by Colin Murphy
An English voice yelled out: ‘Forward! Do not fire unless ordered!’
The cavalry, guns at the ready, began a trot directly towards the crowd.
Screams rose from the women as the mass of people began to flee in all directions. At the same moment the barracks doors were thrown open and the mounted infantry reappeared, quickly followed by the twenty constables who had been guarding Boycott. Panic quickly spread as some of the crowd fled towards the edge of the town and more scampered down the banks of the Robe, while others sought shelter upriver within the walls of the mill. The constables now used their batons freely, seizing whoever they felled and hauling them away under arrest. A frenzied man wielding a stick sought to grapple with a soldier but was levelled by the butt of another soldier’s rifle. Within two minutes the crowd had dispersed and all that remained were about twenty men, mostly sitting on the ground nursing bloodied heads, or simply dazed, but all under arrest.
‘Thank God no one was killed,’ the priest gasped.
A man with blood streaming from a wound on his face staggered towards them, reeling from side to side as though insensibly drunk. Owen ran out and tried to haul him from the centre of the street. He was suddenly aware of a looming shadow and turned to see the great bulk of a horse rearing over him. The constable atop the animal raised his baton high.
‘Throw fuckin’ stones at us, will ye?’ he snarled and brought the baton down with all his strength.
Owen heard an intense buzzing and the world around him lost all cohesion, the buildings becoming fluid and swirling together. And then day turned to night.
From an upstairs window at the rear of the butcher’s shop, Donal Doherty watched proceedings with a satisfied grin.
‘That worked well enough.’
‘It did. Pity Boycott got away, though.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Our orders for now are te stoke the fire, not throw gunpowder on it.’
‘Hmm. Anyway, I’d prefer te kill the bastard personally, when the time comes,’ said Thomas Joyce.
CHAPTER 27
On Monday November 1st, when Captain Boycott, a local landlord left the Court in Ballinrobe, a crowd followed him ‘shouting and groaning’. He became so threatened that he took refuge in the infantry barracks. A servant trying to get to Boycott with a car was unable to do so because he was also ‘shouted’ away. Eventually the military was called out to clear the street. Stones were thrown at the military and police and ‘the Riot Act’ was read.
–The Ballinrobe Chronicle, 6 November 1880
Captain Boycott has described further persecution to which he was subjected at Ballinrobe on Monday, when 50 men of the 7th Regiment had to be summoned to the aid of the police to save him and a colleague. He states that the persecution is on the increase.
–The Nenagh Guardian, 6 November 1880
2-8 NOVEMBER 1880
‘What did I tell you? What did I tell you? A mob intent on murder! But would my voice be heard? The Land League means to kill every law-abiding landowner and their agents or force us to flee to England. But, by God, all they’ve done is strengthen my resolve, I tell you!’
Boycott was pacing the drawing room, inflicting irreparable damage to the polished mahogany floor with the steel cap on his cane. His audience was limited to Annie, Weekes and Sergeant Murtagh. Annie had been terribly troubled by the events of the previous day. Her husband had been forced to spend the night in the infantry barracks and even now, a day later, appeared quite shaken.
‘This sort of carry-on would simply not be tolerated in England. Murderous mobs roaming the streets at liberty to kill and maim. What sort of a police force do you have here? Well, man, speak up! How is this permitted? Answer me that, sir?’
‘Sir!’ the sergeant struggled to control his irritation. ‘Thanks to my men, you did not receive a single scratch to your person and several of those men required treatment by the army medic.’
Boycott waved a dismissive hand. ‘I don’t want to hear excuses. The mob should have been dispersed before it could gather. And if you intend to arrest the chief instigator, you will find him scheming behind the walls of that Catholic den of agitators in Neale.’
‘Sir, are you suggesting that Fr O’Malley instigated this disturbance?’
‘Disturbance? Disturbance? The Riot Act was read, man! And that’s precisely what I’m suggesting. O’Malley, the Fenians’ local commander.’
