'The Fenians challenged the police in the 'Name of the Irish Republic' to surrender and give up their arms.
Tim Daly reached for Sub-Constable O’Donnell's gun and as the two men struggled over the gun, a shot rang out and Sub-Constable Patrick Sheedy fell, mortally wounded.
Next, Constable O’Donnell was shot in the head but only lightly wounded.
The other two constables fled, in opposite directions, as a fusillade rang out...'
(From here.)
On the 4th March, 1867, 'Sub-Constable' Mr Patrick Sheedy (42) was one of at least four 'police constables' who would have been 'detailed to duty' for the following day - 'Skellig Night', an Irish carnival/festival of sorts (!) in the Munster area of Ireland, when Fenians decided to flex their muscles in support of the Rising that had been planned for that date.
Mr Sheedy and his colleagues didn't have a good time at it...
==========================
ON THIS DATE (4TH MARCH) 138 YEARS AGO : "GRACE UNKNOWN...."
Grace Gifford Plunkett (pictured) was born on this date (4th March) in 1888, in Dublin.
She attended art school here and in London and, in 1915, at the age of 27, she 'stepped out' with the then editor of 'The Irish Review' magazine, a Mr Joseph Plunkett, one of the founders of the 'Irish Volunteer' organisation.
He was imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising and was condemned to death by firing squad : he asked Grace to marry him and, on the 3rd of May 1916, at 6pm, in Kilmainham Jail, Grace Gifford and Joseph Plunkett were married, with two prison officers as witnesses and fifteen British soldiers 'keeping guard' in the same cell.
The couple were allowed ten minutes together, before Grace was removed from her husband ; he was executed by the British hours later, on the 4th May, 1916.
Grace Gifford Plunkett was at that time on the Executive of the then Sinn Féin organisation, and spoke out against the Treaty of Surrender.
Like all anti-treaty activists (then as now) she was constantly harassed by Free State forces and was no stranger to the inside of prison cells, and was on a 'watch list' by the Leinster House administration.
She had no home, little money and was despised by the State 'authorities' - selling her drawings and illustrations gave her a small irregular income, as she moved from rented flat to rented flat and ate in the cheapest restaurants she could find.
She died suddenly, and alone, on the 13th of December 1955, aged 67, in a flat in South Richmond Street in Portobello, Dublin, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
'Rougher than Death the road I choose
Yet shall my feet not walk astray,
Though dark, my way I shall not lose
For this way is the darkest way.
Now I have chosen in the dark
The desolate way to walk alone
Yet strive to keep alive one spark
Of your known grace and grace unknown...' (from here.)
THE GREAT OIL AND GAS ROBBERY...
From 'Magill' Magazine, October 2005.
"I spent an hour with Micheál Ó Seighin (pictured), one of the Rossport Five.
Micheál received us very graciously in the small visiting box. He is a small, quietly-spoken man in his late 60s.
"Tá sibhse ag dhéanamh obair go hiontach. Congratulations. Bhí an scéal Dé Luan go han, han mhaith. Ceim mhór", he said..."
Micheál Ó Seighin.
Michael McDowell.
Pat Rabbitte.
On Friday 23rd September, a senior political delegation met with the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Justice to discuss the evolving peace process. All in attendance agreed privately, and later publicly, that it was a good and positive engagement.
And so it was.
When it was over I took Michael McDowell to one side and shook hands.
"Am I still barred from visiting the Rossport Five?", I asked him.
"Yes", he said.
"Why?", I asked.
"Because that's my decision", he said.
On Wednesday 28 September I did get a visit to Cloverhill, but it wasn't with the Minister's permission. The Ó Seighin family gave up one of their visits so that I could spend an hour with Micheál Ó Seighin, one of the Rossport Five.
Micheál received us very graciously in the small visiting box ; he is a small, quietly-spoken man in his late 60s.
"Tá sibhse ag dhéanamh obair go hiontach. Congratulations. Bhí an scéal Dé Luan go han, han mhaith. Ceim mhór"?, he said.
"Tá a lán le dhéanamh go foill", I said. "Cad é mar atá rudaí anseo?"
"Tá muid maith go leor. We are getting a huge amount of support. Up to 140 cards a day so that helps and I had my mind made on this for a long time. We had really no choice and the other lads are very strong."
"It's a long time to be here. How are your families?", I asked.
"The entire community is with us and all of our families are totally committed. We're very well organised over the last number of years..."
(The third [ie last] pic above shows a Mr Patrick Rabbitte, ex-State Labour Party leader and ex-'State Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources' ; Mr Rabbittee retired as State Labour Party leader in 2007, and from political life altogether in 2016, on a combined pension package worth over €2 million to him!)
(MORE LATER.)
A worrying development for the British, or so it might have seemed at the time, but Westminster's insistence to US President Woodrow Wilson that the Irish situation was 'a domestic/internal issue' won out in the end.
T'was on the 4th March in 1919 that the 'United States House of Representatives' voted overwhelmingly that the Paris Peace Conference should favourably consider Ireland’s claim to self-determination (the vote was 261 for, 41 against, and the US Senate did the same on the 6th of June that same year).
An Irish-American delegation had met with Mr Woodrow Wilson in New York earlier on that same day and, even though Mr Wilson didn't actually commit himself to outrightly supporting Irish aspirations for self-determination, he let it be known to the delegation that it wasn't something he was opposed to, and suggested that their case might be better heard at the 'League of Nations' - the delegation 'read between the lines' and the meeting got a bit heated.
But Mr Wilson and his team stayed 'on the fence', carefully, not majorly offending either camp ; that's politics for ya - and a lost opportunity...
==========================
THE MONTH UNSPUN...
The stories that hit the headlines.
From Magill magazine, August 2002.
'The Irish Independent' newspaper reported on 4th July that Elan chief executive Donal Geaney had the full confidence of his board.
Six days later he had resigned and been replaced by a five-member executive committee.
'The Irish Times' quoted newly-appointed Elan chairman Dr Garo Armen -
"The board decided to change top management because it deemed that it was necessary for the company to strengthen its cash position, restructure itself and reduce its cost base substantially."
'The Financial Times' newspaper reckoned that Wall Street's love affair with Ireland was now over and that.. "...not many doors will be opening for Elan for some time to come."
Elan's suspect accounting practices have come in the wake of similar revelations from Enron and Worldcom, and have started Wall Street thinking that loose accounting standards are a major problem in more than one company...
(MORE LATER.)
"As a protest against the present regime of coercion and the imprisonment of Irishmen for holding political opinions not approved of by the military governors of this county, we wish to inform you that the military point-to-point advertised for Boston will not be allowed to be held..."
- a statement issued on the 4th March, 1920, by Irish republicans and other concerned locals, and sent to 'The Secretary, Boston Point-to-Point, Rathangan, County Kildare' (the "regime of coercion" refers to the imposition of martial law and the use of the 'Defence of the Realm Act' (DORA) to 'arrest' Sinn Féin members and Irish Volunteers).
'Boston' is a townland in the Red Hills area, near the village of Rathangan, in County Kildare, and the "military point-to-point" mentioned in the statement is a reference to a steeplechase horse race which had been organised by British Army officers, stationed in Ireland, affiliated to the '12th Lancers' and the '6th Dragoon Guards Carabiniers'.
