Cork ladies warned to stop dancing, and horrific ordeal for Collins’ sister
Ad in the Echo on March 10, 1923
A SINISTER warning from the IRA had been served on lady members of a dance committee in Bandon, the Echo reported 100 years ago today, on Saturday, March 10, 1923.
The O.C., 1st Battalion, No.3 Brigade, warned: “I have been informed that you have taken part in organising dances in the town of Bandon recently.
“Take warning that if you attempt these dances again while the young soldiers of the Republic are being done to death by a band of ruffians calling themselves a Government, you will be severely dealt with.
At about 11pm last night, the Fire Brigade ambulance was called out to Carrigrohane where several persons were lying injured in a car smash.
It appears a pony and trap collided with two Scotch carts and a military car coming along then ran into one of the carts. Several people were thrown on the road.
The injured were brought to the Mercy Hospital and a man named Donoghue, of Blackpool, was found to have sustained severe head injuries and a fractured hip.
Mary Powell, sister of Michael Collins, gave this testimony to the Echo about a terrifying attack on her family at her home in Mount Nebo, off Blarney Street.
“I had put the younger ones (aged 7, 5 and 3) to bed and was drawing my chair up to the fire at about 8pm when I heard a rap at the door and the command ‘Put your hands up!’
“I looked around and saw four young men with my own two lads. I thought they were playing a joke and said, ‘Indeed I will not!’” I suddenly realised these were real guns and, though terribly frightened, in a calmness born of despair I said, ‘I must stir and go to my babies’ and rushed to the door. The muzzle of one of the revolvers actually struck my chest, but to my surprise I got up the stairs safely.
“I asked the one who appeared to be the leader what was meant by this conduct. He replied, ‘Are you Mrs Bowles?’ I said, ‘No, I am Mrs Powell and these are my babies’. Said he: ‘Your house is to be burnt as a reprisal for the arrest of the Cumann na mBan members’. I told him I was not responsible for the arrest of anyone and was a member of Cumann na mBan before any of them. He then used threatening language and said get the children out. I said I had to have some warm clothes. The children were trembling, and I realised my most treasured possessions, including the letters from my late husband and brother, would be destroyed.
“Then I heard a friendly voice say, ‘Anybody hurt?’ and was surrounded by men of the dear green uniform. They told me ‘Scottie’ was wounded and there was an agonising search. Our relief was great when we found he was not too bad. He undoubtedly saved my house.
“Houses and women and children cannot hit back, we expect another attack, but God is good, and so are the Fianna Fáil, the soldiers of Ireland.”
Now we come to strike a pathetic note. A dingy street where, all day, ragged children play. This narrow dwelling place of the struggling poor. Cardboard and cloth are more plentiful than glass in an upper window.
Whether the thrush sings loud or low, it hops in weary monotony back and forward. Little does it dream that it occupies a tiny space in that newspaper which a shouting newsboy distributes as he runs along the path below. There on the back page are the words, ‘A singing thrush for sale’. Tomorrow someone will come, the cage will be drawn in, money will jingle and away - where? To the native wilds? Alas, no. Only to some other, perhaps more obscure neighbourhood. Some darker, dingier prison house.
Yet those bird dealers are not gaolers. Indeed, they are kind and considerate to a degree. But you who have heard in March the song of the brown thrush - you at least will read the advertisement with deeper and sadder thoughts than the ways of barter know.