‘Charles, that’s going too far,’ Annie said.
‘Too fa–’
Murtagh cut him off. ‘Have you evidence for such an assertion?’
‘Actually, Charles…’ It was Weekes who spoke, his voice timid.
‘What is it?’ Boycott snapped.
In the face of Boycott’s fury, Weekes quickly lost the battle with his own will.
‘Nothing,’ he whispered.
Annie fixed Weekes with a suspicious stare.
Síomha pressed the fresh, cold poultice of wet turf ash against the large bump on Owen’s crown. He’d been taken home unconscious and poultices applied through the night to reduce the swelling. He groaned and began to stir, his hand instinctively rising to the source of the pain.
Síomha, who had been worried to distraction throughout the night, leaned over him. ‘Owen. Can you hear me?’
Tadhg and the priest hurried in and knelt beside the bed. He struggled to raise his head from the pillow.
‘Where am I?’
‘You’re home,’ Tadhg said.
He moaned and massaged his head.
‘You took a nasty blow. You’ve been out all night,’ Fr O’Malley said.
‘All night? What happened?’
The priest recounted the aftermath. The constabulary had wanted to haul Owen off under arrest, but Fr O’Malley had prevailed on the Sub-Inspector and Owen had been released. Joe Gaughan had brought him home in his cart.
Owen managed a smile. ‘This peaceful resistance business is painful work.’
The priest snorted.
Síomha sniffled and held a handkerchief to her eye. ‘This is my fault. I insisted you went. You might have been killed.’
Fr O’Malley stood up sharply. ‘Don’t you start!’
BOYCOTT RELIEF EXPEDITION
This publication continues to support the Boycott Relief Expedition and can report that the fund now holds in excess of £500. Mr Gladstone would do well to note the widespread support among loyal citizens for Captain Boycott. Among the contributors have been an elderly lady of limited means who has sent ten shillings, a retired ex-army sergeant who has volunteered to march to Mayo despite his advancing years and a schoolboy who has donated his paper round money. Thousands more loyal subjects are willing to help. As one letter writer to this newspaper so aptly put it – ‘On to Mayo, boys!’
–The Belfast News Letter, 4 November 1880
Fr O’Malley returned in Redpath’s company that afternoon. Owen asked Tadhg to sit in on their discussion, prompting a glow of satisfaction on the lad’s face.
‘What now, Father?’ Owen asked the priest.
‘What now? We start again. If the rumours are true about the Orangemen and the army, we’ve got to show even greater resolve in the face of provocation. We’ll speak to everyone within five miles if we have to, door to door, and tell them to offer no threat to any invading force. At least we can point out the folly of mob rule now. Incidentally, Martin McGurk was arrested; he was one of the first to throw stones.’
‘Y’know, there were a lot of strange faces trying to egg on the crowd. One of them gave me this thick lip.’
‘Do you think it was coordinated?’ Redpath asked.
He shrugged. ‘Just a notion.’
‘If Fenian militants are trying to stir up trouble, we’ll just have to work harder to counter them. We really need your help in this, Owen.’
Owen glanced briefly at Tadhg and Síomha.
‘When do we start?’ he asked.
Owen, Fr O’Malley and Redpath spent the following days visi
ting every cottage and business premises in the broad locality, reiterating the need for restraint no matter what the provocation. There was general support and not a little embarrassment from some at having been drawn into the previous Monday’s melee. Owen, not unmindful of Síomha’s influence on his actions, suggested actively courting the mothers’ and wives’ support. The priest quickly recognised the value of this strategy and asked several of the women to take an active role, preaching the benefits of their tactics ‘as far as their legs could carry them’.
As the three strolled along Ballinrobe’s Glebe Street, a messenger boy approached and handed Fr O’Malley a telegraph, for which service the priest rewarded the lad with a halfpenny. As he perused the message, his face grew sombre.
‘What’s happened?’ Redpath asked.
‘Parnell and four others have been arrested.’
Owen and Redpath responded in mutual shock. ‘Arrested?’
