Shot by Black and Tans, but Kilconly man survived

THE Black and Tans riddled the body of a Kilconly man with almost 40 grains of lead from shotguns, and also fired volleys of bullets at him, leaving him for dead in a drain beside his house — but he survived to tell the tale.
His story will be one of those on display at the 1916 commemoration in Kilconly Community Centre on Sunday afternoon.
Michael Banks (Snr) from Bodane was an officer in the old IRA during the War of Independence around North Galway. He was described by his fellow officer Tommie Comer from Ballintleva, Belclare as “a topper” at making cart box bombs and at filling cartridge shells with gunpowder.
On the first occasion the Black and Tans surrounded his parents’ house in Bodane he escaped across fields and by crouching down and running along on the bed of the local river and then along an adjoining stream to a hide-out in a reek of turf in Bodane bog.

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