Many phases of the struggle
Roisín de Rossa interviews Bob Kehoe from
Wexford, a Border Campaign veteran who this year marched with the
pike men and women to remember 1798
This year has been an amazing year in County Wexford as hundreds of
pikemen and women have commemorated the part played by their
ancestors in 1798.
History has lived again in every parish as their pike people walked
in the steps of the 30,000 men and women from County Wexford who died
in the revolution 200 years ago, and as they celebrated the struggle
for the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity which inspired the
1798 revolution and generations of republicans since.
In 1798 survivors of the battle at Vinegar Hill and the terrible
slaughter that followed it fought their way north in the hope of
joining their comrades in Antrim. In the 1950s, Bob Kehoe, another
Wexford man, trod in their steps. He was one of a handful of men who
went to Louth to join the fight in the 50s campaign - they were `The
Vinegar Hill Column.'
d at Edentubber this year, Bob returned after 41 years to the site
of the terrible night when his comrades were killed by the bomb they
were preparing in order to attack the brand new automatic telephone
exchange across the border. No one will ever know the horror of that
night wandering on a desolate hillside by the cottage after the
explosions.
Bob Kehoe, who was very sick, was not allowed to go on the operation.
He left the cottage only minutes before the two explosions. Paul
Smith (Bessbrook), Oliver Craven (Newry), and Michael Watters, who
owned the cottage where the bomb was being made up, and Bob's
comrades who had come from Wexford with him - Paddy Parle and George
Keegan - were all killed.*
``Paddy Parle, he was a great fellow - real happy-go-lucky,'' says Bob.
``I was walking out the door. Bit disappointed, d'you know, and I
looked back at him. He quoted Pearse - Pearse was his idol - he was
always quoting him - `Farewell, farewell, beloved land, farewell, the
May dawn breaks the last my eyes should see, Here in my own lovely
land, farewell.' A few minutes later - the blast''.
A man was sent back to Wexford to tell them how all three Wexford men
were dead. It was only later that Bob was discovered. ``They brought
the coffins on a lorry back to Dundalk,'' he says. ``There were crowds
lining the streets, to pay respects in Dundalk, and then afterwards
in Wexford. Thousands came. There was a lot of encouragement from
local people. They along with Dublin had risen in 1916. They knew
their history. They took a great pride in the Wexford men. This year
has revived all that again for Wexford. History has been relived in a
way.''
At this year's Edentubber commemoration Bob laid the wreath at the
memorial. It was a very moving occasion. Local bands played the
beautiful Wexford tunes, Boulavogue, Kelly of Killane, Boys of
Wexford. There were colour parties including the New Women's Colour
party from South Armagh which is so much acclaimed, and marked the
bravery of the women who fought in 1798. There was a guard of honour
for the two Wexford men, Bob and Liam McGarry, a comrade from
Kilmore, and 100 pikemen from all over the county.
``It was an occasion of terrible sadness,'' Beth, Bob's wife, says.
Tears fell as he laid the wreath.
``We'd come up to fight. There was no more about it,'' he says.
Then, with delight and a wink of enjoyment, he says, modestly, ``and
we weren't bad. We concentrated on the communications networks -
knocking out the bridges, the customs posts, had the odd pot at an
RUC man. It was hard to find a Brit around there. We fought with one
hand tied behind our backs. The B-specials were taboo. In fact it
was B-men who were guarding the customs out at Edentubber, so we had
to torch it. But we did a good job on it.''
In December, after the June `56 convention, two men had come down to
Wexford from HQ asking for men to take part in training `at a very
advanced stage', and Bob was the first to volunteer. ``We'd seen what
was happening to the people in the North at the time... And we knew
our history - through the 1948 commemorations - what had been done in
Wexford 1798. I heard Fr. Murphy, PP of Glynn at the time, staunch
republican, always in his black beret, speaking at Bunclody, `We must
continue the struggle begun by our forefathers so that the Tricolour
can float, North and South, East and West'.''
