In 1934, in an attempt to have a claim for compensation reviewed under the 1933 Damage to Property (Amendment) Act, James McCabe, an egg-dealer from Arva, County Cavan, set forth his family's republican credentials:

Following up on his ‘genuine claim’ two months later, McCabe insisted that the family ‘gave all & got nothing in the Anglo-Irish War’ and if the department of finance were to ‘make enquiry into our activities & hospitality during Anglo-Irish War’, they would find ‘our record is very good’. In 1924, James McCabe had claimed £350 compensation for the loss of a motor car taken by ‘Black and Tans’ after one of his sons had refused to drive them. Awarded the ‘inadequate’ sum of £45, he blamed the ‘small amount’ on the ‘active part’ he and his sons had taken in the war. Complaints of insufficient recompense for losses suffered during the independence struggle were not uncommon, but McCabe's case was different from most. In between his unsatisfactory attempts to secure compensation from the Irish Free State was an application to the British Treasury-funded Irish Grants Committee (IGC). Unlike the Damage to Property scheme, which was open to anyone who could prove they had suffered loss at the hands of any ‘unlawful or seditious’ (but usually republican) organisation, the IGC insisted that applicants’ losses were the direct result of their ‘support of His Majesty's Government’. In his (unsuccessful) IGC claim, McCabe described how his business had been ruined by an IRA boycott: