……..After breakfast we started in a hired motor, the driver of which, we were given in confidence to understand, was an Ulster man who had deserted from the British Army, been discharged from the Republican, and was about to offer his services to the Free State — a mihtary record which inspired us with complete confidence in the resourcefulness of his character. Avoiding the main roads, which for several weeks have been completely blocked, we arrived by a circuitous route over a mountain at Millstreet, where our inquiries for the road to Killarney were met with derisive shrieks.
*If you can lepp and you can swim you may perhaps get there; not otherwise,’ we were told. ‘Every bridge is down and every road is blocked since the fighting on Sunday.*
Conscious of proficiency in both ‘lepping’ and swimming, we pushed undaunted on our way, running almost immediately into a flying column of Free State troops, who stopped us and demanded the driver’s permit. They were covered with mud, weary and war worn, having been fighting for two days. ……
The above is part of an article of of one womans trip from Dublin to Killorglin, that appeared in the “Nation and the Athenoeum” in November 1922 and also in “The Living Age” on Saturday December 16th 1922. The full article is given below:
BY E. S. G.
From the Nation and the Athenoeum^ November 11
(London Liberal Weekly)
From Dublin as far as Limerick
Junction our journey, if not signalized
by an undue haste, was, on the other
hand, devoid of unusual incident.
Arriving an hour and a half late, we
dallied for another hour in the station,
while the officials made up their minds
whether they would proceed any
further or not.
Ultimately, after changing into an-
other train, we set off at a crawl for
Buttevant over temporarily restored
bridges and railway lines, which are
torn up in the night, relaid every few
days, only to be torn up again on the
following night; the damage perpe-
trated by the Republicans being en-
couraged, if not actually inspired, by
enterprising car-drivers who are mak-
ing colossal fortunes conveying pas-
sengers and their luggage from one
station to the next, and who at
Buttevant were waiting in massed
formation to fall upon us. The train
being unable to proceed further owing
to the destruction of a bridge, we had
no choice but to transfer ourselves to a
jaunting car, and to drive the seven
miles to Mallow behind a decrepit
horse, in a drenching mist.
At no time a hive of activity. Mallow
— the junction connecting all the lines
in the south of Ireland — presents to-
day a lamentable spectacle of decay.
The magnificent ten-arch bridge across
the Blackwater has been blown to
pieces, a work of malign ingenuity
ascribed to Erskine Childers, assisted
by an engineer from Krupps’.
The dingy hotel where we spent the
dismal night is situated in the main
street of the town amidst the crumbling
ruins of such civilization as remained
after last year’s burning by the Black-
and-Tans, followed by the bombs and
bullets of the Free Staters and Re-
publicans, whose favorite battle-ground
it seems to have been ever since. The
windows of the coffee-room were rid-
dled with bullet holes; the floor was car-
peted in crumbs; two commercial trav-
elers, with pained expressions on their
faces, sprawled in profound slumber
over the only two armchairs in the
room; on an ink-stained writing table
a Strand Magazine of 1899 served as
literary link between Mallow and the
outer world.
After a night of indescribable dis-
comfort, the next morning dawned, if
anything, somewhat wetter than the
preceding day. After breakfast we
started in a hired motor, the driver of
which, we were given in confidence to
understand, was an Ulster man who
had deserted from the British Army,
been discharged from the Republican,
and was about to offer his services to
the Free State — a mihtary record
which inspired us with complete con-
fidence in the resourcefulness of his
character. Avoiding the main roads,
which for several weeks have been
completely blocked, we arrived by a
circuitous route over a mountain at
Millstreet, where our inquiries for the
road to Killarney were met with
derisive shrieks.
*If you can lepp and you can swim
you may perhaps get there; not other-
wise,’ we were told. ‘Every bridge is
down and every road is blocked since
the fighting on Sunday.*
Conscious of proficiency in both
‘lepping’ and swimming, we pushed
undaunted on our way, running almost
immediately into a flying column of
Free State troops, who stopped us and
demanded the driver’s permit. They
were covered with mud, weary and war
worn, having been fighting for two
days.
*You will meet Irregulars further
on,’ said the officer. *As you are only
ladies they may not take your car; if
you had men with you they would
certainly do so.’
Bidding him good-bye, we charged
with thrilled expectancy into the war
zone, an old man who subsequently
directed us adding to our growing ex-
citement by informing us that the
*Free Starters’ had *gone back’ and
that the * ‘Publicans’ were on ahead.
Whether the latter were engaged in
burying their dead — the number of
which, according to the Free Staters,
was almost past all calculation — or
whether we drove through them, con-
cealed behind the hedges, we never
discovered. The disappointing fact re-
mained; we never saw even one mem-
ber of the phantom army in whose
track we were supposed to be following.
*Are you all mad here?’ I inquired
of a group of men we next came upon,
contemplating a gaping void in the
middle of a village street, in front of
which the car suddenly pulled up —
only just in time to prevent our taking
a wild leap into the river swirling in the
precipitous depths beneath.