Bob tells how the Irish Press serialised Tom Barry's `Guerrilla Days
in Ireland'. ``We all read it. He was the hero. And Dan Breen's `My
Fight for Irish Freedom' - a great cowboy read. And then there was
the battle of Longstone Road. That inspired all of us.''
Bob, a teenager, joined up, and set about organising the IRA in the
county which had been much weakened by so many republicans joining de
Valera's Fianna Fail and what they still believed to be the
Republican party, and by the repression, the isolation, the
executions, the hunger strikes and terrible prison struggles of the
40s.
However in `56 he was needed in Wexford and had to stay back when the
first Wexford men went up to the border, and it wasn't until the raid
on Gough Barracks, and subsequent arrests, that IRA men were back
down to Wexford asking again for more volunteers `for training at an
advanced stage.'
Eight men went. They were the Vinegar Hill Column: Liam McCarthaigh
(Wexford and Cork), George Keegan (Enniscorthy). Paddy Parle and
Labhras O'Donaile (both from Wexford Town), Bob Kehoe (Galbally),
Paddy Berry (Duncormack), Liam McGarry (South Wexford), Ned Ryan
(Oulart) and Frank Armstrong (Boulavogue). They left Wexford for
active service on the Monaghan and Louth borders.
A young lad from one of the bands came over to Bob at the
commemoration and asked him to come over to them and talk to them. He
remembered his grandfather telling him of those times when the
Wexford men were up to fight in Louth, Down and Armagh.''
At a reception after the commemoration Bob met Lilly Watters,
Michael's sister-in-law. She threw her arms around his neck, ``Why had
it to take 41 years to meet,'' she said.
She presented him with an old bottle of stout. ``It is God's will that
you have it,'' she said. Only two things were recovered from the
house, the bottle and a first communion picture of Michael's niece,
who was also at the commemoration that day.
After the tragedy at Edentubber in November of `57, Bob was
transferred to the Donegal border and was active through Pettigo,
Beleek, until he was arrested at Ballintra in December. He was
sentenced for three and six months consecutive for failure to account
for his movements and IRA membership. ``You, Kehoe,'' spat Judge
Huaigh, ``didn't recognise the court. For that I sentence you to six
months.''
Bob landed into Mountjoy on 17 December, 41 years ago today. He was
three stone underweight, and on his second morning there was refused
the special grub of a pint of milk and porridge that the Republican
prisoners had won after refusing to eat the prison dinners.
Straightway the OC, Sean Daly, called a meeting. A hunger strike was
agreed, and four volunteered: Willie Gleeson, Sean Daly, Jim Coyle
and Bob Kehoe.
By January of the new year, Bob got a septic throat. He refused to go
to hospital. The Governor buckled and went to the Minister of Justice
to inform him that he would not take responsibility for the men, and
in particular for Kehoe who, without treatment, was going to die. The
Governor returned to the jail and reported back to OC Daly what he
had won for them - more than what the republican prisoners had
demanded! The prisoners were then separated to D-Wing with political
recognition.
Immediately in D-wing they began to cut their way out, ``using a
surgeon's saw which had great teeth and could handle the pine wood
floor,'' says Bob. Sadly the escape was foiled - by an informer.
However Bob was not long in attempting another escape, which again
very nearly succeeded - the grappling hook, thrown over the wall,
landed well at the feet of two great cumann na mBan women, there to
enable the escape, but was just four inches short to grip the wall,
and the screws landed on the assembled escapees. A hard hand-to-hand
fight ensued with the screws - a few got broken ribs. Bob lost his
teeth with a baton blow across the face.
In September `58, Bob was transferred from the Joy to the Curragh
where Republicans were interned. A soldier's first duty is to escape
and he hadn't been long in the Curragh before on 2 December, 19 men
escaped through and over the wire. 16 got away.
