Market day in Plan de Sanchez

 Sunday 18 July was the day of Plan de Sanchez’s weekly market that attracted visitors from other villages and the surrounding countryside. Early in the morning other visitors appeared on the scene: uniformed soldiers accompanied by men from the Self-Defence patrols (PAC). Forstly they fired two artillery rounds at the villagers, causing sever panic and several injuries. They then proceeded to rough up the village’s inhabitants and to carry out house-to-house searches. Then, in the afternoon, an ominous event occurred when they sealed off the village, preventing anyone from entering, or more important, from leaving. The villagers were collected and the young girls were separated and moved to a house in the village. Here they were interrogated, abused, beaten, raped and finally killed. Meanwhile the remaining villagers were housed separately. The older inhabitants were subjected to intensive physical beatings, after which they were killed. These obscene salami tactics continued with the separation of the young children and even babies as young as nine months old from their parents.  The soldiers did not think them worth a bullet; instead they either had their heads bashed in with rifle butts or they were swung against the ground with such force that their skulls cracked. The only ones left were the women and such men as had not fled from the village. A grenade was thrown in to the house where they were packed. The explosion started a fire, but just to make sure no one got out, the house was surrounded and sprayed repeatedly with automatic fire. Anyone who attempted to leave the village was shot. The visitors eventually left before midnight, having murdered at least 268 people.

 Identification and burial

 The next day those who had fled from the village, as well as the handful who had managed to conceal themselves or escape the killing returned. It was impossible to identify the bodies of the burnt. Many had already been partly eaten by dogs and other wild animals. In the afternoon the visitors returned. They forced the villagers they found there at gun point to hastily dig eight graves into which the victims were piled. Surprisingly, these witnesses of the atrocity were not killed; they were only threatened with death. Any houses that had not been consumed by the flames were ransacked and then set on fire.

A code of enforced silence

The soldiers left the field of carnage and lust they had created, though they threatened the survivors that they would suffer dreadful reprisals if they spoke of the events. Then they left, followed gradually by the survivors who left Plan de Sanchez a smoking ruin, suffused with the stench of burning flesh. In subsequent years a handful of the villagers drifted back and the military allowed them to resettle, on condition that they maintained their silence and joined the Self-Defence patrols.

 The search for justice thwarted

 It is difficult to conceal horrid feats. It took ten years, and the return of Guatemala to a form of civilian rule, (though under military tutelage) before attempts were made to launch a criminal investigation. These came to nothing, as witnesses were often intimidated or killed, while the Guatemalan judiciary showed a marked lack of appetite to pursue justice. In 1996 came the formal end of the hostilities that led to the massacre. Unfortunately, one of the terms demanded by the military before they’d agree to a peace settlement was a blanket amnesty for their misdeeds.

 A glimmer of hope

 In 2000 the then president of Guatemala Alfonso Portillo admitted government involvement and promised to pay relatives of the survivors compensation, but still the Guatemalan courts or police refused to get involved. 

Alvaro Colom

The election of the centre-left Alvaro Colom as president in 2008 ushered in a new willingness to address the problem of justice delayed being justice denied. The two men arrested are Lucas Tecu, military commisioner in the region when the massacre occurred and three PAC members Mario Julian Acoj, Eusebio Grave Galeano and Santos Rosales Garcia.  This is a start, but the overall responsibility for the events of that day in July n nearly thirty years’ ago include far more people, not all of them present in the village.

 The beginning or the end?

 These arrests are a start, but one worries that they may mark the end of the search for justice. President Colom’s term is coming to an end. His likely successor is Retired General Otto Perez Medina.  Guatemala

Perez Medina

 is a country racked by violent crime, much of it drug related (and some carried out by former members of the security forces who have found peace and lack of impunity for their crimes not to their liking), Retired General Perez promises to strike hard at criminals. Only a fool would believe he will fail to protect some of his former colleagues, especially if a full inquiry into past crimes were to reveal just how deeply the Guatemalan army is dyed with the blood of the innocent.

