The next day was market-day in Ballybor, and many of the country people started early in their carts for the town, and though none drove over the herd, yet one and all passed by on the other side.
Luckily, when the herd was nearly gone from cold and exposure, the good Samaritan appeared in the shape of Carew driving to Ballybor, and in a short time he had Coleman back at Rossbane in front of a big turf fire; and after placing him in charge of the cook, brought the herd’s family to a cottage in the yard, and then drove into Ballybor to see Blake. But the D.I. had his hands too full to be able to give protection to individuals.
At this time, next to Sinn Fein, the Transport Union was the strongest party in the west, and being composed of landless men, its main object was to gain land for its members by all and every means in its power, with the result that their attention was concentrated on outing all men with four hundred acres or more in their possession, and next would come the men with three hundred acres, and so on down the scale.
The farmer with forty acres or thereabouts—the best class of small farmer in the west, and if let alone the most law-abiding, as they are numerous and possess something worth holding on to—soon realised where this would lead to, and tried to apply the brakes. They would have succeeded but for their younger sons, who, in the ordinary course of events, would have found good employment in the States, but under present circumstances have to remain at home helping to make small fortunes for their parents. It is this class of young men who, with the shop boys, form the rank and file of the I.R.A., and in the case of the farmers’ sons it is the western peasants’ usual characteristic of “land hunger” which forms the chief driving power.
At one period it looked as though Sinn Fein and the Transport Union would come to loggerheads; but Sinn Fein proved too strong, and the two became partners to all intents and purposes.
A few days after he had returned from his fruitless visit to Blake, Carew received a letter from the secretary of the local branch of the Transport Union calling upon him to dismiss Coleman, and that if he did not comply at once the Union would call out all his men. Carew ignored the letter and the threat.
The Owenmore river runs through Rossbane, roughly dividing it into two equal parts, and after a fortnight Carew received a letter from the I.R.A. calling upon him to attend a Sinn Fein Court the following Sunday night at Cloonalla Chapel, and saying that the part of his demesne separated from the house by the river was to be taken from him, and if he wished to claim “compensation” he must attend the “Court.” And again Carew ignored the letter.
A week afterwards all his farm hands and servants, with the exception of the cook, Katey Brogan, simply vanished, and Carew found himself with only Katey and Coleman to keep going a large house and a four-hundred-acre farm. Nothing daunted, he took the Colemans into the house, made Mrs Coleman cook and Katey housemaid, whilst Coleman and he determined to carry on with the farming as best they could.
A few days after a little girl brought a message that Katey’s father was very ill, and that her mother wished her to go home at once; so Katey left immediately, and the following day Carew rode over to see if he could help the Brogans, knowing that they were miserably poor.
The Brogans lived in a two-roomed hovel on the verge of a bog, and on entering a terrible sight met Carew’s eyes. The old man lay dead in one bed, Katey dead in the second bed with a large bullet-hole through her forehead, and the old mother crooning over the fire ashes, stark mad.