…and we were right about the family gig that kept us out of action last Wednesday : it took the two days before it to properly finalise it, and three days after it to recover from it.
As expected, when ya have two football-team-full of immediate family members to help organise, plus the ‘subs’, the back-room ‘staff’ and – of course – the ‘fans’!
Anyway – we’re working on a 15-part blog post that we should have ready for Wednesday, 15th May 2024, for all you refs and hawkeye’s(!) out there to scrutinise, including a few more paragraphs on all of the following –
In the 1920’s, two members of the Crown Forces were surrounded in a wooded area by IRA Volunteers and executed but, as they were leaving the scene, the Volunteers were noticed by a local girl who had spoken to the British about what she witnessed. She knew questions were being asked about her and, true enough, a knock came to her door. But…
1900’s – a conference, held abroad, was thought to be the perfect venue for Irish republicans to make their case for Irish freedom but, five months into it, they realised that the cards were stacked against them…
1920’s – a love-letter (not!), on branded notepaper that the recipient themselves used, was dropped through letterboxes quoting a Biblical verse. But those that delivered those missives soon had reason to read the words themselves…
1920’s – British military and paramilitary ‘hawks and doves’ in Ireland squawked at each other when the big vulture in Westminster played ‘favourites’…
1920’s – on this, the second attempt on his life, his attackers were successful. All involved were IRA Volunteers, but the real reason for the attack remains shrouded in half-truths, rumour and/or purposeful misdirection. Or does it…?
So, if you’re interested in the full-time results(groan!) for the above, and about another ten pieces, then score with us(groan again…) on Wednesday, 15th May 2024.
And apologises for the above pitch…
Thanks for reading – see ye on Wednesday, 15th May 2024!
On the 1st May 1916, in Cork – 108 years ago on this date – rebel weapons were voluntarily surrendered to British-appointed and approved representatives and those who surrendered them were, in return, given ‘passports’ by the British Army to travel throughout Cork to persuade other Irish rebels to do the same –
‘..Captain Dickie, General Officer Commanding (of the British military), invited the leaders of the Irish Volunteers in Cork on 28th April (1916) to meet him at the house of the Bishop of Cork, and that they refused ; that on the following morning he visited the Volunteer Hall himself, and held a conference with the Volunteer leaders which also proved abortive..
…a further conference was held on 30th April at the Lord Mayor’s house, at which the Bishop, the Lord Mayor, the General Officer Commanding, and the two leaders of the Volunteers were present, at which it was agreed that the Volunteers should hand over their rifles either to the Bishop or to the Lord Mayor, and that the (British) military were not even to know the number of rifles handed in, the rifles to be returned to the Volunteers as soon as the Dublin disturbances were over…
..if the Irish Volunteers handed in their arms to the Bishop(Daniel Coholan) and the Lord Mayor(Thomas Butterfield) before midnight on April 30th and assisted the (British) authorities to maintain order, the (British) General Officer Commanding was prepared to ensure no prosecution for offences other than acts of overt rebellion or traitorous correspondence with the enemy(by which is meant the Irish Volunteers)….at their own request, leaders of the Cork City Volunteers were permitted, on the 29th April, to visit country districts to endeavour to prevent disturbances by country branches of their organisation…
…whether he is aware that, in conformity with that agreement, the rifles were on 1st May handed over to the Lord Mayor’s custody, and passports were delivered to the Volunteer leaders to go through the county of Cork to advise the County Corps to abide by the agreement, with the result that no disturbance took place throughout the county ; but that, notwithstanding that agreement, the (British) military authorities on the following day arrested all the leaders, men and women, of the Cork City Volunteers, and lodged them in Cork gaol and, under threat of arresting the Lord Mayor, compelled him to surrender the rifles entrusted to him..’(From ‘HANSARD, May 1916, DISTURBANCES IN IRELAND’.)
A beggary-type scenario ; shameful behind-the-scenes machinations, a criminal act, in our opinion that, during Easter Week in 1916, in Cork, an agreement was reached between representatives of the British occupation forces and the Cork leadership (as opposed to the rank-and-file Volunteers) of the Irish Volunteers“that the Volunteers should hand over their rifles”, that the local Irish Volunteers should, in effect, become a British Army militia and“assist the (British) authorities(sic)to maintain order”and that Cork Volunteers be“permitted(!) to visit country districts to endeavour to prevent disturbances by country branches of their organisation..”.
Absolutely disgusting and despicable behaviour by the Irish Volunteer leadership in Cork, in 1916.
Actions of that sort, whether during Easter Week in 1916 or at any other period in our history – to be even willing to discuss such issues with the British – are unforgivable, but no shame attaches to the ‘rank-and-file’, the hundreds of brave Irish men and women from Cork who truly and honestly took the battle to the British and, thankfully, continue to do so to this day.
Interesting reading material on the above can be found here, here, and here.
‘Put not your trust in Princes’ remains good advice ; even ‘in-house’, you have to watch what people do rather than what they say.
We have always done that at this blog and doing so has served us well, to the point that we are proud of the people that we work alongside with in our joint efforts to secure a proper peace in this country.
‘SINN FÉIN REPLIES TO MR. HANNA…’
From ‘The United Irishman’ newspaper, April 1955.
You may say :
“That’s silly. Others have done so before. Why can’t you? It’s only a piece of paper.”
Sinn Féin’s answer to that is that the Irish people have had such painful experiences of people who regard oaths as ’empty formulea’ and solemn declarations as “just scraps of paper”, that it’s time more truth and honesty were shown in Irish politics.
In the Six County area, therefore, Sinn Féin is confined to the Westminster elections for which 12 candidates are elected and in which no declaration to sit is required.
Issued by the Publicity Committee, Sinn Féin.
(END of ‘Sinn Féin Replies To Mr Hanna’ ; NEXT – ‘Killarney Memorial Unveiled’, from the same source.)
The newspaper ‘An t-óglác’ was, as it stated on its front page, ‘The Official Organ of the Irish Volunteer’, and was the internal organ of the Irish Republican Army, a journal distributed only to IRA members themselves.
It was based on the journal of the original ‘Irish Volunteers’, but its title was later retained by both the IRA and the Free State Army for rival periodicals during the 1920’s.
The newspaper was much sought after by enemies of the IRA, as it provided valuable insights into the influences, evolution, and goals of the organisation’s military strategy, and doubled as an instructional journal for combat. The content was provided by the IRA GHQ Staff, who organised for it to be printed secretly in Dublin and dispatched to every IRA Unit in the country.
On the 1st May, 1920, it warned against‘…an enemy newspaper, published in Ireland (which) has recently, in several leading articles, lamented the triumphs of “the ever-advancing Republican forces” in Ireland.
Reference is made to certain parts of the country where the guerilla warfare is being waged with exceptional vigour and to the large number of districts in those parts where the Irish Republican forces are virtually in complete control (but) in some areas things are in a decidedly unsatisfactory condition.
We wish to point out that those places where guerrilla warfare against the enemy has been waged with great activity and effectiveness represent only a small portion of the country. In some other parts there has been marked inactivity.
The present is not a time for halting to report progress nor for indulging in self-gratulation, but for pushing forward our campaign with energy and efficiency. The initiative has passed into our hands and we must keep it.
We have gained ground ; we must consolidate our advantages, but our motto must be always ‘Forward’…!’
It described the ‘Black and Tans’ as‘…physically and morally degenerate Englishmen with no understanding of Ireland…when the IRA comes to deal with these men it will make short work of them…’
Westminster recognised that ‘An t-óglác’ was an important addition in the fight against them and, in 1919, they declared that anyone caught in possession of it would be sentenced to six months hard labour in one of their prisons, but that didn’t stop its publication nor dent its circulation!
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The 1st May is the traditional date in Ireland when ‘Eleven-Month Leases’(the ‘Conacre System’) come up for renewal.
And, on the lead-up to the 1st May in 1920, the grievances that existed between the(mostly foreign) ‘landlords’ and their ‘tenants’ were given voice to, although that voice, while still present, had only been a scattered whisper in the years leading up to that date.
The re-raised voice was particularly loud in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, but its echo was heard, too, in the other twenty-nine counties, as land husbandry and agricultural issues were the bread-and-butter mainstays of the day, more so than they are in the 21st Century.
In a protest against how the ‘landlords’ treated them, the ‘tenant’ smallholder farmers organised ‘cattle drives’, the removal of dividing walls between the land they worked on and their neighbours land, and street demonstrations, all of which was made easier due to the fact that the RIC were mostly afraid to show themselves, as they knew the IRA were in ‘the long grass’, waiting for them…!
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On the 1st May, 1920, a joint letter to the British Cabinet from their ‘Secretary of State for War and Air’, Mr Winston Churchill, Field Marshal ‘Sir’ Henry Hughes Wilson and Mr Hugh Trenchard, the ‘Chief of the Air Staff’, concern was expressed about how much continued British (mis)rule in Mesopotamia(where Iraq is now) was costing the British Exchequer.
In that joint letter, Mr Wilson complained about the financial price involved, and Mr Trenchard suggested that the ‘Royal Air Force’ be given the task of governing Mesopotamia and doing so out of their allocated budget which, of course, would still have to be funded from the British Exchequer, but would mean that the politicians would be ‘one step removed’ from culpability.
We didn’t know the man(obviously!), but Mr Trenchard sounds like he was trying hard to be the best boy in the class…!
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SO, FAREWELL THEN, CELTIC TIGER….
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Most of the pundits and economists were too busy singing the Celtic Tiger’s praises to notice, but a few critical observers worried all along about the weaknesses of a boom economy that depended so much on a few companies from one place – the United States.
TNC’s may receive as much as nine out of every ten pounds of corporate profits in the southern Irish economy.
This dualism is even present in software, which the business press calls the big success story of indigenous Irish industry. By the year 2000, Ireland was the second largest exporter of software behind the US (having surpassed Israel and India).
And half of the employment in software was in Irish-owned firms.
This is quite a considerable achievement, yet the industry is dominated by TNC’s in every other respect ; with just half of software employees, transnationals account for about 90 per cent of Irish software sales, exports and revenues…
(MORE LATER.)
On the 1st May, 1921(six weeks before the ‘Truce’ of the 11th July), two West Tipperary IRA Volunteers, Seán Duffy (27), from Monaghan, Officer Commanding 4th (Tipperary Town) Battalion, 3rd Tipperary Brigade, and Paddy Moloney (21), Adjutant, 4th Battalion, were staying in a ‘safe house’ at Gortdrum in Tipperary, not realising that Crown Forces, acting on “reliable information that two prominent rebels were in a certain house” were on the way to ‘arrest’ them.
A young lad, Larry Connors, was ‘keeping sketch’(a lookout) for them and he seen the enemy gunmen approaching the house ; he raised the alarm and the two Volunteers made a run for it, after firing a few shots at the British soldiers.
They were both shot dead.
‘Black and Tans were approaching. The two men attempted to flee but the house was surrounded. They attempted to shoot their way out but only made it 200 yards from the house. Their bodies were brought to Tipperary where a military inquest was held…’– more here.
RIP to the two brave Volunteers.
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“On May Eve a trench was being opened about a mile from the village of Liscarroll, and some of the IRA parties on their way home after completing the work were intercepted by a (British) military patrol which killed a young lad, only about 14 years of age…”
– statement from Patrick O’Brien, Vice Officer Commanding of the Charleville Battalion, IRA.
Joseph Coughlan, 14 years of age, an active member of Na Fianna Éireann, was acting as a guide for the IRA on the evening of the 30th April, 1921, as they set out to make one of the roads into the village of Liscarroll, County Cork, impassable, by digging a trench across it.
The group were working on a road at Sunfort Hill, which was only about 200 yards from where young Joseph lived with his grandparents, John and Mary Dennehy.
A British Army patrol, consisting of soldiers from the ‘East Lancashire Regiment’, came across the scene after the job was done and the group were making their way out of the area and called on them to surrender, but they scattered in all directions ; the British soldiers opened fire, killing the 14-years-young boy in the process – he died on the 1st May, 1921.
RIP Fian Joseph Coughlan.
==========================
On the 1st May, 1921, the small village of Dún Eochaille(‘Donohill’), in County Tipperary, was the location for a meeting between the IRA leadership to establish a Headquarters for the 2nd Southern Division IRA, which they set-up near the village.
Ernie O’Malley, Con Moloney and Dan Breen were among those present and, between them, they would have discussed the Division’s five brigades, which had command over Limerick, Tipperary, and Kilkenny.
The IRA itself had recently been reorganised(in April 1921) along the lines of a ‘regular’ army ; military divisions were created based on region, with IRA Commanders being given responsibility for specific geographical areas but, in practice, this had little effect on the localised nature of the guerrilla warfare campaign.
In terms of weapons, IRA units possessed an abundance of pistols and shotguns, but relatively few rifles and only a handful of machine-guns. It was recorded(in late 1921) that the IRA as a whole held just 3,295 rifles, of which 1,385 or 42% belonged to the First Southern and Second Southern divisions located in Munster.
These two divisions accounted for most of the IRA’s strongest brigades, which had led the development of the guerrilla warfare tactic but, that which the organisation lacked in firepower, it more than made up for in determination!
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On the 1st May, 1921, two RIC members – George Cutherberston(21, from Scotland ; he had four months ‘service’ with the RIC) and Walter Shaw(20, from Yorkshire, in England ; he had three months ‘service’ with the RIC) – went for a lunchtime stroll from Arva Barracks, in County Cavan.
Their bodies were later discovered in the townland of Fihoragh, on the Cavan-Longford border ; they had been ambushed by six IRA Volunteers from the ASU of the North Longford Brigade, IRA(pictured).
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On the 1st May, 1921, IRA Volunteer Lieutenant Henry Clancy(23 years of age, ‘C’ Company, Limerick City Battalion, Mid Limerick Brigade), from 4 Garvey’s Range, in Limerick, was with his comrades preparing for an ambush on a Black and Tan gang at Ballysimon, in Limerick.
An RIC patrol happened upon the scene and a gunfight ensued, during which Volunteer Clancy was shot dead and one of his comrades, Thomas Keane, was captured.
Volunteer Keane was executed by the British on the 4th June 1921.
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“On 1st May, 1921, the three combined Columns were in the neighbourhood of Knockadea, Tully and Shraharla.
We got word that the Galbally patrol had gone to Kildorrery ; the column was mobilising.
Commandant Liam Hayes, who had now recovered from his injury, led his section across Shraharla Bridge. When about on the centre of the bridge they were surprised and attacked by enemy personnel who arrived in four or five lorries.
Some of them(the IRA Volunteers) got into John Ronan’s farmyard and were trapped.
Four were killed, and Volunteer Casey from Ballybricken, all from the Mid-Limerick Brigade, was taken prisoner. He was court-martialled and executed on the following day.
His execution was the subject of questions in the British House of Commons…
…men of Mid-Limerick Column killed at Shraherly 1st May 1921 ; Captain Paddy Stair, James Horan, Tim Hennessy.
Volunteer Casey was taken prisoner and executed in Cork the next morning…”
– Donnchadh O h-Annagain(pictured, Donnchadh O’ Hannigan), Brigadier East Limerick Brigade, and Officer Commanding East Limerick Flying Column.
The combined IRA Columns included the ASU of the East Limerick Brigade and some men from the Mid-Limerick ASU ; they encountered a large contingent of Crown Forces at Shraharla (4 miles northeast of Kildorrery) on the Cork-Limerick border.
A gunfight began and, as the IRA Volunteers retreated, two of their number from the Mid-Limerick ASU – Patrick Starr and James Horan – were killed.
Two other IRA Volunteers, Patrick Casey and Tim Hennessy, were captured ; Volunteer Casey was executed at 6.30am the next day in the Military Detention Barracks in Cork after being ‘tried by court martial’ and found ‘guilty’, just over 24 hours after his capture.
Volunteer Hennessy(who was wounded in the gunfight) died from his wounds on the 17th May (1921).
Also, the British Crown Forces captured a substantial number of IRA weapons.
==========================
Early in 1918, a young Kerry man, from the town of Kenmare, Denis Tuohy(pictured), joined the RIC.
Later that same year, Westminster forced conscription on Ireland, meaning that young Irishmen were compelled to join the British Army or face a jail sentence. Mr Tuohy objected to that policy, and resigned from the RIC in protest.
His objection extended to more than just refusing to work with the British – he wanted to workagainst them, and joined the IRA.
He was placed as one of Terence MacSwiney’s bodyguards, and also served the Cause as the Intelligence Officer for Crossroads Company, 3rd Battalion, No 2 Kerry Brigade IRA.
On the 1st May, 1921, at about 4am, Volunteer Tuohy was ‘arrested’ at his home by Crown Forces and taken to Kenmare Workhouse Military Barracks “for questioning” : he was killed there on there same date, while “attempting to escape”.
Details later came to light that driven to desperation he seized a hand grenade and flung it among his torturers, giving them more ‘reason’ to continue torturing him. His father visited the barracks at about 11am and saw his son through a window, battered and bloodstained and strapped to a chair.