Some are calling Kenny’s tirade against Vatican interference in Ireland’s affairs a historic moment in the history of church and state. Certainly there are few – but they exist – who would disagree with the Prime Minister of a so-called liberal democracy castigating a state founded by a fascist government, which is ruled by old men and where there is no pretence of democracy which has sought to undermine efforts to protect his citizens from acts of sexual abuse. But, and there is a big but, why has it taken so long for an Irish government to get touch with the Vatican? The crimes of commission by a handful of priests and the crimes of omission committed by their bishops who protected them or moved them to locations where they could continue their foul deeds, have been known about by the dogs in the street for decades. It would only be a radical lefty with no hope of getting anywhere in Irish politics who would have given voice to such “slanders” against the church. The former bishop of Kilmore Dr Francis McKiernan, was never in any doubt that secular authority was always subservient to religious authority, and I don’t think he was unique amongst the Irish hierarchy in this.

 But there is one other aspect of Kenny’s speech which renders it more hypocritical. The Catholic Church, quite rightly, must be condemned for what it has done. If we were to believe Kenny it is the church and it alone who is at fault. What about the state authorities, the police, the health boards etc. who were also aware of what was going on, and who did sweet FA about it? Another area of deafening silence (excuse the cliché, but when talking of dishonesty I feel it is the most appropriate language) is that child abuse is continuing in Ireland as I write this, but the worst villains aren’t priests, but agents and employees of the state who work in centres charged with the “care” of young adults and children, or those involved in foster-care. The One-in-Four organisation has alleged that as many as nine out of ten reports of child abuse are not being investigated by the Health Service Authority, while the foster care regime in Dublin has been described as being in crisis, with many fosterers’ backgrounds not being checked.

 Those people who abuse children, the vulnerable, or indeed old people in nursing homes are truly evil, as evil as Josef Fritzl. But there are certain government departments, some of whose staff members are equally evil and cowardly. I sometimes think that such evil is a necessary prerequisite for their promotion. They often have free rein in committing acts of evil against those they believe to be too weak or frightened to defend themselves , and in a climate of economic hardship they can defend any action that saves money – and may very well be rewarded for it. Politicians seem either unable or unwilling to do anything about this. However many members of the church, the many good priests that Diarmuid Martin rightly talks about, are made fully aware of the victimisation of the poor and vulnerable carried on by the state. But no religious person would be allowed to defend them, as their criticisms of government policy would be swiftly swept aside with a remark such as “Who are you to talk?”

There is however a litmus test to Kenny’s sincerity. Does he support a possible Papal visit next year? This would be an opportunity for those elitist and narcissistic elements in the Vatican to come to Ireland, to strut their stuff, maybe to check out “The scene”. It would also be an opportunity for those whom Diarmuid Martin rightly refers to as a “cabal” within the Vatican and the Irish hierarchy to be rewarded for protecting child abusers. But there is one very practical reason why it should not go ahead. We can’t afford it.

 Such an epithet truly belongs to Tom Barron, but given the quiet, self-effacing nature of the man he would have been perhaps the first to reject it as misapplied. His intellect was enormous, allowing him to see far beyond the narrow, artificial constructs imposed on him by pseudo-academia and their mercenary foot soldiers. If I may transcribe Sir Issac Newton. He once wrote that if he had seen  further it was because he had been privileged to stand on the shoulders of giants. Tom Barron surely did stand on giants’ shoulders,; the shoulders of the common people of Knockbride and Bailieborough, for so long despised (even to this day. He was possessed of the perspicacious eyesight of an intellectual giants and there were few giants who could have stood taller.

 As is so often the case in Co. Cavan, there are the detractors, those who are not and never were entitled to tie his shoelaces, who have attempted with their habitual cowardice to besmirch him and his reputation, even though he cannot defend himself from his tomb. I know that I can trust Jonathan to do Thomas Barron’s memory prou.