The 'festivities' (?!) were to be held on Wednesday, 17th March 1920 (Saint Patrick's Day) and were intended to be 'a jolly day out' for British Army and political 'Toffs', their wives, husbands, girlfriends, mistresses and supporters.
There was frequent targeting of these 'social and sporting events' as a form of protest and disruption against British rule in Ireland and, while some of the horse races were actually, physically disrupted and interfered with, the mere threat of disruption could often be enough to result in the event being cancelled or postponed - psychological warfare.
As it transpired, the Paddy's Day outing didn't go ahead on the announced day, but a scaled-down version took place six days later (on the 23rd), in a less-relaxed atmosphere...
At the same time as the 'Call It Off'-statement was delivered to the Toffs in Kildare, about 130 km(80 miles) across the country and down a fair bit, in the village of An Bhuaile Dhubh (Bouladuff, aka 'The Ragg'), 5 miles outside of Thurles and 3 miles from Borrisoleigh, in the county of Tipperary, three armed Volunteers (James Stapleton, Patrick O'Brien and James Larkin) attached to the Mid Tipperary Brigade (No.2) of the IRA were having a meeting in Fanning's Pub (/grocer shop) when two armed and uniformed RIC members walked in.
The IRA men pulled out their revolvers and told the RIC members to surrender but, instead, they went to draw their guns and were fired on - one of them, a Mr John Martin Heanue (24, from Galway), was badly wounded and died the following day.
The IRA men then left the area.
In a later-to-be-discovered related incident, on the night of the 28th March/morning of the 29th, six masked men called to the nearby home of Volunteer Thomas Dwyer (21) and shot him dead, as his younger sister looked on.
But 'long lie the fox' -
...on the 7th July 1921 (16 months after Volunteer Thomas Dwyer was shot dead and was buried in Drom Cemetery, County Tipperary), the body of a man was discovered at a quiet crossroads near the village of Bonniconlon, a village in the barony of Gallen, in north County Mayo.
The body was that of a 'retired' RIC Sergeant, a Mr Anthony Foody.
Tied around his neck was a sign -
'Remember Dwyer and The Ragg.'
RIP Volunteer Thomas Dwyer.
As that gunplay in the pub was taking place in Tipperary, about 135km (82 miles) up the country and over a bit to the left (!), a farmer from the village of Ardskamore (aka 'Ardkillmore'), near the town of Corofin in County Galway - a Mr Martin Cullinane (/Cullinan) - was visiting a neighbour, a Mr John Lardner, when a group of armed men approached the house.
A bullet was fired through a window in the house, striking Mr Cullinane and killing him.
IRA or British forces?
No claim of responsibility was made.
==========================
DEATH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN...
Desmond Boomer, a Belfast engineer working in the Libyan oil-fields, disappeared seven years ago.
Officially, the plane on which he was a passenger crashed as a result of mechanical failure and pilot error.
But is that the real story?
Or were the Irishman and his fellow passengers unwitting victims of the shady war between Islamic fundamentalism and Mossad, Israel's intelligence network?
A special 'Magill' investigation by Don Mullan, author of 'Eyewitness Bloody Sunday'.
From 'Magill' magazine, January 2003.
Shqaqi, surprised that his real identity was known, looked around and was immediately shot six times by the pillion passenger on the motorbike.
The 'Soldier Of Fortune' article claims the hit men were taken to Tigne where they boarded a speedboat once again and, in 30 minutes, they were back in Sicily together with their commander.
From there, it is alleged they boarded a private jet that took them back to Tel Aviv.
On the 5th November, 1995 - a month before the mysterious disappearance of Desmond Boomer and his travelling companions - a local Maltese newspaper, 'The KullHadd', implicated an unnamed pilot as a possible accomplice in the assassination of Shqaqi...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 4th March, 1921, IRA Units in Kildare destroyed/disabled bridges and roads in Castledermot, Monasterevin, Kilcrow and Burtown and, as that infrastructure was hit, the Crown Forces in Dublin were 'building up' the infrastructure they had imposed on the city in mid-January that year.
That infrastructure took the form of a curfew which was centered on, but not confined to, the North King Street, Capel Street, and Church Street areas of Dublin city centre, between the hours of 10pm and 5am, with '40-hour lockdowns' implemented without notice.
On the 4th March (1921), the curfew area was extended to a massive area of 36 square miles, spanning from Chapelizod to Ballybrack and Glasnevin to Terenure, with public travel now 'forbidden'/strictly limited between the hours of 9pm to 5am.
However, republican Volunteers continued to impose their own 'curfew' on those imposers and imposters...
In late February 1921, IRA Intelligence in the town of Cashel, in County Tipperary, mapped the movements of an RIC member, a Mr James R Beasant (25), from Wiltshire, in England, who had joined that grouping in December 1920.
After 'work' on a Friday evening, Mr Beasant was a regular in Cantwell's Pub (pictured) on the corner of Main Street and John Street, in Cashel, where he had a few pints before heading to his house.
That information was passed to the 3rd Tipperary Brigade of the IRA and, towards the last days of February (1921) an IRA meeting to discuss the issue was held in M/s Anastasia ('Stasia') Nevin's house, which was only a few doors away from that pub.
Four Volunteers - Patrick Hogan (aka 'Seán Hogan'), Patrick Keane, Thomas Nagle (aka 'Jack Nagle') and William O'Donnell - and Stasia herself, were tasked with the operation to pay Mr Beasant a visit and a plan of action was put together.
On Friday, the 4th March, having confirmed that Mr Beasant was, as usual, in the pub, the four Volunteers called into Stasia.
Volunteer Hogan gave Stasia a small revolver, which she put in her handbag and, as per the plan, she left the house to stand down the road, on lookout duty.
On a 'coast clear' signal from Stasia, the four Volunteers left the house and walked the few doors down the road to the pub entrance.
Volunteer O'Donnell (the then 0fficer Commanding 'A' Company, 2nd Battalion IRA) later reported on the operation -
"All four of us carried revolvers.
Volunteers Keane and Nagle stayed in Miss Nevin's in John Street and Volunteer Hogan and I stayed in SD Ryan's of Friar Street.
Local Volunteers, who acted as scouts, kept us informed of the movements of the RIC.
At about 7 pm on the night of the 4th March, 1921, a scout reported that two RIC men were drinking in Cantwell's public house at the corner of John Street and Main Street and they were separate, one was drinking in the kitchen and the other was in the shop.
Volunteer Hogan then decided that Volunteer Nagle and himself would enter Cantwell's by the side door, Volunteer Nagle to go into the kitchen to deal with the RIC man there, while he himself would attack the RIC man in the shop.
Volunteer Keane and I were to stand on the footpath just outside Cantwell's shop to deal, if necessary, with an RIC patrol which might be expected in the vicinity around that time.
During the time which elapsed from the scout seeing the RIC men until our arrival at Cantwell's, the two RIC men had left and another one - Beasant - had entered the shop and the RIC patrol, too, had arrived in the vicinity and were standing at the railings of Corcoran's Hotel, about 50 yards away down the street.
Volunteer Hogan was unaware of the patrol's presence when he entered Cantwell's, but Volunteer Keane and I saw them as they stood chatting to each other when we took up our position.
Volunteer Hogan fired point blank at Beasant, who was sitting in the shop, but it had no effect.
He fired four more shots at him but, except for a slight scratch wound, the shots had no effect and Beasant then closed with Volunteer Hogan and gasped his right arm ; Volunteer Hogan changed the gun to his left hand and fired again, but still without effect.