When his father spoke he lifted his head and nodded to show he recognised him. Realising however that his son was dying, his father went straight to find the Parish Priest to administer the last Rites of the Church, but the British officer in charge refused permission, as well as refusing any medical aid for the IRA Volunteer.
At 6pm that day – 1st May 1921 – a volley of shots was heard and the British stated that they had executed Volunteer Tuohy, but it was later ascertained that he had died earlier in the day as a result of the brutal treatment he had received and the shooting was only used to cover up a British crime.
His British captors had denied him medical treatment and religious rites and his body showed signs of torture – his torso was badly marked and all his finger nails had been extracted.
But they couldn’t extract his Republicanism.
RIP Volunteer Denis Tuohy.
==========================
CROWN FORCE DEATHS ON 1ST MAY 1921 :
On the 30th April, 1921, RIC member Henry R. Cowie, 35 years of age(‘Service Number 79339’), was with two of his colleagues(Boyle and McCullie) in Newbliss Barracks, in County Monaghan, when a Webley revolver was fired accidentally. Mr Cowie died from his wound the next day, 1st May 1921.
On the 1st May, 1921, two RIC members, William Albert Smith(27, a wood-turner by trade, who had joined the RIC in late 1920) and John F. Webb(20) left their barracks in Castlemartyr, County Cork, to go and join two of their colleagues who had left earlier, to go fishing in a near-by demesne area.
Apparently, they couldn’t find their buddies so the two of them decided to ‘set up shop’ themselves, and try and catch a few fish.
As they were casting rods, they were disturbed by about a dozen IRA Volunteers, who surrounded them. The Volunteers shot both men – Mr Smith died at the scene, and Mr Webb died from his wounds the following day.
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A British Army dispatch rider and signalman with the ‘Royal Corps Of Signals’, Herbert Reginald Wenn (19, ‘Service Number 2309611’), from Norwich, in England, died in the Military Hospital in the Curragh, County Kildare, on the 1st May 1921.
He was said to have been “fooling around with a gun” at the time.
==========================
On the 1st May, 1921, at about 11.30am, two Black and Tan members left their barracks at Arvagh, in County Cavan, to go for a walk.
Gunfire was heard in the locality at around 1pm and their bodies were found a short distance away on the Longford side of the border.
==========================
BEIR BUA…
The Thread of the Irish Republican Movement from The United Irishmen through to today.
Republicanism in history and today.
Published by the James Connolly/Tommy O’Neill Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, The Liberties, Dublin.
August 1998.
(‘1169’ comment – ‘Beir Bua’ translates as ‘Grasp Victory’ in the English language.)
ROBERT EMMET AND THE IRELAND OF TODAY…
“I would ask you to consider now how the call I have spoken of was made to the spirit of a woman, and how, equally, it was responded to.
Wherever Emmet is commemorated let Anne Devlin not be forgotten.
Bryan Devlin had a dairy farm in Butterfield Lane ; his fields are still green there. Five Sons of his fought in ‘98. Anne was his daughter, and she went to keep house for Emmet when he moved into Butterfield House.
You know how she kept vigil there on the night of the rising. When all was lost and Emmet came out in his hurried retreat through Rathfarnham to the mountains, her greeting was — according to tradition, it was spoken in Irish, and Emmet must have replied in Irish —“Musha, bad welcome to you! Is Ireland lost by you, cowards that you are, to lead the people to destruction and then to leave them?”
“Don’t blame me, Anne ; the fault is not mine…” said Emmet. And she was sorry for the pain her words had inflicted, spoken in the pain of her own disappointment…”
(MORE LATER.)
THE BEGINNING OF ALL OUR WOES…
‘That night they tarried by the shore as they were,
but the king on the morrow marched directly to Wexford,
accompanied by all –
of a verity, to assault the town…’
On the 1st May 1169 – 855 years ago on this date – the deposed King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada(Dermot MacMurrough) landed at Bannow Bay in County Wexford(on the south coast of Ireland), with the Blessing of the English political hierarchy(whom he had requested assistance from) and with a group of mercenary Norman soldiers to reclaim his throne, resulting in large parts of Ireland coming under Norman control.
In 1126, Mac Murchada had succeeded to the throne of his father, Enna, in a manner which was disputed and challenged by his rivals ; determined to hold on to his position, he killed or otherwise disabled the challengers, who fought back.
In 1166, he lost – he was forced out of Ireland, and the English ‘King’, Henry II, helped him by putting him in contact with several Anglo-Norman ‘Lords’ in South Wales and, in 1169, an army had been assembled and they landed, as stated above, in Wexford ; this is only a ‘bare bones’ synopsis of events which still affect this country today, as six of our counties remain in bondage.
And, after 855 years, Irish republicans are continuing to campaign against the ‘King Henry’s’ and the ‘Lords’ who are attempting to hold on to their ill-gotten gains ; more info on this episode in our history can be read here.
‘1169 And Counting’, if you like…!
“(I will) give to all citizens in this area, irrespective of creed or class, every protection within my power..”
– Tom Hales(pictured, a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher), on the 1st May, 1922, Officer Commanding of the 3rd Cork Brigade IRA, offering assurance to all citizens in his brigade area that he and his men will not favour one over the other in regards to religious or political differences.
Mr Hales took a seat in Leinster House as a Fianna Fáil member for the Cork West constituency at the 1933 State election and stayed within the Fianna Fáil fold until June, 1936, when he resigned, stating that he could no longer support their policy of interning IRA members.
He later contested other Leinster House elections as an independent, and died on the 29th April 1966, aged 74.
==========================
The month of May in 1922 witnessed another fund-raising operation by the IRA(…they weren’t State funded!) and, indeed, between the 1st January and the 22nd July that year, a total of £167,000 was ‘raised’ from banks and post offices, a tidy sum today but, literally, a small fortune in those days!
For instance, during that seven-month time period, £18,000 was taken in Ennis, £20,910 in Tipperary, £18,285 in Clonmel and £10,000 in Ballina, County Mayo.
On the 1st May 1922 alone the sum of £50,000 was taken and, as was standard procedure, the IRA Volunteers involved in the raids left receipts for the amounts taken, as there was every intention to pay it back when the campaign was over.
The author Dorothy Macardle wrote –“The Republican army without funds felt justified in taking money from banks and post offices to arm and provision the republicans and the IRA Executive took full responsibility for the raids..” or, as Seán Moylan(a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher) put it :“Sure it’s only a venial sin to rob a bank…”
==========================
On the 1st May, 1922, a document was signed between the IRA and the political and military branches of the Free State calling for “army unity” and agreeing to a proposal accepting that the majority of Irish people support the ‘Treaty of Surrender’ and that an election should be held to form a political administration that would have the confidence of all citizens.
Five representatives of the Free State(political and military) were present – Seán Boylan, Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy, Eoin O’Duffy and Gearoid O’Sullivan, and the republicans were represented by Dan Breen (QM, Tipperary No. 3 Brigade), Tom Hales(O/C Cork No. 3 Brigade); Humphrey Murphy(O/C Kerry No. 1 Brigade); Florrie O’Donoghue (Adj, 1st Southern Division) and Sean O’Hegarty (O/C Cork No. 1 Brigade).
It was a bad deal for the republican side but, lucky enough, it was a deal done without authorisation ; a bad deal because it morally legitimised the ‘Treaty of Surrender’ and gave it an authority it didn’t deserve in that it presented it as being taken for granted by the republicans that they, too, considered that that ‘Treaty’, and the manner in which the Staters considered it ‘an Ace card’, was the only way to consider it.
The deal was done without the authorisation of the IRA Executive, the ‘ruling body’ of the Movement who, on hearing about what had been accepted by their five comrades, promptly denounced it.
(‘1169’ Comment – out of those five republican representatives, two left republicanism and joined Fianna Fáil [Dan Breen and Tom Hales], two more left republicanism and formed the ‘Neutral IRA’ [Florrie O’Donoghue – NIRA first, then he joined the Free State Army – and Seán O’Hegarty] leaving the last man standing tall – Humphrey Murphy, who soldiered on with the IRA.)
==========================
On the 1st May, 1922, another meeting between the IRA and the Staters was also held, this one in Drumboe Castle, in County Donegal.
Joe Sweeney and Tom Glennon (O/C and V/C of the Free State Army 1st Northern Division) met with Seán Lehane and Charlie Daly (O/C and V/C IRA 1st Northern Division) for what turned out to be a three-and-a-half-hour meeting.
The Staters insisted that the IRA should ‘evacuate the county’, to which the IRA Volunteers replied that they wouldn’t be doing that as they intended to continue attacking the ‘Specials’ in Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry and elsewhere, and would base their forces in Donegal and other counties.
Mr Sweeney drew the discussion to an end when he eventually realised that the IRA were not for turning and, on leaving the meeting, he looked at the two IRA men and declared –“It looks as though we’re going to have to regard one another as enemies from now on.”
And so it was.
And is.
==========================
Writing in ‘The London Times’ newspaper on the 1st May, 1922, Frederick Edwin Smith, the ‘1st Earl of Birkenhead, GCSI, PC, DL’(ETC!, pictured), the former British ‘Lord Chancellor’, strongly opined that ‘Sir’ James Craig, the’1st Viscount Craigavon/Prime Minister of Northern Ireland’(sic) should appoint a representative to the Boundary Commission on the basis that the Treaty article governing the boundary issue(Article 12) onlyimplied “a re-adjustment of boundaries” and Stormont loyalists had nothing to fear from appointing a representative, under those ‘terms and conditions’.
‘Sir’ James was incandescent with rage when he heard what Mr Smith had written, as Jimmy’s intention was to let the whole issue slide, ‘out of sight, out of mind/if it’s not broken(!!) don’t fix it’ – in other words, ‘we’re quite happy with the six counties we are occupying, and I know we told you that we’d have a proper look at adjusting partition, but that was really just a ‘bonus point’ we gave you to help in selling the Treaty (of Surrender) to your own people…’
And Westminster kept the sham deal on the road until November 1925, when it issued its final report which, incidentally, was never officially publicly published because of what were stated to be “disagreements about its recommendations” : no ‘alterations’ were made to the British-imposed ‘border’.
A copy of that report was ‘leaked’ to the British press, more-or-less telling the Free Staters to feck off, which triggered the resignation of the Free State representative on the ‘Commission’, Mr Eoin MacNeill – he ‘countermanded a Commission’ he himself once favoured, if you like…!
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This joke(?!) was published in ‘The Weekly Irish Times’ on the 1st May 1919 ;
Prisoner :“There goes my hat ; shall I run after it?”
Policeman :“Phwat? Run away and never come back again? You stand here and I’ll run after your hat…”
Whatever about my hat, I’ll get my coat…
Thanks for the visit, and for reading!
Sharon and the team.
(We won’t be here next Wednesday, 8th May 2024, as we have a family occasion on the 6th and, truthfully, we know we’re not gonna be recovered from it until the 9th, at least – well, you try and party with between fifty and sixty guests without it impacting your routines!
But we’ll be back on Wednesday, 15th May 2024 with, among other pieces, the last day on this Earth of an Irish rebel who is still remembered and honoured to this day…)
Irish men and women had armed themselves and, once again, thrown down the gauntlet to Westminster. Gun-battles, ambushes, snipers, hand-to-hand fighting…but not in one county.
The Irish Republican leadership in that particular county had incredibly made a deal – come to an agreed arrangement – with the British military and political leadership not to shoulder a weapon. Except to hand it over to them.
And not only that – they had agreed to travel within British-imposed boundaries they accepted, on specially-issued British ‘safe passport papers’, to persuade other (?!) Irish rebels to do the same.
It’s a shameful episode in our history, but it shouldn’t be forgotten and we’ll be remembering it on Wednesday, 1st May 2024, on this blog.
Altogether, we’ll be publishing a 24-part blog on that Wednesday, the above ‘Easter story’ being just one of them.
Thanks for the visit, and for reading : hope to see you on Wednesday, 1st May 2024.
In April, 1919, the issue of support for the RIC, the pro-British ‘police force’ in Ireland, was being discussed by the public and by their representatives in(the 32-County) Dáil Éireann.
On the 23rd April that year, the formal response of the Dáil on that issue was finalised and approved by the Deputies, and was made known to the public the next day(the 24th April 1919) –
“(The RIC and DMP should be treated as) persons who, having been adjudged guilty of treason to their country, are regarded as unworthy to enjoy any of the privileges or comforts which arise from cordial relations with the public.
(They) must receive no social recognition from the people, no intercourse is permitted with them, they should not be saluted or spoken to in the streets not their salutes returned.
They should not be invited to nor received in private houses as friends or guests, they should be debarred from participation in games, sports, dances and all social functions conducted by the people.
In a word, they should be treated as persons who have been adjudged guilty of treason to the country…”
Those ‘cops’ have changed uniforms since then – been rebranded – but that penalty remains apt.
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ON THIS DATE (24TH APRIL) 108 YEARS AGO : “A TERRIBLE BEAUTY IS BORN…”
Pictured – Pádraig Pearse, Thomas J Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh.
The 1916 Easter Rising began, in Ireland, on Easter Monday, 24th April 1916 and lasted for six days. The official surrender occurred on Friday, 28th April, and all fighting ceased on Saturday 29th April.
The rebels numbered around 2500 ; by the end of the fighting, there were around 20,000 British troops in Dublin.
On the 29th April 1916, a republican ‘surrender document’ was circulated between the combatants, which read –
‘In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin civilians and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the commandants of the various districts in the City and county will order their commands to lay down arms..’
The document (above) was signed by, among others, Patrick Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh, and it signalled the end of six days of fighting between approximately 20,000 British troops(including, in their ranks, Irish men) and a volunteer rebel force of about 2,500 Irish men and women (and other nationalities).
At about 3.45pm on Saturday, 29th April 1916, the Rising was brought to an end – Pádraig Pearse surrendered to British Brigadier-General Lowe, James Connolly surrendered on behalf of the ‘Irish Citizens Army’ and Ned Daly surrendered to British Major De Courcy Wheeler.
It is not mentioned as often as it should be, but before the surrender of Ned Daly and his forces, all of whom fought bravely in the North King Street area of Dublin, the British Officer who was in command of that particular engagement, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Taylor of the South Staffordshire Regiment, had lost 11 of his men with a further 28 having being wounded.
Following the surrender of Daly and the Dublin 1st Battalion, Taylor – who was to claim later that he was acting under orders from his superior, Brigadier-General William Henry Muir Lowe – ordered his men, who were enraged over having lost so many of their number, to ‘flush out’ any remaining enemy forces.
Taylor’s troops began breaking into local houses and, before their bloodlust was satisfied, they shot and/or bayoneted 15 boys and men to death, all of whom were ‘rebel fighters’, according to the British.
Approximately 590 people died during the six days of the 1916 Rising, of which 374 were civilians (including 38 children, aged 16 or younger), 116 British soldiers, 77 Irish rebel soldiers and 23 members of the British ‘police force’ which operated in Ireland at that time(‘1169’ comment – the objective has not yet being obtained, as not one of those rebel/dissident fighters took up arms to ‘achieve’ a so-called ‘Free State’ : the aim then, as now, is to secure a Free Ireland).
Padraig Pearse, Tom Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh, three of those in command of the republican dissidents during the Rising, were court-martialed by the British on the 2nd May 1916 and sentenced to death and, the next day – 3rd May 1916 – they were taken to the Stonebreakers’ Yard in Kilmainham Jail and, at dawn, were shot dead by a British Army firing squad.
It was these executions that prompted British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith(pictured) to warn General Maxwell that ‘a large number of executions would sow the seeds of lasting trouble in Ireland’ – that was the Westminster elite once again missing the point in regards to their ‘Irish outpost’ : ‘lasting trouble in Ireland’ is, unfortunately, guaranteed by the fact that it is the British military and political presence here that brings ‘trouble’, not the manner in which that presence treats its ‘subjects’.
Before he was executed, Padraig Pearse stated :
“We seem to have lost. We have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose ; to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to the future. If you strike us down now, we shall rise again and renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland. You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed…”
Pádraig Pearse was born in Dublin on the 10th November 1879 to an English father (who worked as a sculptor) and an Irish mother, both of whom encouraged him to learn about and appreciate his roots. At 21 years of age he joined the ‘Gaelic League’ and his enthusiasm ensured his advancement within that organisation – he was appointed as the editor of their newspaper, ‘An Claidheamh Solais’ (‘The Sword of Light’).
Not content with just a newspaper from which to voice his pro-Irish opinion, he founded a school – St. Enda’s College in Dublin, at 29 years of age, and structured its curriculum around Irish traditions and culture and tutored in both the Irish and English languages.
It was through the League that Pearse met like-minded individuals who also wanted ‘to break the connection with England’.
At 35 years of age, in 1914, he was accepted as a member of the supreme council of the ‘Irish Republican Brotherhood’ (IRB), a militant group that had stated its intention to use force to remove the British military and political presence from Ireland and, during the 1916 Rising – which he was heavily involved in organising – he was in command of the General Post Office (GPO) in Dublin.
He was executed at dawn by a British Army firing squad on the 3rd May 1916, in the Stonebreakers’ Yard in Kilmainham Jail.
‘The Mother’
By Pádraig Pearse.
