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EPISODE 67   BUNMAHON , IRELAND” “WE CAN CRAWL INTO THE OLD MINE THROUGH A HOLE”

alan skeoch

June 2020

THE HOLE BARNEY FOUND…LED INTO THE OLD MINE

“I know where there’s a hole.”

“A hole ?”

“Yes,, a hole in the cliff.”

“So?”

“So we can squeeze through the hole and get into the old mine.”

“You must be kidding, Barney”

“No,  I’ve crawled  into the hole many times.”

“Why?”

“Curiosity.”

“Can you take me there?”

“Sure, this Saturday if you want.”

SATURDAY JULY 23,1960

Note:  Saturday July 23, 1960, I was told  by Barney Dawn that it was

possible tp squeeze through an old adit (an air vent) and actually enter

te Knockmaon mine.   This event was a climax point in the Bunmahon

adventure.   I had a choice.  Take a risk and enter the mine.  Or

play  it safe and  do  nothing other than our surface work.  I chose

the risk taking venture.  Why?  Because I was 21 years old…young

and foolish.  Adventure seeking.  Crawling through that air vent

was not part of my job so, at first,  Barney, Andy and I did  it on evenings

or Sundays.  Later both John Hogan and Dr. John Stam decided

to get involved in underground exploration when we were made

aware of a legend lost cow in an old mine entrance inland from

the sea.   The results of that venture were startling.

So I have decided to give these ventures special consideration…and

a special heading.   A question for you to think about: Would you crawl

through that hole in the cliff face?   Would you do it when you were 21?

GOING UNDERGROUND WITH BARNEY 

That’s Barney Dwan relaxing on the cliffs he knew so well.  Just above him, almost invisible, is the entrance to our first underground

“See the hole up there?”

Begin forwarded message:

From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>

Subject: EPISODE 66 BUNMAHON, IRELAND SUNDAY JULY 17, 1960 TO CATTLE CHOMPING AND CASTLES BURNING

Date: June 15, 2020 at 9:00:16 PM EDT

To: Alan Skeoch <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>

EPISODE 66   BUNMAHON, IRELAND,     CATTLE CHOMPING , AND CASTLES BURNED

alan  skeoch

June 2020

Our crew assembling on a roadside.   The local newspaper from Waterford took this picture when they did a

long article on our poject.   I count 7 men here.  At one point I think we had 10 men employed.   Quite  a job to

keep  things  moving.  

SUNDAY, JULY 17, 1960

I’m getting to be familiar with Mass at St. Mary’s RC church but today

was a  cold weather experience….no heat in church.  What really amuses 

me at the church is  the Holy Water urn at the door.   My employees always

try to hit me with a handful.   Sometimes successful.

I spent the part of the day reading The Bramble Bush…very sad  book about mercy

killing, religions and, of  course, sex.  Not sure it was worth the time.  In the

afternoon we went down to Kirwin’s and Frank let us into the ‘secret’ room…the room has

connection with Time of the Troubles and the IRA.  I never know when 

people are telling the truth as they love mysterious stories.  Hard to imagine

Bonmahon people full of hatred.

Then I went for a walk on Bunmahon beach alone.  There were clusters

of people walking along the cliffs higher up.  Every evening. So I was not alone.

  A group of girls appeared  and greeted me by my name much  to

my surprise.  Scared me a bit really.  I think they used my first name, Alan,

rather than  the usual Master Skeoch.  Sounds odd to be called Master Skeoch

but it is very natural and I think a term of respect.   Certainly funny.

We  talked but I never quite understood  the accent.  Nice kids…a couple

of the girls were about my age.

Then around 9 p.m. a couple of the boys arrived to take me to a dance

in Tramore.  We had a grand time.  Dancing is a big time thing here in

Ireland.  Both of the ‘boys’ were older and married.

MONDAY, JULY 18, 1960

The sea was changeable.  In bad weather the waves came so far up the beach that our grounding rods were compromised. Waternever reached

the generator.  My fault for thinking grounding rods were secure.  

Today we attempted to lay a new base line east of Bunmahon.  Not easy.