‘For conspiring to incite tenants not to pay rents and, worse, for conspiring to exclude certain individuals from social and commercial intercourse.’
‘They’re trying to make boycotting illegal,’ Owen observed grimly.
‘They can’t do that!’ Redpath snarled. ‘Who people have dealings with is their own business. They can’t make it illegal not to talk to someone.’
‘No,’ Owen said, ‘but they could make it illegal to conspire to organise a boycott.’
‘Armed Orangemen. Threats of military force. Now the law. They’re trying everything in their power to stop us.’
‘You know this means we could soon be three law-breaking conspirators?’ Fr O’Malley observed, crumpling the telegraph.
Owen grinned. ‘It also means we have them really worried.’
The Freeman’s Journal is pleased to report that our Defence Fund for Mr Parnell and his comrades’ trial had been widely supported with handsome subscriptions from prominent citizens. Hitherto the Freeman’s Journal has chosen to ignore the ludicrous suggestion that the Government might send troops to pluck some obscure landlord’s crops in Mayo, but cannot remain silent at news of a planned warlike expedition by loyalists to assist this individual – organised by supposedly responsible publications. Furthermore, it must be pointed out that no newspaper favouring the Land League, including this one, has advocated the relief of suffering tenants by means of armed force.
–The Freeman’s Journal, 5 November 1880
A letter was delivered to Boycott as he and Weekes continued their endless labours in the cornfields, the younger man having gained a deep appreciation of the average farm labourer’s value, although he kept this thought to himself. Since the riot, they’d been under the constant watch of six constables.
Recognising the crest of the Chief Secretary for Ireland in Dublin Castle, Boycott eagerly tore at the envelope. ‘It’s from Forster’s office.’
He began to read aloud.
Dear Mr Boycott,
The Chief Secretary wishes to inform you that your request for assistance with your harvest has been under consideration. Given the unique nature of the action taken against you by the local population, our original intention was to discreetly provide you with a workforce sufficient to carry out bona fide work and to escort said workforce to and from your farm with a small military force.
However, given the widespread publicity generated by your situation, in England, Ireland and the United States, and in consideration of the fact that a large force of men is being privately organized to come to your relief, any intervention from this office has now been undermined. We stress that we oppose the incursion of a large armed expedition into Mayo and that this office will be not be in a position to provide this force with a military escort.
Your most obedient servant,
R. Jones.
Signed on behalf of William Edward Forster PC, FRS, Chief Secretary for Ireland
‘Blundering idiots!’ Boycott fumed. ‘If there’s one thing worse than a civil servant it’s an Irish civil servant. I’ve been asking for assistance for a month and they did nothing. And now they imply it’s my fault they can’t do anything to help!’
‘I think, Charles, we’ve been overtaken by events.’
‘Forster! Blundering Liberal Quaker. The man follows each miscalculation with a greater one. Heaven alone knows what idiotic, ill-considered move he’ll make next.’
Most of the twenty or so press correspondents had never set foot inside a room quite so grand. In fact, several were wary of sitting on the elegant chairs for fear of soiling the embroidered upholstery with the touch of their workaday overcoats.
The Drawing Room at Dublin Castle had not been designed with men such as these in mind, but as the royal reception room of the Queen’s representative in Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant. Any one of the three magnificent gas-lit chandeliers would have equalled in value the annual earnings of the combined group. The tall, elegantly curtained windows afforded the men a fine view of the Great Courtyard and the Bedford Tower, and those choosing to gaze around the interior could admire the intricate plasterwork or the ornate marble fireplaces crowned by gold-rimmed, ceiling-high mirrors.
They were an eclectic bunch, many of whom would normally elect not to share the same air as some of the others, but such had been the unprecedented nature of the message they had received through their editors that they had little choice.
