The Cavanmen behind the wire

Almost 50 Cavan men were amongst the 2,000 interned in squalid conditions at a prison camp on the County Down coast during the War of Independence. Their time at Ballykinlar will be recalled by FR ULTAN MCGOOHAN as the latest instalment of the Centenary Lecture Series hosted online by Cavan Library Services. Here the Bailieborough based priest tells DAMIAN MCCARNEY about starvation conditions, sports days, and the dangerous return trip for Cavan internees.

Fr Ultan McGoohan’s interest in Ballykinlar internment camp is rooted in family. His granduncle - Patrick McGoohan - was an internee.

An IRA volunteer, Patrick was lifted in Arva, along with a number of others in the first sweep by the Black and Tans in December 1920. A few months earlier, Patrick had a bit part role in an IRA attack on the town’s RIC barracks.

Internment followed in the wake of Bloody Sunday - November 21 - the infamous day in which 30 people lost their lives in Dublin, and many more wounded.

“The civil situation in the country was getting out of control as the War of Independence progressed,” explains Fr Ultan. “I think, really in desperation, the British authorities began to round up as many people as possible to create a culture of fear.

“Not everyone who was rounded up was necessarily an IRA volunteer,” emphasises Fr Ultan. “Internees also included Sinn Féin politicians, civil figures in the community, people suspected of being sympathetic to the republican movement, and then people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. There wasn’t always logic or consistency to it.”

Although Ballykinlar marked the first time the British used internment in Ireland, they had employed the oppressive tactic during the Boer War.

“That formed the template of what happened in Ireland,” asserts Fr Ultan, adding: “Naturally, when you have large groups of people confined, disease spreads, people die and it doesn’t create goodwill among the natives. Internment is probably always a self-defeating policy in the longrun – it was in South Africa and it proved to be so in Ireland also.”

A second round-up happened in March 1921, and amongst those lifted locally were the McGerty brothers, Mick and Jim, from Butlersbridge. They were first taken to jail in Cavan Town and then transported by train to Ballykinlar, a camp hunched under the shadow of the Mournes.

Isolated on the coast, its choice proved effective as, despite numerous attempts, no-one escaped Ballykinlar. A wire fence split the camp into two sections, with 1,000 men in each. A prohibition to approach the fence was strictly enforced.

“There were a few occasions when internees did approach the wire and were shot,” says Fr McGoohan, “including one young lad from Waterford who was shot - he was only 17 or 18 and his body was sent home to his mother in Waterford. And about a week later they sent the bill for transporting the body home. War is a cruel thing.”

Internees were housed in rows of huts, ten in each. Mick McGerty shared his hut with future Taoiseach Sean Lemass who wrote the following verse in the Butlerbridge man’s diary:

‘It’s easy to cry when you’re beaten and die. It is easy to craw fish and crawl. But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight, why, that’s the best game of them all.’

The camp’s sandy ground “turned to mud” in winter, rendering living conditions “very difficult”.

“Their sanitary conditions were very primitive with the result that a lot of people fell ill. Every day the men were expected to appear on parade so they could be accounted for, but months at a time parade had to be cancelled because the men were so sick from things like dysentery. They were being attacked by lice all over their bodies.

“They were emaciated – at times there were starvation conditions. The food they were given was rationed and was of a very poor quality - at times it was indigestible.”

Food parcels sent by relatives provided a lifeline. However access to parcels were used as a weapon of control by the camp authorities.

“They would often not deliver their family’s food parcels, or they would hold on to them until the food had rotted, as a way of punishing them.”

One food parcel, containing a jar of jam, which did find its intended recipient was sent by Patrick’s mother.

“In the jam she had hidden a coin. He, during his internment, transformed the coin into a ring. The ring has been passed down through the family, so this ring that was made in Ballykinlar is a very tangible connection to the place,” says Ultan.

Such past times as making the ring was a key part of survival.

“Self improvement was a huge thing – they organised lessons in history, in English, in Irish, in shorthand, business studies - many of the internees were teachers or were experienced business people. There were music classes as well.”

They also hosted a sports day in Easter 1921 with football, hurling and athletics, and even “old men’s races”.

At the request of Cornafean man, Paul McShane, an internee, who was President of the ‘Ballykinlar Athletics Club’, County Cavan GAA sponsored the medals. Amongst the football medal winners were Ernest McDonnell, Virginia, Thomas McTaggart, Belturbet, Dick Smith, Cavan and Hugh O’Reilly, Gowna.

“They used the months to try to feed their minds and look after their bodies and make sure they had some goal to keep them going, it’s a remarkable story of survival.”

Another fascinating aspect of camp life was commerce.

“Initially when they arrived they had their money taken off them and the British then gave them coupons, because there was a little canteen or shop where they could buy basic supplies, which were very poor.”

The internees were reluctant to buy “British goods” so they managed to smuggle in Irish goods, and an underground market operated within the camp.

“The British authorities got suspicious and asked the men to hand back the coupons they had got when they arrived. It turned out that they handed back more coupons than had been given out in the first place,” says Fr Ultan with a laugh.

As the harshness of the regime wax and waned, the internees were given permission to make their own currency, produced by a Dublin company produced. They were also allowed to bring in Irish goods.

Breffni natives were not only on the internee side of the divide.

“One of the British soldiers guarding the prisoners was a Sergeant Farrell – he was from County Cavan. He tried to infiltrate the prisoners by pretending to be a friend and offering to carry out communications on their behalf but he seems to have been a spy,” said Fr Ultan, adding he doesn’t know what became of Sgt Farrell after.

The truce was signed in December 1921, and soon after word came through for the mass release. For some, the order came too late.

“Quite a number of the prisoners died, a number of the prisoners just lost their sanity as well,” says Fr Ultan.

The Cavan men’s ordeal however, wasn’t over as the train journey home proved eventful.

“Between Ballyward and Katesbridge stations in Co Down the trains came under attack from loyalists who had taken up positions along the route and opened fire on the passing trains. Patrick Cahill from Cavan was among those injured when shots passed through the carriages. He suffered severe lacerations to his head and face from broken glass.

“The train then briefly stopped at Banbridge where a loyalist mob of several hundred people, some armed with guns, others with sticks and stones, stormed the platform and tried to break into the carriages. The train managed to pull out of the station before any lives were lost.”

Eventually they arrived in Cavan to much fanfare.

“Really there was a holiday declared in the town. There were marching bands to greet them and they were paraded around the town.”

Within two months civil war broke out. Only released Patrick McGoohan was sought for a sordid task.

“He was asked to be involved in the shooting of a former comrade who took a different side in the civil war but who had spent time with him in Ballykinlar. He wouldn’t do that, so he actually left the country.”

Patrick took the boat to America.

“He told his brother that he would never set foot in Ireland again, and he never did. That’s the sad part, after suffering so much for his country, that it all turned sour so quickly.”

And what of the McGerty brothers?

“As far as I know they returned to Butlersbridge and raised their families and their descendants are still there to this day.”

Fr Ultan’s talk on Ballykinlar as part of the Centenary Lecture Series can be viewed at here or at www.cavanlibrary.ie tonight, Thursday, October 1 at 7.30pm.