I do not grudge them : Lord, I do not grudge
My two strong sons that I have seen go out
To break their strength and die, they and a few,
In bloody protest for a glorious thing,
They shall be spoken of among their people,
The generations shall remember them,
And call them blessed.
But I will speak their names to my own heart
In the long nights;
The little names that were familiar once
Round my dead hearth.
Lord, thou art hard on mothers :
We suffer in their coming and their going ;
And tho’ I grudge them not, I weary, weary
Of the long sorrow. And yet I have my joy :
My sons were faithful, and they fought.
Tom Clarke was born in a British military camp at Hurst Park in the Isle of Wight, on the 11th March 1858.
His father was then a Corporal in the British Army but, like Tom’s mother, was Irish born. A year later Corporal Clarke was drafted to South Africa where the family lived until 1865. Tom first saw Ireland about 1870, when his father was appointed a Sergeant of the Ulster Militia and was stationed at Dungannon in County Tyrone.
It was there that he grew to early manhood, and his father wished him to follow in his own footsteps and join the British Army, but the ‘Poor Old Woman’ had already enlisted Tom in her own small but select Army, at a time when the prospects of putting food on the table were not good – an Gorta Mór and the defeat of the Fenians still hung heavy over the land. Tom Clarke was sworn into the ‘Irish Republican Brotherhood’ by Michael Davitt and John Daly ; he could have had no more worthy sponsors.
In 1880, at twenty-two years young, he emigrated to the United States where he joined Clann na Gael and quickly volunteered for active service in Britain. The ship he travelled on struck an iceberg and sank, but he was rescued and landed on Newfoundland. Resuming his interrupted journey, he reached London where he was soon arrested – he had been followed from New York by ‘Henri Le Caron’, a British spy.
On 14th June 1883, at the ‘Old Bailey’, he was, with three others, sentenced to penal servitude for life.
For 15 years and nine months, in the prisons of Chatham and Portland, Tom Clarke endured imprisonment without flinching ; 15 years and nine months of an incessant attempt, by the British, to deprive him of his life or reason. This torture did not cease with daylight and recommence on the following day ; it was maintained during the hours of darkness when even the vilest criminal was entitled to sleep and rest.
But Tom Clarke and his comrades got neither sleep nor rest – cunning devices for producing continuous disturbing sounds were erected over their cells – these are described in his book ‘Glimpses of an Irish Felon’s Prison Life’ . The relentless brutality at length drove two of his comrades, Whitehead and Gallagher, hopelessly insane.
With John Daly, they were released in 1896 ; Daly had been arrested a year after Tom Clarke, and had hitherto shared the same prisons with him ; though kept apart, they had managed to communicate with each other now and again. The release of his friend was a sore loss to Tom Clarke who, for a further two years, had to endure alone an even more intensified form of torture.
Released in 1898, aged 40, he spent a short time in Limerick with his friend John Daly before returning to America where, in 1901, he married Kathleen Daly, John Daly’s daughter.
With Devoy, he founded the ‘Gaelic American’ newspaper and, as its assistant editor, worked in New York until 1907. Then he returned to Ireland and opened a newspaper shop at Parnell Street, Dublin, which quickly became the meeting place for Pádraig Pearse and that valiant company of a new generation who weren’t prepared to wait for crumbs from the British table.
They knew Tom Clarke as a man who had for so long been tested in the crucible of suffering and had been found unbreakable, and he didn’t fail them.
In 1916, they repaid him by insisting that his should be the first signature to the Proclamation of the Republic ; it was the greatest day of his life, though well he knew it meant for him the end.
He was shot on the 3rd May 1916, at 58 years of age, of those only eighteen had been spent in Ireland. If a man is judged by the life he has led then there is no more splendid figure than Tom Clarke ; the onset of the years chills the blood of most men – add to this the incredible physical and mental torture which he had endured for almost sixteen of those years. Most of the remainder were years of hardship and disillusionment.
His father’s influence and his early environment militated against his faith yet, like Padraig Pearse, he turned his back on ‘the beautiful vision of the world’, and set his face to the road before him, the road indicated by ‘the Poor Old Woman’.
On the 1st February 1878 a child, Thomas, was born in Cloughjordan in Tipperary, into a household which would consist of four sons and two daughters – the parents, Joseph and Mary (Louise Parker) MacDonagh, were both employed as teachers in a near-by school.
He went to Rockwell College in Cashel, Tipperary, where he entertained the idea of training for the priesthood but, at 23 years of age, decided instead to follow in his parents footsteps and trained to be a teacher.
He obtained employment at St Kieran’s College in Kilkenny and, while working there, advanced his interest in Irish culture by joining the local ‘Gaelic League’ group and was quickly elected to a leadership role within that organisation but, by 1905, he had left the League and moved on to teach at St Colman’s College, Fermoy, where he also established himself as a published poet.
Three years later he moved to a new position, as resident assistant headmaster at St Enda’s, Pádraig Pearse’s school, then based in Ranelagh, Dublin. In 1911, after completing his BA and MA at UCD, he was appointed lecturer in English at the same institution. In 1912 he married Muriel Gifford, sister of Grace, who would later marry Joseph Plunkett in Kilmainham Gaol.
In the years prior to the 1916 Rising MacDonagh became active in Irish literary circles and was a co-founder of the Irish Review and, with Plunkett, of the Irish Theatre on Hardwicke Street. MacDonagh was a witness to Bloody Sunday in 1913 and this event appears to have radicalised him so much so that he moved away from the circles of the literary revival and embraced political activism.
He joined the Irish Volunteers in December 1913 and was appointed to the body’s governing committee. In 1914 he rejected John Redmond’s appeal for the Volunteers to join the fight in the First World War. On the 9th September 1914 he attended the secret meeting that agreed to plan for an armed insurrection against British rule. By March 1915 he had been sworn into the ranks of the ‘Irish Republican Brotherhood’ and was also serving on the central executive of the Irish Volunteers, was director of training for the Volunteers and commandant of the 2nd Battalion of the Dublin Brigade.
In 1916, at the age of 38, he joined his comrades in challenging a then world power, England, over the injustices which that ‘world leader’ was inflicting in Ireland and, with six of his comrades, he signed a proclamation declaring the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, free of any external political or military interference.
He was found guilty by a British court martial that followed the 1916 Rising, and was sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad on the 3rd May that year. His friend and fellow poet Francis Ledwidge wrote a poem in his honour after his death ; Ledwidge, the ‘Poet of the Blackbirds’, fought for the British in the ‘First World War’ and was injured in 1916 – he was recovering from his wounds in hospital when news reached him of the Rising and he let it be known that he felt betrayed by Westminster over its interference in Ireland –
Lament for Thomas MacDonagh.
He shall not hear the bittern cry
In the wild sky where he is lain
Nor voices of the sweeter birds
Above the wailing of the rain.
Nor shall he know when loud March blows
Thro’ slanting snows her fanfare shrill
Blowing to flame the golden cup
Of many an upset daffodil.
And when the dark cow leaves the moor
And pastures poor with greedy weeds
Perhaps he’ll hear her low at morn
Lifting her horn in pleasant meads.
In his address to the court martial, Thomas MacDonagh said –
“Gentlemen of the court martial, I choose to think you have done your duty according to your lights in sentencing me to death. I thank you for your courtesy. It would not be seemly for me to go to my doom without trying to express, however inadequately, my sense of the high honour I enjoy in being one of those predestined to die in this generation for the cause of Irish freedom. You will, perhaps, understand this sentiment, for it is one to which an Imperial poet of a bygone age bore immortal testimony :“T’is sweet and glorious to die for one’s country.”
You would all be proud to die for Britain, your Imperial patron, and I am proud and happy to die for Ireland, my glorious fatherland…there is not much left to say. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic has been adduced in evidence against me as one of the signatories. I adhere to every statement in that proclamation. You think it already a dead and buried letter – but it lives, it lives! From minds alive with Ireland’s vivid intellect it sprang, in hearts alive with Ireland’s mighty love it was conceived. Such documents do not die.
The British occupation of Ireland has never for more than one hundred years been compelled to confront in the field of flight a rising so formidable as that which overwhelming forces have for the moment succeeded in quelling. This rising did not result from accidental circumstances. It came in due recurrent reasons as the necessary outcome of forces that are ever at work.
The fierce pulsation of resurgent pride that disclaims servitude may one day cease to throb in the heart of Ireland — but the heart of Ireland will that day be dead. While Ireland lives, the brains and brawn of her manhood will strive to destroy the last vestige of foreign rule in her territory. In this ceaseless struggle there will be, as there must be, an alternate ebb and flow.
But let England make no mistake. The generous high-bred youth of Ireland will never fail to answer the call we pass on to them, will never full to blaze forth in the red rage of war to win their country’s freedom. Other and tamer methods they will leave to other and tamer men ; but for themselves they must do or die. It will be said our movement was doomed to failure. It has proved so. Yet it might have been otherwise.
There is always a chance of success for brave men who challenge fortune. That we had such a chance, none know so well as your statesmen and military experts. The mass of the people of Ireland will doubtless lull their consciences to sleep for another generation by the exploded fable that Ireland cannot successfully fight England.
We do not propose to represent the mass of the people of Ireland. We stand for the intellect and for immortal soul of Ireland. To Ireland’s soul and intellect, the inert mass drugged and degenerated by ages of servitude must in the destined day of resurrection render homage and free service receiving in turn the vivifying impress of a free people.
Gentlemen, you have sentenced me to death, and I accept your sentence with joy and pride since it is for Ireland I am to die.
I go to join the goodly company of men who died for Ireland, the least of whom is worthier far than I can claim to be, and that noble band are themselves but a small section of the great, unnumbered company of martyrs, whose Captain is the Christ who died on Calvary. Of every white robed knight of all that goodly company we are the spiritual kin.
The forms of heroes flit before my vision, and there is one, the star of whose destiny chimes harmoniously with the swan song of my soul. It is the great Florentine, whose weapon was not the sword, but prayer and preaching ; the seed he sowed fructifies to this day in God’s Church. Take me away, and let my blood bedew the sacred soil of Ireland. I die in the certainty that once more the seed will fructify.”
Thomas MacDonagh – born on the 1st February 1878, executed by Westminster on the 3rd May 1916.
The 1916 Rising is one of the most important events in the history of this exceptional country and, despite the efforts of some, there are still people like us who will always strive to keep our country exceptional, from all threats, foreign and domestic.
‘SINN FÉIN REPLIES TO MR. HANNA…’
From ‘The United Irishman’ newspaper, April 1955.
Sinn Féin is the civilian or political arm of the Republican Movement and it therefore intends to use all constitutional means at its disposal for the achievement of its objectives – the primary object being the re-enthronement of a 32-County Republic.
In the 26-County State it intends to make use of the Leinster House elections in order to have its candidates elected by the people to a 32-County Dáil ; not to Leinster House.
In the Six-County State it would normally make use of the Stormont elections for the same purpose. However, it is prevented from doing this by a regulation of the Stormont regime which states that before anyone is allowed to go forward as a candidate in the elections in the Six County area they must sign a declaration that they will take their seats in Stormont if elected.
Since Sinn Féin candidates have no intention of sitting in Stormont any more than in Leinster House they could not honourably sign such a declaration…
(‘1169’ Comment : Irish republicans continue to operate an abstentionist policy in regards to Stormont and Leinster House, but there are still individuals and groups in this State and in Ireland [for instance, Fianna Fáil and Provisional Sinn Féin] who consider themselves to be ‘republican’ yet are quite content to sit in one or other, or both, partitionist assemblies.)
(MORE LATER.)
In 1920, an RIC Detective named Swanton had made a name for himself in Ennis, County Clare, where he operated as part of a two-person Detective team for the English Crown.
Mr Swanton viewed his position as a vocation, rather than just as a ‘job’ to pay the rent, and was said to be“…most zealous in trying to track down any type of movement on the part of the IRA…”
His eagerness had brought him to the notice of IRA HQ in Dublin, and an order was sent to the IRA in County Clare to deal with the man. It was known that, on the 24th April, himself and his colleague would be walking pass a Christian Brothers School, towards a crossroads, having paid a visit to the local railway station.
The information was correct in regards to the locations and times given, but the Detective was on his own, and had been ‘tailed’ on his walk by an IRA man, Tom Keane, who had kept his distance from Mr Swanton.
However, Mr Swanton, being ever cautious, spotted the IRA Volunteer behind him and ran towards the crossroads – where four other Volunteers(Liam Stack, Nick Foley, Peter O’Loughlin and William McNamara) were waiting for him.
The RIC Detective changed his route and kept running as two shots were fired at him ; he fell to the ground, motionless and, after observing from a distance for a few minutes, the IRA men moved off, satisfied that they had carried out their mission.
They were to learn later on that night that Mr Swanton, although badly wounded, was expected to recover, which he did…
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On the 17th November, 1919, a number of bank officials left the Munster and Leinster Bank and the National Bank in the Millstreet area, County Cork, at about 8am, in a car and a horse-drawn carriage, to attend a cattle fair at Knocknagree in that county.
The bank officials were carrying a total of £16,700 between them, a huge amount of money in those days, which would be worth at least half a million Euro today.
Both vehicles were held-up by at least five armed men and the money was taken.
On the 24th April, 1920, Liam Lynch, Officer Commanding of the Cork No 2 Brigade IRA, accompanied by between 100 and 200 Volunteers, representing the Irish Republican Police, arrived in Cork to investigate the robbery and, a short time later, the Republican Police arrested eight men, seven of whom confessed to have been involved in the robbery.
£10,000 was recovered and the seven arrested men were sentenced to various lengths of deportation from, or exile within, Ireland ; more here.
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SO, FAREWELL THEN, CELTIC TIGER….
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Most of the pundits and economists were too busy singing the Celtic Tiger’s praises to notice, but a few critical observers worried all along about the weaknesses of a boom economy that depended so much on a few companies from one place – the United States.
Productivity in the three US-dominated sectors grew by 215 per cent in the 1990’s, nearly nine per cent annually.
In services, construction and basic manufactures, output per employee grew by just one per cent annually, which most experts would call stagnation.
In 1999, the average worker in a foreign company produced output worth nearly eight times more than the average worker in an Irish company.
Transnational corporate profits in Ireland rose spectacularly during the 1990’s ; by the end of the decade, TNC’s received six times more in profits than they had in 1990.
Meanwhile, Irish firms received less profits than they had in 1990, and this was reflected in a sharp rise in the number of company failures…
(MORE LATER.)
In April, 1921, the Officer Commanding of the West Clare Brigade IRA, Seán Liddy(pictured, a republican-gamekeeper-turned Free State-poacher) and Michael Brennan(…also a republican-gamekeeper-turned Free State-poacher) agreed to share resources in an attack on British forces in the West Clare area.
On the 24th April, Seán Liddy, Michael Brennan, Stephen Madigan, Michael McMahon and Liam Haugh took command of a combined force of IRA Volunteers and attacked the enemy in the Kilrush area of County Clare in the RIC Barracks, the British Army Barracks and the Coastguard Station, with no republican casualties.
One RIC member, a ‘sergeant’, was killed and others wounded, as were a few British Army soldiers and, in retaliation, their colleagues in the Crown Forces drove to the village of Monmore, in County Wexford, placed explosives in and around the home of IRA Volunteer Liam Haugh, and detonated them, destroying the house.
However, in the explosion, a splinter injured a British Army soldier and he died from his wounds later that same week.
Also, on this date – 24th April 1921 – an RIC patrol was ambushed by the IRA in Ennistymon, in County Clare, and one of the patrol was wounded and, near the town of Ennis, in the same county, an RIC man was shot at.
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On the 24th April, 1921, three RIC members were driving in an unmarked car towards Cloghran Crossroads in North Dublin at the same time as a lorry carrying members of the British Army’s Lancashire Fusiliers(pictured) were driving towards it.
Shots were fired from each vehicle and an RIC member, ‘District Inspector’ Michael Joseph Cahill(‘Service Number 72022’), was badly wounded ; apparently, each group thought that the other was an IRA patrol, and opened fire!
Mr Cahill, from Clonmel, in County Tipperary, died from his wounds the following morning. He was a British ‘Serviceman’ who fell foul(!) of the ‘Reduction In Force’ legislation and moved ‘sidewards’ into the RIC ; he was stationed in Gormanstown Camp, in County Meath, and is buried in Shanavine, in Clonmel, in County Tipperary.
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In 1914, 17-years-young John Beets ‘Johnny’ Bales, from Norfolk, in England, signed up with the ‘Norfolk Yeomanry’(pictured) and was sent to Gallipoli and also ‘kept the peace’(!) in Egypt.
He later ‘adventured’ with the ‘Royal Air Force’ in Salonika, and then returned to his home.
Seeking more ‘adventure’, he travelled to Ireland and, on the 30th March, 1921, he joined the RIC, as a member of ‘P Company’ of the Auxiliary Division, based in Tubbercurry, in County Sligo.
