Ireland
1881
Fergal
O’Sullivan ran as fast as his young legs would carry him. The soft dampness of
the bog, cushioning his feet as he sped over a familiar landscape. He knew that
the mounted police detachment would be sticking to the roads and tracks, but it
would still be a close thing if he was to warn his father and the others that
they were coming. He leaped like a hare over puddles and low spots that he knew
would slow him down; he had to reach the drier land of McTaggart’s meadow
before the horsemen did. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest and his
breath coming in cold, sharp mouthfuls as he sped onward. Two ravens cawed
their complaints at him for disturbing their peace, flying to safety at the top
of a gnarled old bog oak. They watched as Fergal leapt like a young deer over a
dark puddle of brown water and at last reached the drier land of the meadow.
The
large wooden barn stood a dozen yards ahead of him and gave the impression of
being deserted. Fergal clambered over the rickety boundary fence almost without
breaking stride. He noticed a tall, thin
man standing sentinel in front of the closed barn doors. He was sucking on a
clay pipe and regarding the approaching boy with a concerned eye. Fergal
splashed through the puddles in the farmyard, scattering the chickens as he
went, and raced past the watching man without a word. He pushed at the heavy
barn door and it opened enough for him to squeeze inside. He clambered onto a
bale of hay and scanned the scores of faces, looking for his father. John
O’Sullivan was near the front, avidly listening to the man standing on the bed
of McTaggart’s cart, addressing the assembled farmers and agricultural
labourers. Even at twelve years of age,
Fergal knew it was Michael Davitt. The missing arm he had lost in a mill
accident in England when he was but a boy, meant one sleeve of his coat hung
empty by his side. He also had a natural air of authority as he spoke and
Fergal was loathe to interrupt him. There was no time to lose though and much
as it embarrassed Fergal to shout over the man speaking, he knew he had to. He
cupped his hands by his mouth and roared out, ‘Peelers, the peelers are
coming!’
The
effect on the assembled crowd was instant and Fergal could feel the change in
atmosphere his words had provoked in the barn. There was much worried murmuring
and consternation before Davitt spoke in a commanding voice. ‘Gentlemen! Please
be quiet!’ Turning to Fergal he asked, ‘How far away are they, lad? How many of
them are there?’ Fergal felt every head in the cavernous barn turn to face him
but remained composed, ‘Twenty at least, on horseback. They’re on the famine
road, they’ll be here soon.’ Davitt ordered the assembled farmers to slip away
quietly into the hills and woods and make their way home as best they could. In
what seemed a moment, the barn emptied, Davitt himself being the last to leave.
As he passed Fergal, he smiled and placed his hand on his shoulder, ‘Thank you,
lad. You’ve saved a few honest men some trouble this day.’ With that he hurried
from the barn and was spirited away into the Donegal hills.
Fergal
and his father clambered over the fence into the bog and stealthily made their
way back towards their own small plot of land which lay three miles away. The
tell-tale sound of horses on the famine road to their north told John
O’Sullivan that he had been wise to post Fergal and some other local lads as
lookouts. The Police had been breaking up land league meetings with increasing
brutality and those found in attendance ran the risk of being evicted from
their smallholdings. No horses would risk the bog in the wet months though, so
they knew they’d be safe using this route home.
Fergal’s
grandfather had taught him at an early age to read the bog like a map and avoid
its more dangerous places. He learned where to find cranberries and crowberries
which were used to flavour food. His grandfather would collect sorrel leaves
which he used to make a sharp, citrus tasting tea. They’d cut peat together in
the warmer days of summer and let it dry before storing it closer to home for
use in the winter months. His grandfather also told him the old legends about
bog sprites and the Pooka; shape shifting spirits which could help or hinder
travellers depending on their mood. The bog may have been considered a desolate
and slightly dangerous place by some, but to Fergal, it was a living landscape,
a place which offered much to those who knew and respected it.
As
they neared home, Fergal’s father glanced back in the direction they had come
from. A dark trail of smoke was drifting into the clear sky telling him that
McTaggart’s barn was on fire. ‘Bastards!’ he muttered, ’Irishmen doing that to
their own people for a few stinking shillings a week.’ Fergal said nothing as he watched the smoke
in the distance rising higher into the sky. It could be seen for miles around,
but then perhaps that was the intention. The increasingly ruthless
behaviour of the RIC was meant to cow
and intimidate the people, and John O’Sullivan knew that it was having some
effect. Numbers at meetings were down and some whispered darkly of informers
and evictions. The ordinary people seemed caught in a hopeless bind as powerful
forces allied themselves against them. The way John saw things, when people
started to organise, it seemed to worry those in charge and they responded with
repression.