Meanwhile, Volunteer Nagle, seeing no RIC man in the kitchen, came back out to the shop, where he saw Volunteer Hogan and Beasant struggling with each other.
Volunteer Nagle fired, hitting Beasant in the head, and the latter then fell dead.
Volunteer Keane and I had not expected to hear more than two shots or three at the most and, after hearing the fifth shot, he remarked to me that the boys must be in trouble inside and suggested that we should go in.
I told him that we had better watch the RIC patrol who, by the way, if they heard the muffled sound of the shots, did not take any notice, but remained where they were.
After the pause and hearing Volunteer Nagle's shot, we did go to the door to see what was happening and, to our relief, met Volunteers Hogan and Nagle coming out.
We got out of the town immediately and, taking to the fields, reached Woodenstown early next morning, where we rested in a farmer's house.
Here we met Volunteer Seumas Robinson, the Brigade 0fficer Commanding, who remarked that he had just heard that a Black and Tan had been shot in Cashel the night before.
He added that he also heard that a girl had been wounded in the shooting - that was the first intimation we got that Miss Julia Cantwell, who had been hiding behind the counter at the end of the shop, had been wounded..."
As the Volunteers were leaving the pub, Stasia walked in the opposite direction, down Main Street, and went to the cinema which was filled with British soldiers and she made sure that she was noticed by the officers, knowing that an alibi as to her whereabouts at the time of the shooting would be necessary.
Indeed, there was such a crowd of soldiers at the cinema, that a gallant British Army officer escorted her home afterwards, making sure that herself and her little handgun in her handbag got home safely..!
On the same day that Mr Beasant drank his last pint, about 140km (85 miles) down the road, a female resident of the Kilcatherine Parish in the Eyeries district of West Cork - a M/s Bridget Noble (née Neill) - was on her way to Castletownbere (/Castletown Berehaven) in Cork, when she was arrested by the IRA between Ardgroom and her destination.
Having searched her house in her absence on the 4th (by order of the Captain of the Ardgroom Volunteer Company), acting on information, the rebels found a letter to her from the RIC 'Head Constable' asking her to meet him in Castletownbere and they caught up with her just past the village of Ardgroom, on the Beara Peninsula, on her way to that meeting (the search party also found five half-torn letters from other RIC members and two photographs of RIC men).
Her constant contact with the RIC had been noticed by Volunteers from 'C Company' of the Castletownbere Battalion, as had her 'friendship' with the local RIC sergeant, whom she met up with more than once in a private house.
M/s Noble had previously had her hair forcibly shorn by the IRA as a warning to stop associating with enemy forces, but still she persisted ; indeed, she reported that IRA action to her friends in the RIC, and gave them the names of seven Volunteers whom she claimed were responsible for the punishment action.
Having been arrested by the rebels on the 4th March (1921), she was questioned and put on trial on the 13th, found guilty, and executed on the 15th.
A report on the case was prepared by the Cork No. 5 Brigade HQ and sent to their Dublin GHQ in October that year, as her execution caused some unease within the ranks of the rebel Movement who, generally, were not in favour of shooting women, as was stated in 'IRA General Orders'.
Incidentally - M/s Bridget Noble was one of three women executed by the IRA as informers during that period of our on-going struggle ; the other two were Maria Georgina (Mary) Lindsay and Kate (Kitty) Carroll.
M/s Noble's husband received £1,500 in compensation from the British government.
==========================
ON THIS DATE (4TH MARCH) 16 YEARS AGO : GREEN ISLE FOODS ISSUE COVERED BY MEDIA.
Statement released on Wednesday, 3rd March 2010, by SIPTU (...and carried by the media on the 4th and afterwards).
'History of Green Isle Foods dispute ; Workers in Green Isle Foods have embarked on a course of action not seen in Ireland for many years. Members of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) have been left on the picket line for six months by their employer and the parent company, Northern Foods in Britain.
The basic facts ; in December 2008, a TEEU member opened a new icon on his computer entitled 'Boardroom'.
He assumed it was an information bulletin.
In fact it had been sent to him by mistake instead of to a senior member of management with a similar name.
He did not pay much attention to the contents until a file appeared on the site in March 2009 containing restructuring proposals that involved making six TEEU members redundant.
The engineer showed his manager the file and shared the information with a number of fellow employees.
When the company realised its error it insisted that all employees who may have accessed the 'Boardroom' folder sign a document confirming that they had done so and accepting it was a serious disciplinary offence for which they faced dismissal.
The members asked their union for advice.
When the TEEU sought to represent them the company refused to entertain the union.
The men were suspended on full pay, while Green Isle Foods applied to the High Court for an order seeking full disclosure from the employees along with exemplary damages for breach of contract, confidentiality, interfering with the company's business and all legal costs - including interest.
The TEEU represented the men in court and after hearing the evidence Judge Mary Laffoy recommended that the parties agree a mutually acceptable process for resolving the problem.
An agreement was reached by which all suspensions were lifted, the men returned to work and they agreed to co-operate with the company investigation, which dragged on from early April until mid June 2009.
Eamon Devoy, General Secretary Designate of the TEEU, eventually wrote to the company on June 17th, asking that the inquiry into 'Boardroom' be wound up because of the stress it was causing employees.
Instead, the company said it had begun what it claimed was a second investigation, wholly unrelated to the first, on the previous day, June 16th, into the storage of inappropriate emails on PCs.
On June 18th it also issued the findings of its first investigation.
This found the company IT systems were not secure or properly monitored, and there was no evidence to suggest information from the 'Boardroom' folder had been given to anyone outside the company.
Meanwhile, the company pursued its second investigation without any involvement from the TEEU, whose members refused to engage in the new process without union representation.
The same individuals were investigated as in the 'Boardroom' inquiry and, while it remains unclear if this investigation was ever concluded, the men were dismissed at the end of what had proven a very secretive process, on July 10th, 2009.
Their appeals were rejected on July 31st, and the company rejected an offer by the Labour Relations Commission to intervene.
Having failed to find some means of resolving the dispute through negotiation, mediation and dialogue, the TEEU served strike notice on Green Isle Foods.
The response of the company was to bring in strike breakers, who were in place even before pickets were mounted at the end of August 2009.
Meanwhile, the other TEEU members, whose positions had been identified as redundant in the 'Boardroom' file, received satisfactory redundancy settlements ; the crucial difference was that they were employees of ESS, a subcontractor on the Green Isle Foods site which recognises unions.
Green Isle Foods has sought to portray the dispute as one involving the downloading of pornographic (material) from the internet, but in fact the Green Isle Foods system does not allow employees access to the internet, let alone the ability to download material.
In the case of two TEEU members who were dismissed, they opened unsolicited emails which had nothing to suggest the material was inappropriate and, in one case, the man was dismissed for failing to delete the email subsequently from his in-box although he did not show it to anyone else.
The source of the unsolicited emails has never been identified by the company.
The third employee was dismissed because he brought a memory stick to work with film and video game material on it which was not pornographic images, but which the company claimed could breach copyright law if used on its equipment.
After being on the picket line for over four months the TEEU referred the dispute to the Labour Court, which heard the case on December 4th, 2009.
The company refused to attend, saying it did not recognise unions and therefore the Labour Court was an inappropriate forum to resolve the dispute but, nevertheless, it was represented at the hearing by IBEC.
