Part 19
It has been mentioned that the country round Ballybor was famous for its excellent shooting, grouse, snipe, woodcock, duck, and geese chiefly; and in the days before the rebellion many Englishmen must have spent happy times shooting and fishing in the many shooting-lodges dotted about on the mountains and moors to the east and west of Ballybor.
Now all these lodges are occupied by instructors of the I.R.A., who take so many of the young men and boys of the district in relays for an eight days’ intensive training course—drilling, musketry, instruction in the use of Lewis and Thompson machine-guns, bombing, and twenty-five-mile route-marches in full fighting order, the latter most unpopular.
Not only have all old members of the I.R.A. to attend these courses, but every young man and boy, who had previously refused to join up, have to go; and there is no refusing to go now.
You may miss your garden-boy or shop-assistant, to meet him in the course of the week taking part in a route-march; or if you are foolishly inquisitive, you may see him at dawn advancing across your demesne in company with other boys, or firing his musketry course.
Blake watched two lorry-loads of these recruits setting off on a Monday morning from the main street of Ballybor under his very nose, Sinn Fein flags flying; and they sang the “Soldier’s Song” for his special benefit.
About two miles from Ballybor there lives a retired officer in a nice house with a good demesne, a man who served the Empire well and truly for many years. When the war was over he retired, fondly hoping to spend the remainder of his days in peace and comfort in his old family home.
But not so: he happened to be the owner of a demesne which the Transport Union had promised to its members. So they tried repeatedly to stampede him out of the country, but that failed. Now his place is occupied by what the I.R.A. call a week-end camp for the drilling and instruction of the Ballybor shop-boys. They use his cooking utensils, burn his turf, and make the night hideous with their yells and oaths, so that the officer and his family find it impossible to get any rest. Moreover, they, the I.R.A., do not appear to be strong in sanitary sections. And they told him that if he took any action they would burn his place to the ground.
What action could he take? There is no law in the country except the law of the pistol. The police are now bound hand and foot. They report these outrages to the Castle, and what happens? Nothing. The Government are far too busy hunting for that elusive formula which is to turn this Irish hell into a paradise, to worry about a stupid old retired officer. He has no vote in England, nor can he ever affect their political careers.
And why all these feverish military preparations? Either to invade Ulster when the time of a settlement and peace comes, or, if the Truce is broken, to massacre the R.I.C. and the Loyalists.
About this time a constable, transferred from the south-west to Ballybor, brought with him a story—he swore it was true—which will take a queer lot of formulæ to explain away. Not long ago the I.R.A. ran a cargo of arms on the coast where he was stationed, openly, with the police looking on. The police at once reported the affair, and were told that it did not matter as the arms would never be used.
Presumably the authorities meant that these arms would not be used against the Crown forces; but what about loyal Ulster, and those most unfortunate of people to-day in Europe, outside of Russia, the southern Irish Loyalists?
Apparently the I.R.A. chiefs are believers in games for their men, as witness the following advertisement which appeared in the Ballybor shop windows:—
GREAT FOOTBALL MATCH.
NORTH BALLYRICK FLYING COLUMN, I.R.A.
_v._
BALLYBOR PATRICKITES.
PAY YOUR SHILLING AND SEE HOW WE ENJOY THE TRUCE.
The Transport Union unwittingly supplied the comical element of the situation when they started a great row with the I.R.A. people in Ballybor. It appeared that the I.R.A. had been in the habit of not paying the Union rate of wages to the stalwarts of the Transport Union for digging trenches across roads and breaking down bridges during the war, and now they were furious because the I.R.A. refused to pay up the difference, and threatened them with all sorts of horrible things. And the I.R.A. laughed at them.
People in England have not the remotest conception of the terrible Frankenstein monster which De Valera & Co. have reared up and armed in Ireland, a hideous monster of murderous and armed gunmen, fearing neither God nor man, which in the summer of 1921 was on the point of being exterminated by British bayonets to make this beautiful island of Ireland once more a clean and wholesome land, where men might dwell in peace.
That chance has gone. Will it ever occur again? And if it does will the British Government seize their opportunity like men and rid Ireland of this terrible menace? Or will they again be found wanting, groping after some wretched formula?
Do people realise why De Valera acts the part of the coy fly in hesitating to enter Mr Lloyd George’s talking parlour? The sinister reason is that if he once gives up his claim to an Irish Republic he seals his own doom. The day he enters into a conference with the British Government on these conditions, the Irish Republican Brotherhood signs his death warrant, and well he knows it.
But if, for argument’s sake, a so-called settlement is arrived at, what becomes of De Valera’s Frankenstein monster?
Will it beat its automatics into reaping-hooks and convert its machine-guns into potato-sprayers? Possibly in the minds of English Radicals, but nowhere else.
And when the Welshman and the Mexican have fooled the English and the southern Irish with a formula, do they think that any formula ever phrased would fool Ulster?
On the day that an Irish Republic is set up (Dominion Home Rule is only another name for it), Sinn Fein, its _raison d’être_ accomplished, dies; but out of its corpse will arise two parties, or rather armies (for all men in Ireland are armed to-day except the Loyalists), one consisting of the farmer shopkeeper class, while the other will be the Citizen Army of the Bolshevist Labour Party.
The rank and file of the I.R.A. consists of farmers’ sons, young townsmen, shop assistants, and the like; they expect either a fat pension for life or twenty acres of land. Both have been freely promised to them, and both are equally impossible.
And these disgruntled gunmen, all armed, will take sides according to their sympathies, and before many months are past these forces will be at each other’s throats. And the national air of Ireland will be the “Red Flag.”
Like Kerensky in Russia, De Valera will disappear in the welter of revolution.
The R.I.C. will have vanished—they have already been told that when the “Cease fire” sounds, they will be given a month to clear out of Ireland, lock, stock, and barrel.
The surrender to Sinn Fein by the British Government is a good example of the evil which can be brought about by that modern plague, skilful and unscrupulous propaganda.
The sooner the good elements in England wake up and combine to insist that the necessary action is taken in Ireland to enforce law and order, the better it will be for both countries and the Empire.
The English people have been fooled by a press which carefully suppressed all news of the true state of affairs in Ireland, and then gave lying and distorted accounts.
It is futile to say that the remedy for false reports lies with the law. All honest men know that a clever lawyer in a court of law can make a half or three-quarter black lie appear a whole truth white as driven snow, as easily as a smart and up-to-date accountant can juggle with a balance-sheet to show + or - half a million as the necessity arises.
The day will come in Ireland when men will pray to God for a sight of the good old green uniform of the R.I.C. And it will be too late.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
1. Changed fight to light on p. 198. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors. 3. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's Tales of the R.I.C, by Unknown and The Royal Irish Constabulary