Outside O’Tooles

 At midnight Maguire was slowly carried downhill. He was carried on a door and then the back of Tom Lally from Srah, his arms hanging down. The jolting movement of descent and the darkness made progress difficult, compounded by anxiety to spare Maguire unnecessary pain. The first house they came to in Derassa was Lally's and there they decided against taking him any further. He was brought in and laid down,  comfortable, but very weak.

Some of his men had now to get back to their own countryside, although reluctant to leave him behind. They went towards the eastern edge of Lough Mask, round by the water close to Ballinrobe, and they made their way some miles below that town to the security of the Neale. Bourke, a Column man who had been wounded in the thigh, crossed the mountains with a few companions to the western slopes and by the morning reached Clady, about nine miles from Westport. There he was helped on his way with a horse, which would took him to safety.

That night windows were broken in Feeney’s, Bernard Joyce’s and Newton’s in Ballinrobe. In Tourmakeady the reprisals were more vigorous with the burning of an empty house near Drimbawn gate, the Co-OP store and T.J. O’Tooles shop in Cappaghduff, where a two week old baby was saved by being flung to safety, through the flames, from an upstairs window. Houses’ were also burnt in Cross and Dowagh.

 At dawn on the next morning, May 4th, the local men came to Lally's with the intention of carrying Maguire away from danger, but they were unable to help him. He was so weak that he could not put weight on his feet. Maguire later said “I had never taken spirits before, but that morning I was given a double egg-flip mixed with whiskey and it did me a power of good. Leaning heavily upon both of them (two Volunteers), I left the house and moved towards the end of the gable. Rounding it, there came a puff of wind which flattened me. My legs buckled and I could travel no farther.”

With the morning light, troops emerged from their barracks. Lt. Smith led a group from Ballinrobe accompanied by an RIC search party.  Extra reinforcements had been called up and the full resources of military equipment, from field-kitchens to aeroplanes, were used in the search for the Column men. Houses were systematically searched and the occupants questioned but little information was forthcoming. On the mountains above Srah, Michael O’Brien’s body was recovered where the Column men had left him. Also recovered were a number of guns. The figure varies according to accounts, but it would appear between 24 to 27 weapons were recovered. These were mainly shotguns, but included a few rifles and a rifle and revolver said to have belonged to Sergeant Regan. As the soldiers moved upwards they also came close to Lally's house.

 The women attending Maguire in the house spotted troops approaching and carried him out, on slings made of their shawls, to the bed of a dried-up stream where he lay under whins. Twice Maguire and his helpers had to contend with  aeroplanes. While being taken by women from the house he heard the plane and the women stopped in their tracks and covered him up with their shawls while they sat in the field. The aeroplane nosed overhead of a group of women who were having a good chat. On the second occasion Tom Lally of Srah placed Maguire under a hedge and ran zig zag through a field until the plane flew off.

It was while in Lally’s according to Micheal Lally that one of the women who looked after Maguire in Derassa felt that the best cure for him was a mixture of beastings (the first milk produced by a cow after giving birth) and milk. Her daughter went round the area searching for a cow that had just calved. As a result Maguire was fed the mixture twice daily while in Derassa.

Maguire says that “At that time there was a doctor in Tourmakeady village who had informed our lads that if ever he was needed he could be called upon. A message was conveyed to him by some youngster and he came at once, but of course he could bring nothing with him”. This youngster was Ellen Kavanagh, who was 17 at the time. She bravely walked into Hewitts Hotel where Dr. Murphy was holding his clinic, and which was also occupied by the British Army and the RIC.  She told the doctor that he had to come immediately to her village as one of the women there had a bad fall. It was only when the doctor arrived at Tawnagh, and met Margaret Donoghue of Cumann na mBan, that the penny dropped with him what was expected of him. Margaret Donoghue then brought the doctor over the hills to Deraasa and Maguire. Maguire says “ he rummaged around the house, picking up a few scealps of wood, and some bits of wool, and a clean flour bag. With this he improvised the necessary splints and bandages”.