Barney and I had to scale down a  200 foot cliff to get a good grounding

point.  I wish  I knew more about grounding.  Perhaps top of cliff would have

been fine.  Cliff climbing was frightening.  No sooner did we get the base line

in place than new herds of cattle began browsing on what looked  like special

food to them…our yellow wire.  Five cable breaks reduced  our daily mileage

to 3,100 feet.

I spent the evening working on my earphones and then Mrs. Kennedy

asked me to repair her vacuum cleaner.

I think this lad’s name was Tim.  He never spoke to me but loved the job.  I am not sure

he could speak.  Maybe he was  just shy.   He sure was  dependable…almost like he was

camping at our motor generator.

Bunmahon has quite a few handicapped  people.   We hired one young

lad to guard our motor generator.  He is handicapped.  Overjoyed to have

a job so  he set up a campsite beside the motor generator   Very cute.

I estimate there are 5 severely handicapped people in and around the village.

TUESDAY, JULY 19. 1960

This was  our first full working day  on new base line.  Disappointing. The local

cattle destroyed 1,500 feet of new cable…wire a jumble as  cattle dragged

lengths of the cable into a tangled mess.  Then they ate some.  

Worse still today the ocean got to our grounding rods.  My error. Relocated

them.  By 11 a.m. we were ready to try to get some readings done.  Managed

to do four lines.  Not bad.  

Passed through  a tiny chapel with an ancient graveyard…all that remains

of a monastery.  The boys told me the “chapel jumped across the stream”

and that is why it was saved.  Believe it or not.  

Returned home quite pleased with the day.  Mrs. Kennedy assured  me she

now had enough peanut butter as she drove to Waterford where it was

sent from Dublin.  Nice of her.  Seems she did  know about peanut butter’s

existence.  Sometimes her dialect confuses me but she is a quite outstanding

woman and certainly has strong opinions about human behaviour.  Neither

she wore her husband go to Kirwin’s pub.  She disapproves of local  people

spending money there because they have so little money.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1960

John Stam and John Hogan drove to St. Patrick’s, a mining community,

in search of more business for the Turam…or maybe just curiosity.

The boys and i pushed  the distance we could be from the electrified

base line.  I was able to read a signal at 4300 feet. but only faintly. We

usually terminate the lines at 3,000 feet distant at a right angle from the base line.

Dr. Stam thinks some of our anomalies merit deeper consideration so

we have hired more men to did trenches down to bed rock just in

case there are mineralized exposures.  I visited our first trench today

where we found a little quartz exposed.  I do  not know if this was

important or not.

What is most amusing, however, is  the way  a herd of pigs clustered

at the top of the trench while the men were digging.  Barney thinks

some pigs are dangerous but this group were just curious.  When I get

strapped in to the Turam receiving coil and console  and battery pack

I cannot get away should  the pigs let hunger trump curiosity.

Barney tells me stories endlessly.  Always with the hint of a smile so i am never sure what to

believe.  The pig story for instance.  He mentions it every time we meet a gang of pigs.

“Story is told of a Nun taking a short cut to church across a farm field.  The pigs got

her. All that was found were her boots with her feet in them.”  Chuckle…chuckle.  

Took a  bath tonight.  Needed it

THURSDAY, JUlY 21, 1960

Today  we entered  the O’Shea  forest at Garnemorris.  Purgatory

would be nicer than this expanse of tangled Holly and Ivy.  Dense.

Higher than any person on our crew and  difficult to cut.  All part of

of a large heavily treed  forest.   Part of the 1500 acre O;Shea estate.

The manor house was set on fire in 1922 by IRA members protesting

the large landowners wealth at the expense of ordinary Irish who lived

in poverty.  Must check out the name “Power O’Shea”.

Mr. Cunningham arrived to check out our Turam  work . He represents

the Geological Survey of Ireland.   We picked up a hue anomaly.  Not sure

if reading is  reliable though as  signal was  very weak due to leak.

We  had to give up around 3 p.m. because foliage was  so dense we

could hardly move and I was not sure the compass baring was accurate

when the lines were cut.