The Court issued a recommendation on December 8th, 2009, stating it was satisfied the dismissals were unjustified, that there should be an immediate return to work, full reinstatement of the men and compensation for loss of earnings.
In the event that this was not acceptable to the two sides the Court recommended that they should agree, through a third party if necessary, on a compensation package for the men.
When the company rejected this proposal the Court recommended, on January 5th, 2010, that the sacked men receive €40,000, €60,000 and €80,000 respectively, reflecting their lengths of service (seven, 10 and 16 years), if they were not reinstated as previously recommended.
When the company continued to ignore the Labour Court recommendations, the shop stewards, Jim Wyse and Declan Shannon, requested meetings with the company locally to resolve the dispute through direct talks, and even offered to negotiate on the Labour Court terms.
Management met them briefly for a few minutes on three occasions over four weeks but did not even bother to make a note of the men's proposals before rejecting them.
It was after this final rebuff that the workers decided to adopt a hunger strike strategy ; they had spent six months on the picket line during the worst winter weather for 40 years and their families were experiencing extreme economic hardship.
They felt it was the last means available to bring pressure to bear on a company that was impervious to all the normal rules of industrial relations or common decency.
Jim Wyse became the first hunger striker on February 17th - he volunteered to go first because it was his suggestion, John Guinan joined him on February 24th and John Recto joined the Green Isle Foods hunger strike on March 3rd, 2010.
Some hours before he joined Jim Wyse and John Guinan on hunger strike, John Recto was asked to call into Naas Garda Station, where he was informed that his work visa has been revoked.
He was told he has until March 8th to leave the country.
He is from the Philippines and has been working at Green Isle Foods for the past three years, and his wife and three children, aged six, seven and one year old, are living with him in Naas ; his youngest child was born in Ireland.
End of SIPTU statement.'
To a certain extent, this is the fault of those that work for a wage/salary and the overall Trade Union movement.
The three of us involved with this blog work outside (and inside) the home, for a wage/salary, and are union members.
We are, in our separate places of employment, in senior management positions and are therefore, thankfully, able to sort any disputes that arise in-house, in a fair-to-all manner, without calling in TU reps who, anyway, are busy campaigning for foreign vagrants and/or decorating their offices with queer/rainbow flags and bunting.
It is as much the fault of the Trade Union movement because they have become 'soft' and over-friendly with politicians and company bosses : in truth, the Trade Union leadership have more in common - and not only in relation to the money they 'earn' - with those two groups, in that they lack the moral courage to stand by their (stated) convictions and alleged intention - to protect that what we already have, in the workplace, and to seek to improve conditions for the working class.
We, the tax-paying working class, have been sold out four times over - by ourselves, for not only not whole-heartedly fighting back but for not actually leaving blood on the streets in our attempt to do so, by the self-serving and (pension-)time-serving millionaire politicians in this State, by the business owners, bosses and management and, finally, by 'our' trade union movement, who have shown that, once bought, they stay bought.
We should be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves.
('1169' comment ; after 15 days on hunger-strike, the issue was settled. Some details here.)
On the night of the 4th March/morning of the 5th, 1922, the hall door of a house in Swinford, County Mayo, came crashing in and an armed man wearing a disguise walked in.
The man of the house, a Mr John O'Dowd, a 'retired' RIC Sergeant, was sitting at the fireside with his wife.
The wife grabbed a chair, jumped up and placed herself between her husband and the Volunteer, just as the Volunteer fired a shot, which went through the chair and hit the wife, piercing a lung.
He fired at least two more shots, and hit Mr O'Dowd twice, then left the scene.
Mr O'Dowd was seriously injured, but recovered.
His wife didn't.
RIP Mrs O'Dowd.
==========================
ON THIS DATE (4TH MARCH) 222 YEARS AGO - 'CONVICTS' REVOLT : 'VINEGAR HILL' NSW UPRISING.
On this date in 1804, an uprising was held by the 'Castle Hill Convicts' in New South Wales, Australia, led by Irish rebel Phillip Cunningham, a Kerryman, born at Glenn Liath ('Grey Glen'), Moyvane.
Although not a lot is known about this Irish hero, it is recorded that he moved to Clonmel, Tipperary, in the 1790's, and worked as a stonemason, supplementing his income from same by opening up a small pub.
Peter Cunningham and about two hundred other 'convicts' turned on the Redcoat soldiers who had imprisoned them, locked them up and broke into a weapons hut.
Martial law was declared as a result, in the Sydney area, and residents in the town of Parramatta were advised to assemble at the docks, ready to flee the area if needed.
The rebels had by now based themselves on a hilltop and declared it to be their 'Vinegar Hill'.
A Major George Johnson and his men from the New South Wales Corps and a detachment of fifty mercenaries from the 'Loyal Association' marched through the night and a short battle commenced in and around 'Vinegar Hill', ending the rebellion. Peter Cunningham was later executed without trial.
'The Sydney Gazette' newspaper covered(/coloured) the event, in its edition of the 11th March 1804, in the following manner -
'REBELLION AT CASTLE HILL.
Major Johnston on arriving at Toongabbee, received information that a considerable Body were on their way to the Hawkesbury.
Notwithstanding the fatigue of his small Detachment in marching up from Sydney and the distance they had gone since, they immediately ran in good Order, with their followers, and after a pursuit of Seven Miles farther, Major Johnston and a Trooper, who had preceded the Detachment, came up with the rear of the Insurgents at 11 o'clock, whose number have since been ascertained to be 233 men, armed with Musquets, Pistols, Swords etc., and a number of followers which they had taken from the Settlers.
After calling to them repeatedly they halted, and formed on the rise of a Hill: The Major and Trooper advanced within pistol shot, and endeavoured to persuade them to submit to the Mercy that was offered them by the Proclamation, which they refused.
The Major required to see their Chiefs, who after some deliberation met them half way, between the Detachment and Insurgents, when by a great presence of mind and address the Major presented his pistol at the head of the Principal leader (Phillip Cunningham), and the Trooper following his motions, presented his Pistol also to the other leader's head (William Johnston) and drove them into the Detachment without the least opposition from the body of the Insurgents..'
That rebellion may very well have been shortlived and its leader, Peter Cunningham, almost forgotten in our history, but it, and he, live on in the memory of every Irish republican to this day.
As it should be.
"Convicted Spy.
Tried And Executed By The IRA."
- a note pinned to a body found by Free State Army soldiers on the 4th March, 1923, near the village of Clerihan (/Ballyclerahan), Clonmel, County Tipperary.
The remains were those of a Mr Thomas McGrath, a British Army soldier who had joined the then new Free State Army.
He had been executed on the 2nd March.
==========================
BORN ON THIS DATE (4TH MARCH) THE SAME DATE THAT HE DIED, AND NAMED AFTER AN IRISH HERO WHO WAS BORN ON THAT SAME DATE 120 YEARS BEFORE HIM!
Emmet Dalton (pictured, on the right, with Michael Collins), Irish rebel-turned-Free Stater, was born in America on March 4th 1898 and died in Dublin on March 4th 1978 - his 80th birthday, and also the bicentenary of the birth of the man he was named after, and whose Cause he belittled - *Robert Emmet.
Mr Dalton was educated at the O'Connell School in Drumcondra, Dublin and, as a young adult, became interested in the political teachings of a Mr John Redmond, so much so that he joined the British Army, serving as a 2nd Lieutenant with the 7th Battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers.