 Next day (Thursday May 5th ) Maguire was again carried out of the house and put lying on straw, in the dry bed of a stream under some overhanging bushes.  News about the Column and the local IRA, stories about searches and interrogations, came in regularly to Maguire. Women, girls and children got through the British outposts and returned with information “and with a well-seasoned curry of neighbourhood talk”. Word had spread in the Srah area on Wednesday evening that the village was going to be burnt down as the people were hiding the volunteers. As a result on the Thursday, Ascension Thursday as it happened, the people of the area left their homes and moved their belongings up the hills towards Shangort and Gortnacullin. They did this for three days, expecting at any moment to see flames, but on the third day they returned relieved that the threat had passed.

On the Friday, May 6th, Tom Lally, who had taken command with Maguire wounded and O’Brien dead,  got in touch with the Ballyglass Company to arrange for Volunteers to get Maguire out of the area. This was done through Michael Meenaghan sending a message to his cousin from the Ballyglass Company, Malachy Casey. Casey and the Ballyglass men arrived  at “The Goat’s Hotel” and some men made their way, with a stretcher to the house, set on moving Maguire out. However, he was too weak to move that night. Meenaghan sent word the next day that Maguire was well enough to be moved, and members of the Ballyglass, Mayo Abbey and Balla Companies moved him by cart to the house of Mrs. O’Toole’s house in Clogher. Malachy Casey says that because they were making poor progress in moving Maguire, it was decided to call at a house and ask for a cart. The woman of the house replied that “ye can take it but the mare has a foal”. Casey says they could not take the horse and as a result the men had to push the cart. It was a slow journey over the 10 miles to Clogher. The following night Maguire was moved again to the house of Terry Corcoran in Rosstigue.   Here he was attended by Dr Boyle from Balla, Nurse Connolly and his sister Margaret Maguire.  

On the evening of the fight, May 3rd, a message detailing the plight of the South Mayo Column was brought to Michael Kilroy, Brigadier of West Mayo. He was then in the valley between Bengorm and Buckoogh, near to the salmon leap at the foot of Lough Feeagh on the northern side of Clew Bay. The Newport Column men were with him, waiting for more definite information about  British movements on the Mulranny side before they got ready to prepare an ambush position beside Burrishoole bridge. Kilroy told them that the South Mayo Column was hemmed in on the eastern slopes of the Partry mountains and that he intended to go at once to its aid, but as men would have to go outside the Brigade area he must first ask for volunteers. All the men present, he found, were willing to go with him. Most of them carried rifles. They waited until the light began to fail, then left the shelter of the mountains. They moved eastwards by Newport and by unfrequented ways until they crossed the main road between Castlebar and Newport, and on to Aghagower, towards where the South Mayo Column was hemmed in. At a house where they asked for information, Kilroy was told that the encircled South Mayo men had got to safety in the darkness.

That same day the Westport Column had been lying out in ambush on the Ballinrobe road some miles beyond Westport. They got news of Maguire's being encircled,  and they moved toward Tourmakeady hoping to engage some of the British outposts to draw their attention from Maguire’s men. They had come as far as the Derrycroff river, which runs below the Partry mountains, when they found that they, too, were not in time to assist in the breakout.

For four days the British combed the mountains. A troop train which ran a pilot engine in front of it to test the railway line for loose rails or a land mine was sent on to Recess in Connemara. Troops searched the mountains on either side of the Maam valley and across to Lough Nafooey. They were supported by aeroplanes. On the troops' way back, the Twelve Pins were investigated on foot.

 Padraic Feeney's body was placed in front of the main altar of the church in Ballinrobe. The RIC dead rested before the side altars of the same church. When the British protested against the place of honour being given to a rebel, the Canon refused to make any alteration in the distribution of the dead. Daily papers, however, announced the following: 'The Archbishop of Tuam and Canon Dalton, PP, called at Ballinrobe barracks and expressed their deep sympathy with the police, describing the victims as men of excellent character.'

Following the ambush at Tourmakeady the RIC in the isolated posts of Derrypark and Kinury were withdrawn at once for their own safety and to strengthen posts in Ballinrobe and Castlebar. As a result of the ambush, another large stretch of country was freed from RIC presence, in line with IRA GHQ policy.

Ibberson was decorated for his heroism on the day. single-handedly taking two volunteer leaders out of battle, one permanently. Maguire was selected as a candidate in the general election of May 1921 while he was lying wounded out on the hillside. He was to go on to play a leading role in the Civil War and the republican movement.