ATHENRY IN EASTER WEEK 1916 – THE PARISH AND PART OF THE COUNTY BEFORE AND AFTER THE RISING AS I SAW IT.

Source: Beginnings Magazine, May 1982

Author: Jimmy Cleary

The Volunteers were started in Athenry in early 1914. It was said that it was the first company west of the Shannon. Companies were started within days. There were four Companies in the parish, Derrydonnell, Newcastle, Cussane and Athenry.

The Cumann na mBan (women) and the Fianna (Boys) were started about the same time.

That was not the start of things national in this parish. The nationalist activitIes in this area in the first ten years of this century earned for it the name of the blackest spot in the British empire. That was when there were sixty R.I.C. men in the town and two R.I.C. huts in Newford, one at The Farm and one at Moore Park. They were not doing so well, so they brought in some horse policemen. One of their horses was taken one night and held for over a month. Three hundred R.I.C. men were brought in. They searched the Country around but failed to find the horse.

Questions were being asked in the House of Commons about how it was that such a large animal could be held despite the efforts of so many R.I.C. men!

I think it was Mr. Birrell, Chief Secretary for Ireland at the time, who replied that he had reliable information that the horse was dead and buried and that was the reason they could not find him. It was then he said that Athenry was the “Blackest spot in the British Empire”.

The next night at about nine or ten o’clock the horse came trotting up Bridge Street. There was a straw man on his back with an R.I.C. uniform on it. The horse was well fed and cared for. A policeman called on him to halt in the name of the King. The horse took no heed of him, but went on to his stable.

Then there was the night they took the “Crown”. (The R.I.C. badge) from under the eaves gutters of the Barracks. There were fifty-seven men in the barracks at the time and five on patrol. That crown was smuggled into the U.S.A. and is, I hear, in a museum in Boston to this day.

It was about that time also that they fixed an Irish flag to the telegraph wires near the pole at the old Post Office. They then pulled the flag out over the Square. The R.I.C. had to cut the wire to get the flag down.

During that time, the people were refusing to pay rent to the landlords. Many of the tenants were summonsed. The summons server, was not popular with the people. On one occasion when there were a lot of summonses to be served, a strange “Summons Server” was brought from Galway. He came by train and as instructed was on his way up the Valley by Pa Hall’s. Two men met him. They took the papers from him and also a gun that he carried. They burned the papers and let him go. Police were waiting for him at the North Gate.

There were many more incidents like those which would perhaps explain the early start of the Volunteers and their part in the 1916 rising.

Most people know that Pearse issued the order for the Rising and that McNeill issued the countermanding order calling it off. McNeills’ order was not, accepted in Athenry. When the first Order was received from Pearse, three volunteers were sent on bicycles to east Galway. They carried rifles. They gave the word to volunteers in that area that Dublin was out and that Athenry was going out. They got back to Athenry on Tuesday evening; after a meal they joined their comrades at the Agricultural College; Liam Mellows was in command. There was a police hut at the College. The rebels took it and took the R.I.C. prisoners. I saw them later at Moyode Castle. There were plenty of men but arms were scarce. Mellows and his staff knew about the “Aud” coming from Germany to Kerry with 20,000 rifles. The Aud was a German ship. The men who were to give the signal were caught in a storm and were either washed or blown off the cliffs. There were no signal lights.

The British were searching for the Aud and when their warships were closing in the Germans scuttled the ship and were taken prisoners.

Mellows’ rebels moved to Moyode and then to Limepark, moving south to get a share of the rifles etc. They got to Limepark House late on Friday. The house near Ardrahan was on the way south. There they heard about the loss of the Aud and the arms. Then they heard the bad news from Dublin. They heard also that most of the volunteers throughout Ireland obeyed McNeill’s order and so outside of Dublin only Enniscorthy and Athenry and that part of Galway went out.

It was at Limepark news came of the surrenders in Dublin. So it was there that the order to disband was given. They brought their arms back to their own areas for another day.

Most of them were rounded up and taken to prisons in England. After a couple of years all were home again. Not so in Dublin where a number of men including Pearse were executed.

It was Roger Casement who went to Germany to arrange for the ship and the arms. He was landed from a German submarine at Banna Strand, Co. Kerry. He was captured, taken to England, tried and hanged. I mentioned a second order from Pearse. The man who brought it to Athenry was a clerical student named Paul Walsh. He was an uncle of the present Manager of the Ulster Bank, Athenry, Mr. C. Walsh. He was ordained later and became a well-known historian. There are many gaps in this brief account of Easter week in and around Athenry. I was careful not to mention names when I could not mention all, because all were good men and women whom I hope will never be forgotten.

Jimmy Cleary.