A tale of two cultures - one clash, two life sentences

THERE’S a powerful scene in the film of John B Keane’s play The Field where The Bull McCabe, a tenant farmer played by Richard Harris, raises his stick in angry defiance at being told that the three acres of rocky wasteland he has slaved over is about to be sold.

“A total stranger has come and he wants to bury my sweat and blood in concrete,” bellows The Bull whose temper has tragic consequences.

The actions of Padraig Nally, 61, a bachelor farmer from Mayo, also had tragic consequences, but he was no Bull McCabe. In fact it was his very timidity that led to his downfall and the death of Traveller John ‘Frog’ Ward, a father of 11, on October 14, 2004.