An Irishman's Diary

I DON’T know if anyone in Donegal ever threatens to issue a “Glenswilly Decree” these days. The most recent mention I can find of the phrase is from our “Words We Use” columnist, Diarmaid Ó Muirithe, who heard it circa 1993 in a pub in the Rosses, whereto it had migrated across the mountains from its place of origin.

By then, it was reduced to a general threat of retribution. But it had a more specific meaning once, relating to the unlicensed distilling industry for which Glenswilly was formerly famous. A problem for poitín makers then (and maybe now) is that, their product being illegal, they had no official recourse when customers failed to pay bills. Hence the Donegal Union (or Association) of Poteen-makers, which was formed circa 1800 to collect such debts.

Where necessary, the union would issue a Glenswilly Decree, on foot of which agents could enter the homes of reneging debtors and seize furniture or other items in lieu of payment. Sometimes a horse might be taken and held, pending redemption in cash.

A more aggressive cousin of another 19th-century form of extra-judicial justice, the boycott, the Glenswilly Decree in time extended to exacting vengeance against thieves of all kinds, if only by depriving them of the benefit of their ill-gotten gains. But the activities of the poitín union, at least, ended around 1850, because of a tragedy resulting from one of its raids.

Among the items seized on that ill-fated occasion was a feather-bed. This had been folded up hastily and only when unfolded again, sometime later, was found to contain a dead child, presumably suffocated. The sad story features in a 1953 book called The English Dialect of Donegal, by Michael Traynor, who heard it from a local schoolmaster.

Before that, during its heyday, the Glenswilly Decree had, among other things, been responsible for putting a Donegal-born priest and future archbishop, Daniel McGettigan, in jail. It was the early 1840s. After a request from one of the parties involved, he had intervened in such a case to arrange restitution of the seized goods. Then the law (the official version of it) became involved, summoning the priest to give evidence against the protagonists. But Fr McGettigan refused to betray confidence and, for his silence, was sent to prison in Dublin.

Luckily, he had the help of a good lawyer – Daniel O’Connell – whose eagle eye found an error in the warrant and got him out.

The affair does not seem to have held Dr McGettigan’s career back much. He went on to become the Catholic Primate of All Ireland.

ILLEGAL WHISKEYand rough justice were not the only things 19th-century Glenswilly produced. The area also gave birth to a man named James Haggerty, who achieved posthumous fame for his services to a different kind of union, the winning side in the American Civil War.

Haggerty didn’t live to see that triumph. He was one of the conflict’s earliest victims, killed in its first major engagement, the Battle of Bull Run.

In fact, that event was a debacle for the Union, which until then had been predicting defeat of the rebels within 90 days. And in the process of disabusing the north of its optimism, Bull Run also secured the reputation of another son of Ulster, Andrew Jackson, who earned his nickname “Stonewall” there.

Of the defeated forces, Haggerty at least emerged a hero, albeit posthumously. A former carpenter who had emigrated first to Scotland and later New York, he was a part-time soldier for almost a decade before the war, having enrolled in one of New York’s independent Irish militias, becoming captain. He later joined the city’s 69th Regiment – the famous “Fighting 69th” – whose flag was presented to Ireland by John F Kennedy. Haggerty was an acting lieutenant colonel at the time of his death.

One of his last acts at Bull Run was to prevent his men attacking another Union regiment that, in the confusion of battle, had been mistaken for the enemy. Haggerty “dashed along the line and struck the bayonets upward with his sword”. But shortly afterwards, spotting a detachment of Confederate infantrymen falling back to rejoin their main body of troops, he pursued on horseback until one of the men turned and shot him at close range.

He was the 69th’s only officer to die in the battle and Thomas Francis Meagher later paid tribute to “James Haggerty – a braver solder than whom the land of Sarsfield and Shields has not produced, and whose name, worked in gold upon the colours of the Sixty Ninth, should be henceforth guarded with all the jealousy and pride [that] inspires a regiment whenever its honour is at stake”.

Despite which words, and honourable mention in “The Ballad of the 69th”, Haggerty spent the best part of the next century in an unmarked grave. That was until, about 20 years ago, the Donegal Association of New York got on the case.

A committee was formed to design and fund a suitable monument. And thus, in 1992, another Glenswilly wrong was rectified, this time within the law. Haggerty’s grave in Woodside is now overlooked by an ornate Celtic Cross, which will no doubt be a focal point for commemorations when the 150th of Bull Run is marked in July.