He would have been present at the Somme in September 1916 when over 4,000 Irish soldiers died (including his friend, Tom Kettle) and, indeed, won a 'Military Cross' for '..leading forward to their final objective companies which had lost their officers. Later, whilst consolidating his position, he found himself with one sergeant, confronted by 21 of the enemy, including an officer, who surrendered when he attacked them..'.
He further served the British 'war effort' in Palestine, where he trained a sniper patrol and also served as a British Army staff officer in France.
He was demobilised, in Germany, in 1919, at the age of 21, and returned to Dublin, becoming the 'Director of Training' for the Irish Republican Army, but he sold out in favour of the 'Treaty of Surrender' in 1921 and made a (Free State) name for himself by attacking republican positions from the sea, actions that his British paymasters considered as having 'turned the tide' against the Irish republican resistance, and also led the Free State attack on the Four Courts in Dublin on the 28th June 1922.
He was with Michael Collins on the 22nd of August 1922 when the latter was shot dead by republican forces in West Cork (Béal na mBláth) and is said to have propped up a dying Collins to place dressings on his wound.
He resigned from the Free State Army shortly after Collins was killed (his brother, Charlie, stayed on and made an equally bad name for himself), and was appointed as the clerk of the Free State Senate, but resigned from that, too, three years later, and opened a film production company, Ardmore Studios, near Bray, in Wicklow.
He died, aged 80, on the 4th of March 1978, the same date and month that he had been born on, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
Rumours persist that Mr Dalton himself shot Collins dead, as per instructions from Westminster...?
(*...few words [!] elsewhere in this post about the brave Irish rebel.)
"The Ulster Protestants are the spoiled children of politics who are incapable of making concessions..."
-Mr William Thomas Cosgrave (pictured), the then 'President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, leader of the Cumann na nGaedheal political party and the Leinster House member for the Carlow–Kilkenny constituency' (and, as if that wasn't pensions enough for him, he was, when he spoke those words, only about three weeks away from also taking on the position of Free State Minister for Defence!).
Or at least that's what a Mr Norman George Loughnane claimed Mr Cosgrave said, at a meeting with his boss, a Mr Lionel Curtis.
Mr Loughnane was a British government official (a 'Principal Officer' in the British Treasury), a former administrator in Dublin Castle, and was also associated with the British 'Ministry of Pensions' in Westminster, and Mr Curtis once 'served' as the 'Colonial Office Adviser on Irish Affairs' for the Brits.
Mr Cosgrave and Mr Loughnane were themselves like "spoiled children" with all their salaried positions, and poor Mr Curtis was like the child who was last in getting to the sweet jar/piggy bank...
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ON THIS DATE (4TH MARCH) 248 YEARS AGO : 'DARLING OF ERIN' BORN.
Robert Emmet was born on the 4th March, 1778, a son of Dr Robert Emmet and Elizabeth Mason.
His father served as state physician to the vice-regal household but was a social reformer who believed that in order to achieve the emancipation of the Irish people it was first necessary to break the link with England.
Robert Emmet (Jnr) was baptised on March 10th in St Peter's Church of Ireland in Aungier Street, Dublin, and attended Oswald's School in Dropping Court, off Golden Lane, in Dublin and, from there, he went to Samuel Whytes School in Grafton Street, quite near his home, and later to the school of the Reverend Mr Lewis in Camden Street.
He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in October 1793 at the age of fifteen and a half where he practiced his oratorical skills in the Historical and Debating Societies and one of his friends there was the poet Thomas Moore.
There were four branches of the 'United Irishmen' in TCD and Robert Emmet was secretary of one of them but, after an inquisition, presided over by Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon, Emmet became one of nineteen students who were expelled for United Irishmen activity.
Although not active in the 1798 Rising, Robert Emmet was well known to the British authorities and by April 1799, when Habeas Corpus had been suspended, there was a warrant issued for his arrest, which he managed to evade and, early in 1801, accompanied by a Mr Malachy Delany of Cork, he travelled throughout Europe, and made Paris his headquarters - it was there that he replaced Edward Lewis as the liaison officer between Irish and French republicans.
While in Paris, he learned about rockets and weapons, and studied a two-volume treatise by a Colonel Tempelhoff which can be examined in the Royal Irish Academy, with the marginal notes given the reader some insight into Emmet's thinking.
Following the signing of the 'Peace of Amiens' by France and England in March 1802, the United Irishmen that were being held as prisoners in Fort George were released and many such as Thomas Russell and Thomas Addis Emmet made there way to Paris.
Emmet returned to Ireland in October 1802 and began to plan for a rising and, in March 1803, at a meeting in Corbet's Hotel, 105 Capel Street, Dublin, Emmet briefed his key organisers.
In April 1803 Emmet rented an isolated house in Butterfield Lane in Rathfarnham as a new base of operations and Michael Dwyer, a 1798 veteran, suggested his young niece as a suitable candidate to play the role of the 'housekeeper'.
Born in or around the year 1778, Ann Devlin soon became Robert Emmet's trusted helper and served him loyally in the months ahead.
Shortly afterwards he leased a premises at Marshalsea Lane, off Thomas Street, Dublin, and set up an arms depot there, for the manufacture and storage of weapons for the incipient rising.
Former soldiers mixed their practical skills with the scientific knowledge that Robert Emmet had acquired on the continent, and an innovative rocket device was produced.
Elaborate plans were drawn up to take the city and in particular Dublin Castle : supporters from the surrounding counties of Kildare, Wicklow and even Wexford were pledged to assist.
Emmet bided his time, waiting for an opportune moment when English troops would be withdrawn to serve in the renewed war in France, but his hand was forced when a premature explosion on the evening of July 16, 1803, at the Patrick Street depot, caused the death of John Keenan and, even though there was no obvious wide scale search or arrest operation by the British following the explosion, the leadership of the movement decided to set July 23, 1803 (the following Saturday) as the date for the rising.
Emmet hoped that success in Dublin would inspire other counties to follow suit.
Patrick M. Geoghegan, in a recent publication, says that "..the plan for taking Dublin was breathtaking in its precision and audacity. It was nothing less that a blueprint for a dramatic coup d'état. Indeed, over a century later, Pearse and Clarke would also refer to the plan for their own rising.."
Emmet's plan depended on two factors - arms and men and, as Geoghegan states, when the time came, Robert Emmet had not enough of either - events went dramatically wrong for him.
On the appointed day his plans began to unravel ; Michael Dwyer and his promised 300 men did not get the word until Sunday July 24th and, the previous day, an excess of men had moved in to Dublin from Kildare and could not be concealed in the existing depots so they spread out around the city pubs and some started drinking. Others, after inspecting the existing arsenal and finding many pikes but few muskets or blunderbusses, went home unimpressed.
Because he had alerted other countries and still had the element of surprise, Emmet decided not to postpone the Rising thus, shortly after seven o' clock on Saturday July 23rd, 1803, Robert Emmet in his green and gold uniform stood in the Thomas Street, Dublin, depot and, to the assembled rebels, read out his proclamation, declaring that the Irish nation was about to assert itself in arms against foreign rule.
But again events conspired to thwart the rebels - coaches commissioned for the attack on Dublin Castle were lost and erroneous information supplied that encouraged pre-emptive strikes, meant that confusion reigned.
Also, the novel rocket signals failed to detonate.
