When The Tans Were To Burn Ballina

WHEN THE TANS

WERE TO BURN BALLINA

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BY ANTHONY McDONNELL, R.I.P.

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(Western People, October, 1981)

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  Whenever I pass though Balbriggan, Co. Dublin, I think of Ballina, because Balbriggan was burned to the ground by the Black and Tans and Ballina was to suffer the same fate. This was due to the fact that on one Saturday two R.I.C. men walked down Bridge Street, on their beat, as far as the centre of the Ham Bridge, where their jurisdiction ended and Ardnaree Barracks took over. As they returned, they were shot dead when they reached the footpath outside the premises occupied by Frank Walsh.

  When news of this reached the Black and Tans they went mad, and started beating up the people and shooting in all directions to terrorise the citizens. At about 11 p.m. we were aroused from out beds by loud knocking and shouts of "Open, in the name of the King." when my father was dressed enough to admit them, two lorry loads of Black and Tans and policemen thronged the shop. they wanted to know shot the policemen.

  My mother, who was present, asked when were they shot and where did it happen? She was told it happened at 10 p.m., opposite "this house and from this side of the street." Father said that closing time was 9 o'clock, and we would not know anything about it as we were very busy all day and went to bed tired out. The Tans went wild at this statement and left shouting: "We will find them."

  On the following day at about 4 p.m., one of our neighbours, from an adjoining street, called to see if we were moving out, and told us the town was to be burned down at 6 p.m. Father was located, talking to the District Inspector of the R.I.C., who called to ask some more questions, and seeing everyone evacuating, "It's time to move before the burning starts."

  The District Inspector said to her: "Mrs. McDonnell, don't move and I promise you that you will be all right, and I will come in to see your in the morning." He did this the following day at about 10 a.m. He admitted that when his men called on Saturday night they were very angry. During the day the residents returned gradually from the country where they stayed with customers or friends.

  But on the following Monday, market day, the Tans had their revenge as they ran the farmers and stall traders home and would not allow the market take place. The same thing happened on Successive Mondays, in an attempt to starve the traders. It later transpired that Bob Adamson, the Chemist, made up a preparation for the District Inspector of the R.I.C., who neutralised the petrol and it was useless to the Black and Tans. The debt that the town owes to the memory of the late Bob Adamson and the District Inspector, is enormous.

110 Iveragh Road,

Gaeltacht Park,

Dublin 9.t

The Truce!

THE TRUCE: JULY –DECEMBER 1921

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HOW THE NEWS WAS RECEIVED IN BALLINA

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(Western People, July 11, 1921)

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  The proclamation of a truce was nowhere received with greater jubilation than in Ballina district. When it became known definitely about mid-day on Saturday that a truce had been arranged the utmost satisfaction was universally expressed, for it was recognised that unless there was a strong prospect of a substantial agreement in the peace negotiations a truce would have been impossible.

 

  On Saturday notices were posted up announcing that curfew and all other restrictions, including the ban on fairs and markets, had been removed. That night the people of the town enjoyed their newly-restored liberties to the full, and for the first time during the summer they were enabled to be abroad in the beautiful after-glow of the summer’s twilight. The Auxiliary forces who had arrived on the previous evening held an all fresco concert for the benefit of a large crowd of spectators at Barrack hill immediately opposite the Foresters’ Hall and War Memorial Hunt, which they had commandeered on the previous evening.

  

  With piano, drums, cornet and other instruments they rendered several first-class orchestral selections. The crowd listened good-humouredly—more it was impossible to expect them to do remembering the war-like appearance of the entertainers on the previous day. The performer later on in the night held a mock wake, complete in every detail even to the lighted candles, and to remove any possible cause of offence to their audience they informed them that the waked party was not a Sinn Feiner. The celebrations were kept up throughout the night. Next morning before the people were astir the Auxiliaries had taken their departure after a sojourn of about thirty-six hours, although they had obviously come prepared for a long stay.

  The celebrations were resumed on Sunday night when several bonfires were lighted in the town. The merry-making, however, was principally indulged in by children. Everybody felt relieved at the removal of the harrassing restrictions imposed for some months past, but the prevailing impression was that it was yet premature to give way to undue optimism as to the outcome of the peace negotiations.

  During the day on Sunday one noticed the town enjoying a welcome relaxation by some young men who for a considerable time past had been compelled to absent them from their homes.