One of the men who escaped with Bob that time was Seosamh
O'Cuinneagain, an old comrade of his from Enniscorthy - ``he was in
the lead as we ran over the Curragh''. Loyal to the last to his fellow
Wexford men, Bob said he was not going on the escape unless Seosamh
came too.
``Seosamh had been a marvellous organiser in the county. There was at
the time a Sinn Fein cumann in almost every parish. They sold several
hundred copies of their paper in the county. People would say, as the
paper sellers came round, `we've our man up there, you know.' They
were very proud of us.''
On the way back from Edentubber on the bus, Beth noticed a pikeman
who appeared distraught. She asked him what was troubling him. ``I am
ashamed to be on this bus,'' he said, ``so ashamed. I helped to put the
wire up round that man [Bob]''.
``I felt so sorry for him,'' she said.
Bob spoke at the reception after the commemoration of `the several
phases' in the fight for freedom. There was 1918 after the 1916
executions, when Sinn Fein won an overall majority and set up the
First Dail. ``We were young, inexperienced in the 50s, yet we had four
TDs elected in `57. We now have two MPs and one TD. There is no
reason why the men and women of the present day can't do what our
forefathers did in 1918. They can do it if they put their shoulders
to the wheel, now,'' he said.
At one of the first `98 commemorations this year in Wexford, in
Horetown Cemetery, Bob recalls, a Protestant minister, the Rev.
Norman Ruddock, said in his address, ``It took 40 years to get rid of
the border between East and West Germany, yet we have failed to get
rid of an artificial border in 200 years. I can't understand why we
can't march as one to Wolfe Tone's grave in Bodenstown and reclaim
our Irish Nation.''
Bob says we should go there next year. He says the Reverend's words
were never referred to anywhere in the media. He wasn't asked to
speak again. Buried in Norman Ruddock's graveyard at Killurin are
Anne Flood who killed a Hessian captain and Matthew Furlong, who had
been adjutant to Bagenal Harvey and was shot down at New Ross, as he
carried the flag of truce.
``But there were people who didn't want to hear a Protestant minister
say this, and at the same time, they would say it was sectarian to
commemorate the men and women of the 1798 revolution; politicians,
like Seamus Brennan, who advised Wexford to keep the `pike in the
thatch' in this year's commemorations; those who feared a
democratically elected Senate in Wexford, who wanted to make sure it
ended in December 1998; those who feared to take part as pikepeople
when Gerry Adams came to the Vinegar Hill Commemoration in February,
who said it was too `political'. What did they think 1798 was all
about? But these people are slowly being isolated as people get to
know their history again.''
Bob recalls going to commemorations for the 150th anniversary of `98
with his father. ``I didn't get to them all. I didn't have a bike of
my own in those days. But the commemorations this year were better,''
he says. ``In 1948 the commemorations concentrated very much on the
leaders, this time it was on the ordinary people.''
The Carrigbyrne pikegroup was the first group formed for the 200th
anniversary. ``We started organising in 1997. We had over 200 pikemen
and women, sometimes 300, drawn from 16 parishes in the County and
organised by Bill Murray. An FCA man trained us. It has been great.
We made the documentaries of the 1798 Rising (for RTE, TnaG and BBC).
``People came in their droves to Dublin. There were 2000, from all
over Ireland marching that day. The Comoradh Committee wanted to
close it all down by 6 December. How can they close it down? You
can't close history down.''
Which of the `78 commemorations meant most to them this year?
``Oulart, I think, apart of course from Bodenstown. It was after all a
victory, and we hadn't a flurry of politicians there that time. They
want to keep the political arena to themselves, to isolate us
outside. We've a real chance to change all that now with the [local]
elections coming up,'' Bob says. ``This year has brought a lot of
pride into the county - it has focused people on their history and
what was done to the people, and what has gone on in the north over
30 years.
``The men who broke out after Vinegar Hill who went North. Sure we
just did the same.''
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