*More than half of us,’ was the cheer-
ful reply, as a couple (presumably of
the sane section) advanced with advice
and directions to the driver, whom
they conducted down a muddy de-
clivity leading to the river, into which
the car plunged — while we crawled,
clinging to the parapet, over a narrow
footway on to the other side.
When nearly across, the engine of
the car — which had been gradually
getting into deeper water — suddenly
stopped. Our hearts sank. Complete
silence fell on the spectators for a
moment; after which the entire popula-
tion of the village, sane and insane,
rushed to the rescue, throwing down
stones and eventually hauling the car
into shallower water where the engine
was restarted.
Having regained the road, we next
found ourselves up against a gigantic
tree, prostrate across our path, its
branches sawn in such a fashion as to
form snags, — between and under-
neath which it did not seem possible
for any vehicle to pass. But our
motor-driver came up to our expecta-
tions in the matter of ingenuity, and
by lowering the wind-screen and keep-
ing his head to the level of the steering-
wheel, advancing and reversing every
few inches, the car emerged trium-
phantly, after a good quarter of an
hour’s manoeuvring, on the other side.
It was the first of many similar ob-
structions, some of which we struggled
under, some of which we squeezed our
way round, and others which we avoid-
ed altogether by turning in at the gates
of private demesnes and bumping our
way through farmyards, the walls of
which had been pulled down by cars
preceding us: experiences so unnerving
that at Killarney the driver dumped
our luggage down in the middle of the
street and bade us a polite but firm
farewell.
At the local garages all requests for
a car to continue our journey in proved
useless. Only by aeroplane, we were
told, could anybody hope to arrive at
Killorglin; * every bridge is down, and
over a hundred trees and all the tele-
graph posts and the wires twisted in
and about and around them.’
FROM DUBLIN TO KERRY
635
After over an hour spent in frantic
appeals, the owner of a horse and car
was finally prevailed upon to under-
take the eighteen-mile drive in con-
sideration for a sum exceeding the
first-class railway fare to Dublin.
For the first few miles we made our
way through Lord Kenmare’s demesne,
over the grass, down on the shore of the
lake, where the horse had to be led be-
tween the rocks and where the wheels
of the car sank deep into the sand and
gravel. After being almost bogged in
a bohereen leading into another de-
mesne, which we drove through, we
proceeded for about a mile on a side
road, when we encountered a broken
bridge. A precipitous descent into a
wood, across the river, over a field into
a lane, on for a mile or two over
trenches, getting off the car every five
minutes, occasionally having to take
the horse out and drag it over felled
trees and down into ditches; and then
the most formidable river we had yet
met, with an insurmountable bank on
the opposite shore, topped with a
barbed-wire fence. Seeing no possi-
bility of manoeuvring this, we drove to
a cottage, where a young woman came
out and directed us.
* Drive down the bank by the bridge
and go under the farthest arch, and
then drive down in the river for a bit
till you come to a slope in the bank, and
you ’11 see a way up on the other side. ‘
An old man came out of the cottage
and offered to come with us. I walked
with him, while the horse and the car
started down the river. We talked the
usual platitudes, when suddenly, seiz-
ing me by the arm, he exclaimed : ‘ Oh,
God! Are n’t the times terrible?’
* Indeed they are,’ I replied fervently.
He broke into sobs. *0h, God!’ he
cried, *0h, God! my only son, he ‘s on
the run, and if they get him they’ll
shoot him. … I can’t shtop talking
of it. . . . That young girl you saw
just now, she ‘s my daughter. She ‘s
come all the way from England to
mind me, but sure, nobody can mind
me now. … I can ‘t shtop talking,
and to-morrow they ‘re taking me to
the asylum. . . .’
Looking back, after I had bidden him
good-bye and climbed among the
broken masonry up the cliff-like side
of the tumbled arch, I could see him,
still standing by the lonely shore; his
rugged, beautiful face distraught with
anguish, his hands clasped in mental
torture: *0h, God! oh, God!’ echoing
in my ears as we drove on in the fading
twilight on the deserted road, his
tragic figure leaving in one’s memory
an unforgettable impression of Ire-
land’s madness and despair.
It was dark when finally we arrived
at our destination, having taken five
hours to accomplish the last eighteen
miles. When it is realized that not a
single obstruction we encountered after
leaving Mallow would have presented
the slightest difficulty to a lorryful of
soldiers, armed with a few planks and
a couple of saws, the imbecility of the
tactics of the Irregulars, which merely
cause delay and inconvenience to civil-
ians, can hardly be understood. Yet
for months past, bands of able-bodied
youths have been engaged in destroying
bridges and blocking roads all over the
South with no other result. As soon
as one road is cleared by the Free Staters
another is being obstructed, a work of
devastation which will, presumably,
only cease when every tree in the coun-
try has been felled and every bridge laid
low.
Meanwhile, we are a philosophical
and long-suffering race, and if on my
journey I endured untold fatigue and
discomfort, on the other hand I have
added considerably to my knowledge
of the geography of my native land.
