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Rebellious Behaviour

Looking back at the political climate in Galway towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the years leading up to the rebellion, one should not be surprised by the events of 1916. It has been said that Galway was one of the strongest areas of agrarian agitation in the country during those years. Not only were people rebelling against the crown forces, but they were also hostile towards the landlords and their agents.1

There was a long tradition of agrarian secret societies in County Galway, some dating from as far back as the early eighteenth century when a group calling themselves the 'Houghers' were active. By the late eighteenth century these had given way to the Whiteboys, sometimes referred to as Ribbonmen, an organisation that continued its lawless activities well into the following century. Perhaps their most famous member was Anthony Daly. He was hanged in 1820 on the hill of Seefin, located between Craughwell and Loughrea, after being accused of perpetrating attacks on the landed estates of Roxborough, Raford and St Clerans.2 These attacks had their origins in the attitudes and practices of some landlords - it was not uncommon for landlords to seize crops from those struggling in poverty as payment of rent at that time. In many of these cases Ribbonmen sent threatening notes to landlords involved in such seizures, as well as in the mistreatment of tenants, warning them of the consequences if such practices continued. The Ribbonmen perpetrated violent assaults and robberies, and were also involved in nocturnal raids for firearms. Their area of activity stretched from north-east Galway to Loughrea and covered many other districts of the county, including Tuam, Mountbellew and Ahascragh.

By 1820 Galway was the most disturbed and violent county in Ireland and the most affected areas included Loughrea, Dunsandle and Roxborough. The attacks were causing the landlords and authorities such great concern that they held a meeting in Loughrea to set plans in place to crush the Ribbonmen. Many of those present were in favour of having the Insurrection Act of 1796 reintroduced. Among other things, this tough legislation had allowed the placing of any district under martial law by the lord lieutenant and the imposition of the death penalty for anyone administering an unlawful oath; it had been used with terrible effect during the 1798 Rebellion. Following the meeting, between 8,000 and 9,000 troops were drafted into the county to try to defuse the situation and repress those causing trouble. There was a series of battles between the Ribbonmen and the military, following which over 100 insurgents were captured and incarcerated in Galway Jail. The courts passed the death sentence on nine men, although six were later reprieved. Others received various terms of imprisonment, flogging and transportation.

Anthony Daly was one of those sentenced to death, for his role in the planning of rebellious operations in the area. One of the accusations against Daly had been the attempted assassination of James Hardiman Burke of St Clerans. Burke was not only a landlord, he was also the mayor of Galway at the time. Tradition tells us that Daly's only defence was simple - had he pulled the trigger, Burke would be dead. Despite being blind in one eye, Daly had a reputation of being an excellent shot. According to tradition, Daly was forced to sit on his own coffin during the journey to his place of execution. His hanging on 8 April 1820 had a long-term effect on the people and the locality.3 It seems that Anthony Raftery, the renowned poet, was present at the execution and wrote about the hanging. A monument was later erected on the site of the execution. Over time, Daly became a folk hero, and his life and death are still remembered today, almost 200 years later. Some people believe that Daly was the first of the modern martyrs, a tradition which culminated in the 1916 executions.4

The agrarian struggle in Galway continued at a reduced pace following the death of Anthony Daly, and the famine years took their toll on those willing to stand up to oppression. However, in the years following the catastrophe of hunger, during which many landlords had continued to evict their starving tenants, a renewed struggle evolved. The main concern for people in Galway at this time was land rent and reform, and tensions were running high. Unfortunately those in authority did not deem the demand for fair rents important and this was apparent from the failure of the Landlord and Tenant Act, passed in 1870 to amend the law relating to the occupation and ownership of land in Ireland, to address this issue. The people could not tolerate this and the situation resulted in some of them taking the attitude that the only fair rent was no rent. After all, why should people pay rent for land that had been confiscated by landlords from their forebears?

The situation came to a head in the late 1870s when local and global problems caused a recession which meant that increasing numbers of tenants could not pay their rent. This led to the formation of the Land League in 1879 following a meeting in Irishtown, County Mayo. The League aimed to protect from eviction people living on smallholdings and to abolish landlordism in Ireland. Their tactics culminated in the so-called 'Land War' of 1879-82, where the League used tactics such as protest meetings, riots, assassinations and boycotts to prevent evictions and advance the cause of tenants.

By this time people were starting to show more courage in their struggle against the landlord system. This was apparent in the events surrounding the eviction of a man named Mike Fallon and his family in September 1880. Fallon was a tenant of the Persse family on the Roxborough estate. Over previous years he had suffered financially because of poor harvests. To make matters worse, Persse refused to pay him for work he had carried out on his house. When Fallon was unable to pay the rent, his horse and foal were seized as payment. As a result he became so ill that he was unable to farm the land. Persse then offered Fallon a position as caretaker, to remove him from the land, but he refused. He told Persse that he wished to hold onto the patch of land regardless of the situation, warning him that he had the Land League's support and that the days when landlords controlled these estates were numbered. Fallon was forced off the land, but, being a determined man, he refused to go without a fight. Between March 1881 and June 1883 he appeared before the courts some thirty-four times, charged with trespassing on the land which he considered his own. The fines exceeded the rent he owed on the property and Fallon found himself in prison on many occasions. However, while Fallon faced many problems, he found that he was not alone in his struggles. Forty prisoners in Galway Jail raised money for the Fallon family, while Michael Davitt, one of the key figures in the Land League, provided finance to have the Fallon children looked after on an ongoing basis.

Between 1881 and 1882 there were eight murders in an area stretching from Athenry to Loughrea. Those killed included a landlord, a soldier, a policeman, a land agent and a number of so-called 'land grabbers'. It was believed that the IRB shot these men. Following the killings, there was a large influx of police and military into the county, which only added tension to a worsening situation. The landlord who lost his life was Walter Bourke of Rahasane House. On the day he was killed Bourke had travelled to Gort to attend the Petty Sessions and obtain court orders to evict some of his tenants. Both he and his personal guard, Corporal Robert Wallace, were killed in an ambush at Castletaylor on the way home.5

During this period Constable James Linton was fatally shot and another policeman, Constable Kavanagh, was killed while investigating the death of a landlord's son in Letterfrack. It was inevitable that the police would be targeted, because while some had shown themselves to be humanitarians, others had displayed utter brutality towards the people. It was reported that in some areas of unrest, police had viciously punched young girls in the stomach and breasts, and used the butt-end of their rifles freely on anyone they came in contact with during confrontations. One woman in Carraroe, who was not involved in the League or the unrest, received a bayonet thrust to her neck, and it was claimed that she was not the only innocent victim of police brutality. People in Moylough were baton charged by police, with many receiving head wounds. Many of these attacks were unprovoked.6

In 1881 the British government introduced measures that would lead to the end of the Land War in the summer of the following year. One was a policy of brutal repression of the Land League, which was proscribed. The other was the 1881 Land Act: this allowed tenants to apply for rent reductions to the courts, which could be fixed for fifteen years, and also introduced the possibility of land purchase. As the situation on the ground improved, the League lost its support.

However, evictions were still the cause of much resentment and it is evident that the authorities were certainly not heeding or listening to the voice of the people. Dispossession was still a huge threat hanging over families and, with the end of the Land War, in many cases people felt that they were once again alone in their struggle against this injustice. Nevertheless, things were about to change. On 20 August 1886 resistance to evictions reached boiling point in Woodford, County Galway. That day an attempt was...