Although the weather was somewhat cool for that time of year, on the afternoon of Saturday May 15th 1921 John and Anna Bagot invited a number of friends to visit them at Ballyturin, County Galway and play tennis outside the house. Following the game and tea, the guests dispersed around 8.30pm, a party of five being driven by Royal Irish Constabulary District Inspector Cecil Blake in his own car. A couple of minutes later Mr Bagot heard a bang, and after initially thinking one of the vehicle’s tyres had blown he realized it was the sound of gunshot. He and his wife and daughter Molly ran down the drive towards the gate lodge, but were stopped by an armed man who handed them a note reading ‘Volunteer HQ. Sir, if there is any reprisals after this ambush, your house will be set on fire as a return. By Order IRA.’ Only one of the party of five, Margaret Gregory, survived the ambush.
Dating from the first half of the 19th century and of two storeys over basement and three bays, Ballyturin stands on the site of a mediaeval castle that originally belonged to a branch of the Burke family before passing into the possession of the Kirwans, one of the Tribes of Galway. In the second half of the 18th century, Ballyturin was owned by Richard Kirwan, a geologist and chemist who served for many years as President of the Royal Irish Academy. Kirwan was famous for his eccentricities: living on a diet almost exclusively of ham and milk, he travelled everywhere with six Irish wolfhounds and a golden eagle, and while he loved these animals he had a detestation of flies, rewarding his man-servant for every corpse produced. Following his death in 1812 the estate passed to a cousin, Edward Henry Kirwan and then to the latter’s son, also called Edward Henry; it was probably around this time at the present house was built. When the younger Edward Henry Kirwan died aged 25 and unmarried in 1845 Ballyturin was inherited by his sister Anne who two years beforehand had married John Lloyd Neville Bagot. Their son was living at Ballyturin with his wife and daughters in May 1921.
The group in Cecil Blake’s car consisted of himself, his female companion Eliza Williams (who, it seems, was pregnant), two army officers Captain Fiennes Cornwallis and Lieutenant Robert McCreery, and Margaret Gregory; the last of these the widow of Robert Gregory and daughter-in-law of Lady Gregory who lived not far away at Coole Park. As the car approached the end of the drive, it was noticed that one of the gates onto the road was closed, so Captain Cornwallis got out of the vehicle to open it. As he did so, a group of IRA men who had earlier taken control of the gate lodge and concealed themselves in the surrounding bushes opened fire, killing everyone except Margaret Gregory. Cecil Blake, although only in Ireland since the start of the year, had quickly acquired a reputation for violence in an area already reeling from aggressive assaults by the Black and Tans. He was clearly the target of the ambush, the other victims being what is often euphemistically called ‘collateral damage.’ Given what had happened on their property, and the fevered atmosphere of the period, the Bagots understandably left Ballyturin and appear never to have returned. The house has since fallen into its present ruined condition.
