Roslea remembers its martyrs
by Laura Friel
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They rose in dark and evil days
to right their native land
d kindled here a living flame
That nothing can withstand.
Memeorial in St. Tierney's graveyard
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We arrive there suddenly, after an hour of searching, driving
through the winding roadways of this most eastern edge of rural
Fermanagh. A sharp curve in the road and then unexpectedly we are
there. A monument to Fergal O'Hanlon and Sean South lies at the
crossroads where they died. The green of native deciduous
woodlands, offset by a more recent addition of grey pine
forestry, overshadows the spot. The sky is overcast. At the
crossroads signposts to Fivemiletown, Brookeborough and Roslea
tell us we are six miles from anywhere. In such a deserted place
the repetition of six, six, six adds to our sense of foreboding.
On New Year's Eve 1957, a unit of twelve IRA Volunteers crossed
the border into County Fermanagh to launch an audacious attack on
an RUC/B Specials barracks in Brookeborough. During the ensuing
gun battle, a number of Volunteers were injured, two fatally.
Fergal O'Hanlon and Sean South died of their wounds as the unit
made its escape.
New memorial Roll of Honour
John Treanor 24.April.1797
Bernard McMahon 12.October.1797
Patrick Smyth 12.October.1797
John Connolly 12.October.1797
Connie Green 26.November.1955
Tony Ahern 10.May.1973
Seamus McElwain 26.April.1986
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At a crossroads the bodies of the two dead Volunteers were
carried by their comrades into an old sandstone barn. After it
was demolished by a British army jeep, stone from the barn was
used to build a memorial at the site. As we stop to photograph
the monument, a shaft of sunlight breaks through the cloud.
Suddenly what seemed remote is only secluded; what was lonely,
now merely tranquil.
The nationalist village of Roslea stands on a loop in the River
Finn. Its name reflects its location. In the early 17th century
land owned by the Rooney family was allotted to an English
overlord William Flowerdew, who renamed the Irish settlement
Roslea, or grey peninsula. Today, almost four centuries later,
British occupation remains a predominant feature in the lives of
the villagers. A nationalist enclave, cut off from its natural
hinterland since partition, Roslea is surrounded by British
military installations. The high watchtower of Roslea RUC
barracks stands over the village's main street. In either
direction the skyline is dominated by British army barracks, the
hilltop fort of Killavilla to the east and border checkpoint of
Annaghmartin along the Monaghan Road to the south east.
While British army patrols have been withdrawn from the streets
of Belfast, there has been no reduction in the Crown force
activity in Roslea. Indeed, local people complain of an increase
in harassment in recent weeks, an allegation borne out by the
fact that there have been three recent attempts to entrap young
people in the area into acting as informers. The most serious
involved a young man thumbing a lift who, during a sixty mile
drive, was approached by a member of British Military
Intelligence.
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The weeping willow drooped its leaves,
the tree bowed it's head
d nature fashioned floral wreaths
O're Ireland's martyred dead.
from The Martyrs of Roslea
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In the heart of the village, the atmosphere reflects a caution
evoked by constant military surveillance. Prefering to hurry
about their daily business, few people stop to chat, leaving the
main thoroughfare unusually quiet. Strangers taking photographs
provokes no curiosity. It simply clears the street.
Next Sunday, 11 October the people of Roslea will be remembering
their martyrs with the unveiling of a new memorial in the
village. The monument, which has been erected to mark the
Bicentenary of the 1798 Rebellion, commemorates a continuity of
resistance witnessed in Roslea from the United Irishmen, to the
border campaign of the 1950s through to the current phase of
struggle. Accompanied by several bands - two local and three
travelling from Cork - as well as a company of pikemen and women,
the commemoration is to assemble at Errasallagh crossroads for a
five mile walk into the village for the unveiling ceremony. Last
year, a parade to mark the 200th anniversary of three local
United Irishmen who were sentenced to death by hanging in
Enniskillen Assizes in October 1797, was attacked by loyalists.
The ranks of loyalists from Fermanagh were swollen by loyalists
bused in from Ballymena and Portadown, amongst them Joel Patten
of the Spirit of Drumcree, and Dunloy Orange Order representaive
John Finlay. Despite the decision by the parade's organisers to
voluntarily reroute, 500 loyalists fought pitched battles with
the RUC for several hours.
Ironically, the same people who objected so strongly to a
re-enactment parade marking the bicentenary of the Roslea Martyrs
continue to assert the right of loyalists to march through Roslea
in the name of two local members of the Black and Tans who led a
pogrom against the village in the early 1920s. In an orgy of
sectarian violence the Black and Tans set fire to house after
house, razing the entire village to the ground and forcing its
Catholic inhabitants to flee, some never to return.
One member of the raiding party was shot dead. As the soldier
battered the priest's door with the butt of his rifle, so the
story is told, the weapon went off, fatally wounding him with a
gunshot to his stomach. A photograph in a volume of Roslea's
historial journal shows the extent of the destruction visited on
the village by the Black and Tans that night. The image shows a
row of terrace cottages, without roofs, windows or doors, with
only the stone shells of the fire-gutted buildings remaining.