Emmet's own forces, who were to have taken the Castle, dwindled away and, throughout the remainder of that evening, there were skirmishes at Thomas Street and the Coombe Barracks but he decided to terminate operations and leave the city.
For the English Army, which included Daniel O' Connell, it was then merely a mopping-up operation : in the aftermath, the English arrested and tortured Anne Devlin, even offering her the enormous sum of £500 to betray Robert Emmet - she refused.
Emmet himself took refuge in the Harold's Cross area of Dublin, during which he met with his mother and Sarah Curran but, on Thursday August 25th, 1803, he was finally arrested.
It has been stated by others that a £1000 reward was paid by Dublin Castle to an informer, for supplying the information which led to his capture.
Robert Emmet's misfortunes did not stop on his arrest : he had the misfortune to be defended by one Leonard McNally who was trusted by the United Irishmen but, after McNally's death in 1820, it transpired that he was a highly paid government agent and, in his role as an informer, that he had encouraged young men to join the rebels, betrayed them to Dublin Castle and would then collect fees from the United Irishmen to 'defend' those same rebels in court!
Emmet was tried before a 'Special Commission' in Green Street Court House in Dublin on September 19th, 1803 ; the 'trial' lasted all day and by 9.30pm he was pronounced guilty.
Asked for his reaction, he delivered a speech which still inspires today, closing by saying that he cared not for the opinion of the court but for the opinion of the future -
"..when other times and other men can do justice to my character.."
Robert Emmet was publicly executed on Tuesday September 20th outside St Catherine's Church in Dublin's Thomas Street.
The final comment on the value of Robert Emmet's Rising must go to Séan Ó Brádaigh, who states that to speak of Emmet in terms of failure alone is to do him a grave injustice - he and the men and women of 1798 and 1803 and, indeed, those that went before them, set a course for the Irish nation, with their appeal to Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, under the common name of 'Irishman', which profoundly affected Irish life for more than two centuries and which will, we trust, eventually bear abundant fruit.
Finally, it was not only college-educated men and women like Robert Emmet (ie those who might be perceived as being 'upper class') who decided to challenge Westminster's interference in Irish affairs in 1803 : so-called 'working class' men and women also acknowledged the need for such resistance - Edward Kearney, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St / Owen Kirwin, tailor, hanged, Thomas St, September 1st 1803 / Maxwell Roche, slator, hanged, Thomas St, September 2nd 1803 / Denis Lambert Redmond, coal facer, hanged, Coalquay (Woodquay) Dublin, / John Killeen, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 10th 1803 / John McCann, shoemaker, hanged at his own doorstep, Thomas St, September 10th 1803 / Felix Rourke, farm labourer, hanged, Rathcoole, Dublin, September 10th 1803 / Thomas Keenan, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 11th 1803 / John Hayes, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 17th 1803 / Michael Kelly, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 17th 1803 / James Byrne, baker, hanged, Townsend St, Dublin, September 17th 1803 / John Begg, tailor, hanged, Palmerstown, Dublin, September 17th 1803 / Nicholas Tyrrell, factory worker, hanged, Palmerstown, Dublin, September 17th 1803 / Henry Howley, carpenter, hanged, Kilmainham Jail, Dublin, September 20th 1803 / John McIntoch, carpenter, hanged, Patrick St, Dublin, October 3rd 1803 - there are dozens more we could list here, but suffice to say that 'class' alone was not then, nor is it now, a deciding factor in challenging British military and political interference in this country.
'Justice' is the deciding factor in that equation.
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - appreciated!
Sharon and the team.
(We'll be back on Wednesday, 18th March 2026 - and we'll be making a 'lil holiday announcement then ; we're taking a couple of weeks off, 'cause me and the Girl Gang are off soon on our rambles abroad, starting in the Canary Islands, so the two lads here will take a break, as well. And, as we say here - (MORE LATER - on the 18th!)...)
Our information suggests that, on the 18th February, 1849, a 'Constabulary of Ireland' member, a Mr Henry Madden (31), "...accidentally sustained an injury in non-suspicious circumstances while on duty..".
Whatever happened him, he died from that injury the next day.
The poor man is all but forgotten now, and we have no more details about him or the 'accident' that killed him.
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THE GREAT OIL AND GAS ROBBERY.
From 'Magill' Magazine, October 2005.
"I spent an hour with Micheál Ó Seighin (pictured), one of the Rossport Five.
Micheál received us very graciously in the small visiting box. He is a small, quietly-spoken man in his late 60s.
"Tá sibhse ag dhéanamh obair go hiontach. Congratulations. Bhí an scéal Dé Luan go han, han mhaith. Ceim mhór", he said..."
Micheál Ó Seighin.
Michael McDowell.
Pat Rabbitte.
Some time ago I contacted Cloverhill prison to arrange a visit with the five men imprisoned there at that time for breaching the injunction by Shell which denied them the right to protest against the huge gas pipeline being driven through their land in west Mayo.
The prison authorities were very cooperative.
It is normal practice for public representatives to visit prisoners, even in Northern Ireland (sic) where the British administration facilitates such visits.
But the Minister of Justice Michael McDowell (pictured, centre) takes a different view and on the eve of the visit I learned that I was barred from Cloverhill.
I immediately contacted the Department of Justice and spoke to the Secretary General who could offer me no explanation for this arbitrary decision...
(The third [ie last] pic above shows a Mr Patrick Rabbitte, ex-State Labour Party leader and ex-'State Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources' ; Mr Rabbitte retired as State Labour Party leader in 2007, and from political life altogether in 2016, on a combined pension package worth over €2 million to him!)
(MORE LATER.)
"I can best describe the situation here (in Ireland) as something in the nature of an incipient Boer War.
Now what was the history of the Boer War?
At first we tried to capture their strongholds and engage them in pitched battles and afterwards we covered the country with a network of 'flying columns'.
But they remained unconquered until we wired them all up inside concentration camps.
This is really how we won the Boer War, and it is the only way we will settle this business here..."
- a British 'Sir', a Mr John Denton Pinkstone French (pictured), the '1st Earl of Ypres' and the British 'Chief of the Imperial General Staff' (1912–1914) and the 'Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1918–1921), in a letter he wrote, on the 18th February 1920, to a colleague of his, a Mr James Ian Macpherson, who served as the 'British Chief Secretary for Ireland'.
Pot, kettle black with Mr Pinkstone French, the blighter (!) - for all his talk ("..pitched battles...flying columns..unconquered...wired them all up.."), his tenure of the 'British Expeditionary Force' (BEF) during 'World War I' was marked by failure ; his military orders led to high casualties and he was said by his own people to be "..temperamentally unsuited, often struggling with strategy..a fount of all that is slimy in our national life..a terribly pathetic figure, such a little while ago the hero of England and now goes out to nothing..." - he was forced to resign his commission in December 1915 and placed in Ireland where, it seems, it was considered that he would cause less damage.
Mr MacPherson got off lightly - in the British 'House of Commons', on the 3rd April, 1919, he admitted that when answering parliamentary questions..."all I can do is stand up and read a carefully prepared answer, prepared by somebody else, as best I can.."
Two chancers, by all accounts, using Ireland to grift their way to a British pension for life.
On the same date that one of those flim-flam polo-militarys was writing to the other, 'The Irish Times' newspaper (!) was doing some flim-flamming of its own.
