Beginning
During the Irish 'Troubles' of 1920 all records of Irish births and deaths
were destroyed by fire in the Dublin Lawcourts. So those with Irish forebears have
considerable trouble tracing ancestors.
At
the moment I can't go beyond my grandparents.
On my Father's side they were Michael and Catherine O'Shea
(pictured left in old age).
Michael O'Shea I (as I shall call him, for convenience and
identification) had been a policeman, a member of the R.I.C. (The Royal Irish
Constabulary).
He was posted to Lisburn, Co. Antrim, in the North of Ireland, sometime
in the last twenty years of the 19th century, leaving his native Kilkenny (?). The
O'Sheas in general came from County Kerry.
Ireland, you will recall, was a united country at this time, having
been occupied and ruled by the English- with difficulty - for 800 years or so.
In Lisburn Michael met Catherine Connolly. They married and he left the force to
establish a hardware shop in Market Square. They had seven children, William
Francis,
Thomas Patrick (my father), Michael II, Catherine, Isabella, Mary and Johanna.
(See part of O'Shea family Tree?)
One Sunday morning in Lisburn, in 1920, a District Inspector Swanzy of
the R.I.C. was shot dead by a member of the IRA. D.I. Swanzy was widely reputed to
be the man who had shot dead the Mayor of Cork, Tomas McCurtain. He had been
posted to the North for his protection,
Lisburn was a predominantly Protestant Unionist town, and born out of the
antagonistic attitudes of the time (still, unfortunately, prevalent among a sizeable
minority of Unionists) preparations had been made to deal with the Catholic people,
all of whom were presumed to be Republican sympathisers.
My Father, then a young teacher in his early twenties, told how
Protestant activists rose to a man and burnt the Catholics out of their homes, working to
an economic plan. Families such as that of John Fitzpatrick, principal of the local
Catholic school and married to my Father's older sister Catherine, were forced to stand
outside their rented house on the Antrim Road and watch as their furniture was carried out
and burnt in the front garden.
In the case of Catholics who owned their property both furniture and
dwelling were burnt .
My Uncle Michael - Michael II - had been staying with the Mulholland
Family at their Maghaberry farm. He arrived back in Lisburn Market Square during the
night to find the O'Shea home and shop ablaze. Shocked, and fearing for the lives of
his family, he rushed to the forefront of the crowd. He was recognised and badly
beaten, and just managed to escape with his life. Fitzpatrick cousins told me how he
climbed over the back fence of their rented house, bloody and bruised, looking for
his brothers, sisters and parents. Many families, including ours, had no option but
to flee to safe Catholic areas, in our case to Andersonstown, on the outskirts of Belfast.
Ethnic cleansing 1920 style.
| ABOVE LEFT: The O'Shea family home and business, Market Square, Lisburn, before the murder of DI Swanzy. | ABOVE RIGHT:
The same property the next day. |
I never ever heard my Father - or any of his siblings - express the slightest
anger over this event. Nevertheless,
there was a natural, collective wariness about individuals who were Protestant, or who
held Unionist views, especially following the partition of Ireland and the establishment
of a Unionist State in the North. The Unionist Prime Minister's statement that the
Northern Parliament was "A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people"
scarcely encouraged ideas of equality and friendship. But the situation was accepted
as a fact of life, and here and there many sound and lasting friendships continued to
exist with Protestant people. It was recognised that many were caught up in a state
of political and religious confrontation that they did not like. There was deep and honest
regret, and an embarrassment, on both sides, that such a stupid situation existed. In
many ways the differences that existed were ignored.
However, in the broad pattern of political life one knew where one
stood. Protestants were in power in the North, by threat of arms at the
establishment of the State, and all Catholics, as a rough rule of thumb, were suspect and
subject, with a 'B' Special Reservist Police Force to ensure compliance. The best jobs
would go to Protestants. Catholics became used to being a separate community within
Northern Ireland, not part of the main body. They built their own schools using
their own resource, led by the Bishops of the Catholic Church, and created their own local
communities within the broader community.
One could be a farmer, if one already owned a piece of land. (There
would be little chance of buying Protestant land.) One could be a teacher, or a
minor civil servant, a shopkeeper or a publican - but it was accepted with wry humour that
plum jobs or business and industrial opportunities would not come the way of Catholics.
Such people were openly regarded by Unionists as a threat to the very existence of the
Northern Statelet, a continued security risk.
In cautious relationships, when meeting someone for the first time, the
immediate question that would arise in most peoples' minds, on both sides, would be,
"Which foot does he or she dig with?" The question was a shorthand
reference to the type of spade imported by Protestant Plantation stock in the 16th and
17th centuries which had the tread of the spade on the side opposite to the traditional
Irish implement. It was a humorous way of referring to "the other sort".
I suppose that my Father's family could be described as Nationalist -
as opposed to Republican. There is a raw bitterness and superficial energy about
Irish Republicanism, a willingness to die, and kill, for a United Ireland. It is not
an ideal that appealed to my immediate forebears, or to me. Our choice was and is
the way of peace, a people united in common humanity rather than a lump of land occupied
by brain-dead zombies who are prepared to kill in order to rule and make exclusive -
whether a protestant Ulster or an All Ireland Republic. Nevertheless, it is quite true
that in those days any Northern Irish Catholic would feel a tangible sense of relief upon
crossing the border into the South, the Free State that ultimately became the Republic of
Ireland. It was a natural consequence of the social, economic and political
oppression that existed in the North. Many Northern Protestants would never have
dreamt of going South. That was where the enemy lay, a continuing threat to their
'British' way of life.
I am deeply proud of my Father's family - kind and gentle people who
would rather see the good side of a person than look for the bad and contentious.
They were humorous and joyous in life, and totally honest.
My Father was equally fortunate in the family he entered into by
marriage. His wife was a lovely, young woman from Ardglass, County Down - Margaret
Mary (Madge) Mulheron. As a Mother she was totally selfless, as a person she made a
point of seeing only the goodness of people.
LEFT: This was my dad as a young man. The debonair, cigar-smoker I came to know as a quiet, pipe-smoking father, totally devoted to his wife and children. He was a gentle man, and, in the opinion of pupils of his whom I have met over the years, a very fine teacher - for an amazing forty-two years. (In my book he was a hero. I retired exhausted after only 15 years of teaching!)
This was my Mum as a young girl (There
is a better picture somewhere, which I will publish as soon as I find it.)
(More about them - and the Mulherons - at a later date.)
Mum with brother Gerry (left)
and myself , shopping in Royal Avenue, Belfast c. 1939. Even then I had reservations
about that fur collar.