Tape 158 

1.9..91 

Mikeen McCarthy                                               

Talk about Jack Gilpin,  Caherciveen IRA hero

Part of song made up about Gilpin

Mikeen & others found gun

Maurice O'Neill, local  IRA man hung Kerry politics during the “troubles”

Travellers during the "troubles"

Travellers tortured by Black and Tans

Mikeen's father stripped naked by Tans,  saved by young woman

Jack Bewley, deaf ex-soldier,  shell  shocked, in gaol with Mikeen's father

Travellers gun running

Mikeen's grandfather shot by Tans

Two Caherciveen barracks burned down

Fleming,  “longest hunger striker ever…… fasted longer than our Lord…….maggots came through his eyes and ears

Jacky Rock, Dan Shea, local IRA men

English people living in Caherciveen

"T'wasn't English people that were bad, but the Tans".

Animosity between English soldiers and the Tans.

Mikeen's Uncle Dan, British soldier and IRA man, shell shocked

Mikeen’s Uncle Dan "drank his pension",

Mikeen’s Uncle Dan trained IRA men, said, "British army gave me a stick to beat them with".

JC Tell me what you know about Jack Gilpin.

M Mc Jack Gilpin lived in our street, they claim he was, they claim he used never sleep. He’d one eye, I remember him very well. He’d be walking on the streets all night up and down claiming he’d never sleep. He, there used to be a pub Jack Claytons pub Crannies pub, there used to be a lot of audience around the door when he be drinking anyway. I dun know about any other time but he was a fond man of his fight to his street fighting. He’d one eye he’d take out his eye and put it in to his pint of Guinness an go outside the door an take of his coat an claim anybody. There was, he was one of those hard men the real hard men. I used to hear the old people talk about him they used never go over any of the boys, they call em, the I R A I suppose. He used always go on his own, he used to have a loose gun, whatever that was, I dun know. They made up a song  Twas in the twenty fifth of September when the free state left the town of Caherviveen  ……….(carries of singing)

Cause he hide up on top of  hills like on his own y’know, an one old place ed be different place every time. But that’s all I ever knew of the song.

J C Can you sing that again

SINGS Jack Gilpin

M Mc He used blow away the last of the cars going on, always the last one like. An maybe it was a plant(t)  I don’t know. He was always  on his own, he’d never take nobody with him.

J C And he was from Caherciveen?

.

M Mc Oh he was from Caherciveen, I knew him well, remember him well. Everybody ed be terrified of him. I remember one day went up to the mountains he send the top (…….)  that’s was kind of a daily walk and a kind of old playground as well. A whole crowd of us ed go together. We used to be hunting for rabbits as well and things like that. I found a gun and a wrapped (t)  in oil cloth  inside two pounds jar like. Lucky we didn’t shoot somebody with it. I ran on down with it anyway with the oily cloth around it like, and who did I hit for it Jack Gilpin. Oh he said here, he gave me sixpence and he told me, go on don’t tell nobody, he said, you found that. We could have shot one another, we didn’t know. (laughs)

J C There was another one you mentioned, Morris O’Neill.

M Mc Ye Oh I remember Morris O’Neill very well, oh very well. Well I’m sixty now, so I’d be about twelve that time, that’s the time he was hung. In, I think it was the North. I see Morris O’Neill and him walking round town with his girl friend an all. So I never heard, there is a song about him but I never heard it. But himself and White that time they were in Belfast, White was killed Morris O’Neill was caught and he got hanged. I know he got hanged or got executed now I’m not sure, but he died anyway, he was killed. I remember his father an his brothers very well.

J C All from Caherciveen?

M Mc Ye he used to go out with a girl by the name of Teresa O’Connor, an she owned a clothes shop down town. You used to see em hand in hand himself and his girl friend, they walking around like.

J C What age would he be?

M Mc Oh  he’d be young he be what will I say he’d be twenty five maybe at the most, he mightn’t be that at all. The O’Neill’s I knew the family very well. I use work for his father and his brothers an all young lad, used to milk the cows and all that with em.

J C Was the Kerry sort of ever active in.

M Mc Oh ye Oh ye.

J C Do you remember.

M Mc Oh ye, oh no I don’t remember I remember, I remember the old people talking about them d’y know. And the old travellers were active as well, all the old travellers used to look, my father now and my mother an all those sisters and brothers. Well they were Kerry people like, they were Caherciveen people.

J C Stop a minute Mikey………………Go on sorry.