·       Jan Smuts of South Africa and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The King, who had made his unhappiness at the behaviour of the Black and Tans in Ireland well known to his government, was dissatisfied with the official speech prepared for him for the opening of the new Parliament of Northern Ireland, created as a result of the partition of Ireland. Smuts, a close friend of the King, suggested to him that the opportunity should be used to make an appeal for conciliation in Ireland. The King asked him to draft his ideas on paper. Smuts prepared this draft and give copies to the King and to Lloyd George. Lloyd George then invited Smuts to attend a British cabinet meeting consultations on the “interesting” proposals Lloyd George had received, without either man informing the Cabinet that Smuts had been their author Faced with the endorsement of them by Smuts, the King and the Prime Minister, minister reluctantly agreed to the King’s planned ‘reconciliation in Ireland’ speech.

  The speech, when delivered in Belfast on 22 June, was universally well received. It called on “all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget, and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contentment, and good will.”

The Yeast Prohibition

The Yeast Prohibition

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BALLINA MERCHANT’S PROTEST

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 (Ballina Herald, 18^th January, 1923)

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The following letter appeared in the " Irish Independent " : —

'Sir,—I read in last Thursday's issue of vour paper where Commdt.-Gen. Farrelly has issued a proclamation prohibiting the sale of treacle, brown sugar and yeast in his area without a military permit, the latter commodity to be in charge of the military authorities, who will control its distribution and only release to bakers. This is with a view to suppressing the potheen traffic. Being the largest dis­tributor of yeast in the West, this procla­mation is of special interest to me, and of serious import if adopted by all area Commandants through the West.

Whilst personally abhorring the abomable potheen traffic, which is tending to undermine the young manhood of our country, I would respectfully point out to the gallant General that whilst his motives are most praiseworthy, the methods he proposes to adopt in dealing with this national menaces are most crude, and will, if persisted in, cause wholesale confusion to the legitimate vendors and users of yeast. If the General will effectively con­trol the two first-named ingredients, yeast need give him no worry, as without treacle or 'brown sugar, (yeast is of absolutely no value to these traffickers.

My trade primarily lies with the bakers who use the yeast in the production of their bread and the grocers who sell it across their counters, as at all times, and especially during that period of the great scarcity of milk housewives purchase yeast largely for making yeast bread in the home.

Generally Farrelly may not be aware that yeast, to be kept properlv, has to be stored under special conditions to keep fit for use, which would cause the military authorities endless trouble if they decided to store and distribute same properly. Furthermore, these traffickers, if they could obtain the other necessary ingre­dients. could drive a coach and four through the General's regulations by writing to either Dublin, Belfast or Cork, or to any of the many English and Scottish yeast depots, for their supplies, which would be supplied them through the post without the authorities being a bit the wiser of the contents of the parcels..

                                               P. Murphy (per M. P. Murphy),

Ardnaree, Ballina. 5/1/1923

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The Same Old Bogus "Oath"

The Same Old Bogus “Oath”

NOW ATTRIBUTED TO SINN FEIN ORGANISATIONS

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(“Western People”, June 1921)

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   The following has been sent to us by the Publicity Department of Dail Eireann:

 “The document printed below, purporting to give the text of a “Sinn Fein Oath”, with comments, is being widely circulated in the United States and elsewhere. It is typical of teh disreputable propaganda employed against Ireland by British agents in foreign countries.

 The document is a filthy and blasphemous libel upon the Sinn Fein organisation. The alleged oath is a concocted forgery and teh statements which follow it are lies.

 “Sinn Fein imposes no oath of any kind upon its members. It is an absolutely non-sectarian organisation, embracing men and women of all creeds, and requiring its members simply to declare their belief in Irish independence and to pledge themselves to work for that ideal. Two of its many Protestant members are Ministers of the Republican Government.

MODERATOR’S TESTIMONY

 “The central object of Sinn Fein, as of the United Irishmen in the past, is to obliterate class and creed divisions and to weld together Irish citizens of every class and creed in a movement for national freedom.

 “The Irish Republic has decreed and insists upon absolute tolerance for all religious creeds. Fresh proof of its sincerity and success has just been supplied in the published statement of the outgoing Moderator of the Irish Presbyterian Church at the General Assembly on June 8^th in Belfast, that in all his goings, north and south, he had never been molested or threatened, that he had not found one of his churches, even in the most isolated places, wantonly or maliciously injured, and that wherever he had gone on in the south and west, there was no trace of a religious war manifesting itself.