Fergal
rose with the sun the following morning and slipped quietly out of the cottage.
As the oldest of five children, he had chores which required attending to
before breakfast. He fed the chickens, fetched the water required for cooking
and washing and took the bucket filled with potato peelings and various other
left-over pieces of food, and used it to feed the family’s pigs. They’d bred
their sow earlier in the year with neighbour, Ned Brannan’s boar and would
split the litter once it was weaned. It was an odd number, so they’d give the
runt to one of their poorer neighbours, as was tradition. The sow and her
offspring were the only real thing of value his family possessed. The potatoes,
barley and carrots his father grew were mostly sold but the money raised was
insufficient to pay the rent on the few acres they farmed and Fergal’s father
would often have to work on the landlord’s estate in order to make up for this.
He would frequently come home utterly exhausted and would be asleep soon after
eating his evening meal.
John
O’Sullivan knew himself that it was a precarious way of life and that his
frequent absences meant his wife and the
older children would be expected to complete much of the labour around their
small patch of rocky land. That was the way it was and it seemed, the way it
had always been. There was little time for schooling his children; hard work
for little profit seemed to be all life offered them. Fergal and his sister
Mary could only be spared for two days each week to attend school. There was
too much work to be done and infants to be cared for. It hurt John, as he knew
his older children to be bright and making progress with what he called the
‘book learning.’ He had managed to pick up the odd musty book at market for a
few pennies, which he knew they’d devour, regardless of the topic. He augmented
this with a bible and religious texts the church provided, but knew it wasn’t
enough for them to feed their growing appetite for knowledge.
He
had heard the land leaguers speak of rent strikes and giving ownership of the
land to the poor farmers who toiled on it, but the landlords were unlikely to
concede even a penny without a fight. All that mattered to them was that the
rent was paid. It seemed that they had
powerful allies on their side, in parliament, the police and the court
system. More than a few good men had been sent to prison or evicted from their
land because of their involvement with the land league. It was a dangerous game
to play when the landlords held all the cards and people like John O’Sullivan
had a growing family to support.
John
O’Sullivan knew well the harsh truth that finding the rent each month was what
was impoverishing him and many of his neighbours. The factor, acting on the
landlord’s instruction, was increasingly ruthless with those who failed to meet
their monthly dues. John was lucky that he was young, strong and able to offer
his labour in lieu of a portion of his rent. For older tenants, it was not an
option. Davitt’s ideas about abolishing landlordism and allowing the farmers to
own the land they worked, were good in principle, but the Coercion Act was now
law and this meant that men could be imprisoned, if they were even suspected of
being land leaguers or were heard to speak of withholding their rent. There was
also the ever-present threat of eviction, which hung over so many families,
like the sword of Damocles. Without the land to sustain them, they had nothing.
They were at the mercy of landlords who could throw them off the land at a
whim.
The
so called ‘land war’ between poor tenant farmers and rapacious landlords had
led to the foundation of the land league in Irishtown, county Mayo, two years
earlier. John O’Sullivan had heard how the imminent eviction of local farmers
had been stopped by the timely intervention of a priest named canon Burke. He
had organised a meeting and helped the people stay together on the land
question. They had refused to rent the land of evicted tenants and it lay
fallow and useless. They had also enough numbers to negotiate a 20% reduction
in monthly rent. That meeting was the genesis of the land league and it was
said that there were now over 400 branches all over Ireland. Michael Davitt and
Charles Stewart Parnell gave substance to the leadership, the latter agitating
in parliament on behalf of struggling tenant farmers. With Gladstone prime
minister again, there was hope that a land act might be drafted before too long
in order to ease the burden on the long-suffering farmers. As things stood
though, landlords, for the most part, remained stubborn and unbending on the
question of evictions. Following two poor harvests, many tenants did not have
the money to pay their rent and were turfed-out onto the road. That angered
many, who saw the injustice of poor families being made homeless for trifling
amounts of money by landlords who lost far more on the card tables of London.