On the 22nd/23rd April, 1921, ‘Cadet’ Bales and a colleague(‘Cadet’ Bolam) were sent to Belfast on ‘escort duty’ and were spotted at about 9pm, at the junction of Donegall Place and Fountain Lane in the city, by two Volunteers from the Belfast Brigade ASU IRA, Séamus Woods and Roger McCorley, who attacked them.
‘Cadet’ Bolam was shot dead and John Bales was badly wounded ; he died in hospital at about 11pm on the 24th April, 1921.
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BEIR BUA…
The Thread of the Irish Republican Movement from The United Irishmen through to today.
Republicanism in history and today.
Published by the James Connolly/Tommy O’Neill Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, The Liberties, Dublin.
August 1998.
(‘1169’ comment – ‘Beir Bua’ translates as ‘Grasp Victory’ in the English language.)
ROBERT EMMET AND THE IRELAND OF TODAY…
“For Emmet, finely gifted though he was, was just a young man with the same limitations, the same self-questionings, the same falterings, the same kindly human emotions surging up sometimes in such strength as almost to drown a heroic purpose, as many a young man we have known.
And his task was just such a task as many of us have undertaken : he had to go through the same repellent routine of work, to deal with the hard, uncongenial details of correspondence and conference and committee meetings ; he had the same sordid difficulties that we have, yea, even the vulgar difficulty of want of funds.
And he had the same poor human material to work with, men who misunderstood, men who bungled, men who talked too much, men who failed at the last moment.
Yes, the task we take up again is just Emmet’s task of silent unattractive work, the routine of correspondence and committees and organising.
We must face it as bravely and as quietly as he faced it, working on in patience as he worked on, hoping as he hoped : cherishing in our secret hearts the mighty hope that to us, though so unworthy, it may be given to bring to accomplishment the thing he left unaccomplished, but working on even when that hope dies within us…”
(MORE LATER.)
On the 24th April, 1922, the ‘Labour Party’ and the ‘Trade Union Congress’(ILP/TUC) held a general strike and protest against ‘militarism and the prospect of civil war’ in Ireland.
It was common knowledge that a fight was brewing between the forces of the Westminster-backed Free Staters and the IRA and the pro-Treaty of Surrender ‘Labour Party’ were as compelled then as they are now to accept a 26 County State rather than a Free Ireland, which would still have to be fought for.
Tens of thousands of Irish citizens attended a rally in O’Connell Street, in Dublin, as expected, as no one wanted a civil war ; the organisers had stated they were protesting against“…the growth of the idea that the military forces may take command of the civil life of the nation without responsibility to the people ; that military men may commit acts of violence against civilians and be immune from prosecution or punishment ; that possession of arms is the sole title to political authority..”which was, in effect, a pro-Leinster House/Free State mantra.
The ‘strike’ began in Beresford Place at 6am and finished at 9pm that night in O’Connell Street(then known as ‘Sackville Street’) where three stage units had been erected to allow for speeches to be delivered by trade union affiliated speakers, Thomas Johnson, Cathal O’Shannon and Edward O’Carroll.
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April, 1922 – the whole of Ireland was in political and military turmoil due, firstly, to the continuing British political and military presence in the country and, secondly, because of the latest offer of a ‘Treaty’ to the Irish from Westminster.
Among other instances of injustice that month in 1922 were the introduction of the ‘Special Powers Act’ and the Arnon Street murders, where six Catholic civilians were shot or beaten to death by men who broke into their homes.
‘The Irish News’ newspaper, a somewhat Irish nationalist publication at the time, published an Editorial on the 24th April, 1922, in which the newspaper held the Stormont Administration(and, by extension, the Westminster Parliament in London) responsible for the murderous misdeeds –
“Not a single honest official effort had been made to get at the truth about these ghastly occurrences…full responsibility for all these hideous deeds of terrorism and blood rests on the shoulders of the established Government of this city…their failure to preserve a semblance of law and order is apparently complete..”
That news outlet(and practically all other such outlets in the country) has long since changed its political outlook to lay blame for all such political turmoil firmly at the feet of those who continue to strive for a proper political solution to the foreign and domestic butchery inflicted on us.
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On the 24th April, 1922, William Sibberson (31) was working at his desk in Richardson’s Chemical Company in the Short Strand, in Belfast, when he was shot dead.
On that same date, a 70-year-old man, Mr James Corr, who lived at 33 Lowry Street in Belfast, was shot dead by a loyalist gunman as he delivered coal in Middlepath Street in that city, and William Steele and Ellen Greer died of injuries received in an earlier incident ; Mr Steele, from Disraeli Street, and M/s Greer, from Enniskillen Street, were ‘killed by a revolver belonging to her brother-in-law, an ‘A Special’…’
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The British Forces base in Celbridge, in County Kildare, was located in the well-fortified Mill complex, and was strengthened by RIC members from the various barracks that had been vacated as a result of IRA attacks on them and, later, due to the acceptance of the ‘Treaty of Surrender’ ; indeed, by the summer of 1920, it was the only RIC barracks remaining open in North Kildare.
In April, 1922, the British forces were ordered to vacate the building in Celbridge and hand it over to the Free State military, sometimes referred to in those early-Free Stater years as ‘the Regular IRA’ or the ‘IRA’ ; some of their operatives had actually been involved in the fight against the British and still enjoyed describing themselves as the ‘IRA’ even though, by then, the British Army shared their objectives.
On the 24th April, 1922, at about 11.30pm, the(proper!) IRA attacked the Staters in their barracks and a gunfight ensued for about an hour, during which the IRA Volunteers attempted to scale the walls of the building.
The attack was unsuccessful and the IRA withdrew from the scene.
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‘April 1 1924 –
Mr J H Thomas, British Colonial Secretary, assured Mr Cahir Healy, MP, that he was “aware of the feeling which existed” in Ireland over “the delay in setting up the Boundary Commission provided for in Article 12 of the Irish Treaty signed on December 6th, 1921”.
The representative of Tyrone had asked whether Mr Thomas had knowledge of that dissatisfaction: and the minister had. But Mr Healy also asked the minister to say “if he was yet able to fix the date for a resumption of the conference” : and the reply to this part of the composite query was “As my hon. friend is aware, I am dealing with it”.
Of course, no-one knows how much Mr Cahir Healy knows of Mr Thomas’s intentions; but if the Irish member is aware of nothing beyond the fact that the Welsh minister of the Crown is still “dealing” with a question that arose in January 1922, the extent of his information is not exactly voluminous.
Mr Healy wanted a date ; Mr Thomas neither fixed one nor indicated that he had one in his mind.
In fact, he said nothing that the Duke of Devonshire could not have said a year ago with equal regard for the truth and disregard for Irish feelings and interests.
As Mr Healy did not insist on a definite reply to a plain question, perhaps he is aware of some facts unknown to the public on this side of the Irish Sea ; but his effort to secure a statement worth twopence was not successful…’(From here.)
However, despite the nonchalance reluctance on the part of Westminster to abide by an agreement they freely entered into(in 1921!), a ‘Boundary Commission Conference’ was arranged for the 24th April, 1922.
It was held on that date, but collapsed, fruitless, on the 25th!
William Thomas Cosgrave, the ‘President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State’, was to later declare that he was pessimistic of the negotiations achieving anything because of James Craig’s position ie – ‘the longer the Boundary Commission could be delayed, the less likely that it would ever be formed at all’.
On the 26th April, 1924, the Free State government requested(!) the British Government to take immediate steps to constitute the Boundary Commission and, as Mr Craig continued to refuse to appoint a Commissioner to the body, the British threatened to refer the matter to the ‘Judicial Committee of the Privy Council’, thus buying themselves more time to do nothing!
…and we’ll be opening for business on Wednesday, 24th April 2024..
…with a 15-part post!’
We’re putting the finishing touches to the 15 for the 24 and we’ll be exploring the following pieces in a bit more detail –
Foreign and domestic threats ; from 1916 to 2024…
From 1955 – “…a regulation of the Stormont regime which states that before anyone is allowed to go forward as a candidate in the elections in the Six County area they must sign a declaration that they will take their seats in Stormont if elected…’
From 1920 – an unexpected ‘meeting’ at a quiet country crossroads looked like it had the intended consequences but not so…
From 1921 – a revenge attack by the British went slightly astray when a sharp projectile didn’t…
In 1914, this young English man set out on adventures to Gallipoli and Egypt and other places and survived to talk about it in Ireland, but this country proved to be an ‘adventure’ too far for him…
1922 – murderous misdeeds and where the finger pointed compared to where it would point now…
So check back with us on Wednesday, 24th April 2024, for the above and more than the same again!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading – appreciated!
AT MIDNIGHT ON THE 17TH APRIL 75 YEARS AGO – UP THE REPUBLIC…
…UP THE YARD, THAT IS!
Not that this (or this) couldn’t happen in aproper ‘Republic’, just that instances like that happen here, in this failed and false ‘Republic’, as a matter of course, and make the headlines on the day but are quickly pushed aside by the next tragedy.
And talking of tragedies, that’s what is being ‘celebrated’ here, tomorrow, the 18th April : the tragedy, that is, that this failed State has been misconstrued as a ‘Republic’, and is being honoured, by some, as such, in the same manner that that same mistake was made on the day itself :
‘At midnight last night(ie the 17th April 1949, the time and date that this State ‘officially’ left the so-called ‘British Commonwealth’ under the terms of ‘The Republic of Ireland Act 1948’) the twenty-six counties officially left the British Commonwealth and cut the last constitutional link with Britain. The description of the state from that moment became the Republic of Ireland.
The birth of the new Republic was welcomed throughout the country(sic) in celebrations centred on Dublin, where a 21-gun salute was fired from O’Connell Bridge…at 11.45pm, as blazing tar barrels on the Dublin hills could be seen in the city centre, O’Connell street became a blaze of light from searchlight batteries ringing the city.
A few minutes after midnight the salute from the guns began, with ten-second intervals between the rounds…men, women and children shouted “Up the Republic,” while groups of young people with accordions and other musical instruments joined in singing national airs…and dancing continued until early this morning.
At one minute past midnight Radio Éireann broadcast this statement :“These are the first moments of Easter Monday, April 18th, 1949.
Since midnight, for the first time in history, international recognition has been accorded to the Republic of Ireland.
Our listeners will join us in asking God’s blessing on the Republic, and in praying that it will not be long until the sovereignty of the Republic extends over *the whole of our national territory…”(from here : * possibly the last time that RTE publicly acknowledged, unashamedly, that “our national territory” includes the Occupied Six Counties!).
Seems straight-forward enough but, as with most things in this ‘republic’, that’s not the case : what happened in 1949 was, according to those who profess to know better, simply a legal exercise to tidy up loose ends by declaring that the word ‘Éire’ implied that the area known as such is the ‘Republic of Ireland’ even though that area ie ‘Éire’ was itself never recognised as a ‘Republic’.
So, it is being argued, the name change was a translation only and is not established as a fact in legal circles.
Some ‘experts’ (but not all of them!) are of the opinion that this State ‘became a republic’ twelve years previous to the above(ie 1937) when ‘Bunreacht na hÉireann’ was enacted(29th December that year).
If you think that’s confusing, you should try living here.
Anyway – for our part, we’re not as much interested in when exactly the Free Staters claim this gombeen Free State was ‘spawned’ as we are in regards to when it will end – when it will be buried, politically, morally, and spiritually, and replaced with aproper country.
“Those raids for mails gave General O’Duffy and the Brigade staff most valuable intelligence about the activities of some civilian spies who were giving information to the British in our Brigade area.
Information obtained in one of those raids resulted in the execution of two British spies Kitty Carroll from near Scotstown and Arthur Treanor from Tydavnet direction.
In both of these cases I heard that cheques were actually enclosed in letters in payment for services rendered. I know for a fact that both of those people were executed as a result of information got in raids on mails which left no doubt as to their guilt…”
— ‘IRA Witness Statement’, made after the shooting dead, on the 17th April, 1920, of Catherine (Kate/Kitty) Carroll (36), who lived near Duffy’s Cross, in Tydavnet, County Monaghan.
A sign saying ‘Spies And Informers Beware’ was attached to her body.
For the IRA to purposely execute a woman was almost unheard of and the shooting dead of M/s Carroll caused an avalanche of bad feeling and wild rumours : that she made and sold poitín and was friendly with the RIC, to whom she informed to on other Poitín makers with requests that they be put out of business, that she was a “social deviant” and had caused trouble in the town on more that one occasion, that she was pestering a local IRA man to marry her and, as such, the IRA were wary of the trouble that ‘a woman scorned’ could bring to their doorstep, and that she was simply of ‘feeble intellect’ and could be easily manipulated by enemy forces.
Thomas Brennan, an IRA intelligence officer, is on record as saying that Kate Carrol had written to the RIC giving the location of an IRA arms dump and had listed the places where IRA men were staying at night :
“This person, Kate Carroll, wrote letters again and again to RIC Scotstown wanting to know why these fellows were not arrested and their arms seized…”
On investigating the shooting, Dr Niall Meehan(Faculty Head, Journalism and Media, Griffith College, Dublin) concluded that there was considerable IRA testimony available“…to the effect that Kate Carroll had informed against the IRA…the evidence, properly scrutinised, shows that…she is someone…who became an informer, and who ignored warnings to desist. That does not mean that she should have been executed. But it is the reason that she was executed…”
However, IRA GHQ had issued a ‘General Order on the Handling of Women Spies’(‘General Order No. 13′- “Women Spies’ should be warned and (if not Irish) deported. In dangerous and insistent cases, IRA Commanders were ordered to seek instructions from GHQ…”)
The reason for the special treatment of female spies was the position which women held in Irish society at this time and the bad publicity which would result from the execution of women who were alleged to be informers or spies.
Killings of that nature caused acute embarrassment locally and at GHQ level to the IRA, and would explain why, between 1919 and 1921, only three women, thankfully, were executed by the IRA – Catherine (Kate/Kitty) Carroll, Bridget Noble and Mary Lindsay.
‘SINN FÉIN REPLIES TO MR. HANNA…’
From ‘The United Irishman’ newspaper, April 1955.
Their continual efforts to claim the Irish race and nation as British is an indication of their grudging respect and secret admiration for them.
Their determination to hold on to a portion of Irish soil can be explained by the strategic importance of Ireland, but how can we explain their determination to hold on to every individual Irishman (sic) whether he comes from North or South?
This they do even to the extent of regarding them as British citizens with full civic rights once they land in England.
Could the explanation be that they regard the Irish as a superior race – which they undoubtedly are – and, like Irish horses, they like to put the ‘British’ stamp on them before the world?
Since the point has been raised, however, it may be as well to restate the position in regard to elections as far as Sinn Féin is concerned…
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (17TH APRIL) 106 YEARS AGO – ‘CONSCRIPTION ; ‘THE BLOOD VOTE’ – CAMPAIGN FINALISED.
In 1916, as Westminster was ‘putting down’ the Irish for daring to challenge its misrule in Ireland, it found itself under ‘attack’ on another front – a shortage of military manpower with which to enforce the ‘writ’ of its ’empire’ on a global scale, and the ‘solution’ it arrived at, in its arrogance, was to introduce conscription on what the ’empire’ called its ‘mainland’ – Britain.
But even that Act didn’t supply enough ‘cannon fodder’(overall, about 18 million soldiers died and more than 20 million were incapacitated during that conflict) and, two years later, the criteria of those to be conscripted was ‘relaxed’, meaning that those who ‘failed to qualify’ in round one now found themselves to be suitable material.
But that wasn’t the only change made – there still wasn’t enough ‘trench fillers’ so the British announced that the Irish were to be paid a visit in regards to being given the opportunity(!) to ‘serve their empire’ and, on the 16th April 1918, conscription was extended to this country(the British ‘Military Service Act’ was amended to include this country).
An unintended consequence of insisting that the Irish, too, must be allowed to die ‘for their empire’ was the common ground found between the ‘Irish Volunteers’, Sinn Féin, Cumann na mBan, the ‘Irish Party’, the trade union movement and the religious orders, all of whom were, among other groups, opposed to that ‘offer’ from Westminster and, on the 17th April, 1918 – 106 years ago on this date – the final arrangements for a ‘Mansion House Monster Meeting’ were confirmed.
On the 18th April 1918, that opposition was shown to have a loud and popular voice by way of a packed meeting held in the Mansion House, in Dublin, organised by the newly-formed ‘Irish Anti-Conscription Committee’, which attracted about 1,500 people.
The then Westminster-appointed ‘Chief Secretary for Ireland’, Henry Edward Duke(aka ‘the 1st Baron Merrivale’)knew that the Irish were not going to go quietly into the trenches, if at all, and contacted his betters in Whitehall and told them that“…it will be impossible in the teeth of the opposition of bishops and politicians to enforce conscription..implementing the measure in the face of such opposition would require more men than would be conscripted..” – that was in early April 1918.
Mr Duke was removed from his job during the first week of May but, by the middle of June that same year, those that had removed him and, indeed, their political bosses in Westminster and Whitehall, realised that he was right and abandoned their intention to force conscription in Ireland.
Incidentally, membership of the IRA increased as a result of the Irish conscription order, but the downside of accepting ‘new republicans’ into the fold, simply because those new members were opposed to conscription, was recognised by some in the Movement, at the time, but not, unfortunately, by all :
‘When the British Government introduced ‘The Conscription Bill’ on 16th April 1918, recruits flocked to the IRA – the people were scared.