In an Editorial on Westminster's so-called 'Better Government of Ireland Bill', the Editor wrote that the document "..had not a single friend in either hemisphere, outside Downing Street...".
'The Irish Times' was experiencing one of its recurring struggles with being disobedient which, again, it would follow with a plea for divine forgiveness to whatever 'Establishment' was in power on the day!
Four years before its "not a single friend" outburst (!), the same 'newspaper' had described the (1916) Rising as a "malignant growth" and a "criminal act", and called for an immediate, harsh military response by the British, calling for a severe "surgeon's knife" approach "to eliminate sedition" and, on the 10th May, 1916, defended the executions of the leaders, saying they knew the consequences.
That media outlet let it be known that it 'viewed the Rising as a threat to order'.
And today, 2026, it maintains its pro-Free State, West Brit attitude (founded in March, 1859, for a Protestant readership and supported 'the British Union' from day one), which it has extended to include the 'Woke' illness (pro-vagrant, queers, lesbians, he/she advocates and the other 'LGBTQIA+' (!) etc afflicted people and groups).
The sooner the better it won't have "a single friend" left itself.
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DINNY LACEY, 1890 - 1923 ; IRA GUERRILLA FIGHTER .
In the small town of Attybrack, near Annacarty, in County Tipperary, a child born in the year 1890 was to know of no other way of life except that of with a gun in both hands.
At about twenty-three years young, Dinny Lacey joined the 'Irish Volunteers' and met, among others, Sean Treacy (six years later [ie 1919] that same man, Sean Treacy, was one of the two IRA leaders [the other being Dan Breen] that shot two RIC members dead in Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary - the IRA wanted the quantity of gelignite which the British 'policemen' were guarding. Sean Treacy was himself shot dead in Dublin's Talbot Street on the 15th October 1920, by a British intelligence officer named Price).
It was through Sean Treacy that Dinny Lacey was sworn in to The Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1914 and it was those two rebels, alongside Dan Breen,
that organised a much-feared fighting unit in Tipperary which sought-out the enemy ; Dinny Lacey, in particular, was known to be deeply angry that the 1916 Rising had not taken hold in the rest of the country as much as it had in Dublin.
He wanted confrontation with the British, and had no time for 'letting things lie'- he was in good company!
The Tipperary area was well-organised from an Irish Republican point-of-view ; the IRA were so strong in the area that they were able to set-up and run two small ammunition factories, one each in the villages of Knockharding and Shrough.
Dinny Lacey was appointed 'Officer Commanding' of the 3rd Tipperary Brigade No. 1 Flying Column, which controlled the South Munster area - it was Sean Treacy's position, but he had been shot dead by the British in Dublin.
Dinny Lacey and his 'Flying Column' IRA Unit were relentless in their pursuit of the British - he knew the countryside extremely well and had learned much from Sean Treacy : he hit and disappeared.
He was also known to be tough with his own men, did not suffer fools, but never asked anything of them which he was not willing to do himself.
When the 'Treaty of Surrender' was signed at Downing Street in London on the 6th December, 1921, Dinny Lacey and his men were living 'on the run' and only a handful of his Unit left, two or three of whom joined the Free State Army, with the same number of men just going home.
The majority of the IRA Flying Column stayed true, and carried on with the fight for the complete removal of the British military and political presence from Ireland and, as with their fight against the British, they didn't wait to be attacked - they took the fight to the Staters.
The 3rd Tipperary Brigade IRA, with Dinny Lacey in command, hit hard ; in the months following the December 1921 sell-out, Lacey's Unit raided the Free State Barracks in Clonmel, County Tipperary, and removed all the equipment (weapons , ammunition etc) that they wanted, with the result that they were now 'kitted-out' even better than before.
Dinny Lacey and his men controlled the North Munster area to such a degree that it was practically a 'no-go' zone for the Staters, and stayed that way for most of 1922.
Also, during that same year, the townlands around Carrick-on-Suir (outside Clonmel, County Tipperary) were controlled by Dinny Lacey's Unit until December(1922) when the Free State Army forced them out.
The Free State Administration in Dublin's Leinster House had had enough ; they sent a force of approximately one-thousand State troops into the area where Dinny Lacey and the 3rd Tipperary Brigade operated from, with orders to hunt them down.
The rebel Unit were tracked to the Glen of Aherlow area (near the village of Lisveranane, in Tipperary) and were eventually corraled in a house in Ballydavid (near Bansha, Tipperary) ; realising that their only way out was through the ranks of their enemy, they exited the house with all guns blazing.
Dinny Lacey and his men got as far as the boundary fence of the property when the man beside Volunteer Lacey was wounded ; stopping to help the injured man, Dinny Lacey was shot dead.
The date was the 18th February, 1923, he was thirty-three years of age, and had spent the final ten years of his life 'on-the-run'- 9 years hunted by the British and 1 year with the Free Staters on his tail.
He was an outstanding guerrilla leader, uncompromising in his demands - a full British military and political withdrawal from the island of Ireland.
"Why are the English there anyway,
as they kill with God on their side?
Blame it on the kids and the IRA,
as the bastards commit genocide..."
- John Lennon, 'The Luck of The Irish'.
RIP Volunteer Denis 'Dinny' Lacey, 31st May 1889 – 18th February 1923.
ON THIS DATE (18TH FEBRUARY) 105 YEARS AGO : IRISH REPUBLICAN VOLUNTEER POW 'TRANSFERRED FOR EXECUTION...'
"I DON'T WANT TO LET DOWN THE WITNESSES WHO GAVE EVIDENCE FOR ME...." -
- the words of Volunteer Patrick Moran (pictured) , Adjutant of D Company Irish Volunteers, 2nd Battalion (Dublin), to his comrades Ernie O'Malley (who had passed himself off to the British as 'Bernard Stewart') and Frank Teeling as they were about to walk to freedom through a gate in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin, which they had forced open, on the 14th of February 1921.
Volunteer Moran believed he would be found innocent at his 'trial' and saw no reason why he should take the opportunity to escape.
He was a 'dangerous man', as far as Westminster was concerned, and had been imprisoned in Dublin Castle on the 7th of January 1921 and charged with the 'murder' of two British Army/paramilitary gang members, Ames and Bennett, after been mistakenly identified as having been involved in the shooting dead of both men - Lieutenant Peter Ashmun Ames and British Army Lieutenant George Bennett (both of whom were in command of 'The Cairo Gang') on the 21st of November 1920 at 38 Upper Mount Street in Dublin.
He stayed behind on the night of the prison break ,refusing to take part in same, having encouraged Simon Donnelly to go in his place, a decision which was was to cost Patrick Moran his life.
On the 15th of February 1921, he was put on 'trial' (during which sixteen people and an RIC man verified he was elsewhere!) but was, as expected, found 'guilty' and, three days later - on the 18th of February 1921, 105 years ago today - was transferred to Mountjoy Jail, Dublin.
On Wednesday, 9th of March 1921, Patrick Moran was sentenced to death and he was executed by hanging five days later, on Monday, the 14th of March.
He had defended the integrity of his country in Jacob's Factory Garrison during Easter week in 1916, where he served under Thomas MacDonagh, and had been imprisoned at Knutsford and Woorwood Scrubs in England, and in Frongoch Internment Camp in Wales.
He is one of 'The Forgotten Ten' in that he, and his nine comrades, were 'forgotten' by the State but have always been remembered by Irish republicans.
