Events of 40 years ago which nearly destroyed a family and split a town

SEAN Cloney is paralysed from the neck down since an accident more than a year ago, but his mind is clear and he remembers the events of 40 years ago as if they were yesterday. Those events not only nearly destroyed his marriage, they also tore apart the town of Fethard in Co Wexford and made it notorious in the eyes of the world's media.

Sean, a Catholic, and Sheila Kelly, a member of the Church of Ireland, went to the local Catholic school together. Her father was a farmer and cattle dealer, his was a farmer, and the families were friendly.

After school she went to England to work and, when he visited London on family business, they met again. They started to go out together and eventually they both returned to Wexford. "My uncle was my parish priest and the Dean of Ferns at the time. The local curate pressurised me to break it off, though my uncle only mentioned the issue to me once," Sheila said.

However, they felt they could not marry there. They returned to London, and lived there together briefly, before marrying in a register office and moving into Sean's late uncle's house in Bury St Edmunds.

"After a little while we had a visit from a priest. He visited my wife when I was working and coaxed her into being married in a Catholic church. We were married in the Augustinian church in Hammersmith. My wife felt this was a bit onesided, and we arranged a blessing in an Anglican church." The priest in Hammersmith got Sheila to sign a document promising to bring the children up as Catholics.

After eight months in England, they returned to Wexford in August 1950. Their first daughter was born the following April, and their second in November 1953. Meanwhile they were each attending their own churches.

In January 1957 their elder daughter, Eileen, was coming up to her sixth birthday and would have to go to school after Easter.

"I was out working on the farm one day and the local parish priest came on a visit to my wife. The object of the visit was which school was Eileen going to go to. We hadn't discussed it seriously and it hadn't been resolved. He preempted that. Before he left he said: `Eileen's going to the local Catholic school and there's nothing you can do about it'."

"Sheila didn't fancy being ordered. She developed the frame of mind, `we'll see what could be done about it'."

"On April 27th, I knew she was on the point of leaving, but it was not up to me to restrain her. When I came in at lunchtime she was gone, the children were gone, the car was gone. I visited her parents and her brother and told the guards. Word came from the guards that the car had been abandoned in Wexford town. I had no idea where she had gone."

A few days later he had a visit from a Northern Irish barrister Mr Desmond Boal, at the time a close associate of the Rev Ian Paisley. He said Sheila had approached him in Belfast. The two men had a long conversation.

"From the conversation, I concluded there were three conditions to her coming back," said Sean. "One, I would agree to leave Ireland and live either in Australia or Canada; two, I would agree that the children would be brought up in her faith; and three, I would consider changing my own."

It emerged later that Sheila had gone to Belfast and sought help from the Church of Ireland, but did not get any. According to Sean, "she tried a number of churches and clerics and ended up with associates of Ian Paisley". As it emerged later, they would not easily let her go.

He went to a solicitor the day after Mr Boal's visit, and then got in touch with a lawyer in Belfast. Proceedings were started in Belfast for the return of the children.

"Arrangements were immediately made for Sheila and the children to leave Northern Ireland," continued Sean. "They were driven down to Dublin and put on the boat to Liverpool, and from there to Edinburgh, where they were taken over by the Edinburgh City Mission. She got work in a hotel and Eileen went to school for a month or so.

"The case came up in Belfast and was to be reviewed in a month. It was stated in court the writ could not be served because she could not be found. Sheila was then moved from Edinburgh to the island of Westray, the northernmost of the Orkney islands."

Meanwhile, feelings were running high at home. Returning from one of his trips to Belfast, Sean was told that the previous Sunday the local curate had instructed the parishioners to boycott the local Protestants, on the mistaken assumption that they had arranged Sheila's departure.

Particular suspicion fell on one shopkeeper who was described as "from the North" though, according to Sean, he was from Cavan.

It was also revealed that she had cashed a £40 cheque from her father in the local bank, and as a result he was targeted.

Sean feels particularly strongly about the injustice of this. He understands why this man would not leave his daughter whom he suspected might flee her home with her children, penniless and desperate, and Sean points to his generosity to everyone in need.

"What they all overlooked was that this same man gave a blank cheque to a local Catholic boy who lost an arm for him to buy a business in Fethard. He was a cattle dealer and he found his friends would not sell cattle to him. He was ruined and he died a few years later of a broken heart.

"I totally rejected the boycott. It caused a lot of trouble for me. My main support in breaking the boycott came from old IRA men who themselves had fallen out with the clergy during the War of Independence.

The issue was debated in both the Dail, where the boycott was denounced by the then Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, and Stormont, and it featured widely in the Orange marches on the Twelfth of July. A page in Time magazine was devoted to it. Sean jokes that he is the only Wexford man whose photograph has featured in Time magazine.

Eventually a meeting was arranged between Sheila's father and the local TD, who was also a member of the Knights of Columbanus. They issued a joint statement, in which her father said he would do all in his power to persuade her to return home "which was nothing", Sean comments and urging an end to the boycott. The local parish priest went into the shop most affected to buy a packet of cigarettes.

Sean received a letter from Sheila, but he knew from it that it had been dictated to her and nothing came of it. Some months later he received another letter and he wrote back to say he would visit her in the Orkneys as soon as he could. They met in Kirkwall on the main island and travelled the last leg of the journey together to be reunited with their children. He stayed there three weeks and they were reconciled.

However, it would still have been difficult for her to come home, so they went to Somerset where he worked on a farm. Then he became ill, they ran out of money and had to come home. They arrived back in Wexford on December 31st, 1957, eight months after her departure.

The return was not easy. The media heard of it, and they were besieged. She went back to England with the children and they rented a mobile home in Fishguard for a few months, which Sean visited at weekends. The family finally returned for good at Easter.

"The matter of the school was still unresolved," said Sean. "Whether they went to a Protestant or a Catholic school would be seen as a victory for one side or the other and we could not sanction that. So they never went to school and we educated them ourselves."

Reconciliation came slowly to Fethard. "Sheila's brother had two children with holes in their hearts. They went to Guy's Hospital in London and one of them, a little girl of three, died. Sheila had two sisters married to Catholics and when the child came home three Catholics carried the little coffin up the avenue to the Protestant church. At that time, Catholics were forbidden to enter a Protestant church and there were men at the door to take the coffin.

"The little coffin had a three year old child in it, our niece. I went into the church and the other two men followed suit. When they saw that, other Catholics came in. It was a milestone." Today the parish priest sings with the choir at the Harvest Festival in the Church of Ireland.

When told of Dr Willie Walsh's remarks, Sean said: "It's more than a pity they didn't do that 40 years ago. They would have saved me a lot of bother and my wife a lot of bother."