As previously mentioned in posts, Bantry town and the surrounding countryside was convulsed with violent outbursts during January 1910. This did not abate with James Gilhooly’s election. A number of local incidents, including the assault on a local land agent in April, kept the political temperature high.

In June a rally in the town organised by the AFIL brought feeling back to boiling point. Although little or no serious incidents occurred during the major speeches by William O’Brien and Gilhooly, a number of events surrounding the rally served to further deepen divisions in the area.

To welcome O’Brien (or, more likely, to call attention to his new-found sympathy for the cause of Ulster unionism) a number of publicans in the town hung out Orange flags from their premises in the days leading up to the rally. The local police viewed this action to be in contravention of laws governing the display of flags and emblems…

The Square in Bantry, scene of many incidents of violence during 1910
(Source: http://www.bantry.ie)

Main St., Bantry c. 1900. James Gilhooly’s drapery store was located on the right of the photograph.
(Source: http://www.bantry.ie)

The campaigns in North-East and South-East Cork were relatively quiet
affairs in comparison with the turbulent campaigns in the three other contested
Cork constituencies. West Cork, which saw James Gilhooly challenged by Bantry
solicitor Daniel O’Leary, did not conform to these peaceable standards. Personal,
political and generational tensions combined to produce a catalogue of physical
and verbal violence. Many apparently neutral meetings condemned O’Leary for
foisting a contest on the constituency, or more pertinently damned the IPP
leadership for selecting O’Leary in spite of advice from local Nationalist
notables. The Bantry solicitor, it was argued, was the clerical choice, in
order to unseat Gilhooly and what he had come to represent. Not all clergy toed
this particular…

James Skuse, from Clashadoo, Durrus, West Cork to Schoolmaster, Businessmen, Resident Blackrock Castle, Ship Owner Cork, Died 1913 Estate £18,137, Blackrock, Cork.

His residency at Blackrock Castle owned by the Cork harbor Commissioners may have been connected to him being a ship owner.

The Skuses may descent from a Cork soldier in the East Company whose son was born in India and returned presumable home to Derrynafulla, Glengariff. The family were involved as bailiffs and policemen and lived in Clashadoo, Durrus either on the present McCarthy farm or on a house attaching.

James Skuce married in 1853 in Rathelaren  (Church of Ireland) parish church,  his profession  was  School Master, resident in  Ballycotton, Co. Cork, he married Miss Catherine Harris who was a School Mistress, also resident in Ballycotton.   The birth record and baptism of their eldest son in 1856 in Drimoleague and James was described as a school master…

Hereditary Ecclesiastics, Daniel McCarthy (1761-c1830) Parish Priest of Durrus, West Cork, Minister Church of Ireland and his grandson Welbore McCarthy (1840-1925), Anglican Archbishop of Calcutta, India.

In olden Ireland it was common for certain families to provide clergy father to son in areas controlled by different local chieftains. Around the same time under the Brehon Law and in accordance with local religious customs various forms of marital relationships such as concupinage and divorce were allowed as well as wives in different degrees.

Father Daniel Mccarthy’s marriage in 1793 to his ward Miss Sarah Blair and leaving the priesthood caused a storm that reverbeated for years.

1793 Sarah Blair Rev. Daniel McCarthy (An tAthair Tadgh Na Muclagh), Bantry/Blair’s Cove Durus. He had been the parish priest of Durrus and reputedly the head of the ‘Muclaigh’ Sept of the McCarthys who built the Mccarthy Cool-na-Long Castle in Durrus early 1620s. Descendant include…