Heroism of Glenamaddy man a century ago recounted in new book
‘Defying Terror: Jeremiah Mee, Glenamaddy and the Listowel Mutiny, 1920’ now available
‘CONSCIENCE doth make cowards of us all,” said Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but in the case of Jeremiah Mee his conscience made a hero of him.
Mee was the policeman at the centre of the RIC mutiny in Listowel, Co Kerry, on June 18, 1920, when he and his comrades refused to give up their barracks to a party of Black and Tans.
The tension between duty and patriotism had been growing during the fraught months which led up to the Listowel Mutiny, but the point of no return came when the policemen were given orders to shoot to kill their fellow Irishmen.
The orders came from the notorious Lieutenant-Colonel Bryce Smyth, who instructed the policemen to shoot anyone suspicious-looking who did not take their hands out of their pockets …
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