John
O’Sullivan knew of tenant farmers who had joined secret organisations to try
and fight for justice, but after reading of a man who had been shot dead by
persons unknown after he took on the farm of an evicted tenant, he had decided
against such a move himself. He had attended the occasional clandestine meeting
of the land league and agreed with much of what was said. In his heart though,
he would never contemplate the use of violence to achieve the justice they
sought. That dragged the whole movement down and simply invited further
repression.
As
a steady drizzle began drifting down from leaden skies, Fergal glanced at the
modest thatched cottage he lived in with his four younger siblings and his
parents; it was small and increasingly cramped for seven people. He could see
that it would soon be eight as his mother was clearly pregnant again. The
cottage consisted of one large room with a compacted dirt floor and no windows.
Fergal had paced the room many times and knew it to be twelve steps long and
eight wide. At one end of the room stood the stone fireplace his father had
built. It provided heat and light, as well as the place where all their meals
were cooked. It was dark inside, even in the summer months, and Fergal much
preferred being outside. His father had spoken of extending it when time and
money allowed, but that seemed a distant prospect.
As
the Donegal rain began to fall more heavily and thunder groaned and rumbled
like a distant giant, Fergal headed for the cottage to start the fire for
cooking the morning meal. He also had to rouse his father, who was once more
heading to the estate to offer his labour in lieu of rent. Fergal knew that the
hard physical labour his father endured for six days each week had made him
strong and durable, but he also knew from watching his grandfather, that in
time, age would take its inevitable toll on him. For now, he admired his
father’s strength and his ability to turn his hand to most things. He had a
quiet air of authority about him and seldom needed to tell his children to do
something twice. For all of that, he was a kind man and a good father.
As
John O’Sullivan dressed for his day’s labour, the noise of approaching horses
drew his attention. He stepped outside his modest home and watched the
Constables approach. There were eight mounted Police officers approaching the
farm. He could see the ghostly breath of the horses on the damp morning air as
they came to a halt a few yards from the cabin. The leader, a bearded sergeant
called Campbell, dismounted with two of his fellows and approached John as his
children watched tentatively from the dark doorway of the cabin. Campbell was a
stocky man with dark suspicious eyes. ‘John O’Sullivan, tis yourself,’ the
Sergeant began, stopping a yard from the tall farmer. ‘Well now, if it isn’t
Thomas Campbell, one time sheep stealer and now an officer of the law, no
less?’ The Policeman’s face remained unchanged, ‘I have reason to believe you
attended an illegal and seditious meeting yesterday and under the terms of the
Protection of the Person and Property in Ireland Act, I have been ordered to
bring you into custody. For the sake of your family, I suggest you come
peacefully.’
John
O’Sullivan’s fists clenched as he looked into the eyes of the Policeman, ‘what
happened to you Thomas, that you so mistreat your own people?’ Campbell nodded to his underlings, ‘seize him
and hold him fast.’ Two burly policemen grabbed O’Sullivan roughly by the arms
and held him tightly as Campbell approached, drawing his baton. ‘You and your
kind are not my people,’ he hissed as he delivered a backhanded, blow with his
baton across O’Sullivan’s face. Fergal heard his mother scream as more blows
were delivered and his father fell to his knees, spitting blood into the mud at
his tormentor’s feet.
A
burning anger filled Fergal O’Sullivan as he watched the scene unfold. He
seized the peat spade by the door and ran towards his father. One of the
mounted Policemen, seeing his intention, spurred his horse forward and blocked
his path. Fergal swung the spade with all the force he could muster at the
man’s booted leg. There was a scream of pain and the policeman roared, ‘arrrgh!
You little bastard!’ Campbell seeing
what had occurred stepped behind Fergal and felled him with one swipe of his
baton to the back of the boy’s head. Darkness swirled around Fergal as he lay
prostrate in the mud.
John
O’Sullivan, head bloodied, was tied behind one of the Police horses and dragged
away as his wife and younger children cried for him. He stumbled and fell in
the mud and was dragged along for some yards before the horse paused to allow
him to regain his feet. Campbell was the last to leave the small farm, his
impassive face glancing at the tear-streaked Kathleen O’Sullivan, ‘I’ll be
informing the land agent of this assault on my officer and recommending that
you be evicted from this plot as the dissolute trouble makers you are. Good day
to you now.’ Kathleen glared at him with undisguised contempt, ‘how do you
sleep at night?’ Campbell did not respond, but rather turned his horse away
from her and followed the grim procession.
The above passage is an excerpt from the upcoming novel 'The Bridges of Glasgow.' Watch this space for details of how you can access the book.
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