Rebels YELL New Years Eve SOUTH OF GARRYOWEN

Sean Samhat

A monument to Fergal O'Hanlon and Sean South lies at the crossroads where they died, six miles from the nearest town every direction.The crossroads is bordered by local woodlands with signposts to Fivemiletown, Brookeborough, Roslea telling which are all six miles away.

They rose in dark and evil days
to right their native land
And kindled here a living flame
That nothing can withstand.

Memeorial in St. Tierney's graveyard

A monument to Fergal O'Hanlon and Sean South lies at the crossroads where they died, six miles from the nearest town every direction.The crossroads is bordered by local woodlands with signposts to Fivemiletown, Brookeborough, Roslea telling which are all six miles away.

On a New Year's Eve in 1957, a column of twelve IRA Volunteers crossed the border into Fermanagh to attack an RUC/B Specials barracks in Brookeborough. During a gun battle, Volunteers were injured, two died. Fergal O'Hanlon and Sean South died of their wounds.

The memorial Roll of Honour for volunteers from the area reads

John Treanor 24.April.1797
Bernard McMahon 12.October.1797
Patrick Smyth 12.October.1797
John Connolly 12.October.1797
Connie Green 26.November.1955
Tony Ahern 10.May.1973
Seamus McElwain 26.April.1986

Predominantly nationalist, Roslea stands on a peninsula of the River Finn. In the 17th century, local land was taken and given to an lord from England, William Flowerdew, who renamed it Roslea. Four centuries later it is still under British occupation, cut off from its natural hinterland by partition and the border.

Twelve years ago, a memorial was unveiled in the village of Roslea to mark the 1798 Rebellion, commemorating a continuity of resistance from the United Irishmen, to the border campaign of the 1950s, through to the present struggle. Two local members of the Black and Tans, led a sectarian pogrom against the village in the 1920s. The sectarian British criminals of the Black and Tans, set fire to every house, flattening the whole village and forcing its Catholic inhabitants to leave permanently.

A photograph in Roslea's historial journal shows the destruction on the village by the Black and Tans that night. The photo shows a row of terraced houses with only the stone shells of the gutted buildings. Years later the `local' chapter of the Royal Black Preceptory, proudly still bear the names Gordon and Nixon of the local Black and Tans militia, who attacked Roslea,

Every year in August after their County parade, members of the Royal Blacks travel to Roslea for another parade from the Orange Hall at the edge, through the village.To Roslea residents, this was inappropriate and simply an exercise in sectarianism. In 1996, the people of Roslea blocked the main road forcing the RUC to reroute the loyalists.

Early in the morning of 26 May 1986, two IRA Volunteers went across the fields to Mullaghglass. Seamus McElwaine, just 26 was a veteran of ten years and one of 38 Republicans to escape from Long Kesh in 1983. Seamus evaded capture while still operating on the border. His comrade also a veteran, Sean Lynch from Baltreagh, Lisnaskea was with him. As the two men climbed over a fence, Seamus voiced concerns, just then, there was sustained gunfire. Sean Lynch seriously wounded, ran for undergrowth from the SAS ambush, where he bled heavily. Meanwhile his comrade Seamus McElwaine who was seriously injured, was interrogated by his British captors. As he lay on the ground seriously injured, he was tortured for over half an hour, before being shot in the head, executed after capture by the British.

So Seamus McElwaine joined his comrades Seán Sabhat and Fergal O'Hanlon who were killed in action, almost forty years earlier, on the 1 January 1957 as part of an IRA column led by Sean Garland, in a raid on a Royal Ulster Constabulary barracks in Brookeborough, County Fermanagh in British Occupied Ireland. Sean Sabhat died of bullet wounds along with his comrade, Fergal O'Hanlon.

The local Unionist politician, an MP called Ferguson, who later became Crown Solicitor for Fermanagh, stated just nine years earlier in the Irish News of April 1948, that the Nationalist majority in Fermanagh stood at 3,684. "We must ultimately reduce and liquidate that majority. This county, I think it can be safely said, is a Unionist county. The atmosphere is Unionist. The Boards and properties are nearly all controlled by Unionists. But there is still this millstone around our necks."

Bernard McMahon, Patrick Smyth and John Connolly, United Irishmen also from the area were sentenced to be hanged, for their part in an arms raid in 1797. The United Irishmen from around the area in 1798 numbered several thousand. The three hangings in Enniskillen, were only part of a bloody and brutal repression by the British in the area.. In the local graveyard, stand the United Irishmen's graves, beside a monument erected in 1947. ..read more @ Rebels YELL, Link below....

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SEAN SOUTH OF GARRYOWEN