But people have short memories. It was merely a temporary hosting, like that of King Wire’s donkey. King Wire was an expert manufacturer of wire goods – muzzles, strainers and the like, who attended every horse fair in the south of Ireland. While he walked through the throng of people and horses, he worked unceasingly with hands and pliers on the roll of wire slung over one shoulder.
When his feet stopped he bought donkeys.
Thus while his eyes surveyed his prospective purchase, and his tongue got busy to bargain with a fine humour, his hands never rested. No donkey on the market went home unsold.
All went into his carelessly-kept herd. One evening in Macroom I remarked to him :“You have a big stock today, King Wire…”
“Most of those will have departed by morning,” he replied..’(from this book.)
Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer until we’re reading about another ‘departure’, or do some in this country still need to be conscripted by the British before they act to defend themselves and their country?
Because of their ‘adventurous’ travels(!) throughout the world, the British almost always had an army abroad to feed, as well as those who were still at home because they hadn’t yet been sent away to join the ‘adventures’, so foodstuffs practically became a currency in itself.
In early 1920, the price of most foodstuffs in Ireland increased(not for the first time, by any means!) when Westminster relaxed/withdrew price control structures(which inadvertently (?!) increased supply for armies abroad, for instance…) and, as a result, two of the basics in Ireland – bacon and butter – became practically unaffordable for the citizens.
On the 17th April, 1920, the ‘Irish Labour Party And Trade Union Congress’, fresh from success at the polls, decided to fight back and the export of certain foodstuffs – such as live pigs, bacon and butter – was banned.
The ‘Irish Farmers Union’ opened negotiations with the relevant department in London and, on April 20th, the prices of bacon and butter in Ireland were reduced.
The moral of the story is that, while an army ‘may march on its stomach’, the Irish will march on any army that stomps on its belly!
==========================
“It is not sufficient that these brave men should die, as Thomas Ashe had died, in defence of a principle.
Their deaths must be made agonising and their bodies and souls tortured by the refined brutality of forcible feeding.
Such are the methods a British government has been reduced to in its brutal attempt to destroy the soul and spirit of the Nation…”
-the words of a ‘Cork Examiner’ newspaper journalist, in 1920, having witnessed three hunger-striking IRA POW’s being forcibly removed from Cork Prison to Cork Military Hospital to be force fed.
On the 17th and 18th April, 1920, there were riots in Derry when six political prisoners on hunger-strike were removed from Derry Jail to Wormwood Scrubs Prison in Hammersmith and Fulham, in West London, in England, to be force fed ; one of the prisoners, Maurice Crowe(Adjutant, 4th Battalion, 3rd Tipperary Brigade) was told that he was being moved to be “fed”, but such was the outcry that the prison doctors objected and the POW’s were then moved to Pembroke Prison.
“We were taken out of the cells where we were and thrown into what are called punishment cells. We were three days on hunger strike at this time and were getting pretty weak. These punishment cells are in the basement, low down. They had not been opened for twenty years, I think. They were very small and close and the dust was thick in them…”
– the words of POW IRA Kerry Commander, Thomas Treacy, who was taken by ship from Belfast Prison to Wormwood Scrubs Prison in April 1920, during the first week of his hunger strike ; he later described the journey as “traumatic – handcuffed in pairs, the republican prisoners suffered from violent seasickness and empty retching…”
On the 15th January, 1920, Donnchadh O’ Muireagain(Denis Morgan), a member of Sinn Féin and at the time a teacher of Irish and Mathematics at Thurles Christian Brothers School(CBS) had been elected Chairman of Thurles Urban District Council and was asked, in 1921, to give a statement of evidence to a Washington body, ‘The American Commission on Conditions in Ireland’.
Mr Morgan had been incarcerated by the British as a republican prisoner and, while addressing the Commission, spoke about how he and his fellow prisoners had broken down their cell doors at Wormwood Scrubs Prison in protest against the cell doors being locked at night, which prevented the healthier hunger strikers from attending to the weaker hunger strikers –
“We were taken out of the cells where we were and thrown into what are called punishment cells. We were three days on hunger strike at this time and were getting pretty weak. These punishment cells are in the basement, low down. They had not been opened for twenty years, I think. They were very small and close and the dust was thick in them…”
Mr Morgan added that the size of the cells was only twelve foot by eight foot and that the prisoners remained imprisoned there for four days without being offered water to wash with.
As with the on-going struggle and campaign for a full British military and political withdrawal from Ireland, Westminster has always attempted to treat and present the struggle as ‘criminal’, rather than what it is – political – and have always attempted to portray our political prisoners as ‘criminals’.
==========================
A Westminster policy of state-sanctioned terrorism was supported at the highest levels in their political and military administrations, up to and including the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, and the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill.
The British felt that a policy of ‘hard coercion’ would turn the people of Ireland against the IRA.
As part of that official policy, on the 17th April, 1920, a gang of RIC men besieged the small Tipperary town of Bouladuff, and raided houses and business premises, all the time firing their weapons.
On the 26th April, they partially wrecked Kilcommon in the same county, on April 27th, after the IRA had captured and then destroyed the RIC barracks at Ballylanders, County Limerick, and seized arms and ammunition, the RIC and the Black and Tans shot up a number of houses in Limerick City and called back on the 1st May and done the same again.
They destroyed a number of houses in Bantry, County Cork, on the 13th May and caused mayhem in Limerick City on the 18th of that month. On the 19th, they revisited Kilcommon, in County Tipperary, and ‘shot up the town’ again.
==========================
SO, FAREWELL THEN, CELTIC TIGER….
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Most of the pundits and economists were too busy singing the Celtic Tiger’s praises to notice, but a few critical observers worried all along about the weaknesses of a boom economy that depended so much on a few companies from one place – the United States.
As a result, the share of US-based firms in industrial investment rose from a third in 1990 to two-thirds in 1998.
The ‘Celtic Tiger’ comprised two distinct stories – rising investments by US companies and stagnating investments by Irish firms ; economic growth was concentrated in the three US-dominated sectors of computers, electronic engineering and pharmaceuticals.
These three sectors alone (not including software-related services and teleservices) accounted for 78 per cent of industrial growth (including construction) in 1998, 85 per cent in 1999 and 84 per cent in 2000.
They were the only sectors in the whole economy that exceeded the average GDP growth rate of 6.3 per cent during the 1990’s, growing annually by about 15 per cent…
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (17TH APRIL) 84 YEARS AGO : FUNERAL ARRANGEMENT FINALISED FOR GALWAY HUNGER-STRIKER.
Galway IRA man and Officer Commanding of the IRA Western Command at the time, Tony Darcy, who began his hunger strike on 25th February 1940 and died on 16th April, in St Bricins (Free State) military hospital in Dublin, after 52 days on hunger strike.
Tony Darcy was sentenced to three months imprisonment for refusing to either account for his movements or give his name and address when arrested by Free Staters at an IRA meeting in Dublin.
The POW’s went on hunger strike after Meath IRA man, Nick Doherty, was imprisoned on the criminal wing in Mountjoy Jail and a request to transfer him to join his political comrades in Arbour Hill Jail was refused by the Staters. One week into the protest, the prison authorities made a move to take the IRA OC of the prisoners, Seán McNeela, for ‘trial’ before the ‘Special Criminal Court’ but he refused to go with them.
Barricades were built and D-Wing was secured as best as possible by the IRA prisoners and they were soon attacked by armed Special Branch men, backed-up by the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Amongst the casualties were McNeela and Darcy, both of whom were beaten unconscious and suffered wounds that were never allowed to heal.
This account of that period, by Michael Traynor, was submitted for the public record by Carmel McNeela, widow of Paddy McNeela and sister-in-law of Seán McNeela :
(Michael Traynor, Adjutant-General, IRA at the time of his arrest in February 1940, endured hunger strike with Seán McNeela, Tony Darcy, Tomás Mac Curtáin, Jack Plunkett and Tommy Grogan) :
“When Seán McNeela became CS (Chief of Staff) of the IRA in 1938 he immediately appointed Jack McNeela OC (Officer Commanding) Great Britain with the particular task of putting the organisation there on a war footing and amassing explosives and preparing for the forthcoming bombing campaign.
After a few months of tense activity Jack was arrested and sentenced to nine months imprisonment. He returned to Ireland in 1939 and was appointed Director of Publicity. Jack was very disappointed with this appointment. He said he knew nothing about publicity and would have preferred some task, no matter how humble which would have kept him in contact with the rank and file Volunteers.
However Publicity had to be organised and Jack threw himself to the job with zeal and energy. After two months, out of nothing, Jack had his Publicity Department functioning perfectly. Writers were instructed and put to work, office staff organised, radio technicians got into harness.
Another big disappointment at this time for Jack was the instructions he received about the raid on the Magazine Fort. He nearly blew up when he was told that he could not take part in the operation, that HQ staff could not afford to lose more than the QMG and the AG if the operation failed. He was a man of action and wanted to be with his comrades in time of danger.
He repeatedly requested the AG for permission to take part in the operation but without success. But Jack was there, orders or no orders, and he did about ten men’s work in the taking of the fort and the loading of the ammunition. He was a very pleased man that night, for he, like all the rest of the members of GHQ knew that this ammunition was necessary to the success of the Army’s attack on the Border, which was planned to take place in the following spring.
He was arrested about three weeks later with members of the Radio Broadcast Staff and lodged in Mountjoy jail.
He was OC of the prisoners when I arrived in the middle of February 1940. Tomás Mac Curtáin was there, and Tony Darcy, who was a very great personal friend of Jack’s, so was Jack Plunkett and Tommy Grogan. I was about a week in jail, life was comparatively quiet, great speculation was going on as to what would happen to the men arrested in connection with the raid on the Magazine Fort.
The crisis developed when Nicky Doherty, of Julianstown, Co Meath was sentenced to five years penal servitude. Instead of being transferred to Arbour Hill (where other Republican prisoners had political status), Nicky was lodged in the criminal section of Mountjoy Jail.
Jack, being OC of Republican Prisoners, interviewed the governor of the jail and requested that Nicky be transferred to Arbour Hill on the grounds that he was a political prisoner and that it was unjust and unchristian to attempt to degrade and classify as criminal a Republican soldier. The request was ignored.
Jack and his prison council met to consider the situation : it was decided that a demand was necessary and with the demand for justice went the ultimatum that if he refused a number of prisoners (who were still untried) would go on hunger strike until the demand was accepted. A short time limit was set, but the demand was also ignored.
Jack, I remember well, was very insistent that the issue should be kept clear and simple. The hunger strike was a protest against the attempted degradation of Republican soldiers. There was no other question or issue involved. A simple demand for justice and decency. Seven men volunteered to go on hunger strike and when the time limit [February 25, 1940] of the ultimatum expired they refused to eat any food, although tempting parcels of food kept arriving every day from their relatives and friends.
It was felt by the men on hunger strike that the struggle would be either a speedy victory or a long, long battle, with victory or death at the end. It was victory and death for Jack McNeela and Tony Darcy.
Seven days after the commencement of the hunger strike Special Branch policemen came to take Jack to Collins Barracks for trial before the ‘Special Criminal (or was it the Military) Court’. Jack refused to go with them. They told him they’d take him by force. They went away for reinforcements.
A hasty meeting of the Prisoners’ Council was held. They felt it was unjust to take Jack for trial while he was on hunger strike, and that everything possible should be done to prevent the hunger strikers from being separated. Barricades were hastily erected in the D-Wing of the jail. Beds, tables and mattresses were piled on top of each other ; all the food was collected and put into a common store and general preparations made to resist removal of Jack, their OC.
A large contingent of the DMP arrived together with the Special Branch at full strength. The DMP men charged the barricades with batons ; the Special Branch men kept to the rear and looked on while the DMP men were forced to retire by prisoners with legs of stairs. Several charges were made but without success. Some warders and a few policemen suffered minor injuries. The governor of the jail came down to the barricade and asked the prisoners to surrender. They greeted him with jeers and booing.
After some time the DMP men returned, armed with shovel shafts about six feet long, hoping with their superior weapons to subdue the prisoners. After several charges and some tough hand-to-hand fighting the policemen again retired. The most effective weapon possessed by the prisoners was a quantity of lime, liquefied by some Mayo men, and flung in the faces of the charging DMP men. It was reminiscent off the Land League days and the evictions.
Finally the fire hydrants were brought into use and the force of the water from these hoses broke down everything before them. The barricade was toppled over and the prisoners, drenched to the skin, could not resist the powers of water at pressure ; they were forced to take cover in the cells. I got into a cell with Tony Darcy and Jack McNeela. We closed the door. After a few minutes the door was burst open and in rushed about five huge DMP men swinging their batons in all directions.
Tony, standing under the window facing the door, put up his hand but he was silenced by a blow of a baton across the face that felled him senseless. Jack was pummelled across the cell by blow after blow. Blood teemed from his face and head. These wounds on Jack and Tony never healed until they died.
It lasted only a few brief minutes, this orgy of sadistic vengeance, and then we were carried and flung into solitary confinement. Jack was taken away that evening and tried and sentenced by the Special Court. The next time I saw Tony and Jack was in the sick bay in Arbour Hill. Jack Plunkett was also there with them. We exchanged experiences after the row in the ‘Joy’.
Day followed day, I cannot remember any particular incident, except that regularly three times a day an orderly arrived with our food, which we of course refused to take. We were by now nursing our strength realising that this was a grim struggle, a struggle to the death. We jokingly made forecasts of who would be the first to die.
Jack was almost fanatic about speaking Gaelic. Most of our conversation while in the Hill was in Gaelic. Tony used to laugh at my funny accent. While he couldn’t speak Gaelic he understood perfectly well all that was said and sometimes threw in a remark to the conversation. When conversation was general, English was the medium. Jack Plunkett didn’t know any Gaelic at all. We were in the best of spirits. Rumours filtered through to us, I don’t know how, because we were very strictly isolated from the rest of the Republican prisoners in the Hill.
We heard that one of our comrades had broken the hunger strike at the Joy ; we didn’t hear the name for a few days. The report was confirmed, we were inclined to be annoyed, but we agreed that it was better for the break to come early than late. It had no demoralising effect.
After Jack was arrested all the books he had bought (mostly Gaelic) were sent into the Joy. He intended to make good use of his spell of imprisonment. He kept requesting the Governor of the Hill to have them sent to him. After about three weeks a few tattered and water-sodden books were brought to him, all that remained of his little library, the others had been trampled and destroyed by the police in Mountjoy. Jack was vexed. He hadn’t smoked, nor taken drink and every penny he had went to the purchase of these books that he loved.
We were, during all this time, as happy as men could be. In spite of imprisonment and all that it means we were not all despondent nor feeling like martyrs. Everyday, we reviewed our position ; what we had done, our present state of health, the prospect of success. The conclusion we came to was that de Valera, Boland and Co had decided to gamble with us – to wear us out in the hope that we would break and therefore demoralise all our comrades and if we didn’t break, to give political treatment to all IRA prisoners when we were in the jaws of death.
The issue, as we saw it, was of vital importance to us, but of practically no consequence to the Fianna Fáil regime. We knew of course that de Valera and the Fianna Fáil party hated the IRA, because we were a reminder of their broken pledged to the people.
On the eve of St Patrick’s Day we were removed to St Bricin’s military hospital. A few days later Tomás Mac Curtáin and Tommy Grogan joined us. We were terribly disappointed with their report from the ‘Joy’. The men who had been sentenced were accepting criminal status instead of refusing to work as they had been instructed to do ; that is another story, although it led directly to the death of Seán McCaughey six years later in Portlaoise jail.
We were in a small hospital ward. Three beds on each side, occupied by six hungry men and every day was a hungry day. Every evening each of us would give the description of the meal he would like most, or the meal he had enjoyed most. Salmon and boxty loomed large in Jack’s menu.
About this time we began to count the days that we could possibly live. The doctors who examined us, sometimes three times a day, told us that we had used up all our reserves and were living on our nerves ; they tried to frighten us, assuring us that if we didn’t come off the hunger strike our health would be ruined. We all agreed among ourselves that the doctors were actuated by purely humane motives, although their advice if acted on by us would have been very satisfactory to their employers.
After 50 days on hunger strike we were unable to get out of bed, or rather the strain of getting up was too great an expenditure of energy, which we were determined to husband carefully.
We did not see any change on each other. The change came so imperceptibly day after day. Jack, lying in the next bed to me, seemed to be the same big robust man that I had known before we were arrested, yet, we each were failing away. The doctors and nurses were very kind. We were rubbed with spirit and olive oil to prevent bedsores ; all our joints and bony places were padded with cotton wool, for by now the rubbing of one finger against another was painful. None of us could read anymore, our sight had lost focus and concentration on material objects had become difficult.
We were face to face with death ; but no one flinched or if he did he prayed to God for strength and courage.