NOTE:  Before we attempt to ‘read’ the Turam, a linocutting crew is 

sent to cut and mark lines 3,000 feet on either side of the electrified base 

line.   The line cutters pound in stakes marking  50 or 100 feet 

‘stations’  as they proceed.  Usually a  two or three man crew do this

using a compass for accuracy…ie. to ensure the lie is straight.  In the

O’shea forest errors occurred because straight line compass sightings

were difficult.

Fener Bog, County Waterford…where Larry Dey

got caught and was sinking. Fenor Bog began to grow 10,000 years in a lake basin at the bottom

of Ballyscanlon Hill. Peat – the partially rotted remains of plants filled the basin to form a raised bog. 

In historic times the bog was cut by local people. The turf removed was used to heat family homes. 

About 100 years ago, turf cutting ceased and the bog began to regenerate into the wet fen habitat we see today. 

Larry Dey got stuck in the Fener bog hole today.  He was trapped and

sinking when Johny came along and pulled him out.  Probably would

not have sunk much deeper.  But bogs can paralyze.

FRIDAY,  JULY 22, 1960

We got an early start today   

The day  was  full of troubles as rhe staking crew were inaccurate due

to the heavy forest and low brush and bog vegetation.  Very difficult to

keep the lines  straight.   I was irritated but should not have been 

since the crew tried hard to keep at right angles to base line. 

I should not have been angry…but the feeling of responsibility overcame

good sense … and good public relations.   

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE TIME OF THE TROUBLES?

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/A_family_pose_beside_a_make-shift_shelter_Alexander_Street%2C_Waterford%2C_Ireland%2C_1920s_%286805869735%29.jpg/1575px-A_family_pose_beside_a_make… 2x” data-file-width=”2485″ data-file-height=”1890″ class=””>

Pictured above are three generations  of a poverty stricken Waterford family living under a old tarpaulin.

The picture may have been  staged somewhat .  photo credit 1900 to 1920 by a reporter associated

with the IRA movement.

NOTE:   While there were almost constant references to the “time of the Troubles” by

our Irish  hosts, the Kennedy family…and also by our work force and people at Kirwin’s

pub, these comments were never made in a hostile manner.  The Irish were warm and

fun loving in my experience. When one  of our workers father died  i went to the

wake which was a warm tribute to the man… feeling of warmth…of acceptance…of sincere interest. It was

very hard for me to visualize either the  potato famine of the 1840’s or the violence of

the move to independence in the 1920’s.   But there were definitely bad times.

The mention by Mrs. Kennedy that the O’Shea manor house had been burned by he IRA

in 1922 was an offhand remark. I thought it might be an isolated event.  Wrong. In the Time

of the Troubles  IRA men burned 274 Irish mansions mostly owned by Protestant Irish (many

of  them former English).  The goal  was to get land back to Irish  peasant farmers but much of

that had already been done.  A Land Reclamation program had been redistributing land for

some time.  As a result  The burnings backfired on the IRA since many jobs on these 

estates were lost. That was the 1920’s. But the IRA was making a point no matter what the cost.

So in the 1920’s many great mansions were lost.   In the 1950’s and the 1960’s the same thing

was happening to  English country houses

by the hundreds….in1955 one was being demolished  every five days… auctioning contents

 and demolition because aristocratic  families

lost their heirs in the World  Wars or the owners could no longer pay the taxes on big estates

that amounted  unto 65% Succession duties.  In  both cases…Irish violence and  English post war

poverty resulted in the loss of hundreds of magnificent buildings.  National treasures gone.

(Later I hoped to visit the Eywood Estate in England which was demolished  in 1955.  My grandfather

Edward Freeman  had been he head  gardener on the estate  Mom was born there.  I wondered

what would be left standing.  I knew the huge country house was gone.  Was it all gone?)

How much of this violence happened near Bunmahon in the 1920’s?   Two events stand  out.

