APH
IN GALWAY
Story of the Rising
A CASTLE TAKEN
“Captain Mellows” and his Men
A THRILLING CHASE
Source: Sunday Independent, 7 May, 1916
First Published in the ‘Daily Chronicle’ London
An interesting story of the remarkable events in connection with the Sinn Féin rising in Galway has been sent to the “Daily Chronicle” from Athenry by the special correspondent of the paper.
It was in the little country town of Athenry, eleven miles east of Galway, he
writes, that ” The Invincibles,” of Phoenix Park murder fame, are-believed to have had their Irish headquarters. It is near Athenry also that Lord. Ashtown’s seat of Woodlawn has been the subject since then of many a plot and counter-plot. And now it is again at Athenry that the conspiracy, in the West has had its centre and presented its most startling incidents.
Easter Monday was a very busy day at the Town Hall. There had been a little trouble on the Sunday with a well-known Sinn Féiner who had refused to allow the police to examine a suspicious-looking tin can that he was carrying through the village street. Moreover, the police knew that a certain notorious character named ” Captain” Mellows, who had been deported from Ireland a month before, but had made his escape from England, had entered the west country again, disguised as a priest, and was in the neighbourhood. So they were not surprised to learn through their secret agents that one of the activities at the municipal centre was the manufacture of bombs.
THE MOBILISATION
At ten o’clock on Tuesday night, the writer continues, nearly 36 hours after the seizure of Dublin Post Office, there was a swift ‘mobilisation’ at the Town Hall and “Captain Mellows” publicly took over the command. He has been described to me as a ‘little man’ who ‘puts one in mind of a lady’ wearing glasses and dressed in a dark green uniform. About 500 Irish Volunteers, most of them quite young fellows, full of enthusiasm, but probably having very little idea of the kind of adventure they were embarking upon, responded to the call. Some 300 were armed with rifles, 150 with shot agas. and the remainder carried “gripes” (four-pronged pitchforks) or other farm implements.
In the face of such an enemy the local police force was powerless, and the little army marched away unhindered and in high spirits to a model farm three-quarters of a mile distant run by the Irish Board of Agriculture. On the way their numbers were swelled to nearly a thousand, some of the newcomers being well armed and others carrying nothing but blackthorns.
FARM STAFF OVERPOWERED
At the farm the 25 students and the farm staff were quickly overpowered, and the whole place taken over by the rebels. They broke into the clerk’s office, took all the money they could find and settled down comfortably for the night in the house and outbuildings which are fairly extensive as the establishment covers some 600 acres. They, did no damage, but commandeered everything they could lay hands on.
On Wednesday morning the police sent out a scouting party of four who exchanged about twenty shots with the rebels, two of whom they wounded.
By noon the rebels were again on the march, but this time they had with them a train of farm carts filled with food, butter, cheese meat, and so on-with cattle and sheep following behind in addition to three motor cars. They moved off in good military order along the road to Loughrea, and at 4 o’clock were approaching Moyode Castle-a lonely mansion owned by Lady Ardilaun which had been untenanted, except by a caretaker, for the past 30 years.
It was to this strange spot that the rebel army of Co. Galway marched to demand admittance and shelter. They found the caretaker, John Shackleton, his wife and his daughter Maisie (a pretty eighteen year-old girl) the only people in possession, so they merely stated their intentions and walked in. Then they sent out armed scouts to give warning of approaching danger and made their arrangements for what, looked like a long stay.
IN THE CASTLE
One of the foremost figures in the command was a priest whom the others addressed as Fr. Feeney, and who appeared to exercise at least as much control over them as the “Captain ” himself. Father Feeney heard the men’s confessions, and it was he who asked Mrs. Shackleton, the housekeeper, to allow the fifteen or twenty women whom the rebels had with them to board at night in the caretaker’s quarters, shut off from the rest of the great house. The presence of these women-most of whom were young country girls who marched side by side with the men-is one of the most curious and picturesque features of the rising.
“The colleens did most of the cooking and were very polite and civil,” Maisie Shackleton told me. ‘There was no drinking at all among the men.’ They always spoke to Mr. Mellows as ‘Captain’ and he gave them a great talking to when one of their rifles went off accidentally in the drawing-room. But I would say it was the priest that kept them in order; no doubt at all, he had a great command over them.
“The captain was a very busy man. He was all over the place the whole day long. I should say he never rested all the time he was here, yet he was always very gentle and soft-spoken.
POLICE PRISONERS
Five members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, apparently from some outlying district were brought with them by the command and confined in a separate room which they called ‘the prison.’ To help in the provision of food one of the bullocks driven from the Government Farm at Athenry was slaughtered in the yard and all the cows of the estate were regularly milked. But the only damage done to the fabric of Moyode Castle was the breaking of one window.
On Thursday afternoon there was a bellicose interlude. An exchange of shots between the rebels and the police seems to have resulted in some advantage to the former, which, considering their strength is not surprising. A number of the police had narrow escapes, not only from injury, but also from capture, and finally the rebels chased the forces of the Crown all the way to Athenry (a distance of about four miles, with the help of their three motor cars. The six police engaged were mounted on bicycles, and had about three hundred yards start. They rode for their lives, the rebels gaining on them at every yard and only just succeeded in reaching safety in the Athenry police barracks.
THE EVACUATION
Friday evening saw a change in the situation, brought about by the news that troops and R.I.C. men had arrived in Loughrea, six miles away. with artillery and were advancing on the castle. The commando immediately began to evacuate its stronghold, marching off, still in good order, towards Lime Park, another big country house in the vicinity. But it soon became evident that the army was discouraged. Lime Park was reached but only by a remnant of the original force that was to have rallied the whole of the West of Ireland to the green and gold flag of the Republic.
Lime Park like Moyode Castle is unoccupied and it was entered by invaders without difficulty, even the rebel remnant began to melt away almost as soon as it arrived. Rumors of the overwhelming power of the forces of the Crown had reached the rank and file in spite of all the efforts of ” Captain’’ Mellows and his lieutenants to keep them in ignorance of the real situation.
REBELS MAKE FOR THE HILLS
Some stole off to their homes, throwing away their arms at the first convenient opportunity. Some took to the hills, finding it impossible to penetrate the wide crescent of soldiers and police that was slowly moving towards them. In a couple of days over 200 of the men were taken as they attempted to slip back unobserved to their former haunts.
Mellows and half-a-dozen of his lieutenants, with a small band of desperate adherents, were among those who made for the hills. They are now lurking somewhere in the mountains of Gort, Roxborough and Kinvara-a wild and inhospitable region towards the sea coast, where they may probably succeed in escaping capture for some days, but which cannot provide them for long with food and shelter. The police are rapidly closing in, mounted on cars supplied from Belfast, and driven by Ulster Volunteers.
The five police prisoners were rescued at Lime Park on the Friday night upon which the Galway ” rebellion” went to pieces.