On the 54th night of the strike, about midnight, Tony cried out (we were all awake) : “Jack, I’m dying.” We all knew that it was so. Jack replied, “I’m coming, Tony”. I felt, and I’m sure Jack and the others felt also, that getting out of bed and walking across the room to Tony would mean death to Jack also.
As well as I remember Mac Curtáin, Plunkett, Grogan and myself appealed to Jack not to get out of bed. But Tony’s cry pierced Jack’s heart deeper than ours so he got up and staggered across the room to his friend and comrade. Later that night Tony was taken out to a private ward. We never saw him again. He died the following night. A great and staunch and unflinching soldier and comrade ; oh that Ireland had twenty thousand as honourable and fearless as he.
The day following Tony’s removal from the ward, Jack’s uncle, Mick Kilroy, late Fianna Fáil TD, came to see Jack.
Alas, he didn’t come to give a kinsman’s help, but attacked Jack for “daring to embarrass de Valera” the “heaven-sent leader” by such action and demanded that Jack give up his hunger strike at once. Jack’s temper rose and had he been capable of rising would have thrown him out. He ordered him out of the room, so did we all.
It was the first time in 56 days that we felt enraged at anything. The brutal treatment of the police after seven days’ hunger strike was trivial in comparison to this outrage. The next day Jack was taken out of the ward. We never saw him again.
A few hours after his removal we received a communication from the Chief of Staff IRA. The following is an extract:
‘April 19, 1940.
To the men on hunger strike in St Bricin’s Hospital :
The Army Council and the Nation impressed with the magnitude of your self-sacrifice wish to convey to you the desire that if at all consistent with your honour as soldiers of the Republic you would be spared to resume your great work in another form. We are given to understand that the cause you went on strike has been won and that your jailers are now willing to concede treatment becoming soldiers of the Republic.
In these circumstances if you are satisfied with the assurances given you – you will earn still more fully the gratitude of the people – relinquishing the weapon which has already caused so much suffering and has resulted in the death of a gallant comrade.’
Jack had requested confirmation from HQ of the assurances given to us by Fr O’Hare, a Carmelite Father from Whitefriars Street, Dublin. Fr O’Hare had interviewed Mr Boland, the Minister for Justice in the Free State government and received his assurances that all Republican prisoners would get political treatment.
Naturally we did not want to die, but we could not accept any verbal assurance so we felt that written confirmation by our Chief of Staff was necessary. When the confirmation arrived Jack was out in the private ward. I was acting OC. We were reluctant, the four of who remained, to come off the hunger strike, with Tony dead and Jack at death’s door.
Yet we had the instruction from HQ that our demands were satisfied. The doctors assured us that if the strike ended Jack had a 50-50 chance of living so I gave the order that ended the strike. I believe the doctors worked feverishly to save Jack’s life, but in vain. Jack McNeela, our OC and comrades, died that night and joined the host of the elected who died that Ireland and all her sons and daughters would be free from the chains of British Imperialism and happy in the working out of their own destiny.”
NOTES: Nicky Doherty was found in possession of a quantity of ammunition seized in the raid on the Magazine Fort. He remained an active Volunteer until his death at an early age in the mid-1950s.
Criminal section of Mountjoy : This was A-Wing. The Republicans on remand were housed in D-Wing. On sentence they were usually sent to Arbour Hill.
Governor of the jail : Seán Kavanagh, a former Republican prisoner himself during the Tan War.
DMP: Dublin Metropolitan Police, originally a separate force from the RIC. They were kept on after the Treaty and amalgamated with the Gardaí in 1925. They made a deal with the IRA in 1919 not to engage in ‘military activities’ and were removed from the list of legitimate targets. “G” Division, or Special Branch were not excluded. In 1940 they supplied the Riot Squad for Mountjoy.
Tony Darcy, Headford, Co Galway, died April 16th 1940. He was OC Western Command, IRA at the time of his arrest.
Seán McNeela, Ballycroy, Co Mayo, died April 19th 1940.
From 1940 to 1947, sixteen Republican prisoners were sent to Portlaoise prison where they were denied political status. For all seven years they were naked, except for the prison blanket. For three years of this they were also in solitary confinement.
Finally – writing about the funerals of Tony Darcy and Seán McNeela , Brian Ó hÚiginn stated :“Hundreds of uniformed and plain-clothes police were sent into the two graveyards, while soldiers in full war-kit were posted behind walls and trees in surrounding fields, and armoured cars patrolled the roads…the lowest depths of vindictive pettiness was reached when mourners on their way to Seán MacNeela’s funeral were stopped by armed police and their cars and persons searched….even when they reached the cemetery many were locked out – the gates were locked – and those attempting to enter were attacked…..”
That was 1940, this was 2013 – the ‘establishment’ harasses those it fears, even in death, and wines and dines those it has purchased even though they, too, are ‘dead’ : morally and spiritually.
BEIR BUA…
The Thread of the Irish Republican Movement from The United Irishmen through to today.
Republicanism in history and today.
Published by the James Connolly/Tommy O’Neill Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, The Liberties, Dublin.
August 1998.
(‘1169’ comment – ‘Beir Bua’ translates as ‘Grasp Victory’ in the English language.)
ROBERT EMMET AND THE IRELAND OF TODAY…
“Having its root in all gentleness, in a man’s love for the place where his mother bore him, for the breast that gave him suck, for the voices of children that sounded in a house now silent, for the faces that glowed around a fireside now cold, for the story told by lips that will not speak again, having its root, I say, in all gentleness, it is yet a terrible thing urging the generations to perilous bloody attempts, nerving men to give up life for the death-in-life of dungeons, teaching little boys to die with laughing lips, giving courage to young girls to bare their backs to the lashes of a soldiery.
It is easy to imagine how the spirit of Irish patriotism called to the gallant and adventurous spirit of Tone or moved the wrathful spirit of Mitchell.
In them deep called unto deep : heroic effort claimed the heroic man. But consider how the call was made to a spirit of different, yet not less noble mould ; and how it was answered.
In Emmet it called to a dreamer and he awoke a man of action ; it called to a student and a recluse and he stood forth a leader of men ; it called to one who loved the ways of peace and he became a revolutionary. I wish I could help you to realise, I wish I could myself adequately realise, the humanity, the gentle and grave humanity, of Emmet.
We are so dominated by the memory of that splendid death of his, by the memory of that young figure, serene and smiling, climbing to the gallows above that sea of silent men in Thomas Street, that we forget the life of which that death was only the necessary completion : and the life has perhaps a nearer meaning for us than the death…”
(MORE LATER.)
In around December, 1920, John Cyril MacDonald (28), a single man from Number 31 Whirring Stone Road, Fulham, in London, decided to leave the British Army and join the RIC in Cork, Ireland.
He was ‘put to work’ in Union Quay Barracks, in Cork City, and quickly made a name for himself in Irish republican circles as “a particularly obnoxious individual” but, apparently, some of the local ladies thought that he cut a sharp figure in his uniform and, being young, single and paid about 23 shillings a week, he caught the eye of one girl in particular, and they became a couple.
On the 17th April, 1921, he was on a day off and himself and the girlfriend got suited-up and headed off to visit a friend of theirs.
The couple were walking in Cove Street, in Cork City, near the entrance to Saint Nicholas Church, not minding the two men who were walking towards them, on their way to Barracks Street.
One of those men grabbed Mr MacDonald by his arms and forced them behind his back ; his companion moved just as quickly and removed the RIC-issue revolver from the trapped man’s holster and pointed his IRA-issue revolver at the RIC man’s head ; he struggled, but the gun was fired and the round hit him in his lower jaw, fracturing it, and entering the spine at his neck.
Mr MacDonald fell to the ground, badly wounded, and a number of other shots were fired at him, none of which hit him.
The two IRA Volunteers then hurried away from the scene and the girlfriend, understandably shocked, helped him to a house, a few yards away, and then she ran to the fire station on nearby Sullivan’s Quay to summon an ambulance.
Mr MacDonald was rushed to Cork Military Hospital, attended to as best as possible, and placed in a ward for observation ; he was weak, but was able to tell a patient in the ward(another RIC member, by chance) what had happened –
“(I) was walking along with a girl friend when two men jumped on my back, pinned my arms behind me, and took my revolver away from me…another civilian stood by pointing a revolver, but I tried to knock it away and, in doing so, I was shot in the face. I collapsed on the ground, and the civilians fired shots all round my head, but none took effect…”
Mr MacDonald died from his injuries on the 22nd April 1921.
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On the 17th April, 1921, a pedestrian in Dublin, Bride Glynn, was killed by an RIC vehicle near her house, at the junction of Ailesbury Road and Merrion Road in Dublin, and a British Army vehicle, carrying members of ‘Q Company’ of the Auxiliaries, was attacked by six IRA men from the 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade IRA, led by Captain James Foley, at Eden Quay in Dublin ; there were no fatalities, but one Auxiliary was wounded.
On the same day, the ‘Shannon View Hotel’ in Castleconnell, in County Limerick, was open for business and was trading to the public as best it could, in the times that were in it – the owner, a Mr Denis O’Donovan, was working in the premises, helping to serve food and drink, and chatting to the customers.
Among those he probably served a few drinks to were three ‘off-duty’(!) RIC members, in plain clothes, but still armed, enjoying their ‘official day off’ but, as always, keeping their eyes and ears opened for anything of interest to them in relation to Sinn Féin or IRA talk or personnel.
Suddenly, a gang of armed men in plain clothes burst in to the hotel – about a dozen of them – and people scattered as, indeed, did Mr O’Donovan and, probably thinking that it was an IRA ASU coming for them, the three ‘off-duty’ RIC members, with their revolvers drawn, legged it, too.
But the raiders were all members of ‘G Company’ of the British Auxiliaries, based in Killaloe, not IRA Volunteers, but they, in turn – on seeing three armed men in plain clothes on the premises – thought thatthey were three IRA men, and chaos ensued…
‘3 RIC men in civilian clothes were drinking in the Shannon View Hotel, 12 Auxiliaries in civilian clothes raided the hotel. There is some disagreement in the reports as to what actually happened.
Pringle was shot apparently by one of the RIC men who fired out into the yard, and the RIC man was shot inside the bar itself. Three civilians ran out into the yard, the hotel owner and two of the RIC men.
The Auxiliary commander says one then turned and ran back toward the hotel, and was hit (this was O’Donovan the hotel owner, who was dead), the other two put their hands up and surrendered (the RIC men, one had been wounded)…’(…more here.)
==========================
On the 17th April, 1922, as IRA Volunteer Michael MacGreal was working on a car engine, he accidentally discharged his own revolver and died from the wound.
Volunteer MacGreal was a native of Craughwell, in County Galway, and was employed in Liptons Shop in Ennis, County Clare. He was a Volunteer in the Ennis Company IRA, and was active in the ASU of the 1st Battalion of that Company, which seen action during the Black and Tan War.
RIP Volunteer MacGreal.
==========================
‘The Belfast Newsletter’ newspaper was first printed in 1737 and had a somewhat nationalist/republican feel to it, but changed hands a number of times over the centuries and changed/softened its political leanings, too.
On the 17th April, 1922, it opined that, due to continued and increasing IRA activity, the Occupied Six Counties may have to become the Occupied Four Counties instead!
In an ‘Editorial’ piece, the ‘Newsletter’ stated that‘For the sake of peace, Fermanagh and Tyrone (may have to) agree to inclusion in Southern Ireland which would render the position of the other four counties perilous, if not untenable, and would be a long step in the direction of a united Ireland…’
Would have been a step in the right direction, definitely, had it happened, but only one such step in that which is required –‘Damn your concessions, England (and ‘Newsletter’) : we want our Country…’ !
==========================
Thanks for the visit, and for reading – appreciated!
And here’s another ‘Proclamation’(of sorts!) for ya – on Wednesday, 17th April 2024, we’ll be here with a 14-piece post covering, as usual, Irish history and Irish politics from a traditional Irish republican point of view.
One of the pieces we’ll be a-tellin’ about concerns a wise Irish aul fella who availed of the animals he ‘collected’ to make comparisons with human nature, and took the opportunity to have a word or two with republican representatives in connection with why they were delighted with recent developments…
And if you can get your head around that, then the following subject matters – which we’ll also be saying a few words about – should be no bother to ya…!
Staters tie themselves up in a word salad in attempts to avoid the obvious…
Ireland, 1920’s – ‘IRA General Order on the Handling of Women Spies’ (‘General Order No. 13’) : options in regard to same were listed, but not always followed…
From 1955 – ‘Westminster’s apparent determination to claim the Irish race and nation as British is an indication of their grudging respect and secret admiration for us…’
1918 – British military conscription in Ireland, IRA membership increases ; but not for the best…
…and that’s just five out of the fourteen pieces we’ll be writing about, on Wednesday, 17th April 2024.
Check back with us then, if you can – don’t leave us talking to ourselves!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading – see ye on the 17th, hopefully!
SPOOF, SPIN, AND IGNORANCE IN A PARTIAL EX-COLONY.
There’s a certain amount of spin and misdirection in the last few weeks in connection with the 26th anniversary of the signing of the 1998 Stormont Treaty(‘Good Friday Agreement’), and more so today, the 10th April, the actual anniversary of the date that treaty was signed by the various politicians that had nefariously brought it into being.
It was depressing watching on TV, listening on the radio and reading on the web as professional political spoofers lined up to tell all and sundry about how they practically ‘saved Ireland’, and to observe as they used false assertions and incorrect ‘facts and figures’ to support their claims.
It could only happen in a partial ex-colony like this, in which the ‘leaders’ are smitten – mentally, morally, and emotionally – by their (old?) imperial bosses, whom they have an overwhelming desire to impress, and by their new hoped-for bosses in the EU/IMF/WEF.
It excites them to do so, and allows them to consider themselves to be ‘every bit as good’ as those that once spat down on them from the ‘big house’.
When the ‘Stormont Treaty’ (‘GFA’) was voted on here in May 1998 by State voters, one of it’s main ‘selling-points’, according to the State establishment that were promoting it – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour, Provisional Sinn Féin, the various Church’s, media etc – was that the British Government would legislate for the creation of a united Ireland if a majority within the Six Counties desired same.
This was said to be a major development and, on it’s own, worth voting ‘YES’ for.
However, that ‘commitment’ from Westminster was contained in the ‘Ireland Act’ of 1949, the ‘Northern Ireland(sic) Act’ of 1973, Section Five of the ‘Sunningdale Agreement’ and the opening section of the 1985 Hillsborough Treaty!
It was a deliberate mis-representation of the facts by the pro-treaty side, which repeatedly claimed that a peaceful end to the North-Eastern conflict depended on a majority ‘YES’ vote in the referendum, thereby insinuating that those who voted ‘NO’ were pro-war.
In 1922, Liam Mellows said of the 1921 ‘Treaty of Surrender’ – “This is not the will of the people ; it is the fear of the people”.
The struggle continued after that Treaty, and continues today.
In 1973, the political establishment here and its hangers-on were amongst those telling republicans that the ‘Sunningdale Agreement’ was the “solution” to the North. In 1985 they did the same with the ‘Hillsborough Treaty’ and in 1998 they did the same with the ‘Stormont Treaty’ (‘GFA’).
The only solution – the only aim of Irish Republicans – is for a complete British military and political withdrawal from Ireland.
‘SINN FÉIN REPLIES TO MR. HANNA…’
From ‘The United Irishman’ newspaper, April 1955.
The fact, of course, is that it is Britain who makes the claim.
She claims all the Irish people living in the Six Counties as British citizens and Sinn Féin emphatically rejects that claim.
This in fact is the whole basis and core of Sinn Féin policy – the repudiation of Britain’s claim to sovereignty over even one inch of Irish soil or even one individual Irish person.
It is often said that the Irish people suffer from an inferiority complex and there seems to be a lot of truth in this ; it is also said that the English people have a marked superiority complex, particularly where the Irish people are concerned, but there is no truth in this.
The truth is that the English adopt this braggart and superior attitude in order to hide their inferiority complex…
(MORE LATER.)
On the 10th April, 1919, the First Dáil Éireann(the 32-County body, not to be confused with the semi-political 26-County assembly which is located on Kildare Street in Dublin) held it’s third session in the Mansion House, on Dawson Street, in Dublin(pictured) :“Our first duty as the elected Government of the Irish People will be to make clear to the world the position in which Ireland now stands…”
Over the course of its lifetime, the First Dáil held 12 sessions that were spread out over 21 days. The ‘Constitution of the Dáil’, as approved at its first meeting on the 21st January 1919, vested legislative powers in Dáil Éireann and conferred executive powers to a Ministry (Aireacht).
One of the motions proposed and accepted on the 10th April(1919) was one which called on the Irish people to ostracise the RIC, the pro-British ‘police force’ which operated in Ireland at that time and, for the most part, that force was ‘greeted’ with turned backs, until they were eventually disbanded on the 30th August, 1922.
Other business carried out was in connection with the Dáil Loan Fund and the establishment of embassies abroad ; the assembly(of at least 50 members) met over two days.
==========================
On the 10th April, 1919, British Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French (‘1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, PC’ ETC ETC!), the ‘Lord Lieutenant of Ireland’(…who only accepted the position, in May 1918, on condition it was as “…a military viceroy at the head of a quasi-military government..”) wrote to Winston Churchill about his concerns about Ireland.
