Who was Johnnie Gill?

by Victor Sullivan   © 2015

My Grandmother's farm was on the foothills of that level-topped mountain, Knockoura, at the western end of the Beara Peninsula,  in Ireland. The house overlooked the sheltered expanse of Berehaven Harbour in Bantry Bay and to see that view, on a fine, clear, summer afternoon, was an unforgettable experience. About a mile away across the valley the remains of burned Dunboy Castle rose through the trees. This had been the home of the Puxley family who had made their fortune exploiting the copper ore discovered in 1811 at Allihies, a few miles away over the hill. By looking to the right, one could see the Atlantic Ocean as far as the horizon through a 'V' shaped gap in the hills. A glimpse of a  large ship passing to or from America or Canada was a bonus. I have known that view since my earliest childhood when I regularly stayed with my grandmother and my uncle Tom in the 1940s and 1950s. 

Berehaven Harbour had, until 1937, been a base for ships of the British Royal Navy. Many other ships, some of them in serious distress, sought shelter there over hundreds of years of peace, war, fishing, trading, piracy and skullduggery. The enormous Great Eastern anchored there in 1866 before attempting to lay the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. After the successful completion of the cable-laying in 1869 the Great Eastern and its supporting fleet returned to anchor in the shelter of Berehaven once more.

During my childhood I always spent part of my summer holidays with my grandmother on that farm. Gradually I became aware of a presence; a hidden something about the house and its surroundings that I couldn't explain. My childish queries about small items, such as strange tools in a drawer, would fail to get a simple, direct answer. Something was being hidden. I became convinced that there was a BIG SECRET in my Grannie's house. Something that should not be spoken about had happened there. Something that a child should never know or hear about. A crime perhaps? Even a murder? …. 

I was nine years old in 1946, walking proudly behind a harrow, in control of a horse. We were harrowing the field immediately in front of the farm-house. As the harrow tines tumbled and broke up the clumps of soil, a rusty looking lump caught my eye. I snatched it up without stopping and slipped it into the pocket of my grubby jacket.  Later that evening, as I sat digging out the rust and soil from my find, my earlier suspicions proved correct, it was, or had been, a toy gun. I continued my cleaning operation, eventually revealing, not a toy, but a badly corroded six-chamber revolver. I overheard my Grandmother whisper to my uncle, "Tom! –– Tom! The child has found Johnnie's gun!"

I pretended not to have heard the comment. I knew I would not get a direct answer if I asked my Grandmother about this Johnnie whose gun I had turned up with the harrow. Johnnie might even have been the murderer! Had I found the murder weapon? I decided to ask a very elderly neighbour instead. Good decision.

"Ah! That would have been Johnnie Gill's gun you found. He was your grand-uncle. He died in 1931. I was at his funeral.  He had a great pair of hands…… He knew a lot about things most of us never even heard of….. He could understand gramophones and sewing machines and clocks and things like that; and he could fix them too….. He made that chair you're sitting on… He was fierce clever ––  in spite of what had happened to him when he was young."

So that was the Big Secret. Something bad had happened to my Great-Uncle Johnnie. Something best forgotten, never to be spoken about.

Curiosity is a powerful driving force and information denied is a massive motivator. Here, at last, is the answer to the question:   Who was Johnnie Gill? 

(To be continued)