Among them were correspondents of the staunchly loyalist Dublin Daily Express, The Belfast News Letter and The Irish Times. These gentlemen mingled uncomfortably with their politically diametric opposites of the nationalist press, The Freeman’s Journal and The Nation. There was also a smattering of pressmen from The Dublin Evening Mail, The Evening Telegraph and The Anglo Celt, as well as correspondents from The Times of London, The Telegraph and a number of ‘stringers’ for the international press, an epithet they had acquired as they sold their correspondence by the column inch, measured with a piece of string.
Normally, news conferences with the Chief Secretary were strictly reserved for an event such as the onset of a war or the death of a monarch. And yet the subject of today’s briefing was the tribulations of an obscure land agent in the wilds of Mayo. The so-called ‘Boycott Affair’ had moved into the realm of official Government business.
A stiff-looking man in tails entered through the door at the top of the room. He stood to the side of the lectern and clapped his hands as if summoning schoolchildren from play.
‘Gentlemen of the press,’ he announced pompously, ‘Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr William Edward Forster.’
The correspondents seated themselves as far away from their adversaries as possible, as though each felt they might be infected with the other’s political leanings. A moment later Forster entered, unsmiling. The man bore a striking resemblance to Parnell: tall and thin, with a fine head of hair, and a full, squarish beard, although Forster was in his sixties while Parnell was still in his mid-thirties. But all similarities ended with his appearance, certainly to the nationalists. And if they viewed Prime Minister Gladstone as a well-meaning politician, Forster was definitely their enemy. Although nominally a Liberal, he held firmly to imperialist traditions and displayed little understanding of the present Irish situation or her history. He had earlier that year advocated the use of buckshot in shotguns when conducting evictions, as it would be more effective against crowds than ball cartridges, earning himself the sobriquet ‘Buckshot Forster’.
The correspondents sat with notebooks and pencils at the ready. Forster coughed and placed both hands on the lectern.
‘Gentlemen, as you are aware, it is not usual for the Government to communicate matters of news to the press. However, in agreement with the Prime Minister, I have deemed it appropriate, due to exceptional circumstances. The matter concerning the land agent Captain Boycott has received widespread coverage in the press throughout Britain, in America, Europe and, I am reliably informed by long-distance telegraph, in publications
as remote as The Times of India and The Sydney Morning Herald. In the course of this coverage a great number of wild, exaggerated statements have been made and passions aroused, and it is my duty to set the record straight.
‘When this unfortunate event began, the Government had been most anxious to assist Captain Boycott, and informed both him and Lord Erne that if they made arrangements for a small body of men to complete their harvest, we would be willing to provide military protection. These are the facts, despite accusations in certain publications of Government indifference to matters of law and order.’
He paused briefly to fix an admonishing eye on the Belfast News Letter correspondent.
‘Unfortunately, events have moved on considerably, thanks in no small part to Captain Boycott’s penchant for widespread publicity, thus inflaming the situation, precisely what we had hoped to avoid. It is our understanding that five hundred armed men are planning an expedition from the North of Ireland. Should this force be permitted to go to Mayo, there would undoubtedly be a very strong collision, the consequences of which I fear to speculate upon. It was The Dublin Daily Express that first mooted the expedition and this morning I informed the proprietor, Mr Robinson, that not five hundred nor even one hundred men would be permitted to travel to Mayo. In fact, a mere fifty men are all that is required to harvest Captain Boycott’s crop. Sending five hundred would be an act of provocation. Should the smaller group of fifty be sent, however, we will provide sufficient troops to guarantee their safety.
‘And it is to matters of security that I now turn. Following the unfortunate riot in Ballinrobe, I have ordered both garrisons there to be filled to capacity. I have furthermore ordered military patrols of the area, specifically the roads from Ballinrobe to Lough Mask House. I also intend to transport more troops into the general area and have asked the board of Claremorris Workhouse if they can temporarily house a large body of troops. And I have instructed that the telegraph lines between Dublin and Ballinrobe are kept free from interference. All Resident Magistrates in the Mayo area have been ordered to proceed at once to Ballinrobe to assist the local Resident Magistrate, Mr McSheehy, in the execution of his duties.