Mr French stated, in his letter –
“We are suffering terribly in Ireland for the want of a proper Criminal Investigation Department. There used to be quite an effective one, but Mr. (Augustine) Birrell (pictured, the former ‘Chief Secretary for Ireland’) for reasons best known to himself broke it up entirely…”
Mr Birrell was distracted from his political work/input by his own domestic problems and it was said that he didn’t quite appreciate the ‘danger to the Crown’ presented by what he and others like him termed ‘the Irish problem’.
And, due to similar ignorance and arrogance, Westminster still has an ‘Irish problem’.
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ON THIS DATE (10TH APRIL) 101 YEARS AGO : DEATH OF IRA GENERAL, LIAM LYNCH.
‘Liam Lynch was born in Barnagurraha, Co Limerick. He joined the Irish Volunteers after witnessing the arrests of the Kent family by British forces after the failed Easter Rising of 1916. Two of the Kent brothers, David and Richard, were shot during their arrest. Richard would later die of his wounds and a third brother, Thomas, was executed by the ‘Royal Irish Constabulary’ (RIC).
During the Irish War of Independence Lynch helped to reorganise the Cork IRA, becoming commandant of the Cork No. 2 Brigade. He was arrested by the RIC in August 1920 in Cork City, along with Terence MacSwiney, who would later die in Britain during a hunger strike. Lynch was not recognised by RIC officers and was released. Lynch continued to prove his leadership abilities throughout the war including the capturing of the Mallow Barracks in September 1920 with Ernie O’Malley. In April 1921, the IRA was re-organised into divisions and Lynch was made Commander of the 1st Southern Division. He would hold this post until the truce in July 1921.
Lynch opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed on 6 December 1921. Much of the IRA, of which Lynch was Chief-of-Staff, was opposed to the treaty. As the country moved towards civil war in 1922, the majority of the republican forces elected Lynch as Chief of Staff of the republican forces at a Dublin convention…’(From here.)
Liam Lynch was born in Barnagurraha, on the Cork-Limerick border, on the 9th of November, 1893, into a republican family – his mother was the secretary of the Ballylanders branch of the Ladies Land League, and his uncle John was one of a party of Volunteers who assembled in Kilmallock on Easter Sunday morning in 1916 to play their part, locally, in the Rising but, due to Eoin MacNeill’s ‘Countermand Order’, the intended insurrection there never happened.
Throughout his life, Liam Lynch had no faith in politicians and is on record for declaring that “…the army has to hew the way to freedom for politics to follow..”
And his preference for a military solution ie to ‘fight fire with fire’ to remove the British military (and political) presence from Ireland was known to the enemy in Westminster, so much so that London instructed their ‘Cairo Gang’ mercenaries to concentrate on admired soldiers like Lynch and, in their rush to do so, a Sinn Féin councillor, John Lynch, was shot dead by ‘Cairo’ member Lieutenant Angliss,(aka ‘McMahon’- he had been recalled from spy work in Russia for the ‘Cairo Gang’ job in Dublin).
The British assassin is said to have believed that John Lynch was Liam Lynch, or related to him, but expressed no remorse when his mistake was pointed out to him.
The Ciaro man was playing billiard’s in Dublin after he killed John Lynch when the IRA shot him, but he was only wounded. He wanted revenge – and the ‘Cairo Job’ gave him that opportunity, he thought ; in November, 1920, he was in lodgings at 22 Lower Mount Street in Dublin when two of the ‘Twelve Apostles’ entered his room. He reached for his revolver but was shot dead before he could get to it.
‘…the dramatic headlines of the papers told the story in graphic form ; “Leaders meeting surprised, Irregular Chief taken near Clonmel, fight in the hills”.
The text went to say – “Liam Lynch was severely wounded and captured in a fight south of Clonmel yesterday. His death was announced in the following report, recieved from Army G.H.Q. this morning – “Liam Lynch died in Clonmel at 8.45 last evening”. Further down the page under the heading “Liam Lynch Dead” and “Mr. De Valera” Narrow Escape”, it gave further details and also a short biography of the dead leader.
At the inquest in Clonmel on Wednesday the last wish of Lynch was told by a witness – “In conversation with me, deceased asked to be buried in Fermoy along with Fitzgearld, and told me he was Liam Lynch”. Liam Lynch had been shot in the right side of the body with the exit wound on the left side, said Dr Raymond Dalton, military M.O. There was a fair amount of external and considerable amount of internal hemorrhage, and he was suffering severely from shock…’(from here.)
IRA General Liam Lynch died on the 10th of April, 1923, in Clonmel, Tipperary – 101 years ago on this date.
In Ireland, in 1920 – only four years after the Rising – the population sensed that change was coming and, the country being an agricultural base, the ‘ownership’ and use of the land was on the mind of most of the people.
One republican-minded newspaper, ‘The Mayoman’, was editorially in favour of the proposition that the anti-republican ‘Big House’ owners were further abusing their positions by grazing their animals on lands that poorer people could live and farm on, and the Sinn Féin organisation had released a pamplet(written by well known Irish republican and agrarian radical, Laurence Ginnell) –
‘Why have not the ranches, which are all evicted lands, been distributed among evicted tenants, holders of uneconomic farms, labourers, farmers’ sons and other landless people (who should) clear cattle off every ranch, and keep them cleared until distributed…’
The newspaper, which traded under the slogan –‘For prompt and efficient service in all kinds of printing and advertising matter. Specialists in printing book work’ – was published in Castlebar, in County Mayo, and was established in 1919 by a Mr John J. Collins, a GAA Council member.
It was an influential voice, and Mr Collins himself was an influential man ; he was a cousin of Catholic Archbishop Thomas Patrick Gilmartin who was, at best, lukewarm about the struggle against the British and military presence in Ireland but, as an Archbishop, he and his family carried ‘weight’ in society.
Mr Collins carried some weight himself within Irish republican circles and, when his newspaper ceased publication in 1921, he worked for ‘The Mayo News’ and ‘The Connacht Tribune’ newspapers.
1920 was one of the years when land distribution ‘hit the headlines’, pardon the pun, and the land labourers weren’t too pushed about how that distribution would come about – on Tuesday March 30th 1920, for example, a two-hundred strong contingent, mostly comprising of tenants of the Ross estate, paraded on horse-back in military formation through the district of Oughterard, in County Galway, stopping at the residences of large graziers/ranchers who held lands on the estate and, at the landlord’s house, they let their feelings be known.
In Headford, just across Lough Corrib from Oughterard, one grazier was told he would be burned alive unless he signed his land over and the assembled crowd, reportedly of over one thousand people, went so far as to start the fire.
James G. Alcorn, the ‘High Sheriff’ for County Galway, was brought to the edge of Lough Corrib, and given the choice of drowning or surrendering his farm.
In Roscommon, one grazier had two pistols held to his head while his prospective grave was dug before his eyes.
The more common tactic of the movement was ‘cattle-driving’, which was carried out so extensively that by the middle of April one Galway newspaper wrote that 30,000 acres had been cleared of livestock(an area equivalent to nearly 50 square miles [about 129 square kilometers]) and that this involved the driving out of 20,000 cattle and as many sheep from the land.
On the 10th April, 1920, under a front page headline declaring ‘Western Land Hunger’, the Mayoman newspaper reported that“…the fight for the grazing land is developing all over South Mayo, Galway and South Roscommon. Cattle drives were occurring in many areas..”
And we still have Six Counties outstanding…
==========================
On the 10th April, 1920, republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher, Arthur Griffith(pictured), the then Minister for Home Affairs in Dáil Éireann(not to be confused with the Leinster House assembly) gave an interview to ‘The Irish Independent’ newspaper, in which he declared –
“Labour stood down for Sinn Féin at the General Election and worked in harmony with us at the local elections. If our enemies are relying on a breach in our forces in that direction they will be disappointed.”
And today, 2024, there is no ‘breach in their forces’ and both groupings are ‘working in harmony’ in relation to the ‘Woke’(ie queer, so-called ‘transgender’ issues, pro-mass immigration policies) agenda and, hopefully, both will pay for those political, social and moral indiscretions in the 7th June 2024 Council, Corporation and EU elections.
==========================
On the 10th April, 1920, the RIC Barracks in Leixlip, County Kildare, was attacked by the IRA and taken over by the rebels.
The RIC ‘Sergeant’ in charge of the barracks, a man named Lane, was on the premises, as were his wife and children.
The Lane family were escorted from the building by IRA men and were allowed to remove personal belongings from their rooms before the building was set on fire.
==========================
SO, FAREWELL THEN, CELTIC TIGER….
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Most of the pundits and economists were too busy singing the Celtic Tiger’s praises to notice, but a few critical observers worried all along about the weaknesses of a boom economy that depended so much on a few companies from one place – the United States.
It can be argued that this kind of growth is unstable, both economically and socially, because the Celtic Tiger is actually two separate economies.
Ireland has what some social scientists call a dual economy.
A dynamic, highly profitable and mostly foreign-owned economy sits alongside a sluggish, less profitable and low-waged domestic economy.
One problem with such a dual economy is that a significant fall in the dynamic sector – that is, in the foreign sector over which Irish policy makers have little control – could bring the whole thing tumbling down.
A close look at the ‘Celtic Tiger’ reveals the profound differences between the foreign and Irish sectors ; investments by US firms rose dramatically in the 1990’s while investments by Irish firms declined – in real terms, US investments quadrupled between 1990 and 1998 but investments by Irish industry fell by a third…
(MORE LATER.)
On the 10th April, 1921, two RIC men – Joseph Boynes (23), from Northumberland, in England, and George Woodward (23), from Surrey, in England, were out walking in Scart, Kildorrery, in County Cork, when they were shot dead by IRA Volunteers from the Active Service Unit of the Castletownroche Battalion, Cork Number 2 Brigade.
Among the Volunteers who participated were Maurice Cronin, Paddy Cronin, and Jim Cronin(all from Rockmills, Kildorrery).
Three days later, British forces ordered the burning of ten homes of republicans and burned down the houses of six farmers in the Kildorrery district because, they stated, “…their owners must have known of the intention of certain unknown rebels to murder(sic) Woodward and Boynes..”
The IRA retaliated on the night of 30th April/morning of the 1st May, when Volunteers burned three mansions in north-east Cork – ‘Convamore’, at Ballyhooly, owned by the Third Earl of Listowel ; ‘Ballywalter House’, near Castletownroche, owned by SG Penrose Welsted, and ‘Rockmills House’, near Glanworth, owned by Charles Deane Oliver .
The British, in turn, then destroyed the houses of six more farmers in north-east Cork“…on the grounds that their owners are active supporters of armed rebels..”
Mr Boynes had been in the RIC for only five months(he had been in the British Army and then a labourer, before joining the RIC), and Mr Woodward had ten months ‘service’ with them.
==========================
On Sunday, 10th April 1921, five members of the British Forces – Samuel Dougald, Hans Leeman, Edward Linton, John Fluke and William Irwin – who operated from a barracks in Crossmaglen, in County Armagh, were on their way to church services, when they heard that “unusual activity” was taking place in McConville’s public house in Cregganduff, County Armagh.
They went to investigate the ‘disturbances’ and discovered that IRA Commander Frank Aiken(a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher)and about fifteen other IRA Volunteers had removed Catholic and Protestant churchgoers from their churches, for their own safety, and moved them into the pub, as an attack was imminent on British Forces in the town.
When the five members of the British Forces(‘Special Constabulary’) happened upon the scene, a gunfight ensued and one of the five – John Fluke – died in the fight : more here.
When his colleagues heard that ‘Special Constable’ Fluke had been killed, they went on a rampage in Cregganduff, assaulting the local people and burning down two houses which, in turn, led to the burning of two unionist-owned houses.
==========================
BEIR BUA…
The Thread of the Irish Republican Movement from The United Irishmen through to today.
Republicanism in history and today.
Published by the James Connolly/Tommy O’Neill Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, The Liberties, Dublin.
August 1998.
(‘1169’ comment – ‘Beir Bua’ translates as ‘Grasp Victory’ in the English language.)
ROBERT EMMET AND THE IRELAND OF TODAY…
“The contention I make now, and I ask you to note it well, is that England does not trust Ireland with guns ; that under Home Rule or in the absence of Home Rule England declares that we Irish must remain an unarmed people ; and England is right.
England is right in suspecting Irish loyalty, and those Irishmen who promise Irish loyalty to England are wrong.
I believe them honest ; but they have spent so much of their lives parleying with the English, they have sat so often and so long at English feasts, that they have lost communion with the ancient unpurchasable faith of Ireland, the ancient stubborn thing that forbids, as if with the voice of fate, any loyalty from Ireland to England, any union between us and them, any surrender of one jot or shred of our claim to freedom even in return for all the blessings of the British peace.
I have called that old faith an indestructible thing.
I have said that it is more powerful than empires.
If you would understand its might you must consider how it has made all the generations of Ireland heroic…”
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (10TH APRIL) 157 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF AN IRISH POET, ARTIST AND MYSTIC.
George William Russell (pictured,’AE’) was born on April 10th, 1867 – 157 years ago on this date – in Lurgan, County Armagh.
He made his living as a poet, an artist and a mystic, and was a leading figure in the Irish literary renaissance of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was during a proof-reading session by one of his assistants that he adopted a new pseudonym, ‘AE’, when his then pseudonym, ‘AEon’(meaning ‘life/vital force’) was mentioned by the proof-reader.
He became friends with the poet William Butler Yeats when the two of them were attending the ‘Metropolitan School of Art’ in Dublin – both men were interested in the occult and mysticism, and also shared an interest in the Irish language.
To supplement his income, ‘AE’ Russell worked in the accounts department in a drapery shop but left that position to work with, and in, the agricultural business.
At 27 years young, in 1894, he published his first work, ‘Homeward : Songs by the Way’ and it was during those years in the editor’s chair that he published his ‘Collected Poems’, in 1913 and 1926.
And it was also during those same years that Terence MacSwiney, the Commanding Officer of the IRA, died, on the 74th day of his hunger strike, in Brixton Prison, in England, on the 25th October in 1920, a death which inspired ‘AE’ Russell to pen the following tribute –
‘See, though the oil be low more purely still and higher
The flame burns in the body’s lamp! The watchers still
Gaze with unseeing eyes while the Promethean Will,
The Uncreated Light, the Everlasting Fire
Sustains itself against the torturer’s desire
Even as the fabled Titan chained upon the hill.
Burn on, shine on, thou immortality, until
We, too, have lit our lamps at the funeral pyre;
Till we, too, can be noble, unshakable, undismayed:
Till we, too, can burn with the holy flame, and know
There is that within us can triumph over pain,
And go to death, alone, slowly, and unafraid.
The candles of God are already burning row on row:
Farewell, lightbringer, fly to thy heaven again!’
George William Russell (‘AE’) died on the 17th of July, 1935, in Bournemouth, Hampshire, in England, in his 69th year.
On the 10th April, 1922, Eamonn Seán Duggan(pictured, a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher) suggested that the artillery barracks in Kildare might be suitable as a depot for the new Free State ‘Civic Guard’(so-called ‘police force’), who were at the time housed in the ‘Royal Dublin Society’ (RDS) showgrounds in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
The ‘Civic Guard’ was composed of ex-IRA Volunteers and members of the British Forces, and was known to employ ex-RIC members as instructors.
In late April that year(1922), 1,100 recruits were duly moved from Ballsbridge to their new depot in Kildare.
==========================
Thanks for the visit, and for reading – and thank you for taking the time, and having the interest, to check back with us after our excursions in Lovely Lanzarote : appreciated!
The weather’s against me – the rain, chilly winds, gloomy skies – compared to the two weeks I had in Lanzarote with the Girl Gang, but there really is no place like home!
The two lads have been hard at the research for our blog post in my absence, with just a few loose ends for me to sort out so, as it’s looking now, we’ll have a fourteen-piece post ready to go for Wednesday, 10th April 2024, including a few paragraphs on each of the following –
State politicians spoofing and spinning their spiel to sell the electorate something that they already bought – and, with the assistance of a compliant and purchased media, it worked for them…
From 1955 – inferiority complexes, superiority complexes and braggart and superior attitudes to hide an inferiority complex…
From 1919 – a call from Irish republicans to ostracise the RIC was listened to by the majority of the population and the actions of the RIC themselves caught the attention of those who wavered in the face of that call…
In the early 1920’s, this Irish rebel spoke out so loudly and repeatedly against the British military and political presence in Ireland that his voice was also heard in Leinster House. And, not only did those State politicians not like what they were hearing, but they organised a response…
This ‘Mayoman’ was there when so-called ‘landlords’ were confronted by their tenants, when cattle and sheep were used to deliver a message, and when a ‘law enforcement officer’ was involuntarily brought for a swim…
…and at least nine other pieces.
Thanks for poppin’ in, and we’re hoping yis will pop in again on Wednesday, 10th April 2024(…I’ll be out from under the sun-lamp by then!).