One of the most egregious examples of the way in which the achievements of Cavan’s disabled have been rubbished came last March. The National Council for the Blind, the largest Irish charity working for the benefits of blind and partially sighted people in the country, wanted to hold a meeting in Cavan’s County Library, run by Cavan County Council. They were encouraged to organise a talk on “local history”. However, they didn’t turn to the partially-sighted holder of a PhD in history in their midst, someone who had years of experience as a writer and lecturer on the subject, (myself) but to the council’s dream-boy Dr Brendan Scott, son of Councillor John Scott of Belturbet. Unfortunately the NCBI’s organiser here in Cavan, Ms Helena McDonald, did not realise how she was being set up, and I didn’t realise what was happening until I received an invitation to the event, featuring the aforementioned Scott as “special guest”. Alas Dr Scott, though holding a doctorate in history, is such a craven example of humanity that he felt it was but one more occasion for him to humiliate me and to repay me for the “trouble” that had existed between me and the museum (though before his time), that he jumped at the occasion to give a talk on Cavan’s “Franciscan abbey” (wherever that was). He accepted this invitation so as to rub in my disability to me and at the same time to say that, even though I had a doctorate and considerable experience as a historian, he stood higher amongst the miserable scum of Cavan Co. Council’s establishment. Years of experience has shown that many of the greatest academics are not people you’d willingly associate with, but I wonder do Dr Scott’s colleagues realise what a craven piece of excrement he is? I’ve never met him but since his appointment to Cavan’s County Museum he has pursued a vendetta against me, something in which he has been aided by many in the county council’s executive, including its highest members.

 Now I had thought of Cavan County Library as a home-away-from-home and its ever-helpful staff as friends. I had enjoyed carrying out research there. Sadly, one of the other users of the library did not feel I belonged there, and complained of my whispering into my hand-held tape-recorder. I do not know the identity of my accuser, but I think I’d be able to pick him out in an identity parade. Libraries can be noisy places, yet I ensure that I do not add to the existing background noise level in any way. It was quite clear that I was a wheelchair user and that I needed to use a low-vision aid in order to read text, but a fellow human being responded to my plight not by seeing whether he could help me in any way, or even ignore me, but by making a complaint that I was causing a disturbance. I can assure my readers that my whispers were less loud than the noise made by him and his troupe of hangers-on, who seemed to think that they owned the library’s research area and to resent the presence of strangers there. This was disturbing, but more disturbing was the fact that the library authorities took these vexatious complaints on board. This was enough for me to be banished from the library to the eyrie of the Genealogical Office that has a rather disturbing view over the County Council car park, and it can only be reached by a rather narrow and awkward lift. I was rather embarrassed when I was told of my fate, for no matter how justified I personally felt it was as if I were a schoolboy who had been caught out picking my nose during Morning Assembly. My non-presence ion the public parts of the library frees the county library of the obviously too distressing visage of a partially sighted library user. How capricious is Father Time. I have in my possession a photograph from the Anglo-Celt from a number of years ago, showing me using a piece of magnification equipment in the main body of the old library. I am obviously an inappropriate fixture of the newer library.

 (Let me add that I do not blame the rank-and-file of the library’s staff for this sea change in my fortunes. I feel that this has come from higher up, and from those who do not like being called “Whacko Jacko”. Let me assure him that this epithet is mild compared to the one I feel he is more entitled to.)

 Now I had thought of Cavan County Library as a home-away-from-home and its ever-helpful staff as friends. I had enjoyed carrying out research there. Sadly, one of the other users of the library did not feel I belonged there, and complained of my whispering into my hand-held tape-recorder. I do not know the identity of my accuser, but I think I’d be able to pick him out in an identity parade. Libraries can be noisy places, yet I ensure that I do not add to the existing background noise level in any way. It was quite clear that I was a wheelchair user and that I needed to use a low-vision aid in order to read text, but a fellow human being responded to my plight not by seeing whether he could help me in any way, or even ignore me, but by making a complaint that I was causing a disturbance. I can assure my readers that my whispers were less loud than the noise made by him and his troupe of hangers-on, who seemed to think that they owned the library’s research area and to resent the presence of strangers there. This was disturbing, but more disturbing was the fact that the library authorities took these vexatious complaints on board. This was enough for me to be banished from the library to the eyrie of the Genealogical Office that has a rather disturbing view over the County Council car park, and it can only be reached by a rather narrow and awkward lift. I was rather embarrassed when I was told of my fate, for no matter how justified I personally felt it was as if I were a schoolboy who had been caught out picking my nose during Morning Assembly. My non-presence ion the public parts of the library frees the county library of the obviously too distressing visage of a partially sighted library user. How capricious is Father Time. I have in my possession a photograph from the Anglo-Celt from a number of years ago, showing me using a piece of magnification equipment in the main body of the old library. I am obviously an inappropriate fixture of the newer library.

