The Bridges of Glasgow

 

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.'  You can purchase it here:  

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bridges-Glasgow-PJ-Marrinan/dp/B0DFWV6C1P?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE