Author Archive: Bill Black
I'm a baby boomer, lefty Democrat, Boston Irish Catholic, born in 1953. I work as a public affairs consultant in Washington.
The Kerry Mountains
We stayed in a very nice B&B in Ballylicky, County Cork on Wednesday night. Good food, good accomodations. No Internet connection, depite promises on the web site. So, we enjoyed our stay and moved on a day earlier than we had planned. Our next stop was Killarney, which would take is through the mountains of County Kerry. We also made short stops in Kenmare and Skibbereen.
The weather alternated between light and torrential rains. While the weather limited the distance we could see, it did not limit the beauty. In fact, I kind of liked the ethereal mode of the mountains as we drive through Moll’s Gap and stopped at Ladies View.
Here we are braving the elements somewhere up in the mountains. That’s Danny beneath the hood.
Tomoleague Friary
As we drove along the south coast of Ireland, we came across an old ruin of a 13th Century monastery, Timoleague Friary. It is now reduced to its exterior and interior walls. But it was clearly quite the structure in its day, overlooking the sea and countryside.
Bridget explored a number of “nooks and crannies,” even climbing through some very narrow passage ways. She found what appeared to be a dungeon, but was probably just one of the monks’ cells. You can see her through the bars.
The grounds are now covered with grave stones, both inside the structure and out. Some are as recent as the 1990’s. The propery is now, in effect, a cemetary.
The Kidnapping
In an earlier post about John Saunders’ house in Dublin where we are staying, I mentioned that the house was formerly owned by a businessman who was kidnapped by the IRA right outside his home. It was a dramatic event that got enormous news coverage at the time, twenty-five years ago.
As it happens, it was back in the news this week when the Provisional IRA man who was charged with the crime 10 years ago was acquitted of all charges. The Irish Times devoted an entire inside page to multiple stories on the incident. The Times requires a subscription to view the whole story, but here are excerpts:
Former IRA leader freed on Tidey kidnapping charges.
817 words
27 June 2008
Irish Times
4
English
(c) 2008, The Irish Times.COURT REPORT:FORMER IRA leader Brendan McFarlane was yesterday cleared of the kidnap of former supermarket executive Don Tidey almost 25 years ago.
The Special Criminal Court discharged the former IRA leader after an application by his counsel, Hugh Hartnett SC, for a direction of acquittal. This followed a statement by prosecuting counsel Fergal Foley that the State was “offering no further evidence”.
Earlier the court had ruled inadmissible an alleged admission by McFarlane to gardaí that he had been at the wood in Co Leitrim where Mr Tidey was held captive for 23 days in 1983.
Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding at the non-jury court with Judge Alison Lindsay and Judge Cormac Dunne, said McFarlane retains the presumption of innocence.
The judge said that the court had heard evidence of “the horrendous kidnapping and physical abuse of Mr Tidey and his son and daughter”, which resulted in the killing of a young soldier and an unarmed Garda recruit.
“Although almost a quarter of a century has passed, it is clear . . . from the evidence of Mr Tidey and the attendance in court of the families of the garda and solider that all have suffered greatly,” he said.
Here’s a description of the actual crime:
Don Tidey would have seen nothing unusual in a uniformed “garda” flagging him to stop at a “Garda roadblock” at the junction of Stocking Lane and Woodtown Way. However, the “gardaí” were in reality members of the Provisional IRA. Tidey tried a frantic reversal when he realised what was happening but to no avail.
A submachine gun was put to his head and he was bundled from his car. Susan and Alistair [his 13 year old daughter and 24 year old son] were pulled from the car by an armed man, also in a garda uniform and thrown by the roadside as the terrorists left with the father. The snatch was over in five minutes and involved five or six men.
In the immediate aftermath of the kidnapping, gardaí concentrated their efforts on the immediate
vicinity but quickly enlarged their search to parts of Kildare, Kerry, Roscommon and Mayo.
For almost all of his abduction, however, it appears that Tidey was held in woods near Ballinamore in Co Leitrim.
On November 27th, a ransom demand for £5 million sterling was telephoned to Associated British Foods offices in London. ABF and the government were totally opposed to paying.
