‘MEETING THE KNOCKLONG TRAIN AND PICKING UP TIM’S BODY’
However, such was not to be the case and both died, neither reached ‘the 9th day after diagnosis’. At that time the belief regarding TB was that if you survived beyond nine days your chance of recovering was greatly enhanced. The two seminarians did not last that long. It was a terrible blow to Margaret and her remaining family.
Mrs. Hennessy had to bear two of her teenage sons to the cemetery at Carrigparson. That was two of her three boys gone forever! Unfortunately, Margaret Hennessy’s heartbreak did not end there, her only remaining son Tim was to follow in May 1921 when he died as a result of wounds received at Sraharla during his first and last active service action on 1st May. Tim was wounded at Sraharla when he was hit by illegally used dum dum bullets. A dum dum bullet had a soft nose designed to expand upon contact, inflicting a horrible gaping wound.
Shot in the leg and groin Tim was to become another torture victim. His body was not returned to his family for nearly a month, which very often happened when prisoners were tortured as the decayed state of the body by then made accusations against the military almost impossible.
Regarding the capture of Tim, he was shot by a dum dum bullet in the leg. Volunteer Denny Hayes and his comrades tried to save Tim from being captured. They tried to carry Tim over the wall at the back of Knockanevin Church but they failed as the hill up behind the church was too steep and the ‘Tans’ were moving in rapidly. They had to leave him as it would have meant the loss of more volunteers.
Tim would have been better off if he had died at Sraharla on the spot. Unfortunately, he lived only to suffer the use of the ‘pliers’ while being subjected to questioning. He endured all, without talking, just like his fellow volunteer Paddy Casey who was captured that day in Sraharla as well.
Tim’s injuries were deliberately neglected and he died a slow lingering death from septicaemia and gangrene, seventeen days later. He died on the 17th May. The medical officer had recommended that the coffin was not to be opened! The surgeon admitted to the family later that the body was in a bad state (nails having been removed) but stated that such matters were beyond his control
The family was left to make whatever it wished of that statement. Eithne Nic Shuibhne (Terence Mac Sweeney’s sister) in a letter to Margaret tried to console her following Tim’s torture and death. However, the horror and pain remained for the family. They were inconsolable!
A month later, Tim’s body was sent home by train to Knocklong Station to his mother. Mrs. Margaret Hennessy and her daughter Mary had the sorrowful task of driving to Knocklong in a pony and cart, from Ahabeg House, to collect Tim’s decayed body. They collected three bodies in fact that evening, Captain James Horan’s and another unidentified volunteer.
Ned, the faithful workman drove the pony and car while Mrs. Hennessy prayed all the way along the 19 miles of road. She brought her daughter Mary with her that evening. It was that daughter Mary, who later married Ned O’Farrell, that described graphically the sad painful journey in the pony and car to Knocklong station for her brother’s body to her granddaughter Eileen Sheridan (Sligo) - I will quote here a section from her unpublished account:
‘The chimneys of Knocklong were coming into view now and the smoke could be seen curling up into the sky. I thought how comforting chimney smoke can be. Anyone who has been away from home for any length of time must find the sight and smell of chimney smoke so welcoming. A lighted candle in the window must have a similar effect, welcoming home the wanderer to what is familiar.
In Knocklong village we passed Harris’ Hotel and the hump-backed bridge. Ned carefully guided the horse along the narrow roadway towards the railway station. He pulled up as close to the station master’s office as possible. The train was in. We could see it on the platform, smoke still billowing from its funnel. There weren’t many people around.
‘Will I go and ask for Tim?’ Ned said, as he jumped down from his seat, looping the horse’s reins over the railings. Mother shook herself and, as if awakening from a dream, said:
‘No, Ned, I’ll get my son myself ’. I stepped down from the cart and stood silently as Ned helped mother to alight. I reached forwards to take her arm but she was already walking ahead of me, in her anxiety, to reach the train. I followed her into the office and Ned entered after me. Behind a desk stood an elderly man, his cap perched on the crown of his head, peak turned backwards. He rose enquiringly and stepped in front of the desk.
‘My name is Mrs. Mary Hennessy,’ my mother said - ‘I’ve come to collect my son’. The man took a step backwards, looked out the window and said ‘Wait here! Mam!’ He left hurriedly. I watched him shuffle along the platform towards the waiting train. He pulled himself up on the train, with difficulty, glancing back at us as he did so.
We waited silently. Almost immediately he got off again, this time accompanied by a British army officer. The man was short and thin and carried some papers in his hand. Mother stared ahead impassively while Ned stood behind her, cap in hand.
The two men approached us at a fast pace though it seemed to me that they were getting no nearer us and I felt myself hope that time would stop and that they would never reach us.
‘Sign this Mam’.
The officer presented mother with a slip of paper and a pen- a receipt, I supposed. She took the pen, and signed the form without taking her eyes from his face. When she had done this, he took the paper from her and said:
‘You may collect your son. Come with me’.
He turned and walked towards the train. Our little group followed, my mother leading the way, her coat pulled tightly around her.
Nobody spoke - but the officer coughed into his hands a number of times and looked at the ground.
The desk clerk stood aside to let us pass. As we neared the train, the officer turned and looking directly at mother he said:
‘By the way, I would advise you not to open the coffin. A gangrenous wound can be most unpleasant!’
My mother swayed in griefnumbed with emotion, I could hear Ned sob behind us. Life is sometimes unbearable!
(End of extract quote) Mrs. Margaret Hennessy’s misery was not to end at that. Her three sons were dead but more tragedy followed. She lost two of her daughters, Angela and Margaret as well. One was sadly to die in her late teens from illhealth, while the other fell to her death from an upstairs window of the ‘Great House’ in Ahabeg!
Five of her seven children were now dead. The whole litany of tragedies took a great toll on Margaret. She struggled on but was never again the person she once had been. She died four years later, in 1925, broken hearted. Her great consolation was always the fact that her sons died ‘for their God and Ireland’!
It was her daughter Mary Hennessy who survived to carry on the Hennessy bloodline. She inherited Ahabeg House and farm but the tragedy of it all left her too, with a heavy heart, for the rest of her life.
Mary Hennessy kept the house and farm going after her brother Tim’s death. Later she became Mrs Éamonn O’Farrell and today her son Ned O’Farrell (Tim Hennessy’s grandnephew) and his wife Bridget carry on the Hennessy bloodline into the future. They have in recent years carried out much wonderful restoration on Ahabeg House to preserve it for future generations. Today’s Ned is tall like his heroic granduncle Tim. Solas Dé orthu go léir - Go maire a gcáil go deo!