The life & times of Séan Lyons
(1899-1995) of Tully, Glenrue
Séan Lyons (1899-1995) was a farmer in Glenrue, County Limerick and a brother of the locally renowned Archdeacon, Patrick Lyons (1893-1999), Ballingarry, who went on to become the oldest priest in the world, at the time of his death, in 1999, aged 105. Séan himself, also went on to live to the great age of 96. Their brother Canon Bob Lyons reached 80 years of age, dying in 1975. Longevity was certainly in the Lyons DNA!
Séan Lyons was perhaps, Glenrue’s most well-known volunteer during the War of Independence (1919-21) and the ‘Troubles’. Everything that occurred during the War of Independence, a hundred years ago, in Glenrue was monitored by Séan. His task was not any easy one, at times, yet he managed to control every situation very effectively, though, some issues that he had to investigate, were indeed very controversial and difficult. Séan, at times had to be both ‘judge and jury’ - like that of a referee, no easy task in troubled times! Glenrue parishioners often proclaim, with pride, that nobody died in Glenrue during the War of Independence. Perhaps, Séan Lyons might be given some of the credit for that!
Seán Lyons was born on April 4th, 1899 in Tully, Glenrue, Co. Limerick. When he was born, his father, Jeremiah, was fifty-eight years old and his mother Brigid O’Keeffe was thirty-one. He was the youngest of five children, Pat, Jerry, Bob and Katie his siblings. A sister, Margaret, died at a young age.
They were what could be called comfortable farmers and milked about twenty cows and followers, along with some dry cattle, pigs and hens - a typical mixed farm of the time. They had purchased the home farm out-right, from the local landlord, Wm. H. Franks, Esq., as a result of the Land Acts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, via a land loan, but they then still had the burden of paying off the annuities for many decades after.
Life then, was very traditional, with lots of manual labour involved and horses were the ‘horsepower’ of the period. Hand milking was the only means of getting the milk from the cows and the horse was the ‘tractor’ of the time!
Their house in Tully, Glenrue was a two-storey farmhouse, originally a thatched house but later slated. While they were slating it, a very old ‘pike’ was found, hidden under the thatch, dating from the period 1793-1798, when there was a major rising over much of Glenrue-Ballyorgan, against the tyranny of the then area overlords, the Olivers of Kilfinane.
GETTING THE SERVANT GIRL
Richard Lyons, Séan’s son, recalling his own earliest memories a few years ago from the 1940s and he remembers tackling the horse and trap with his father, on New Year’s Eve, and going to Mitchelstown, stabling the horse at their cousin’s William J Finn’s and then getting tea from a kindly Mrs. Finn. Immediately afterwards, they went up to Mulberry to collect a girl called ‘Kate’ and brought her back to Tully, complete with hobnail boots, to work as a servant girl. The hobnail boots were never worn by her again, except to go to Mass and she departed on Christmas Eve, the following year, to go back home again with her few shillings that she had earned, in her ‘glac’ (fist), at the end of 12-month contract! Such was life at that time. Many farmers then, had at least one servant girl and one, or often two workmen on the farm.
Richard also recalled going to Mitchelstown and buying tomatoes, which were then a rarity. Unable to wait to taste them, he started eating them on the way home. They didn’t go down well however and he was never able to look at a tomato again!
GOING TO SCHOOL
Richard’s father, Séan, went to Knockanevin National School to ‘Master Howard’ who was, reputedly, a ‘holy terror’ and an extremely strict disciplinarian! His brother Archdeacon Lyons, said on RTÉ Radio, speaking to Donncha Ó Dúlaing in the 1980s, that school then was like ‘being under a lion tamer’!
Séan and his three brothers, Pat, Jerry and Bob, used to walk on their way to school, down by the famous ‘Abha na gCaorach’ river bank, at the back of their farm and on up through the old gateway, opposite Hyland’s Tully entrance. They always left a stone on the pier, which indicated to the other oncoming scholar friends that they had passed out and that they were not to wait for them. A well-placed stone was as good as your mobile phone then!
Typical of the time, young lads on the way to school were constantly playing pranks. On one occasion, they met a misfortunate beggarman who had a ‘beart’ (bundle) of furze bushes on his back, used then by rich and poor alike, to kindle the fire in the morning. Out of devilment, the boys, unbeknownst to the poor man, set fire to his ‘beart’. They then ended up having to throw the poor man into the river (Abha na gCaorach) to quench the blaze, because the misfortunate wouldn’t let go of his ‘treasured’ load!
When Séan received his First Holy Communion in Knockanevin church (c. 1907), it was in the morning and on an ordinary weekday, so, afterwards he had to go back to school and work away that day, as usual, till 3pm!
Séan got his Confirmation in Kildorrery, but had to walk there, a good seven miles, over Castle Gale Hill and back again afterwards! As Séan was athletic by nature, it didn’t trouble him and such exercise was to stand to him later in life!
His family, in that era, were classed as ‘strong farmers’, so Séan was sent to secondary school in Rockwell College. His athleticism paid off and later he went on to be selected as a member of the college’s rugby team, becoming one of eight Rockwell representatives on the interprovincial team of 1917.
Séan’s father died in 1911 and his will stipulated that if his wife married again, she would have to leave the farm with just £200! His children, if they misbehaved were to be turned out, with just two shillings. No mollycoddling then!
HOMEWARD BOUND!
Despite the then glamour of Rockwell, Séan wanted to be a farmer, but it was his brother Jerry who was earmarked to be the future farmer on the home place in Tully. It was a matter of returning home and working away with his brother till another farm could, perhaps, be purchased for Séan and that would naturally be many years off into the future.
Purchasing a farm soon slipped into the background of priorities at Lyons’. The idyllic peaceful country lifestyle that then prevailed was soon to be shattered. World War I had started and England’s misfortune was to be Ireland’s opportunity! That meant that there would be a local ‘War of Independence’, at home, to be
fought too!
ÓGLAIGH NA HÉIREANN - ‘THE
VOLUNTEERS’
The Irish Volunteers (Óglaigh na hÉireann) was a military organisation established in 1913 in the Rotunda, Dublin, by Irish nationalists and very quickly became a national movement. As early as May 1914, the Glenrue ‘D’ Company of the Galtee Regiment of the ‘Irish Volunteers’ had formed and Séan Lyons, hearing all about it while at college, was soon looking forward to his return to Glenrue and becoming a volunteer himself. When eventually he finished in Rockwell and returned home, with his education and fine physique, it was inevitable that he’d eventually become the Officer in Command (O/C) of the local Glenrue ‘D Company’ but to begin with he was a regular volunteer.
For a long time, little was involved in being a volunteer, outside of constant long foot-drills. Like all the rest of the volunteers around the country, the Glenrue men were greatly fettered by having just a few shotguns and only one revolver. During Easter Week 1916, they were kept on the alert, but nothing happened, as the ‘Rising’ was cancelled by Eoin MacNéill at the last minute, causing confusion around the country.