Roinn Cosanta. Bijreaij of Military History, 1913-21
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ROINN COSANTA. BIJREAIJ OF MILITARY HISTORY, 1913-21 STATEMENT BY WITNESS DOCUMENT NO. W.S. 492 Witness John McCoy, Greenhills, Kill, Co. Kildare. Identity Battalion Adjutant 1918-19; Brigade Adjutant 1919-21; Divisional" 1921-22; Member of Bureau of Military History, 1913-1921. Subject (a) Important national events in Northern Ireland, 1914-1923; (b) Military operations of I.R.A. in the North 1919-1921. Conditions, if any, stipulated by Witness Nil File No. S.1666 Form Statement by John McCoy, Greenhills, Kill, Co. Kildare. I was born on a farm of about 70 acres in a bowl shaped valley surrounded with mountains in South Armagh. My mother who died when I was 15 years of age was an O'Hanlon. Her family claimed direct descent from the Princes of Orior who before the plantation of Ulster were the traditional standard bearers to the O'Neills, Princes of Tyrone. The last chieftain of the O'Hanlon clan was Redmond 0'Hanlon who at the time of the plantation of Ulster in or about 1670 was serving as an officer in the French Army and had been awarded the title of Count by the French Government. My earliest recollection of my mother was her recounting to me the successes and adventures of her famous forebearer who returned to Ulster to drive the Sassanagh out and deal in particular with the undertakers who had murdered his Ulster kith and kin and taken possession of his family lands in the neighbourhood of Tanderagee, Co. Armagh. I was told how this same Redmond O'Hanlon gathered together a body of men who were prepared to take up the hazardous endeavour of an Irish Rapparee in order to harass and dispossess the planters who had taken over all the rich lands of the area. O'Hanlon's leadership, with the splendid material who served under him, succeeded in imposing his will on, it is related, at least five Ulster Counties. He imposed a tribute on the planters which they were compelled to pay or suffer the direst consequences. His base and the centre of his military organisation was situated in the mountains of South Armagh, and there he controlled the main military road and merchants highway passing through the Cap of the North on the road then used connecting Dundalk and Newry. This road passed a few miles west of the present Dublin-Belfast road and crossed the present six-county frontier at Moira 2. Castle. The remains of a stronghold is still standing which was erected and garrisoned to protect this road and the Frontiers of the English Pale in Co. Louth. Those tales told to me by my mother have been handed down from mouth to mouth from one generation to the next to cover a period of over 200 years. In my later days I have heard the exact same stories of Redmond Count O'Hanlon from many other old men and women in different districts in South Armagh and South Down. Tales of the daring successes of O'Hanlon in the early days of his activities against Sassanagh, and later when his successes became a danger to the powers of the invaders of the North and a real menace, concentration of forces was put into the field against him. which gradually wore down his forces with losses and desertion and in the end after about eight years of unbelievable success he was finally captured as a result of treachery by one of his trusted officers, a cousin of his own. British gold succeeded to finish this chapter of our history. My grandfather who was alive when I was a small boy was habitually telling us stories around the kitchen fire on winter nights, of Redmond Count O'Hanlon, Johnston of the Fews, a famous Priest hunter, his own recollections of the 1848 rising and the local activities of the Fenian Days. He delighted to recount the history of a rising which took place as far as I can since find out in 1797 when the men from my home area attacked a stronghold, the residence of a Colonel Ogle, then in charge of the Yeomanry in Co. Louth, destroying the house and capturing much gold and valuables which provided a long narrative in itself. I was also told of the attempt made in the last decade of the seventeen- hundreds to plant the valley covered by our parish with men redundant in areas further north which had been exclusively planted during the previous one hundred and fifty years. When the natives of the parish became conscious of what was 3. contemplated they decided to deal with the matter in a most determined way and prevent the attempt to take away their lands. The methods that were used to prevent the acquisition of the land were brutal. Several prospective planters who came into the valley to view particular holdings were intercepted and killed, while others who were installed in holdings by force of arms and were being guarded by soldiers were watched and when opportunity offered they killed and, in some cases, mulitated the new settlers, their wives and families. One family in the centre of the valley were overpowered and their tongues cutout. The husband was a School Teacher and the fear that he would be able to write the names of his attackers, several of whom he knew, prompted the cutting off of his hands. This man lived to later write the names of the men he knew amongst his assailants with a pen between his toes and several of them were captured and hanged from the shafts of a cart. Such methods broke the efforts to plant the area and in my day the mountain districts stretching from Newry to Crossmaglen near the Monaghan border contained a concentrated area composed of the old Gaelic people unmixed with foreign blood. The horrors of those happenings give a good idea of the brutality of the times and created the background from which even present day Unionists view a government in the North over which they have not complete control. My grandfather often recounted to us his experiences as a member of one of the Secret Societies then common in Southern Ulster, about rival Societies meeting at fairs and markets and fighting pitched battles with sticks. He met during his Secret Society days a man he knew as No. 1. He was not sure of this man's name. He often told us youngsters or the Crossmaglen Conspiracy case when a number of local men, one of whom I knew as an old man, joined a Secret Society which was organised by an Agent a Provocator. Many of the Society members were arrested and were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment on the evidence 4. of one of their comrades who, at the trial of the men, refused to give open evidence in Court and as a result was sentenced similarly with the other men. I am giving this history of my childhood days as its influence must have had unpredictable results and helped to mould my later actions. In the early days of the present century when I was a school boy the influence of the Irish Parliamentary party had a predominant effect on the outlook of the Nationalist population in my home area. My father was Chairman of the local Branch of the United Irish League which in those days was the official organisation of the parliamentarians. Membership Cards were issued each year to all affiliated members at a yearly subscription of 1/- each. In our townland my father sent me around from house to house with the cards and I remember that I got more promises to pay than money. As a boy I sometimes waited for my father in a store near the chapel where meetings were held after last Mass on some Sundays. My grandfather was not in favour of the United Irish League as he was a great admirer of Parnell and he felt that some of the Parliamentary Party members had let Parnell down. He could never forgive the Catholic Church for its readiness in supporting Gladstone's hypercritical attitude towards the Irish leader and some of the local priests who took a prominent part in the efforts "to down Parnell" were great supporters of the Irish Parliamentary Party in later years. I remember elections held for Members of Parliament in those days in the north and the only slight chance a Unionist had in South Armagh was that two Nationalists would stand and so split the Nationalist vote. There was no division in my early days amongst Nationalists in the constituency and the Unionists never got a fighting chance of succeeding in capturing the Seat. 5. Up to 1908 or thereabouts, I never heard any great disagreement expressed on the policy of the Irish Parliamentary. Party. When Sinn Féin started in South Armagh about this time I read their periodicals and books such as Griffith's 'The Resurrection of Hungary' and Connolly's 'Labour in Ireland. The active propagandists for Sinn Féin were few in number. In fact I do not think there was one person in our parish trying to propagate the new movement. In the towns of Dundalk and Newry there might be to my knowledge about a dozen in each trying hard to make an impression on the lukewarm supporters of the Parliamentarians. The Gaelic League at this time was very active and had classes organised in almost every parish and their influence had much more effect than the strange new departure which Sinn Féin advocated.