However, the net was closing. From about December 13th in the Ballinamore area, about 1,000 soldiers and some 100 gardaí were manning roadblocks, scouring the countryside and doing house-to-house searches.
At about 2pm on December 16th, Garda recruits were crawling through dense undergrowth in a forest of young pine trees at Deradda Woods. They saw some plastic sheeting in a hollow. It stirred.
They moved back and called for assistance. Gunmen leapt up and began firing.
A hand grenade was thrown. Gardaí and soldiers swarmed forward. The gunmen fled. Don Tidey, his head covered by a balaclava, was freed, physically unharmed. But a young garda and a soldier had given their lives to save him.
Pte Patrick Kelly, a 35-year-old from Moate in Co Westmeath, was shot dead. He left a widow, Cathrina (31) and four young sons.
Gary Sheehan, aged 23, died with him. He was due to graduate from Templemore in 1984. He was the son of Det Garda Jim Sheehan, stationed not far away in Carrickmacross in Co Monaghan.
Gary Sheehan is remembered by each batch of recruits to pass through Training College in Templemore.
The best all-rounder receives the Gary Sheehan Memorial Medal.
In the coverage of he acquittal, there were also many accounts of the way things were in Ireland in 1983 when violence was common and there seemed no light at the end of the tunnel. We, in America, tend to forget the enormity of the change in Ireland. Throughout our trip, when people tell stories of more than ten years ago, there is always a reference to “the troubles,” which permeated all of life in Ireland. While Ireland is heading into some rough waters now economically after a long boom, it is a blessing that the country will never go back to the way it was.
Torc Falls
OK, back to our chronological posts. This is our visit to Torc Falls on Wednesday just outside Killarney. The falls are spectacular. As you can see, we visited in a driving rainstorm, so we didn’t have to deal with tourist crowds. And, fortunately, the B&B we checked into allowed us to use their clothes dryer. We were soaked to the bone.
Moy Hill
This is a little out of sequence, since I’m still posting from three days ago, but here’s where we stayed last night. It’s the home of an young Irish telecommunications entrepreneur, whose name I have to leave out for security reasons. He has enemies….seriously. We became friendly through our daughters, who were classmates in grammar school. Their house in Washington off Foxhall Road is the former home of Bishop Fulton Sheen. This is their house in Ireland. They invited us to come visit. A truly spectacular estate, once owned by the 60’s rock star, Donovan.
This the main house. Many other building on the 90 acre property. A 2 mile driveway, a lake in front and sheep grazing on the lawn.
Family Connection
Here’s Virginia Minihan’s confirmation of the family connection between me and Jerry O’Donovan. The supercedes all other speculations on this blog:
We and Jerry O’Donovan have the same great, great grandparents…John O’Regan and ?? (female) (Driscoll) O’Regan . They had 3 girls 1. Mary Regan…our greatgrandmother…who had Margaret (maggie) O’Regan..later Singleton, our grandmother 2, Margaret O’Regan later McCarthy with no family and lived in Rossmore, Ballineen 3. Catherine O’Regan later O’Leary…Brother Richard’s grandmother and Jerry O’Donovan’s great grandmother. jerry O’Donovan’s father, Jon O’Donovan were brothers. Catherine (O’Regan ) married Jeremiah O’Leary. One of their daughters, Catherine, married John O’Donovan who had 5 children, one being broher Richard, and one being John O’Donovan (Jerry’s dad).
Glad we cleared that up.
Jerry and Peggy
Here’s a video of Jerry and Peggy in their kitchen. It is confirmed that Jerry’s great grandmother and my great grandmother were sisters. See next post.
Billy and Dan
Also from central casting, these two American tourists with their mobile devices, visiting Kinsale from Washington, DC.
Willie and John
Here are Willie Corrigan and John Cod, right out of central casting. They are a couple of laddies in Kinsale on holidy from County Whitlow.
Jerry and His Ponies
Here’s the corral next to Jerry and Peggy’s house with Jerry’s ponies. Typically, Bridget was enchanted.
“They’re so cute!”
I didn’t get their names.