 (Let me add that I do not blame the rank-and-file of the library’s staff for this sea change in my fortunes. I feel that this has come from higher up, and from those who do not like being called “Whacko Jacko”. Let me assure him that this epithet is mild compared to the one I feel he is more entitled to.)

 I don’t want to keep going back to the fleadh, but I consider that it was used by some to slap me in the face. I would have been more than able and w2illing to give guided talks about the history of my native town, but obviously the thought that these were being given by someone in a wheelchair was too much for some in Cavan County Council. The Fleadh attracted visitors from far and wide, including continental Europe and beyond, and I would have been able to give such talks in a variety of European languages.

I was due to give a “walking tour” of Cavan town in February 2009. Unfortunately this had to be cancelled at the last moment because of a freak snowstorm. (In fact the County Arts Officer, Ms Catriona O’Reilly was advised by the Gardai to cancel all other events on the day because of the inclement weather.) I was assured that the talk would be rescheduled for a later date. When I heard that the fleadh was going to take place in Cavan town I thought this  would have been a perfect opportunity, but alas the organisers saw differently and both native and visitor to the town were denied the chance to hear an entertaining presentation on the history of the town which I would have been only too happy to give. These people could not say that they didn’t know of me, or that they didn’t know whether I’d be able to give a talk, considering I spoke as part of the long overdue commemoration of the victims of the fire in Cavan’s convent in February 1943. Like many others associated with this commemoration I was anxious that it should not become a finger-pointing or blame-apportioning exercise, but should be used to remember the lives of the unfortunate victims. To be cynical the organisers of the fleadh and their backers in Cavan County Council obviously thought that I had no business talking about any aspect of my town’s history.

 For “the powers that be”, i.e. those with their paws on the lever of power and the sources of funding, it is important though, that Cavan’s disabled be presented as a group on the margins, existing purely by the goodwill of those in authority. They must be shown as having no skills and no ability – unless they are lucky enough to have a parent who is a local politician.

 In spite of having a high enough profile in the town and the county I was airbrushed out of the fleadh. Historical talks were organised (not that I saw the need for them). They were to be given by Dr Brendan Scott and Dr Jonathan Cherry, but there was no room for Dr Ciaran Parker. Are there people in Cavan County Council who dispute my doctorate? And then that this Dr Scott was going to give a lecture on the history of my native town, about which I have written for years and also spoken in an entertaining manner.

 I thought that some attempts were being made to rebuild bridges with me when playwright Philip Doherty asked me to open his series of plays. However, Philip (whom I understand is very busy) is too busy to return my emails or ‘phone calls. No doubt he has been told that the involvement of a cripple, who has always shown that he is not prepared to be merely seen but not heard, would be inappropriate.

 I do hope that all those who have visited the town and participated in any way in the fleadh have had a really enjoyable time. But I hope that they know that the organisers, and most especially Cavan County Council, are a crowd of shameless reprobates and any success that the fleadh has attained has been in spite of them.

 I remember the first time I met Tom. It was in March 1976 or 1977, when I accidentally gave a talk he gave in one of the anterooms of Cavan’s Town Hall. I had gone there with my late sister Anita to visit an exhibition of drawings by the contemporary Irish artist, Louis le Brocquy. Instead we stumbled on an illustrated journey into Cavan’s past: its archaeology, its history, its folklore, its religion, all of the things which go together to make up the area’s cultural heritage. It was presented by this affable and accessible man whose scholarship was very deep, but nevertheless worn lightly.

 Tom was never parochial in his outlook. I recall on another occasion how I mentioned my interest in looking at the history of a particular location, and Tom answered that such researches might carry me to the four corners of Europe.  

 Tom was someone who was greater than a historian or a folklorist. He was capable of looking outside of the box, and observing links between disciplines which those imprisoned within could not or dared not see. His curiosity, once excited, could never be satisfied by the limited pseudo-intellects of others. It was this element of his genius which excited the scorn and disdain of those who could never aspire to the breadth of his knowledge within a millennium.

