BACK PAGES:The so-called "Economic War" in the 1930s began when the Fianna Fáil government refused to continue paying land annuities – the repayments due to the British government for lengthy loans given to farmers to buy their land.
It did not mean, however, that farmers were freed of the repayments: the Irish government continued to collect them, sometimes by force, resulting in incidents in various parts of the country as farmers faced severe financial hardship because of Britain’s retaliatory taxes on Irish food.
This incident, as described by the uncontested account of the prosecutor, ended with 30 men facing charges before a military tribunal over their attempt to thwart the collection of annuity payments from a farmer in the Kilmallock area of Co Cork.
MR McENERY [prosecutor], opening the State case, said that about 1pm on September 11th last John Gammell , accompanied by Michael McLoughlin, armed with a warrant, went to [John] McCarthy’s house to collect land annuities. Mrs McCarthy said that her husband was not in and asked him to wait.
“She then went outside,” continued Mr McEnery, “and blew a whistle. Men seemed to come from every quarter, among the leaders being [John] Browne and [Thomas] Bluett. They adopted a threatening attitude to the men, who were accompanied by seven Guards.
Gammell did not wish to make a seizure if he could avoid it, and, when asked by an old man who was on the scene, he said that he would take half the money due.
No settlement was made, however, and Mr Gammell seized a horse and harnessed it to a cart, and proceeded up the road, accompanied by the Guards.
Messrs Bluett and Browne, with the other prisoners, who pleaded guilty, rescued the horse and cart, and the Guards had to retire.
Later 40 Guards came back with Gammell and McLoughlin. They found the road strewn with broken bottles and Mr McCarthy’s house in a state of siege. They were met by seven galloping horsemen and 40 men armed with sticks and ashplants. The Guards were violently assaulted and beaten.
They returned to the fray about five o’clock, when Supt Reynolds and Insp Lyons came back with the Guards. The house was then in a state of siege and the place was impassable with barbed wire. Most offensive remarks were chalked on the railings.
These 40 men armed with their ashplants surrounded the house, and the superintendent instructed one of the detective officers to draw his revolver.
The officer did so, and the men, apparently being frightened, put their hands over their heads.
The Guards proceeded to arrest them, when they heard a clattering of hooves and saw at least seven horsemen, among them Bluett and Browne, coming down the road.
The horsemen charged the Guards and the superintendent ordered Det Sgt McNulty to fire over their heads. He did so, and the horsemen went back.
They came on again and shots were again fired over their heads. Bluett called to the horsemen to come, and said: “They are blank shots; they are trying to frighten us.”
The Guards were at this time in charge of 40 men and the superintendent ordered the detective sergeant to wound one of the horses in order to show that these people were not going literally to ride rough-shod over the Guards. The detective fired and Browne’s animal sustained a wound.
The prisoners were arrested later in the evening.
The prisoners, who had pleaded guilty, were respectable farmers, and apparently felt that they had a grievance. The seven who had pleaded “not guilty” were not farmers from the locality, but had come all the way from Charleville.
For this reason he regarded their offence as much more serious than that of the other prisoners.
[Six of the Charleville men – the seventh was a reporter who was acquitted – were jailed for six months while all the rest had jail sentences suspended on entering into recognisances of £10 each to keep the peace for two years.]
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