since the period of charles lever, no book of irish life has equalled ‘some experiences of an irish r.m.’ in successfully portraying the character or “chat” of the true western peasant; but, at the same time, this book only shows the social side of a resident magistrate’s life, and hardly does justice to his work in the wild parts of the south and west.
and of recent years the life led by resident magistrates has become more and more dangerous as the country became more and more unsettled. a d.i. can always take an escort with him, also he can go where and when he pleases; but an r.m. has to drive alone about the country, and, moreover, every one knows that at a certain hour on a certain day the r.m. will drive to a certain petty sessions court, and after the court is over he must drive home, though possibly by a different road. it is one thing to face death with half a score of rifles at your back, and quite a different tale unarmed and alone.
soon after blake came to ballybor, the 70r.m. stationed there retired on pension, and in his place there came a young man, anthony mayne, who had served with distinction in an irish regiment during the war. being unmarried, mayne took up his quarters in a small hotel close to the police barracks, and in a short time struck up a friendship with blake.
in addition to attending at ballybor petty sessions once a week, mayne had to go to several other small towns twice a month. the district was very large, chiefly wild mountainous country, and some of the places were many miles from ballybor, one place in particular, ballyrick, being over thirty miles away on the shores of the atlantic.
the first court which mayne attended happened to be at ballyrick, probably one of the wildest and most thinly populated districts in ireland. soon after leaving ballybor the road crossed a railway line by a level crossing close to the sea, and then ran for many miles between the sea and a chain of mountains to the small seaside town of ballyrick.
mayne found that the people of this district were a race of small men; they looked as though the terrific atlantic gales had stunted them in the same way as the trees are stunted on this coast, and, moreover, their faces were not pleasing. during his first court here the nature of the cases showed plainly that the chief amusement of the peasants was to beat and batter each other on all opportunities, especially on dark nights after a fair, and the distillation of illicit whisky their chief occupation.
71in ireland the penalty for harbouring, keeping, or concealing a still or illicit spirits is ￡100, which can be mitigated to ￡6, luckily no lower; and from time immemorial the custom of the shopkeeper class of magistrate has always been to reduce every fine to the minimum, with the natural result that the peasants have come to regard the ￡6 fine as the legal penalty for the bad luck of being caught by the police. ￡6 is a mere fraction of the profits of a successful brew of poteen, and is looked upon in the light of a tax paid to the government.
in one case a man was caught red-handed by the police with fourteen barrels of treacle, 200 gallons of wash, a complete still, and enough poteen to stock a fair-sized public-house. the man brought the ￡6 into court with him, being certain he would be convicted and fined the usual amount.
but mayne, the only magistrate on the bench, took a very serious view of the case, knowing the amount of crime and misery caused by this abominable drink, and fined the man ￡50.
such a sentence had never been heard in ballyrick court-house within the memory of man; even the police received a shock, and a noise resembling a swarm of angry bees arose to defy the shouts of the police for silence and order. that evening, when mayne returned to ballybor, he was followed by a police car for many miles, but the peasants had not had time to organise their revenge.
about this time the magistrates of the district 72received letters from the i.r.a. calling upon them to resign their commissions of the peace, and giving them a time limit. the shopkeeper and farmer class, being threatened with that savage scourge in ireland, a boycott, had no alternative but to resign, which they did at once with great promptness and unanimity. in most cases the gentry hung on to their commissions, but refrained from appearing on the bench at a time when their presence might have made all the difference.
very soon the sinn fein courts in the ballybor district were in full swing; the country people received orders not to appear at a petty sessions court, and in a very short time every petty sessions clerk found himself completely idle. however, as a matter of form, mayne attended every court regularly, though the only people present were the police, the clerk, and himself, and their only work to say good-day to each other.
by now all the magistrates in the district had either resigned or feared to attend, and if only the r.m. could be frightened out of the country or removed, all petty sessions courts would be closed, and the king’s writ would cease to run in the country both figuratively and in reality. with this end in view, the volunteers began to send threatening letters to mayne, and on two occasions he was fired at when motoring back from holding courts in outlying towns.
however, mayne was made of the right stuff, and determined that as long as he was alive 73the usual courts should be held throughout his district, no matter whether the people brought their cases to the king’s courts or to the sinn fein courts, which were generally held the day before a petty sessions court was due in a town; and in order to provide cases he arranged with blake to carry out a poteen raid on a large scale in the ballyrick district, and that the cases should be tried at the next court there. blake duly carried out the raid, which was most successful, and the defendants were summoned to appear in court, with the threat of arrest held over their heads if they did not turn up.
on the day of the ballyrick court mayne set out, alone as usual, on his long drive about 9.45 a.m., and on reaching the level crossing found the gates closed, though no train was due to pass for several hours. after sounding his horn in vain, he went to open them himself, only to find that both gates were heavily padlocked.
he then made his way to the crossing-keeper’s house, which was about fifty yards up the line. the man’s wife, who was the only occupant of the house, told him that the gates had been locked that morning by the volunteers, after the police cars had passed through, and the keys taken away. determined not to be beaten, mayne now got a heavy stone, and had actually succeeded in smashing the padlock on the near gate, when he was shot in the head from behind, and at once collapsed on the road.
