Mullaghmore to Killererin Cattle Drive in April 1916

Cattle and Sheep drive from Mullaghmore, Moylough to Killererin

B. Forde

The Mullaghmore to Killererin cattle and sheep drive took place on 29th April, 1916. Nineteen people accompanied the stock in an effort to return the stock to so called graziers,  usually people of means such as shopkeepers and publicans. The British government were buying up  estates and making land available to the local tenant farmers at the time.   For some reason, this was not happening in areas like East Galway. The land was falling in to the hands of local business people such as publicans and shopkeepers.

In protest, local farmers, drove their cattle on 24th April to one such owner, a Mr. James Cooke who once he learned the the men wanted the land  divided among the local tenants, greed not to return the stock to Mullaghmore.

However, the same could not be said when the cattle and sheep accompanied by nineteen farmers from Mullaghmore, Moylough travelled to Killererin the following week on the 29th.  The owner there,  a publican and shopkeeper by the name of Patrick Fleming was furious with them and threatened to shoot them.  Mr. Fleming reported them to the RIC in Barnaderg and the men were later arrested and brought to court in Dublin where they received  prison sentences of 4 months each.  Fifteen of the younger men received a stay on their sentence and the four older men were incarcerated in Galway Jail.  See the full story on Moylough Heritage Society’s web page.  Follow the link http://moylough.galwaycommunityheritage.org/content/topics/mullaghmore-cattle-drive

This page was added on 20/08/2017.

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