Patrolling the Polyp, also known as the Connons
Times Past with Johnathan Smyth.
What do you know of the border ‘Polyp’ a friend asked while discussing the goings on of Brexit and the effect of borders on trade between countries. Conjuring up in my mind some medical peculiarity, I followed up with some reading on the area and, after a few more conversations, was more in the know. The so-called polyp is in County Monaghan, about four miles from Clones, where it is surrounded on all sides by the Fermanagh border, except for a thin stretch of land connecting it to the rest of the county. Drumully is close to the meeting point of the three counties of Cavan, Fermanagh, and Monaghan.
The Polyp is known by various names. If you ask the locals, some may tell you it is ‘Drummully Salient’, otherwise called ‘Sixteen Townlands’, ‘Coleman Island’, ‘Clonoony Salient’, or ‘the Connons’, depending on who you meet. ‘Sixteen Townlands’ is itself a reference to the 16 townlands in the Drumully Electoral Division.
Boundary Commission
When the intellectuals on the border commission reviewed the border layout in 1924, it must have been less hassle to leave it be, even though access might one day be a problem if travel were to be restricted.
From the summer of 1924, the Gardaí were allowed to patrol the polyp via the Fermanagh concession road. Permission was later revoked in the 1950s when the IRA border campaign began. The RUC blocked what they called ‘unapproved roads’ leading to Drumully. In the early 1970s, the British Army then closed roads using iron spikes, craters, and reinforced cement blocks. The Drumully Polyp is a ‘jigsaw piece’ of sorts, and during the Troubles, there was great difficulty accessing it, especially for the Irish Army.
When the Irish Army went on a trip to the polyp, they carefully avoided crossing over from south Ulster into the six-county jurisdiction. Going to the Polyp was an awkward task since as already mentioned there were no roads into it from Monaghan’s side. The only route was to walk over swampy land and to cross the Finn River that connected 360-foot of river to the area. The Irish Air Corps helicopter from Monaghan town flew along the thin stretch of land, as it followed the telegraph poles into the polyp, which must have been nerve-wracking since the IRA might easily have mistaken them for an RAF helicopter. In the 1990s, with the beginning of the peace process, roads were unblocked around the Polyp, leaving travel and daily life much easier.
Agent Perry
In the early hours of a late Autumn morning in 1973, the main Clones to Cavan Road was blocked by two hijacked vehicles, a large van, and a car. Things were getting hot in the Connons too, as can be seen in the Northern Standard’s report on a raid in the Connons on November 2, 1973, which in ‘local parlance’, the paper described as the ‘Wee Republic’.
Gardaí from Cavan and Monaghan travelled into Fermanagh in unmarked cars, with their uniforms disguised under civilian overcoats, in the company of special branch officers along with Chief Superintendent J.P. McMahon who led the garda operation.
The Irish Army journeyed over land, staying within the boundaries of the Republic under the command of Captain James Hayes and Noel Walshe. The Irish Corps helicopter and their ‘hedge-hopping Cessna patrolled the skies’, while over the border a British helicopter looked down. The army brought rubber dinghies for crossing the River Finn, but the currents were too strong, and the men could only wade through the water.
However, lunchtime turned out to be a better fare for the army, stated the Standard, having received a fine lunch of tea and sandwiches flown in by the helicopter. On the other hand, the gardaí had no food, and if it were not for the ‘crab apples and berries’ in the hedgerows, wrote the correspondent, they would not have eaten.
In February 1974, the salient was again in the news columns of Monaghan’s Northern Standard with reports of ‘explosions, burnings and hijackings of vehicles’. An operation was held involving 100 troops assisted by the Gardaí and their much-loved dog Perry, a German Shepherd from Co Cork. Perry’s snout did not sniff out any explosives that day.
A few months later, a raid took place on a Sunday morning in September 1974, which led to a huge explosives find at a disused house in the ‘complicated salient’. The defence forces discovered a quarter of a tonne of explosives, including detonators and ‘other equipment’.
HOAXER AT PLAY
On April 7, 1865, the New Zealand Herald reported on a daringly disgraceful hoax, the intended purpose of which was never fully disclosed.
The victim was James Sargent, a native of Cootehill, Co Cavan. From 1864, Sargent held the job of Librarian at the Auckland Mechanics Institute.
The nemesis and instigator of the deception against Sargent would appear to have been a man called M. Murphy, since it was he who hand delivered the notice of marriage to the offices of the New Zealand Herald with the intention of placing it in as many newspapers as possible, especially Irish papers. Murphy’s ‘dastardly’ note read: ‘On 7th March, at Hokianga, Bay of Islands, by the Rev. J.T. Monarion, Mr James Sargent, late of Cootehill, Co. Cavan. Ireland, to Miss He Hakatao. Home papers please copy.’
It appeared that Murphy’s motive was to bring the false news to the ears of Sargent’s wife and family who still lived in the town of Cootehill. But as smart, as Murphy thought he was, the staff at the New Zealand Herald were a bit smarter and quickly despatched a second notice to the papers warning of Murphy’s false announcement.
The Herald concluded that, the matter should be resolved quickly and ‘Mr Sargent therefore, we are glad to think, will receive no injury’ because of the ‘cowardly’ behaviour of Murphy.