74during the late war extraordinary cases were known of men shot through the head, even through the brain, living for hours afterwards, though generally unable to speak; and mayne, though paralysed, was quite conscious when his murderers came up to where he was lying.
for some time the murderers argued whether they should finish him off, or remove him as he was. in the end they put him into his own car, unlocked the far gate, and drove off in the direction of ballyrick.
after proceeding about a mile they came to a lane, which led up to a lonely farm close to the sea. after driving up to the farm they threw mayne—still alive and conscious—on to a manure heap at the back of the farmhouse, and then drove off. it was afterwards found that they then took the car to a high cliff and ran it over the edge, to be broken up on the rocks below in the sea.
mayne spent the rest of that day lying on the manure heap, and so terrorised were the inhabitants of the farm that not one of them dared go near him. to give poor mayne even a cup of cold water would have meant certain death to the giver.
late that evening the murderers returned, expecting to find mayne dead by now; but he was still alive, though in a pitiable state. again they argued among themselves whether they would finish him off or not, and again for some unknown reason they decided not to. and these are the men who, according to an 75english paper (thank god! not an irish one), are “entitled to the treatment which, in civilised countries, is given to prisoners of war.”
after some time an ass was harnessed to a cart, into which they threw mayne’s body, and then proceeded to the seashore below the farm. here, after another discussion, they buried him—still alive, though quite paralysed—up to his neck in the sand, at a place where they thought the incoming tide would just reach him and slowly drown him during the night-time. it was now several hours since mayne had been shot, and one can only hope that, though he was still alive, his senses had become numbed.
the following morning these fiends returned again to find that they had miscalculated the height of the tide, which had only reached the level of poor mayne’s chin, and that he was still alive, though probably by now quite mad. they then dug him up, and this time made no mistake, but buried him where the tide was bound to drown him. and the next flood tide put an end to a torture the like of which lenin and trotsky could hardly exceed for sheer malignant devilry.
blake and a strong escort of police had motored out to ballyrick ahead of mayne, in case there might be an ambush on the road. the court was due to begin at twelve, and when by two there was no sign of the r.m., blake left for ballybor, making inquiries on the way, but could get no tidings of him anywhere.
76on arriving in ballybor, blake wired for a force of auxiliaries, who arrived that night, and at once started with blake and a strong force of r.i.c. to hunt the countryside for mayne; but nowadays in ireland, so dangerous is it for any civilian to be seen speaking to a policeman, that it is always quite impossible to obtain any direct information. people who had seen mayne set out on his last ill-fated drive denied that they even knew him by sight.
for three days and three nights they scoured the countryside from ballybor to ballyrick, and from ballyrick back again to ballybor, but no clue or tidings of mayne could they get. from the time mayne left ballybor, r.m. and car seemed to have disappeared as though the earth had opened and swallowed them.
as there was no evidence of foul play, the police hoped that the r.m. had been kidnapped and hidden away in the mountains to the east of ballyrick. so they posted notices throughout the district to the effect that, if the r.m. was returned in two days all would be well, but if not——
at the end of the two days’ grace a man, who said he kept the railway crossing on the road to ballyrick, arrived on a bicycle at the barracks ashen with fear, and asked to see blake. on hearing the man’s story, blake went out to the level crossing and there found poor mayne’s body in a rough wooden box, lying on the side of the line. the cause of 77death appeared obvious; but they were greatly puzzled to find the clothes soaked with sea-water and full of sand, and to hear from the doctor who examined the body that death was due to—drowning.
the level-crossing man was detained at the barracks, and every means was taken to extract information from him; but he denied all knowledge of the murder, and proved an alibi to blake’s satisfaction.
the police spent the next fortnight searching in vain for mayne’s murderers, and it is probable that, but for a curious trait in the peasant’s character, they would never have solved the mystery.
late one evening, about three weeks after the murder, a typical ballyrick peasant arrived at the barracks in ballybor and asked to see the d.i., and refused to state his business except to the d.i. luckily the police decided to admit the man, and he was led off to blake’s office.
when he was brought in blake was up to his eyes in official correspondence, with the prospect of an all-night sitting before him; but hoping that the man might have news of mayne, he ordered the police to leave the man alone with him, and then waited for him to tell his news.
if a western peasant has a favour to ask or a confession to make, he will talk of everything and everybody except the object of his visit, possibly for an hour and probably for two, and will generally not come to the point 78until he is preparing to leave. the length of time required to extract the necessary information depends entirely on the skill of the interviewer.
blake’s visitor was no exception to this rule, and many an englishman, cleverer than blake, would have made the mistake of hurrying his man, which is always fatal; and even blake’s patience was nearly exhausted before he made his confession.
whether the man’s confession was genuine, or whether he hoped to save his skin by turning informer is not quite clear; but at any rate he confessed to blake that he and five other men had murdered mayne at the level crossing, gave the full details of one of the worst atrocities which has ever been committed in ireland, and stated as his only reason for confessing that he had not been able to sleep since the murder.
