, to sell his lands by public
auction.
The auction took place in Ballybor, the lands being divided into lots of
a suitable size to suit small farmers; but the auctioneers did not
receive a single bid—the I.R.A. saw to that.
Carew now determined to leave his lands waste, his home in ruins, and as
soon as he received the money for his malicious injury claim, to go to
British East Africa, there to await the return of better days in
Ireland, when he intends to return and rebuild the home of his fathers.
Will they ever come?
X.
POTEEN.
There are very few industries in the west of Ireland, and of these by
far the most lucrative is the distillation of illicit whisky, or, as it
is generally called by the peasants, poteen.
The average countryman would far rather make a fiver by sticking a
stranger with a horse than £100 by hard honest work. Add an element of
danger, and he is quite content. The making of poteen combines much
profit with little labour and a good element of danger, in that the
distiller may be caught by the police and heavily fined.
The beginning of poteen is lost in the mist of past ages, and the end
will probably synchronise with the end of Ireland; the amount made
varies with the demand, and the demand fluctuates with the price and
supply of whisky.
During 1919, when whisky became weak, dear, and scarce, and the police
for a time practically ceased to function, the call for poteen became so
great that the demand far exceeded the supply, and for many months the
whisky sold in the majority of publichouses throughout the west was made
up of a mixture of three-quarters poteen and a quarter whisky.
At the beginning of the last century all poteen was made from malt in
the same way as whisky is made, until some thoughtful man argued that if
they could make beer from sugar in England, we could surely make poteen
from the same material in Ireland; and as any one buying malt or growing
barley was liable to attract the eye of the R.I.C., all poteen ceased to
be made from malt, and the far simpler method of distilling from
“treacle” continues to this day. Treacle is largely imported in barrels
to Ireland, ostensibly for the purpose of fattening cattle and pigs.
In the early part of 1919 a young Welshman, David Evans, was demobilised
with a good gratuity, and being a keen fisherman, determined he would
have one good summer’s salmon-fishing in Scotland before settling down
to work. But Evans was not the only man looking out for salmon-fishing
in Scotland, and he soon realised that that country was out of the
question.
During the war Evans had served at one time in the same division with
Blake, and thinking that the latter might know of some good
salmon-fishing at a moderate rent, he wrote to him. By return of post
came an answer from Blake, saying that, owing to the bad state of the
country, very few Englishmen had taken fishings in Ireland that season,
and that there was a very good stretch of the Owenmore river, about ten
miles above Ballybor, to let at a moderate rent.
Evans at once wired asking Blake to take the fishing for him, and ten
days afterwards took up his quarters at Carra Lodge, a small fishing
lodge on the bank of the river.
Ireland has probably benefited more than any other country in Europe by
the war, and not least by the submarine scourge, which not only raised
the prices of cattle and pigs beyond the dreams of avarice, but also
increased the number of salmon in Irish rivers to an extent unknown
within the memory of man. Before the war salmon and sea-trout in many
western rivers were rapidly becoming exterminated through the great
increase of drift-nets at sea; but directly the first German submarine
was reported to have been seen off the west coast not a fisherman would
leave land, with the result that the fish had free ingress to their
native rivers, and the numbers of spawning fish were greatly increased.
Evans had great sport, thoroughly enjoyed himself, and found the
peasants quite the most charming and amusing people he had ever met. No
matter what sort of house he entered, he was received like a prince and
bid ten thousand welcomes; a carefully dusted chair would be placed by
the fireside for “his honour,” and a large jar of poteen produced from
under the bed.
Towards the end of his time at Carra Lodge, Evans came to the conclusion
that, if he could only discover some way of making a decent income, he
would settle down in the west of Ireland; but the question of how to
make money puzzled him greatly. Farming did not appeal to him, and
beyond that there did not appear to be any other industry open to an
enterprising young man, and any profession was ruled out owing to the
long period of training required.
Before the war Evans had worked for a short time in a distillery, and
had a good idea of how to make whisky and of malting; but to start a
distillery in the Ballybor district was out of the question, owing to
the smallness of his capital. But if he could not make whisky, he could
make poteen with a very small outlay.
On making inquiries, he found that the possibilities of the idea were
enormous; the outlay was small, the returns great, but the risks were
also great. Yet if detection could be avoided, the returns would only be
limited by the amount of treacle and malt available.
