John Arnold: Remarkable coincidence links Cork war hero Batt to new play
When we were all small, in National School, the five of us would ‘stage’ little plays over in the old loft. We used the loft then for storing oats and barley, but from the spring until harvest time it would be empty.
Up stone steps at the top side, the loft was our Opera House, our Gaiety, our Fr Matthew Hall, and here truly all the world was a stage. We put a rope across middle ways with jute bags as curtains. Here we staged little sketches and plays.
I’d say the audience was never more than four or five - Mam, Aunty Jo, Paddy, who worked with us all his life, and sometimes Granny Twomey if she was staying with us.
It was here in this warm loft, with a stable and a calf shed underneath, that travelling man Jack O’Shea would sleep when he called to stay maybe twice or three times a year.
Mam produced several pantomimes in the local hall in the 1960s, staged around Christmas, which got packed attendances. My real acting ‘breakthrough’ came in one of these shows, Little Red Riding Hood – cast as the big, bad wolf! I was dressed in an old fur coat converted to a wolf suit - we got it from Molly O’Neill, a Knockanore native who stayed in retirement with her cousins, the O’Keeffes, neighbours of ours.
Just as Red Riding Hood was bitten, I was smitten with the acting/drama bug and thankfully I’ve never recovered!
With Macra na Feirme Drama and Light Entertainment, we had great years. I could never and still can’t learn a script, so impromptu and ‘make it up as you go along’ type stuff was my forte along, with Frances O’Riordan and the late Bill Gubbins.
I’d go anywhere to see a play, and luckily my much better half is like-minded - in fairness, she did win a Best Supporting Actress ‘Oscar’ on one occasion!
This is drama time of the year. In the last few weeks we had the Blackwater Fit Ups here around - Seamus O’Rourke, the Leitrim genius, did six different one man shows on six consecutive nights - pure magic!
Castlelyons was packed for It’s The Real McCoy last week, ‘twill be the same in Conna this weekend for Don’t Dress For Dinner. The All Ireland Drama Circuit has just started and festivals will be held in 34 venues all over the country as drama groups try to reach the ‘Holy Grail’ of Athlone in early May for the All Ireland Finals.
Brideview in Tallow (The Weir), their neighbours Ballyduff, and Kilmeen (The Wasp) in West Cork are amongst those ‘on the road’ for the next six weeks.
I’ve been to Athlone in May a few times - just like the September Sundays we used to have in Croke Park in years gone by!
On Friday last, I was out in the haggard, doing a few jobs, kinda half listening to Joe Duffy’s Liveline on my pocket radio. Joe was talking to a girl about a play coming up in Dublin fairly soon. Like I said, I only heard bits and pieces of their chat.
The upshot was this lady was after writing the play and it had to do with the Irish War of Independence and she was looking for memorabilia and stories from that time for an exhibition to go with the play. It’s opening in the Mill Theatre in Dundrum in Dublin on March 5 for ten nights.
I’d never heard of this Mill Theatre so I went researching and looked for info about this ‘new’ play.
They say ‘the apple never falls far from the tree’, and in drama DNA this can be so true. Lo and behold, who is Artistic Director of the Mill – none other than Kate Canning of Ballyduff, daughter of Geraldine and the late Bill. This year, Geraldine is producing The Blackwater Lightship, an adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s bestselling book - amazingly, it’s her 99th production with Ballyduff!
Then I spoke on the phone with Wicklow-born Tara Maria Lovett, who has written the new play - she saw an old chair in Cavan Conty Museum and that inspired the play and, yes, she was still looking for anything linked to the War of Independence. Me auld head clicked into overdrive and I went rummaging through my ‘files’ of letters from bygone days.
Their mother Elizabeth died from peritonitis in January, 1906, aged just 28 - her youngest son John was only a month old. Bridget and Ned completed the family of five - all under seven when their mother died.
Around 1918, Batt O’Mahony joined the Rathcormac Company of the Irish Volunteers. He drilled and trained with his comrades as they prepared to fight for Irish freedom.
In February, 1920, Batt was involved in the IRA attack on Aghern RIC Barracks. Shortly after this, the British Army did a ’sweep’ of known Republicans in the Fermoy area. Batt and his brother Ned were arrested.
Taken first to Kilworth then to Cork jail, 64 of those detained were transported by ‘destroyer’ around the south and east coasts of Ireland and up to Belfast. On docking, the prisoners were attacked by Loyalists who threw lumps of coal at them.
I found a copy of a letter written by Batt on March 29, 1920 - his daughter Betty gave it to me some years back. He wrote to his sister Molly:
“Crumblin Rd. Prison, Belfast 29-3-1920;
Dear Molly... I suppose you know we left Colbert in Cork. He is by far better off than we are here. Cork prison was like a hotel whereas this is a real dungeon... it would make you nervous to look at the dinners or to have to think that any Christian person should eat it or starve... you might make sure the dogs at home would not look at it... left Cork at 2 o’clock on Wed morning... landed here at 7 on Thursday... with best of good wishes to all and love to yourself Molly, sincerely Batt’.
After that, Batt and Ned were sent to Wormwood Scrubs in London and were on hunger strike for a term before being released in May.
Batt was back in Ireland but ‘on the run’. In December, a British soldier was killed at an IRA ambush near Leary’s Cross, Castlelyons. In a savage reprisal, the British forces burned several local houses, including the O’Mahony homestead in Ballynanelagh. As the family watched their home burn, one of Batt’s sisters got apples from a barrel and threw them at the military before being threatened.
Batt O’Mahony later joined the Irish National Army. He lived afterwards in Castlelyons village. His sister Molly, in 1924, married a widower, John Michael Beecher, from Tallow. A daughter of theirs, Pat, married Dr Dermot Cantillon. In turn, their daughter Geraldine married Bill Canning - the parents of Kate Canning!
As I said, Kate is Artistic Director of the Mill Theatre where will be staged next week. I have sent on all the information I have about her great, great grand uncle Batt O’Mahony - a man who lived in troubled times. His story will be told again and again.
will have more secrets to reveal.
App?