 He was man whose quiet character endeared him to all of those who like him were motivated by the highest standards of scholarship. He was certain of what he had been able to achieve and never sort to adorn his intellectual plumage with feathers borrowed from others, whether willingly or unwillingly.

 I am looking forward with avidity to Jonathan’s talk, as it will repay a debt that has been for too long outstanding.

 http://jonathansmyth.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/thomas-james-barron-lecture-september-7th/

 The McCabes in Early 17^th century Cavan

 The Mccabes had arrived in Ireland from Scotland, and had acted as mercenaries for numerous septs throughout the north of the Island. However, by the end of the sixteenth century their long-term prospects were gloomy. The English crown was increasing its influence, and they had a low opinion of families like the McCabes who earned their living through fighting. What’s more, their military skills were becoming ever more redundant.

 The final denouement was the defeat of the Ulster rebellion, sealed by the Treaty of Mellifont f 1603. Many of the leaders of Gaelic Irish society, such as Aedfh O’Neill or Aedh O Domhnall chose exile rather than the uncertain future that awaited them. Among those leaving Ireland at the time was a captain Seamus McCaba who left Cavan for Spain, never to return.

 Their departure ushered in the Plantation of Ulster, where the lands of the Irish were given to planters from England and Scotland, and the original inhabitants were forced to live on restricted holding for which they had to pay high rents.

 The relationship between native and newcomer was not one of undeclared hostility though. While the Irish had lost much of their lands this did not cause universal resentment. They were still able to farm land, in return for paying higher rents, which many planters were only too happy to rent to them. The two groups lived beside one another and generally co-operated with one another. Marriages were rare if only because the two groups belonged to different religions, but they did occur, such as that between the Reverent Richard Parsons of Laragh, and a woman of the Ui Raghallaigh sept. There were also less formal unions. A prominent member of the Burrowes family of Stradone had a child by one McCabe, her serving man.

 The McCabes seemed to have accepted this situation.  Henry or Harry McCabe, a youth moved to Cavan town where he was brought up as the son of an inn keeper. There were still avenues for even greater advancement, as shown by James McCabe who became a highly respected lawyer and barrister. 

  In geographical terms the McCabes lived in central Cavan, in a belt of territory ranging from Ballintemple and Crosserlough in the south, to Drumgoon in the north, and extending to Drumlane in the west. The centre of their landholding was at Ogghill, later renamed Moynehall in honour of the planter Thomas Moigne.

 The balance between native and newcomer was upset by fears at the growth of the puritan party inn England, and that their victory might lead to further acts of discrimination against Catholics in Ireland. A plot was hatched by, amongst others, Lord Conor Maguire, baron of Enniskillen. This involved the seizure of Dublin Castle on October 23^rd. The plan miscarried because its details were leaked, and its leaders arrested. Amongst those detained with Conor Maguire was a Culde Boy McCabe.

 The rebellion was initially successful in Cavan, its leaders were Philip McHugh O Reilly and sheriff Myles O’Reilly. The McCabes do not figure prominently amongst the voluminous depositions which have survived, and which often tell a story of barbarity and former friends becoming enemies. They didn’t take part in any of the excesses of the rebellion in Cavan, such as the drownings at Belturbet or the murders of planters at Lear near Bailieborough. However, some were implicated in attacks on the planters. The aforementioned Harry McCabe, turned on his benefactor at the start of the rebellion. He seized his goods and drove him and his family out of Cavan.  When the man re-entered the county in the autumn of 1643 as part of a band of soldiers, Harry ambushed and killed them near Virginia. James McCabe the barrister became a judge when the rebel authorities tried to reinstate court proceedings in Cavan in 1642.

 The leaders of the rebellion lost their lands, though it is unclear just how far the McCabes suffered this fate. James McCabe died in 1642 while Harry seems to have made a full confession of his crimes once English rule was re-established in the county.

 © Ciaran Parker 2010

 This will be something of a homecoming for me. t must be over ten years since I last spoke at the McCabe clan rally and so I am looking forward to resuming old friendships and making new ones. It is also important, as quite a lot of McCabe blood runs through my veins thanks for my mother.

I may actually publish extracts from my talk on this blog, so stay tuned.