War of Independence, Murder, History, Memory, IRA, British Forces
In November 2008, Tomás Mac Conmara sat with a 105 five-year-old
woman at a nursing home in Clare. While gently moving through her
memories, he asked the east Clare native; ‘Do you remember the time
that four lads were killed on the Bridge of Killaloe?' Almost immediately,
the woman's countenance changed to deep outward sadness. Her
recollection took him back to 17th November 1920, when news of the
brutal death of four men, who became known as the Scariff Martyrs,
was revealed to the local community. Late the previous night, on the
bridge of Killaloe they were shot by British Forces, who claimed they
had attempted to escape. Locals insisted they were murdered. A story
remembered for 100 years is now fully told.
This incident presents a remarkable confluence of dimensions. The
young rebels committed to a cause. Their betrayal by a spy, their torture
and evident refusal to betray comrades, the loneliness and liminal nature
of their site of death on a bridge. The withholding of their dead bodies
and their collective burial. All these dimensions bequeath a moment
which carries an enduring quality that has reverberated across the
generations and continues to strike a deep chord within the local
landscape of memory in east Clare and beyond.