Coolkenno History

TERROR FROM A TALE OR TWO - Using the Schools' Collection, I shall post how unfortunate times can remain in people's memories for generations. The following is a story told by old Thomas Donnelly of Knockatomcoyle in 1934. There was a hedge school in a little house near Driver's gate in Knockatomcoyle. The teacher was Nancy Leary. She had 33 three-legged stools for the scholars and it was there all the old people of the whole district got their education. She was a first rate scholar. My father went to school to her. Nancy was a sore teacher: she had an injured thumb with a thick long nail and her usual punishment was to stick the nail into the scholar's ear. Nancy's daughter Betty got married to Andy Broughan - the present Jim's grandfather. Nancy's father was shot at the foot of Seskin Hill on the day that Clonmore and Kilquiggan churches were burned the day after the Battle of Ballyraheen in 1798. They were both thatched buildings. Captain Nixon (Nickson) was shot in Ballyraheen (mistaken for Colonel Nickson, father of the Captain), and the next day for revenge, his son burned the churches. He came onto Kilquiggan and a lot of people had gathered into the church for safety. They thought they were safe there. Nixon set fire to the church and they all inside: they rushed out. He brought them to Wall's (farmers in Kilquiggan) and was going to shoot them when the Wall women got in among them and saved them. He started for Clonmore then and had gathered nine other prisoners. Nancy Leary's father was at that time teaching Nixon the fiddle and he was so great with Nixon he thought he could prevail on him to liberate the prisoners. He went on for that purpose and met them at the foot of Seskin Hill. Let me up to Captain Nixon says he to the soldiers. I don't want to see him, says Nixon, he's as big a rebel as any of them. He nodded his head at the soldiers and they shot him on the spot. Donnelly's story is also backed up by a similar story from James Byrne of Gowle. Be warned, that some of the following tale may be upsetting to readers. I stress to remind the readers that the 1798 Rebellion was a social and religious civil war which saw much bloodshed in this area. However, behind the violent stories, are evident signs of the goodness in human nature. There was Colonel Nixon (Nickson) & Captain Nixon. They lived in Monney (Munny) House where Lawrenson is now. The house has a view of all the country around. There was not a Protestant fellow around Coolkenno, Aghole, Monney, Milesia and all the townlands for miles around but was in the Yeoman Corps and a good few Catholics too. They harassed and raided the houses so much that the men was afraid to sleep in them at night and afraid to work on the land by day. If they were caught in those raids they were drove onto some Loyalist Protestant and if they did not vouch for their good behaviour they shot them. They drove a body of men into Barker's where Murphy's of Knockatomcoyle lives for to vouch for them. The Barkers said they knew them by day but could not account for them by night - and they were all neighbours. They were shot above Mrs. Byrne's on the height. A second batch of ten men was brought with the same result. They are shot in the hollow of the road. One of them named Coady who lived where John Lennon lives now fell amongst them but was not wounded. When the Yeomen had gone a good bit away one of them looked back and saw Coady viewing them. He told the rest of the Yeos about him being alive. One of the Yeos, when he found they were going to turn back to finish him, he cursed by his God that he would soon do away with him, running back, he told Coady to lie quiet and that he would fire but would not hurt him. He fired through the top of his hat and told him to lie low until they would be out of sight. Another batch of men was marched to Wall's of Kilquiggan: two or three women of the Walls went out and got among the men and said they would have to shoot them along with them. They got off. There are more tyrannical folk stories relating to Nickson and his men from that dark period in our history, some of which was passed down to my own generation. We may never know the full extent of what happened in the Coolkenno area in the summer of '98 except slaughter on both sides. May we also remember the group of loyalists who were taken from their families in Coolkenno and Kilquiggan and piked to death by the rebels near the Lakeen. Turbulent times and fortunately different and distant times. May everyone who died mercilessly at the hands of either Nickson's Coolkenna Yeomanry Corps or the Rebel Forces during that bloody summer of 1798 be remembered.