1) THE BURGERY AMBUSH:

(Dungarven)

“On the night of 18–19 March 1921, IRA volunteers of the West Waterford flying column ambushed a British military convoy at the Burgery, about a mile and a half northeast of Dungarvan. The convoy included Black and Tans and a Royal Irish Constabulary Sergeant, named Michael Hickey.^[2] In overall command of the IRA unit was IRA GHQ Officer George Plunkett. Also present were West Waterford Brigade Commandant Pax Whelan, ASU leader George Lennon, and Mick Mansfield. A British Crossley tender was set on fire and prisoners taken by the IRA, including Sergeant Hickey. Hickey was later killed by an IRA firing squad^[3] with a sign reading “police spy” affixed to his tunic. He was later buried in an unmarked grave.^[2] Other prisoners including Captain DV Thomas, the commander of the British garrison, were released.

After the ambush, a group of volunteers under Plunkett returned to search for any armaments left behind by the British forces. Crown forces who were now searching the area engaged the IRA party; IRA volunteers Seán Fitzgerald and Pat Keating were shot dead. A Black and Tan, Constable Sydney R. Redman^[3] was shot dead during the return fire.”  Wikipedia

2)  BURNING OF THE POWER O’SHEA ‘BIG HOUSE’

(This mayor may not be the O’Shea big  house  (Country House, Mansion…other terms).  After the fire the 

house was  rebuilt and repaired)

The ‘big house’ on the O’Shea estate was one of the nearly 300 country houses set on fire by the IRA in the 1920’s…set on fire  because they were symbols of

the English oppression of the Irish.  The OShea  house was only partially destroyed so it was subsequently rebuilt.  Lost in the fire, however, were the artworks

and the library.  Other Country Houses had a much darker fate .. i.e. totally destroyed.

Quote below:

QuoW “

Ballynastragh House depicted in 1826, typical of the “Big Houses” targeted by the IRA.

 “By the start of the Irish revolutionary period in 1919, the Big House had become symbolic of the 18th and 19th-century dominance of the Protestant Anglo-Irish class in Ireland at the expense of the native Roman Catholic population, particularly in southern and western Ireland.^[4]

The Anglo-Irish, as a class, were generally opposed to the notions of Irish independence and held key positions in the British administration of Ireland. The Irish nationalist narrative maintained that the land of Irishmen had been illegally stolen from them by the landowning aristocracy, who had mostly arrived in Ireland as Protestant settlers of The Crown during the late 16th and 17th centuries. The Irish Big House was at the administrative centre of the estates of the landowners, as well as being the family seat from which the Anglo-Irish exerted their political control over the island.^[5]

This perception was popularly held by nationalists, despite a considerable increase in Irish landownership in the previous decades due to the Irish Land Acts. Whereas in 1870, 97% of land was owned by landlords and 50% by just 750 families, by 1916, 70% of Irish farmers owned their own land.^[6] Catholics had been emancipated in 1829 and the political dominance of the Anglo-Irish in Ireland had consequently declined following the electoral successes of the Catholic nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party through much of the 19th century.^[7]

The former Protestant Ascendancy had lost its economic power following the Great Famine of 1845-49, and the Long Depression of the 1870s; and then lost its political power after the Representation of the People Act 1884. By 1915 the Irish Land Commission had transferred over 60% of Irish farmland to tenant farmers, leaving most of the former landed gentry with a house and a home farm known as a “demesne”. The former landlords could afford to employ gardeners and household staff as they had received, as a group, the equivalent of over €60 billion (in 2019 euro).^[8] Burning country houses from 1919 was therefore largely symbolic, and removed the former landlords’ capital from the Irish economy when they emigrated, as well as ending the employment of thousands of their staff, with an inevitable knock-on effect on local economies. “ (wikipedia)

Bonmahon was not such a peaceful friendly place  in the years of the Great Potato Famine much

of which was blamed on the English.  Negative  comments made in the 1850’s by the local Protestant minister

in Bonmahon, Rev. Doudney. who left  Bonmahon in 1857 nearly triggered  a blood bath but that

could be an exaggeration.   No one seems to have lost their life.  People just moved  on.

Postcard pictures of Bonmahon between 1900 and1920’s.  Mr. and

Mrs.  Kennedy’s home survived but other homes were gone by 1960

END EPISODE 66