A Millstreet Miscellany (3) - Aubane Historical Society

on the platform as were also a number of police under the command of District Inspector Dunne.
The soldiers cheered enthusiastically as did Mr. McCarthy-O'Leary, Mr Jeremiah Hegarty and
some six other gentlemen but this was the sum and substance of the reception. The train stopped for
half a minute at the Station. Some fifty people leaned against the wall outside the Station and
looked on the Royal Train with dumb curiosity, making no sound of either a favourable or
unfavourable character".
(The Cork Examiner, 17 April 1885)
It should be explained that the people leaning against the wall at Millstreet Station were
behaving exactly as advised by Charles Stewart Parnell and what happened at Mallow was not at all
as described by The Times. A contemporary witness to the visitors' reception in Cork described it
as follows:
"Another historic incident which took place that year also remains in my memory. In April
the Prince and Princess of Wales visited Ireland. Political feeling ran high. Parnell advised that the
royal visitors should be treated with polite indifference. In Dublin his advice was followed.
Thereupon The Times boasted that the royal party were received everywhere with enthusiasm, that
Parnellism was a sham and that Ireland was loyal. The South determined to give Ireland's answer.
At Mallow station, William O'Brien at the head of a delegation, tried to read an address to the
Prince setting out Ireland's demands. He and his friends were promptly batoned off the platform by
the police, band instruments being smashed and heads broken outside the royal carriage. In Cork
worse followed. Black flags were waved in the visitors' faces, rotten eggs and cabbages were
thrown at the procession. Cavalry charged and people were injured. The Riot Act was read. From a
platform at the end of our garden I saw the Prince and Princess - surrounded by an escort of Hussars
- drive quickly past alternately boohed and cheered, the Princess as pale as a sheet, the Prince trying
to look unconcerned. Ireland, he must have reflected, was far from loyal, Parnellism not altogether a
sham. It was an exciting and interesting day - the 15 th
April, 1885."
(From Parnell to Pearse by John J. Horgan, 1949 and 2009)
14. General Sir Redvers Buller
General Buller was a renowned military figure in Victorian Britain especially in the
'scramble for Africa.' He was nicknamed 'the people's general.' He commanded forces in the Zulu
and Boer Wars and in other 'theatres' such as Egypt and the Sudan. He was acclaimed in the
popular language of the time as a great "nigger walloper."
Because of the situation in the Cork-Kerry area during the Land War, on 16 th
of August
1886 he was appointed to be a Special Commissioner for the area in case his strongman skills were
needed. On appointment to this job in Ireland he decided on a visit to the area of his command and
Millstreet was high on his agenda because of its reputation during the Land War. The following
report appeared in the Irish Times:
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"From our own correspondent
Killarney, Friday
It now appears that the area over which General Buller is to operate will include not only
Clare, as stated last night in Parliament, but also a portion of the County of Cork bordering upon
East Kerry, a district which may roughly described as the district of Millstreet. Millstreet and the
immediate neighbourhood was during a portion of the late agitation what is known as a "hot spot."
General Buller, accompanied by Colonel Turner and Mr. Moriarty, left Killarney this
morning by the 9 o'clock train for Kanturk, the object, as it turned out, being to go first to the
farthest point of the district to be visited, to drive through it, and then to return by train from a
station nearer to Killarney than that to which the party had travelled in the morning.
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