“TRACT AT NO. 10”

 “ ‘I swear by the Almighty God, by all in heaven, and upon earth, by the Holy and Blessed Prayer Book of our church, by the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mother of God, by her sorrowing and sufferings at the foot of the Cross, by her tears and wailings, by St. Patrick, by the Blessed and Adorable Host, by the Blessed Rosary and Holy Beads, by the Holy and Blessed Church in all ages, and by our Holy National martyrs to fight until we die, wading in the fields of red gore of the Saxon tyrants and murderers of the glorious cause of nationality, and if spared, to fight until there is not a single vestige and a space for a footprint left to tell that the holy soil of Ireland was trodden on by the Saxon tyrants and the murderers, and, moreover, when the English Protestant robbers and beasts in Ireland shall be driven into the sea, we shall embark for and take England, root out every vestige of the accursed blood of the heretics, adulterers, and murderers of Henry VIII, and possess ourselves of the treasures of the beasts that have so long kept our beloved Isle of Saints, in chains and bondage, and driven us from our genial shores to settle in foreign lands, and shall wade in the blood of Orangemen and heretics who do not join us and become one of ourselves. Scotland, too, having given her aid and succour to the beasts, we shall leave in her red gore and shall not give up the conquest till we have our Holy Father complete ruler of the British Isles as he was before the Reformation.

“ ‘To all this, single and collectively, I swear to fulfil as before mentioned with my eyes blinded, not knowing whom to me administered this oath, so help me God.”

TWO DOLLARS PER 1,000

“ ‘The above is an exact copy of the Sinn Fein oath taken from one of them during the riots in September, 1920, near Belfast, this copy coming to America through an American citizen from Ulster, who has been there since late Spring, 1920, with relatives, he having seen all the riots about Belfast (notably the bloody 12^th July).

“ ‘(This Roman Catholic Irish Oath had the stamp and seal of the Irish Republic on it.).

 ‘These oaths are furnished at 25 cents per 100, or 2 dollars per 1,000.’

 (NOTE—Of course the foregoing illiterate concoction is merely the oath attributed to practically every big organisation, the object of which was freedom of autonomy, for well over 100 years, modified in each case, mainly the name of the particular organisation which it was desired to calumniate. In its day it has been used throughout the world by the anti-Irish propagandists against the A.O.H., the Land League, Fenians, United Irishmen, and many others).

                                                                             END

Restoration of Order

PUBLIC NOTICE

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RESTORATION OF ORDER IN IRELAND REGULATIONS

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I, Lieutenant-Colonel B. D. Fisher, C.M.G., D.S.O., Competent Military Authority, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by Regulation 3 of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Regulations, and of all other powers me thereunto enabling, DO HEREBY ORDER AND REQUIRE every person within the town of BALLINA to remain within doors between the hours of EIGHT o’Clock, p.m., and FOUR o’Clock, a.m., unless provided with a Permit in writing from the Competent Military Authority or some person duly authorised by him. This Order shall come into force at TWELVE o’Clock midnight on the 17^th day of April, 1921.

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Given under my hand this 17^th day of April, 1921.

B. D. FISHER, Lieut-Colonel,

                        Colonel Commandant,

                                           The Galway Brigade.

Election Notice

ELECTION NOTICE

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PARLIAMENTRY ELECTION

OF 1923

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NORTH MAYO CONSTITUENCY

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Candidates:  CHARLES FLYNN &

TIMOTHY J. O’SULLIVAN   

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I, JOHN CONVEE, Culleens, Ballina, Co. Mayo, being the appointed Election Agent of Charles Flynn and Timothy J. O’Sullivan, Candidates at the above Election, hereby Give Notice that, in view of the provisions of the Prevention of Electoral Abuses Bill, Saorstat Eireann, 1923, the said candidates or either of them, will not be answerable or accountable for any payment for goods supplied, services rendered, or expenses incurred by any person acting, or claiming to act on their behalf, unless such purchase, service or expense has been previously authorised in writing under my hand, or is incurred by a duly appointed sub-agent acting within the limits of his authority.

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Dated this 18^th Day of August, 1923,

Signed: JOHN CONVEE,

Election Agent for the said Charles Flynn

and Timothy J. O’Sullivan.

Offer of Amnesty

PROCLAMATION

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Offer of Amnesty

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(1) Bearing in mind the acceptance by Liam Deasy of an immediate and unconditional surrender of all arms and men, and knowing that the reasons dictating to him that acceptance must weigh also with many leaders, and many of the rank and file, who have found themselves led step by step into a destruction that they never intended, but which has been the sequel of the line of policy adopted by those to whom they looked for leadership

(2) NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that with a view to facilitating such a surrender the Government are prepared to offer amnesty to all persons now in arms against the Government who, on or before Sunday, 18th February, 1923, surrender with arms to any Officer of the National Forces or through an intermediary.

                Risteard O Maolchatha, General,

                           Commander-in-chief,

Dublin,

         8th February, 1923