The growing social anarchy and clamour for land reared its head in county Roscommon in May 1920 when a young man named Peter Kenny was murdered at a place called Aghagad, county Roscommon.

  The dispute in question arose when a number of claims were made on Miss McConn who held nine or ten acres of land which had been let for grazing. On a number of occasion stocks of animals were driven off the land and when returned were again driven off. Kelly and a number of other men wanted the land, but had been warned not to go near it by another faction. The matter escalated when a group of about twenty armed and disguised men visited the home of a man named McGlue and made him swear on his knees that he would not interfere in the land. When they visited Kelly they pushed in the door of the house and ‘without a word shot him dead’. No arrests were made and the local community closed rank, and no information was forthcoming to the police. In June Kelly’s father had a claim for £2,000 dismissed at the Roscommon Petty Sessions with the judge claiming that there was not enough evidence that he had met his death by an unlawful association. Cattle driving continued throughout Roscommon during the summer of 1920 and little could be done to prevent people making claim for land and for threatening others in the process.    

Download Source: Freemans Journal 1763-1924, 24.05.1920, page 3; See also Kerry People 1902-1928, Saturday, May 29, 1920; Page: 2

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