On the 13th March, 1920, about sixty Volunteers from the Listowel, Ballyduff and Ballybunion Companies of the IRA, County Kerry, ensured all roads leading into the town of Ballybunion, from the Listowel, Tralee and Ballylongford directions, were impassable.
Then, under the leadership of Jim Sugrue and Stephen Fuller, the Volunteers attacked and attempted to take over the RIC Barracks in Ballybunion but the bomb they intended to use was a dud so, armed only with shotguns, rifles and revolvers, they fired on the barracks for about an hour, then noticed lights coming from the direction of the Liselton RIC hut and, running dangerously low on ammunition, retired from the attack and returned safely to base.
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On March 13th, 1920, a Mr Peter Gavin appeared on bail in front of Major Thackeray at Kildare Petty Sessions, charged with arson at the military pumping station, Brownstown, County Kildare, in February.
In February(on the 11th), a military shed at the Brownstown pumping station was burnt down in the early hours of the morning.
The fire brigade from the Curragh Camp tried to save the building.
Speaking at the Annual Conference of the ‘Ulster Unionist Council’ on March 10th last, Mr Hanna, the Stormont ‘Minister of Home Affairs’, referring to the Sinn Féin candidates in the forth-coming Westminster election, said –
“The law with regard to candidates in the Imperial Parliament is this : a person must be a British subject.
But that has been extended in such a way that a person who is either a full British subject or who has the rights of a British subject is entitled to be a candidate.
Under the recent ‘Ireland Act’ it is possible that the citizens of Éire can claim the rights of a British subject. How they have the nerve to claim that right I do not know, but they have it…”
Mr Hanna’s assertion that Sinn Féin candidates are claiming British citizenship for the purpose of the Westminster elections is ridiculous and meaningless and would not even provoke a reply from us but for the amazing credibility of the Irish people…
(MORE LATER.)
On the 13th March, 1921, a Mr Thomas Shannon, a magistrate in the Dáil Courts, answered a knock on his house door, late at night, in Moyasta, County Clare, to be met by two Black and Tans from the Kilkee area(men with “strange accents”, according to his wife) and was shot dead.
In June 1919 Dáil Éireann(not to be confused with the Leinster House institution) had issued a decree authorising the setting up of ‘Republican Arbitration Courts’ and West Clare was the first electoral area to respond.
Propagandised rumour was circulated by anti-republican elements that Mr Shannon ‘was not identified as with any political organisation…he was in conflict with local republicans…he had refused to pay a Sinn Féin levy..’ but Mr Shannon was known to be a well-liked and respected local magistrate by all who dealt with him, except the British.
Another Judge, a Mr Bodkin, awarded his widow, Bridget, €3,000 in compensation.
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On the 13th March, 1921, a farm labourer, Tim Hourihan (57), was walking across a field at Paddock, Coppeen East, Enniskeane, in County Cork, when he was shot dead by a member of the British Auxiliaries.
The British ‘police’, the RIC, later claimed that two warning shots were fired in his direction before the fatal shot was fired, but this was disputed by an IRA Volunteer who witnessed the event –
“Tim Hourihane, to whom I had been speaking a short time before, appeared about 20 yards away.
I beckoned to him to move off, and just as I did, the Auxie, who had seen him, came along and searched him.
I remained under cover. After the search Hourihane was allowed to proceed, and as he moved along the high ground, I heard a shot and saw poor Hourihane fall to the ground.
In a short space of time about twenty Auxies were gathered around him…”– more here.
==========================
“About the end of the summer 1920 a raid for mails was made at Waterfall which resulted in the capture of a letter from(Thomas)Nagle, a local postman, to a man by the name of O’Sullivan, an ex-British soldier.
They(the IRA) arrested Nagle, who gave all information, also a photo of O’Sullivan and details of the place in Cork city where he was to meet with him.
Leo(Murphy, Officer Commanding, Third Battalion IRA) and some others went there instead of Nagle and shot him dead.
Later Nagle was also tried and shot. Nagle had been in the RIC and actually had a brother still in the force and stationed at Tuckey Street Barracks in Cork city…”
– statement issued by the Third Battalion (Ballincollig) of the Cork Number 1 Brigade, IRA, and verified by the IRA Volunteers from the D (Aherla) Company, Cork Number 1 Brigade IRA, who pulled the trigger.
Mr Thomas Nagle was arrested by the IRA on the 12th March, 1921, charged with espionage, tried, and executed by them, at Kilbawn, Aherla, County Cork, on the 13th March 1921.
He was an ‘ex’-RIC operative, a green grocer, caretaker of one of the local Masonic Halls and was registered at the ‘Petty Sessions Court’ as a ‘Civil Bill Officer’.
‘British liability’ was accepted, and compensation of £1,400 was awarded to his family.
==========================
On the 13th March, 1921, IRA Volunteer Richard Newman(a scout/messenger with the Castletownbere IRA Company), from Na hAilichí(‘Allihies’, the Cliff Fields), County Cork, was in his house when, at about 2pm, he seen armed and uniformed members of the ‘King’s Own Scottish Borders’ regiment of the British Army approach his house to raid it, and ‘arrest’ him.
He decided to make a run for it out the back door but a BA Private, named Reid, spotted him and opened fire ; the bullets hit him in the loins and in the stomach and he was taken to the hospital in Castletownbere, but died there at about 2am the next day.
His funeral was witnessed by “a large attendance of the people of Castletown” and John Cronin, the Captain of the Castletownbere Company IRA, and other Volunteers, were also present.
==========================
On the 13th March, 1921, a Mr Thomas Hennessy (48), an ex-British Army ‘Labour Corps’ member, who was now employed as an agricultural labourer and worked occasionally for a Mrs Kate Sisk on her farm, was present when a joint British Army/RIC patrol, from ‘Queenstown’, consisting of about 20 armed men, raided her house, in the Crosshaven area of Cork.
A report in ‘The Cork Examiner’ newspaper stated –‘During the searches the residence of Mrs Sisk was visited, and while the armed party were there, two shots were heard.
A few minutes later, some of the party brought Thomas Hennessy into the kitchen and laid him on the ground. One of them said they had ordered Hennessy to put up his hands, but Hennessy had not complied with the order and was fired upon…’
Mr Hennessy, a widower, died from his wounds shortly afterwards, leaving his eight children with no parent.
==========================
On the 11th March, 1921, as three ‘off-duty’ RIC members were crossing Victoria Square, in Belfast, they were shot at by the IRA.
Two of them – ‘Constables’ John McIntosh and Robert A. Crook – died in the shooting, and their colleague, Walter H. Cooper (28), died from his wounds two days later, on the 13th March 1921.
==========================
SO, FAREWELL THEN, CELTIC TIGER….
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Most of the pundits and economists were too busy singing the Celtic Tiger’s praises to notice, but a few critical observers worried all along about the weaknesses of a boom economy that depended so much on a few companies from one place – the United States.
The resulting flow of foreign investments was sufficient to create rapid economic growth, but only because Ireland is so small to begin with.
These are things that other countries cannot emulate ; they can reduce their tax rates but they cannot teach everyone to speak English, they can cut back on social spending and wages but they cannot reduce their populations below five million and, most of all, not everyone can get a forty per cent share of US investments in Europe. There is just not enough to go around.
But we may even want to question whether the ‘Celtic Tiger’ strategy works for Ireland…
(MORE LATER.)
On the 13th March, 1922, an ‘Appointments Office’ was opened at the Courthouse, Naas, County Kildare, by the new Free State administrators, to secure recruits for their new ‘Civic Guard’(‘An Garda Síochána’) in the Kildare and Carlow areas.
We don’t know how many people they recruited at that time, but it hasn’t gone too good for them since then…
==========================
On the 13th March, 1922, as RIC ‘Sergeant’ Christopher P. Clarke was making his way up the Falls Road in Belfast, he was shot dead by the IRA.
He had just attended the funerals of two of his colleagues, RIC ‘Constables’ James Cullen (23) and Patrick O’Connor (35), who were shot dead at the corner of Dunlewey Street and the Falls Road on the 10th March.
Even though fire was returned by other RIC members, the IRA Volunteers returned safely to base, but they hit and killed a civilian, a Mr Daniel Rogan.
Mr Clarke was said to be also a member of ‘the Nixon Gang’, which would have brought him to the particular attention of the rebels.
==========================
On the 13th March, 1922, the ‘Limerick City Workers Housing Association’, led by William James Larkin, took over houses in Garryowen Villa that had previously being occupied by the British Army’s ‘Royal Engineers Corps’ (who were evacuating the city as per the ‘Treaty of Surrender’ arrangement) ; forty adults and 87 children moved into 27 houses.
The ‘landlords’(some of whom were local politicians) classed them as ‘squatters’ and moved against them, legally, and the occupied houses were soon back in the possession of the ‘landlords’, supported by the Free State court and ‘police’ system.
==========================
On the 13th March, 1922, Mr James Craig, the ‘1st Viscount Craigavon PC PC (NI) DL’ ETC (!), and the ‘First Prime Minister of Northern Ireland (sic)‘, brought it to the attention of his Stormont Cabinet that Field Marshal ‘Sir’ Henry Wilson(who had just retired as ‘Chief of the Imperial General Staff’) had agreed to take the position as ‘Military Advisor to the NI Government’.
Mr Craig said it should be celebrated that he had managed to get “so distinguished a soldier” to advise on security issues.
At 2.20 pm, on Thursday, 22nd June 1922, Mr Henry Wilson was shot dead on the doorstep of his Belgravia home, in London, by IRA Commandant Reggie Dunne and Volunteer Joe O’Sullivan.
==========================
BEIR BUA…
The Thread of the Irish Republican Movement from The United Irishmen through to today.
Republicanism in history and today.
Published by the James Connolly/Tommy O’Neill Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, The Liberties, Dublin.
August 1998.
(‘1169’ comment – ‘Beir Bua’ translates as ‘Grasp Victory’ in the English language.)
ROBERT EMMET AND THE IRELAND OF TODAY…
“Did, then, these dead heroic men(sic) live in vain?
Has Ireland learned a truer philosophy that the philosophy of 1798, and a nobler way of salvation than the way of 1803?
Is Wolfe Tone’s definition superseded, and do we discharge our duty to Emmet’s memory by according him annually our pity?
To do the English justice, I do not think they are satisfied that Ireland will accept Home Rule as a final settlement. I think they are a little anxious to-day.
If their minds were tranquil on the subject of Irish loyalty they would hardly have proclaimed the importation of arms into Ireland the moment the Irish Volunteers had begun to organise themselves.
They had given the Ulster faction which is used as a catspaw by one of the English parties two years to organise and arm against that Home Rule Bill which they profess themselves so anxious to pass : to the Nationalists of Ireland they did not give two weeks.
Of course, we can arm in spite of them : today we are organising and training the men and we have ways and means of getting arms when the men are ready for the arms…”
(MORE LATER.)
On the evening of the 12th March, 1923, three IRA prisoners – John Creane (from Taughmon, County Wexford), James Parle(Clover Valley, Taughmon, County Wexford) and Patrick Hogan (William’s Street, County Wexford) – were informed by a Free State representative that they were to be executed the following day at 8am.
A republican and former parish priest of Rathangan, Father Patrick Walsh, attended the men, and later stated that Volunteer John Parle had requested him to get word to his Commanding Officer, Robert Lambert(the Volunteer in charge of the Kyle Flying Column, IRA) that he did not want reprisals carried out following their executions.
On the 13th March, 1923, the three IRA prisoners were blindfolded and lined up against the outside wall of the jail.
The Free State troops fired a volley of shots but Volunteer Patrick Hogan, who had been placed in the middle, was the only one of the three to die instantly.
A Free State officer then shot Volunteer Parle and Volunteer Creane twice in the head with his revolver.
‘And now you three – we’ll honour thee,
And your memories shall not fade,
Since ’twas your lot – in the rebel plot,
Your bodies to be laid.’
Also, on the 13th March, 1923, William Healy(from Donaghmore, County Cork) was executed by the Staters in Cork, and James O’Rourke (1 Upper Gloucester Street, Dublin) was executed in Dublin(for his part in an attack on Free State soldiers in Dame Street, Dublin, on the 21st February 1923).
Ten days later three Free State soldiers were taken from a public house in the townland of Ballagh, near Adamstown, in County Wexford, and shot dead later that night as a reprisal for the executions.
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IRA Volunteer John Walsh, from Kilmacthomas in County Waterford(who operated with Thomas Keating’s Column of the West Waterford Brigade IRA) had been ‘arrested’ by the Staters in March, 1923, and taken to Kilkenny Jail(pictured). On the 13th March, during the morning role call, the IRA prisoners decided not to cooperate with the Staters and they refused to acknowledge their names, when called upon to do so.
A Free State soldier started to beat Volunteer Walsh and then shot him ; he died from his wound the next day in the prison hospital and was brought home to Kilmacthomas to be waked, and then buried in the Republican Plot in Kilrossanty, County Waterford.
==========================
On the 12th March, 1923, two IRA Volunteers, Frank Slevin and James O’Donnell, were in the town of Manorhamilton, in County Leitrim, on a fund-raising operation, disguised as women, to investigate how secure the bank was but, finding it heavily guarded inside by Free State soldiers, they decided to leave and report back to their base.
Both Volunteers were ‘arrested’ by the Staters on their way out of the town.
In the town of Kiltyclogher, County Leitrim, on the 13th March, 1923, the Staters came across eight IRA Volunteers, led by Philip Rooney, and a gun battle ensued, which lasted for about two hours, following which the eight Volunteers were captured.
==========================
On the 13th March, 1923, ‘The Irish Times’ newspaper(!) quoted Mr Kevin Christopher O’Higgins, a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher(who ‘served’ in several high-ranking positions in the Leinster House assembly) as declaring that the ‘Neutral IRA’ were either “moral cowards” who knew that the IRA campaign was wrong and were afraid to say so or were “physical cowards” who thought that it was right but were afraid to participate in it!
The IRA (proper), however, were not ‘neutral’ in regards to Mr O’Higgins ; at 12 Noon on Sunday, 10th July 1927, Mr O’Higgins (35) was assassinated by three IRA members(Tim Coughlan, Bill Gannon and Archie Doyle) in revenge for his part in the executions of 77 IRA prisoners during the Civil War(in the six months between November 1922 and the end of the Civil War in May 1923, the Staters executed 77 IRA men for political offences).
Mr O’Higgins was walking from his home on Cross Avenue, in Blackrock, Dublin, to mass on Booterstown Avenue.
He had sent his armed State detective away to buy cigarettes and, as he approached the junction with Booterstown Avenue, one of the IRA men emerged from a parked car and shot him.
Mr O’Higgins ran a short distance before collapsing, and one of the Volunteers shot him again as he lay on the ground.
The men then got back in their car and drove away but, despite being hit eight times, Mr O’Higgins did not die for almost five hours.
==========================
On the 13th March, 1923, two Free State soldiers, Captain Michael Cleary(from Whitegate, in County Clare, a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher) and Lieutenant Alfred Glynn(from Gort, in County Galway), were experimenting with throwing grenades into the River Neale, near Listowel, in County Kerry.
The ‘experiment’ went wrong and led to both of their deaths ; there was a premature explosion which killed Mr. Glynn instantly, and seriously wounded Mr. Cleary, who died in hospital the next day.
==========================
‘Politician Shoots Himself In The Foot…’!
On the 13th March, 1925, Mr Winston Churchill – realising that his ‘Government of Ireland Act 1920’ in relation to ‘the Irish Question’ – gave his puppet Stormont political administration in ‘the North of Ireland’(sic) responsibility for funding social services but wrote, in private correspondence(in his personal diary?) that the provision of such social services depends on a “sufficiently large area and large numbers of trades” which that particular area doesn’t have!
Too late, Mr Churchill : you break it, you bought it…!
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NA hOILEÁIN CHANÁRACHA – SEO LINN ARÍS!
ISLAS CANARIAS – AHÁ VAMOS. ¡DE NUEVO!
Well…
…it’s that time of year again!
Myself and the Girl Gang are going back to the Canary Islands in a few days time, courtesy of our families, who have gifted the five of us very special(and much appreciated!)‘Mother’s Day’ presents, all paid for(including a few bob spending money each), in a beach-front Villa(own pool) on an ‘extendable holiday’ – meaning that we can stay on for another week (or longer) if we book it in the final three days.
And we just might do that, if the three weeks aren’t enough for us!
We’re going to Lanzarote, where we have been before, for a well-deserved break(…or so the husbands, brothers, children and grandchildren tell us!) and we are really looking forward to temporarily exchanging a wet, wind-swept, 10ºC island for a sun-kissed, warm-breezed 25ºC island, and having nothing to do and all day to do it!
So, obviously – because the two lads that work the blog with me will also be taking a break – we won’t be posting again until sometime in April(as we probably will take up the offer of an extra week) but I’ll probably still manage to post a few comments on ‘Twitter/X’(if they stop censoring me!) and on ‘Facebook’, as well.
So, until we meet again on the blog…behave yerselves, and remember :
‘The Great Only Appear Great Because We Are On Our Knees. Let Us Rise!’
Slán anois – go n-éirí leat!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading ; see yis in April!
11sixtynine 