M Mc Oh they  were all (…………) that’s why there was much

 for  us family in Caherciveen a kind of like, cause during the time of the troubles there, my mother and her sisters and all, all the people of the town as well like, but my mother and sister used to have (………….) bring a lot of peoples was killed there and shot there. An they used to bring home the dead bodies and the wounded an all that you know, they used to have time for to put the horse under the cart, they used to put above common carts an all, and the bodies in. Some people used to be terrified to look in to who’s under the sheet and all that, so my mother maybe she knew it wouldn’t be anybody belonging to us, there was only one son and he was too young. An she used to do that and she’d know em all, she knew everybody. They were very helpful in that way like, an they used to hide a lot of the boys then as well under the beds and do you know inside of the house an all that, with the running and everything you know. Because they’d an awful game of bluffing like you know, my mother and sister they start a fight something between their self  d’you know. (laughs).

J C What side do the travellers take in the civil war, do you know?

M Mc Oh the Irish side, they were all great supporters. Well a lot of the travellers got killed as well like you know. My aunts husband he got shot, he was a fisherman, I dun know whether he was a travelling man or not, his name was Coffey, Jim Coffey. He was shot when him coming in from fishing in Dingle. Oh there was a good lot of travellers got bad frights, there was a lot of travellers punished as well like, a lot of travellers. I remember the old men, a lot of them cracked up, head gone, like that. A lot of em torched anything like that they’d tell you about what they went through. My father was taken in, he was an English soldier at the time like, but that’s what made him change I think. He was tell you he was stripped naked an he was going to be shot .An it was a lady who saved him with a coat, stripped him naked and told him walk on. Twas a lady with a donkey and car, going to the creamery, took off her coat and give it to him, he walked in front of the donkey, that’s what saved him, they couldn’t shoot the girl.

J C Who was that did that?

M Mc The Black and Tans. I used only hear em talk about it, the old people. I wasn’t even around at the time, but I used to hear em talk about it. There was Jack Bewley now and my father, Jack Bewley was deaf from the English army, from the wars. They were taken in, didn’t matter then whether you fought for England or not they were still going to give it to you. That’s why a lot of em changed over. So black and tans came into the cell of my father and Jack Bewley was (………..) Jack Bewley was stone deaf, shell shocked d’y see. Well whatever the black and tan was saying to him, he was MICK WHAT IS HE SAYING NOW, he was shouting, an my father had to knock him out cause he was going to get the two of em shot d’y see. My father hit him a punch and knocked him out.(laughs)

J C Did the travellers take part in gun running, things like that?

M Mc Oh they’d never talk about it but they did. Cause I’d know they did like, cause there were an awful lot of respect for travellers that time. See they were terribly got people, because they must have helped out like, because they used be no caravans that time, no tens nor nothing they use live in farm houses and cottages and all that. Then when the boys, as we call em, the I R A and all then ed be on the run an away for the mountains like. Well didn’t mean I R A alone it meant everybody get all the men ed leave the houses, well travelling men ed be the same they’d go as well with em like. So they’d stay out all night, I heard em saying the women ed be left in the houses then, tis the men they’d wanted. There was so much to talk about like, you used hear em talk about it, they never liked us listening. My grandfather was (…………….) an old man, my mothers father, there was the pillar of the gates that saved him with the house, he jumped behind the pillar of the gate and (……………) and they passed him in a lorry.

J C Just firing from a lorry?

M Mc Ye ye. They were clever from em like, as well as anything else, they’d know when they’d be coming, they’d know where they’d be coming from. They’d have the bridges blew up and all that crack d’y know. (laughs)

J C Was there barracks in the town?

M Mc There was in the town I was in there was two barrackess, but they were burned down.

J C When were they burned down?

M Mc In Caherciveen.

J C When, when?

M Mc Oh they were burned down long before I was born d’you know. They were burned long. They were burned at the time of the troubles, they was. There was barracks all over in Tralee and Killarney and Killlorgan everywhere. But I used hear the old people talk about it, I wouldn’t know, I wasn’t even interested because I didn’t know what they were talking about.

J C Are travellers still involved in politics at all do you know?

M Mc A lot of em is. A lot of em, a lot of em, and not the old fellas  a lot of the young fellas now. The I R A ed tell you that now, there is a lot of em now not in this country but in Ireland, I dun know about em in this country, I dun know who’s who.

J C Do you remember the song Morris O’Neill at all?

M Mc No I never heard tell of it, I knew there was a song made about him.

J C The other man you mentioned was Fleming.

