Pike a reminder of anonymous Fenians
‘ Twas down by the glenside I met an old woman,
‘A plucking young nettles, she ne‘er saw me coming
‘I listened a while to the song she was humming
Glory O, Glory O to the bold Fenian men‘..
These are the words of a song entitled the Bold Fenian Men, a popular Irish rebel song written by Peadar Kearney who also composed the National Anthem.
Earlier this year the Golden family of Kells near Cahirsiveen and the community of that area marked the 150th anniversary of the Fenian Rising with a Walk of the Ancestors commemoration there.
It honoured the Golden family’s ancestor, the Fenian John Golden of Kells, who was deported as a result of his rebel activities to Fremantle, Western Australia.
Johnny O’Mahony from Castlequin, Over-The-Water, Cahirsiveen, is a familiar figure in the Valentia and wider area as he goes about his duties as a part-time postman. As is quite appropriate to this year’s 150th Fenian Anniversary celebrations, Johnny has in his possession the end section of a fighting rebel weapon described as a ‘Fenian Pike’. It was discovered in the wall of a field called The Lawn in his family farm in Castlequin.
Johnny states that the owner of this pike (whose identity he cannot establish) fled to Australia after the Rising and prior to leaving hid the pike, not daring to be associated with it as it would have led to prosecution. This man returned home in 1917 and in time informed Johnny’s father, Dave O’Mahony (who passed away in 1996), as to where the weapon was concealed.
The instructions given were that the pike remnants were to be found so many paces from a palm tree under a flat stone up in a wall of The Lawn Field. Dave O’Mahony and his father John followed the instructions to successfully find the implement.
Those days of the Fenians were days of woe in Ireland and as this year marks the 150th anniversary of the Rising, spare a thought for that anonymous Fenian fighter who fought for Irish freedom all those years ago.