PART 3
BY JOHN FITZGERALD
Following the Friary Street ambush, the Tans stopped Tom Nolan’s bus which was returning to Callan from Kilkenny. Jim Bolger of Callan (formerly from Castlecomer) was aboard. He’d been taking driving lessons from Tom Nolan as he intended to drive a lorry and a threshing set for the Co-op in Callan.
Unfortunately for him, he was wearing bicycle clips and the Tans arrested him, suspecting he was one of the rebels who, they assumed, had escaped on bikes after the failed ambush. He was driven to Auxiliary HQ at Woodstock, Inistioge, where he was introduced to an officer. He denied involvement in the ambush and the Major ordered his men to take Jim to the basement of Woodstock House…the most feared building in the county…
Nudging him with bayonets, the Tans guided Jim to a damp, cold, dreary cellar. Squatting in the darkness on flagstones, he had to kick away the rats that inched towards him.
He shouted for somebody to take him out of the cellar. No response came, but after what seemed like two or three hours, the cellar door swung open and soldiers yelled at him to accompany them to the Major’s office.
Shaking with the cold, Jim repeated his denial of any involvement in rebel activities. The Major nodded to one of the soldiers flanking the Callan man. The Tan struck Jim with his rifle butt, knocking him to the ground.
When he tried to rise to his feet, he was punched and kicked by the two soldiers. The Major joined in the assaults, slapping Jim across the face with a Sambrown belt.
Without looking up, Jim heard the Major’s voice booming: “You’re going back down to your chums, the rats in the basement, Bolger. When you confess your involvement in the Kilkenny ambush and give us the names of the other rebels, you can walk out of here. If you refuse to co-operate, you Irish bastaud, your family had better be prepared for a funeral.”
Having said this, The Major nodded to one of the soldiers. The soldier held Jim’s head off the floor by the hair while the second Tan kicked the prostrate and helpless man in the face.
Jim caught the full impact of a hobnailed boot. Blood poured from his mouth and nose. Clutching his pain-racked head, he found two front teeth and bits of torn flesh in his hand. Unable to stand, he was dragged down the stone steps to the basement and again locked into the dark, cobwebbed, and rat-infested room.
Other suspects received similar and even worse treatment at the former home of the Tighe family. While confined in the cellar, Jim heard the screams of suspects who were being interrogated. He also passed one of these detainees in a corridor during his second day in custody.
The man he saw was stripped to the waist and covered in blood and bruises. This prisoner seemed to be stunned or unconscious as two drunken Tans half carried and half dragged him past Jim towards another part of the basement.
For a total of seven days, Jim Bolger had to endure the same painful, nerve-shattering routine of psychological and physical torture…Hours of isolation followed by rapid-fire questioning and beatings.
Then, accepting that Jim was innocent; the Major ordered his release from custody.
Jim had his injuries seen to by a doctor in Callan and was soon back to work…helping out on Tom Nolan’s bus.
Later in the year, he drove a lorry for Callan Co-op. He was a good-humoured man who was well liked in Callan and on all the farms where he operated the old threshing sets. In later years, his wife Molly ran a pub in Mill Street.
He never forgot his weeklong stay at Woodstock and that look on the Major’s face that Jim said would “stop a clock.”.
The gentle giant died in 1951. He is remembered as one of life’s gentlemen and a true friend of Callan. Brian Byrne (Desart) told me a revealing anecdote about Jim: In his lorry driving days, he always slowed down if he saw a cat, a hedgehog, or even a crow on the road in front of him…Unlike the Tan who shot old Betsy the sheepdog!
(Picture shows: Men of the 2nd Battalion Kilkenny Brigade IRA. L to R: Pat Walsh, Dunaghmore, Johnstown, Thomas Noonan, Woodsgift, Michael Ryan, Graine, James Dunne, Urlingford, Paddy Drennan, Islands, Paddy Connell, Boher, Crosspatrick.)
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My novel, Invaders, tells the story of how a small band of men and women in 17th century Ireland took on one of the most powerful armies in the world. It’s available from Amazon and Kilkenny bookshops.
