The Dead No Longer Write

This blog post germinated at 8:30 on a July Thursday morning as I pulled up outside St. Mary’s graveyard in Old Ross, Co. Wexford. I had come to visit the grave of Margaret and John Hornick but before I even exited the car, it was the postbox on the entrance walls that got my attention; or, more particularly, the ‘Out Of Service’ message signalling the death of the postbox.
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My mind went into overdrive. ‘Postboxes being only for the dead’; ‘letter writing being a dead art’ were among the thought rattling around my brain as I travelled back towards the N25 Wexford road. Just past Courthoyle Cemetery, another postbox, another ‘Out Of Service’ notice.
 
That evening, driving home, I took a road not travelled before. My first visit ever to Castlecomer, brought me face-to-face with my third terminal notice. ‘Out Of Service’ related not just to the postbox but also the post office. Just like the R.I.C. before it, its time had passed.
 
A few weeks later, This American Life threw up an episode called Letter! Actual Letters which shortened the journey to Carlow but did not do much to provide hope for the humble postbox.
 
Since that July day, I have been thinking of the many disued postboxes that I have met on my travels. I have written more handwritten letters in the last month that in the previous year but I suspect that they will not be sufficient to stave off even more ‘Out Of Service’ notices.
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“On Sunday morning, the 4th of March, 1923, a pony and cart was discovered on the side of the road. Inside, in a pool of blood, lay the bodies of John and Margaret Hornick, both brother ad sister. John was 25 while his sister was only 12. Both were the children of a well known farmer from Kilgarvan, Taghmon and they had set out the previous evening in a spring cart drawn by a pony heading to their grandfather’s house where they usually spent the weekend.
 
In the subsequent inquest that followed, Free State Soldier, Private Phelan, who was on sentry duty at Palace East described how he became aware of the cart after they passed the railway bridge. He called on them three times to halt. When after receiving no reply, he fired a warning shot into the air. The cart kept moving and he fired again but this time aiming in its direction.
 
It subsequently came to a halt but he was refused permission to go and inspect by his superiors. The cart therefore wandered the countryside throughout the night. It was found the next morning by passers-by several miles away.
 
The medical evidence described how both victims had bullet wounds to the heads despite there being only one shot fired.”

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The Railways and County Wexford’s Revolutionary Period – Barry Lacey, Historian-in-Residence