Galway In Days Gone By

1921

Connemara shootout

Constable Pearson, R.I.C., Maam, Connemara, was shot through the right lung and liver during an ambush at Screebe at four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon.

He was one of a cycling party of six policemen who left Maam at one p.m. for the purpose of serving jurors’ notices and distributing old age pension money in the Rossmuck district.

On their return the sergeant and Constable Feeley were cycling in front, and the four other constables some distance behind. As they approached the little church at Screebe, shots rang out from the thicket.

The sergeant immediately rolled off his bicycle and rolled towards the ditch in the roadside for cover. He was followed immediately by Constable Feeley. Both policemen found themselves in the hands of the ambushers, who secured their revolvers and about twenty-five pounds in money which the sergeant carried.

Almost at the same moment, the four policemen who followed at a distance of 150 yards dismounted, and opened fire with their rifles. Shots were fired in return and Constable Pearson fell wounded.

The four policemen, including the wounded constable, made their way back to Screebe Lodge, nearby – where, it will be recalled, Lady Dudley was drowned last summer – taking with them their bicycles and arms.

The sergeant and Constable Feeley were later released uninjured. Constable Pearson was attended to by Dr. Kennedy O’Brien, Oughterard, and subsequently Surgeon Ml. O’Malley, Galway, was brought to the scene. He found that the bullet had gone right through the injured man’s lung and liver, and passed out at the back. He entertains hopes of recovery.

Reprisals

Following the ambush there was considerable activity of Crown Forces. Five houses in the district are reported to have been burned.

These include a house at the back of the thicket where the ambush took place, and the co-operative store at Camus, about a mile distant. An unconfirmed report states that the house in which Mr. Pádraic Pearse formerly resided at Turlough, and that of Mr. Conroy, National Teacher, have also been destroyed by fire. The district is barren and impoverished, consisting mostly of rocks and fishing lakes, and the thicket at Screebe is practically the only area of woodland in the neighbourhood.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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