Amongst the ruins sits three former inhabitants, their eyes
straight to camera, resolutely proclaiming their right of
residency.
Eighty years later and the `local' chapter of the Royal Black
Preceptory, still bears the name of the two local members of the
Black and Tans militia who led the attack on Roslea, Gordon and
Nixon. Every August after their main County parade, fifty to
sixty members of the Royal Blacks travel to Roslea for a parade
and gathering at the Orange Hall which is located at the edge of
the village. Despite the fact that no members of the Gordon and
Nixon Preceptory actually live locally, the practice of allowing
the sons and grandsons of former loyalist residents of an area to
retain the chapter means loyalists who have only the most tenuous
connection with Roslea annually assert their `right' to march
through the village. To the residents, this practice is not
merely inappropriate but an exercise in ritual sectarianism. In
1996, the people of Roslea decided enough was enough. Residents
blocked the main thoroughfare forcing the RUC to reroute the
loyalist parade. The parade was blocked again in 1997. This year
a ruling in favour of the residents by the Parades Commission
ensured the village remained free from sectarian harasssment for
another year.
There are a great number of Protestants and Orangemen who
employed Roman Catholics. He [Sir Basil Brooke, later Viscount
Brookeborough] felt he could speak freely on the subject as he
had not a Roman Catholic about his own place...He would appeal to
loyalists, therefore, wherever possible to employ good Protestant
lads and lassies.
Fermanagh Times August 1933
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It was just before dawn on the morning of 26 May 1986, when two
IRA Volunteers made their way across fields in the townland of
Mullaghglass. Seamus McElwaine, although only 26 years of age,
was a veteren of ten years standing. One of 38 Republicans to
escape from Long Kesh in 1983, McElwaine had successfully evaded
recapture while operating along the border. His comrade Sean
Lynch from Baltreagh, Lisnaskea was equally experienced. As the
two men climbed over a fence, Seamus spoke of a sense of
foreboding. A split second later and there was a burst of
sustained gunfire. Seriously wounded, Sean Lynch literally ran
for his life. Obscured by undergrowth, less than a hundred yards
from the SAS killing zone, Sean was bleeding profusely. In the
field, seriously injured Seamus McElwaine was being interrogated
by his British captors. The denim-clad assassination squad
questioned their prisoner for half an hour before shooting
McElwaine in the head. Today a small circular plaque, nailed high
on a telegraph pole, overlooks the field where the last IRA
Volunteer to die in Fermanagh, Seamus McElwaine, was executed.
The now notorious comments of Stormont Minister (later Prime
Minister) Sir Basil Brooke, Viscount Brookeborough in which he
exalted sectarian employment practices, boasting he himself
employed no Catholics and imploring all true loyalists to follow
his example, is often quoted in accounts of the Civil Rights
Movement. Brookeborough's words appear to belong to another era
when sectarian attitudes and practices were as blatantly
advocated as racist segregation was promoted by the white
supremacists of the US's southern states. Yet recent events in
the Greater Roslea area suggest anti-Catholic sectarianism is not
only alive today but kicking.
A dispute over the employment of two Catholic catering staff in
kitchens attached to a local Protestant primary school is a sad
reminder that twenty years after the Civil Rights Movement,
sectarianism hasn't gone away. There are three primary schools in
the rural parish of Aghedrumsee, two Catholic and one Protestant.
This summer catering services were amalgamated and Aghedrumsee
Primary now provides dinners for all three schools. When two
Catholic women arrived to take up their appointments in the
kitchen, they were met by a placard waving picket of parents
opposed to their employment in the school. There is a long
history of sectarian discrimination in employment in County
Fermanagh. In the Roslea area, economic stagnation imposed with
partition is exacerbated by a legacy of sectarian allocation of
employment north of the border.
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The Nationalist majority in the county, ie Fermanagh
notwithstanding a reduction of 366 in the year, stands at 3,684.
We must ultimately reduce and liquidate that majority. This
county, I think it can be safely said, is a Unionist county. The
atmosphere is Unionist. The Boards and properties are nearly all
controlled by Unionists. But there is still this millstone around
our necks.
EC Ferguson MP, later Crown Solicitor for Fermanagh, Irish News
April 1948.
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It had been a long and arduous journey, at night, on foot and
bearing the coffins of their three dead comrades, Bernard
McMahon, Patrick Smyth and John Connolly. Twenty miles of winding
roadways from Enniskillen Assizes, across the mountains of
Slievebeagh to the Catholic churchyard at Roslea. United Irishmen
sentenced to death on the word of an informer for their part in
an arms raid, the three young men died bravely, refusing to trade
information for clemency. As the funeral procession approached
Cranmore they were met by several thousand men, carrying burning
torches and marching in military order. Such a massive show of
strength by the United Irishmen must have appeared as an
auspicious sign for the coming Rebellion. But the three hangings
in Enniskillen were only the beginning of bloody and brutal
repression by government troops in the County. In St Tierney's
graveyard, the original graves of two of the three men still
remain marked. Amongst the graves and beside a monument to the
United Irishmen erected in 1947 stands a weeping willow. Bowed
but unbroken the tree has became a living acknowledgement not
only of loss but also renewal.
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