M Mc Oh he was the longest hunger striker of all times, he kept outside Killarney. We used be up, there was only one wireless in our street the O’Connell’s had it. So what’s that he went, I think twas, I would like to say now Jimmy but, I remember all the gorgies of the street. My mother an all everybody out day after day for he beat our lord, out lords fast anyway, that was forty two days wasn’t it. So the whole street cheered he beat that anyway. The maggots came out through his eyes and his ears and his nose, I suppose there was no injections maybe that time or nothing like. In fact I used gather the matches out  of the street the burned  out matches, and me and all the young lads ed send em to him. I think it was( …………………) prison he was, we used to send them in there to him, and we send em to Morris O’Neill as well, Morris O’Neill made a, the same chapel in Caherciveen out of the matches we sent him in. He sent it out and it was in display below in a window Caherciveen, that was before he died, we done the same with Fleming. And I heard all the street saying that he beat our Lord in the fast, and I believe the maggots came out of his ears and his eyes and his nose and everything, he must have beat that an awful lot agin like.

J C There was never a song about Fleming was there?

M Mc Oh there was, but I, twas, I was too young when I learning it Jimmy, there was ye. He came from a place called Killfleming outside of Killarney, ye. In fact I asked some of the people that comes from there today, young people, they never hear tell of him. As I say they keeps as quiet as mice now(t). Oh you’d a lot of runners that time, you’d another man Jacky Rock, the town was full of em. Dan Shea, he was a shop keeper, the black and tans tied him behind a lorry with his two legs, well he was a head banger, he used to have a little sweet shop below the town.  I used to hear the old people talk about it, you could see the track of his head an all, no hair here and no hair there like.

J C This is where they tied.

M Mc They tied him and they dragged him in the back of a lorry and all that. The town was full of I R A  that town. But then there was an awful lot of protestants lived in that town, and a lot of English people who you never bother with, d’you know it. There was a Shulles, you’d , the Shulles was our solicitors, the Shulles they were English people protestants. And you’d the Palmers they were the banks, you’d the (…………) they lived over the water, an awful big place, we all went to school together nothing, no trouble.

J C No trouble.

M Mc No, no, no problem at all, just, they’d go to the convent school and during prayer hour the protestants ed only just stand outside, but then when the prayers ed be over they’d be back in. Bu t in the end then they usn’t go outside they used kneel sit down with their head down, no class distinction what so ever, no of that. We all went to school together, Sunny Palmer and Noel Meahan the whole lot of us.

J C You say you father was involved. Or (………)

M Mc Ye, ye, and my uncles. Although my uncle now is a British war pensioner. Maybe if they got respect for that maybe, all the old British war pensioners, maybe if they got respect of the English. My father used tell me it wasn’t the English army at all was bad, no it was the black and tans, not the English army. He said you could speak to those people, speak to those men, you couldn’t speak to the black and tans he said. No the English army followed the black and tans across to this country and killed em their self.

J C Ye

M Mc Ye, cause they got higher pay than the English army. The English army was getting a pound a day I think, and the black and tans was getting a pound and a shilling a day, they got a shilling more.

J C and you say they came across here the English army came back here and,

M Mc The English army then came back over every, I believe one private got em their self. Because probably the English army was, they might have one cousins back in Ireland and all that d’you know, aunts and grandmothers and mothers an all that crack d’you know.  I believe they got em their self, that’s what I hear the old man talk about. My uncle, my uncle Dan he was a stone mad IRA  man  and he was still an English soldier, he was shell shocked, he was gone, he’d be up at six in the morning, “old soldiers never die, they only fade away”, an he’d be up and drilling up and down the road in the morning, well he was still an IRA man. (laughs).

J C Again Mickey.

M Mc Oh yes he’d be up in the morning six O’clock “old soldiers never die, they only fade away I’m only One eighty Coffey”, that was his number one eighty. (laughs). He was shell shocked in France and his best mate, I think was killed along side of him, d’y see.

J C tell us again.

M Mc He got his pension, when he got his pension it was eight shilling a week, it went up after, the big big  pensions altogether it went up to three pounds fifty an seven pound and all that crack d’you know. But he sowed it back in Milltown when he got it, he drank it all in Milltown the whole lot of it. An he used do this with his stick, “ they give me a stick to beat their self”, I supposed to say they trained him, and he trained the IRA. (laughs)

J C Say that

M Mc “they gave me a stick to beat their self “ Cause they trained hi ,he was a trained soldier then d’you see, and they trained the IRA. (laughs) Wasn’t he a bugger.