My grandfather was present at the great Aeridheacht cultural festival in Cullyhanna on Sunday 6 June 1920. It was an occasion of local rejoicing and celebration and a welcome relief from the stresses of the fraught political situation in the country.
It was a momentous time for the world reeling after the slaughter of the Great War, and for Ireland, with its own War of Independence drawing to a bloody close. The general election here had returned a great majority of Sinn Fein representatives and elected bodies all over the country, including areas earmarked in that year’s Better Government of Ireland Act for inclusion in Northern Ireland.