At this period the country people were full of money, and as whisky was
almost unattainable, they were prepared to pay a very high price for
poteen, and the distilleries were rapidly making fortunes. Still there
was considerable danger attached to the trade. The police, though hardly
ever seen outside their barracks except in large numbers, occasionally
carried out extensive poteen raids, and as it was nearly an
impossibility to find a house without poteen in it, they never returned
empty-handed.
Having decided to go into the poteen trade, the next question was where
to make it. To start distilling in a small way in a small house merely
meant certain discovery after making small profits, and Evans knew that
once he was caught red-handed by the police the game would be up.
During bad times in any country, when the honest but timid men go to the
wall, the unscrupulous but bold men come into their own, and often make
a fortune by means which in quieter times would be out of the question.
Evans belonged to the latter class.
Towards the end of 1919 the peasants started to burn unoccupied
country-houses throughout the south and west. Doubtless they were often
burnt by wild young men without rhyme or reason, but also probably with
the idea of making it impossible for the owners to return to their
homes, and so force them to sell their demesne lands to the very people
who had burnt their houses.
A few miles from Carra Lodge, at the foot of the mountains, stood one of
the largest houses in Connaught, Ardcumber House, the family seat of one
of the oldest Elizabethan families in Ireland, and probably the finest
sporting demesne in the west. The great house, full of Sheraton and
Chippendale furniture, commanded wonderful views of mountains and moors;
while in front runs the Owenmore river, famous for its salmon fishing,
through a valley which in winter time can show more snipe, duck, geese,
and wild game of all sorts than any other valley of its size in the
British Isles.
One would have thought that the above sporting attractions would have
satisfied any man; but the owner was one of those queer Irishmen who
preferred any country to his own, and divided his time between London
and Continental watering-places, leaving the management of his estates
to an agent, who lived in Ballybor.
When reading the ‘Field’ one evening, Evans came across an advertisement
of Ardcumber House to let to a careful tenant at a nominal rent.
Realising that the agent feared the house would be burnt if left empty,
he drove into Ballybor the following day, took Blake with him to
interview the agent, and drove home with a lease of Ardcumber House in
his pocket, at a rent which the sale of game and salmon would cover
twice over.
The best of the fishing being now over, Evans crossed to England,
nominally to collect his kit, in reality to have a large still made,
which he had packed in large cases, labelled furniture, and brought over
by long sea to Ballybor. At the same time he arranged with a sugar agent
in England to ship treacle in paraffin barrels to Ballyrick and Ballybor
as he required it.
When at home in Wales he induced a cousin, John Evans, to join him, and
the two set out for Ireland. In Dublin they purchased a Ford truck,
which they had fitted up as a shooting waggonette with a hood like a
boxcar, and in this, after obtaining the necessary police permit through
Blake, they drove straight down to the west, and took up their quarters
at Ardcumber.
They found the house in charge of an old woman, who lived in one of the
gate lodges, and arranged with her to cook for them and look after the
few rooms they used, allowing her to go home every evening at six
o’clock.
At the top of the house they found six large rooms shut off from the
rest of the house by a heavy door at the head of the stairs. Here they
erected the still, using a fireplace as a flue; in a second room they
erected wooden fomenting vessels, and in a third stored the treacle and
poteen. In order to obtain a supply of water they fitted a pipe to the
main water-supply tank, which was in the roof above the attics.
They now settled down to a regular routine of shooting by day and
distilling for a greater part of the night, living entirely to
themselves. Once a week they drove into Ballybor in the Ford to obtain
provisions.
Whenever they learnt that a consignment of treacle had reached Ballybor
or Ballyrick, they at once removed it in the Ford, stored it in the
stables, which they kept carefully locked, and carried the treacle in
large pails at night-time to the fermenting vessels in the attics.
At this time, so occupied were the police with looking after themselves,
and the country people with keeping clear of the R.I.C. and the
Volunteers, that nobody gave a thought to the “two queer foreigners
above in the big house” who were mad on shooting.
As soon as they had accumulated a good supply of poteen (the Irish
peasant has no fancy ideas about allowing poteen to mature, and will as
soon drink it hot from the still as not), they began to think of how to
dispose of it without calling unnecessary attention to themselves. In
the end they decided not to try distributing the poteen themselves, but
to find a reliable agent who had a good knowledge of the locality.