Finally, the planning and execution of the escape itself is worthy of a few paragraphs :
On the 11th February 1921, Frank Teeling and Ernie O'Malley were joined in Kilmainham Jail by Simon Donnelly, who was taken into their confidence and told of the up-coming plan of escape.
The peep-holes in the cell doors were three inches in diameter and, if one of the men could get his arm through it, it would be possible to open the door from the outside ; the plan then was to make their way to the yard, as the men had noticed that the door leading from the prison to the yard was usually left closed-over, but not locked, and then cross the yard to a large iron gate on the west side of the jail, cut the bolt on same and escape.
A 'Plan B' had been made in case the bolt cutter should fail - IRA Volunteers from 'F' Company, Fourth Battalion, Dublin Brigade, would take up positions outside the prison wall with a rope ladder and, awaiting an agreed signal, throw in the rope attached to the ladder, so that the prisoners could haul the ladder over to their side of the wall.
Oscar Traynor, (pictured) IRA Dublin Brigade O/C, had secured a bolt cutter and that, along with two revolvers, were packaged and smuggled into the prison by a friendly British soldier.
The prisoners were not sure that the bolt cutter would be up to the job but were determined to carry out the escape plan, as Frank Teeling was in line for execution ; on the night of February 13th, 1921, the three men made their way to the outer prison gate but, as the handles of the bolt cutter were incorrectly fitted, they were unable to cut the bolt.
They went to 'Plan B', and gave the signal for their comrades on the other side of the prison wall to throw in the rope attached to the ladder - the rope jammed on top of the wall and snapped when the men outside attempted to pull it back to them.
The three prisoners had no alternative but to return to their cells.
The following day, the British soldier who was in on the plan repaired/adjusted the handles on the bolt cutter and, that night, at 6.30pm, the three prisoners decided to make another escape attempt.
The three Irish republican prisoners again made their way down to the gate and, this time, the bolt cutter worked.
They used butter and grease, which they saved from their meals, to help ease the remaining portion of the corroded bolt out from its latch and two of the men got their revolvers at the ready as the third man pulled on the heavy door which creaked open sluggishly on its rusty hinges and the three men walked out!
Simon Donnelly had tried to persuade Patrick Moran to join them, but Volunteer Moran - who was not involved in shooting Ames or Bennett, and had what he considered the perfect alibi for that night - refused to leave the prison except by the front gate as a free man.
Patrick Moran paid with his life for relying on British justice : not the first innocent man to be put to death by the British, and not the last Irish person to be punished by them in revenge.
RIP Volunteer Patrick Moran.
ON THIS DATE (18TH FEBRUARY) 78 YEARS AGO....
"On my way to Knocksedan a little before mid-day I called at the Post Office in Lusk for stamps.
The postmistress, whom I knew very well, asked me to accompany her to her sitting room.
There she told me that she had just delivered a wire in code from Dublin Castle to the Lusk police sergeant, and she was familiar with the code from frequent messages.
This particular one to the police sergeant was to the effect that he was to make immediate arrangements for the arrest of Ashe and myself!
I mention this incident because I think that similar messages were sent to various Volunteer centres in the country, and because it tends to show that the Rising leaders were right in their view that there was to be a general swoop by Dublin Castle on that day.
The police attack was being directed by a District Inspector Smyth, an ex-Army officer and, at the other end (Southern or Cross Roads) a County Inspector Gray was directing operations.
Gray was severely wounded early in the fighting, leaving Smyth in sole command and, soon after Frank Lawless's arrival, an intermittent duel began between his and Smyth's squad.
Smyth was eventually mortally wounded by a shot from Lawless, leaving the police without a leader, with the result that they lost morale and, very soon after Smyth being knocked out, Lawless and his Volunteer squad came out on the roadway, firing intermittently, and moved at the double towards the motor cars.
On seeing them, some of the police peared from under cover of the cars with their hands up..."
- the above is taken from 'Document W.S.97' , a statement made on the 18th February 1948 by Dr. Richard Francis Hayes (pictured), a medical officer and Commandant of the 5th Battalion, Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, as part of a questionnaire into Volunteer activities in north county Dublin during Easter Week, 1916.
Volunteer Hayes and his men were active in Donabate, Swords, Garristown and Ashbourne and, following the Rising, he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment but was released in June 1917, but was imprisoned again for republican activities between May 1918 and March 1919 and from November 1920 to July 1921.
However, he ruined his credentials by supporting the Treaty of Surrender and entered the Westminster-imposed Leinster House institution in 1922 and soon after joined the Free State 'Cumann na nGaedheal' party.
To his credit, he resigned from Leinster House in 1924 and turned his back completely on political life, perhaps because he realised that that which he fought for as a republican was not obtainable through the politics of the Free State and its 'parliament', Leinster House?
He died on the 16th of June, 1958, in his 80th year, and is buried in Deansgrange Cemetery, in Dublin.
ON THIS DATE (18TH FEBRUARY) 180 YEARS AGO : ATTEMPTED GENOCIDE RAISED IN THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT, REPORTED ON BY THE MEDIA.
On the 17th February, 1846, speaking in the British so-called 'House of Commons', Daniel O'Connell (pictured) raised, among other issues, the potato blight in Ireland, and the effect it was having on 'her majesty's subjects' on that island.
The 'servants of the people' in that political institution were only too aware of the suffering that the Irish were trying to live through, and Mr O'Connell was aware of that, but he was hoping that his comments would be carried in the newspapers and reach a wider audience, which they did on the 18th February (1846) and afterwards.
This is an extract of the speech he delivered -
"...It was certain that there was a fearful prospect of a most calamitous season before the people of Ireland. The extent of that calamity had been disputed, and there had been a time when there was a prospect of some portion of it being possibly averted..the calamity was pressing, was imminent – more pressing, more imminent, and more fearful than that House was aware of. In order to understand it, it was right that the House should be made aware of the state of Ireland before the calamity, had impended.
The last Population Returns of 1841 showed that, out of the whole rural population of Ireland, 46 per cent lived in a single room ; the entire human family and the pigs occupied the same apartment together. The next fact was, that of the civil population – that is, of the inhabitants of towns – 36 per cent lived in a single room, and that two or three families sometimes occupied the same room.
An account of all cattle, sheep, and swine, imported into Great Britain from Ireland, from the 10th day of October, 1845, to the 5th day of January, 1846 ; oxen, bulls, and cows, 32,883 ; calves, 583 ; sheep and lambs, 32,576 ; swine, 104,141..more than half the potato crop is unfit for human food, and the disease is progressing. More than half the labourers are unemployed, and are likely to continue so for the next three months, and during the months of July and August, as the farmers will not have money nor food to give them.
The agricultural labourers of Ireland suffer the greatest privations and hardships ; that they depend upon precarious and casual employment for subsistence ; that they are badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for their labour ; that it would be impossible to describe adequately the sufferings and privations which the cottiers and labourers and their families in most parts of the country endure ; that in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage water ; that their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather ; that a bed or blanket is a rare luxury ; and that nearly in all, their pig and their manure heap constitute their only property ; that a large proportion of the entire population comes within the designation of agricultural labourers, and endure sufferings greater than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain..." (from here.)
The finely-suited 'parliamentarians' in that institution were aware of the suffering endured by the Irish, as policies enacted and enforced by Westminster was responsible for the genocide being played-out in Ireland, but they didn't care, as they themselves were not only not affected by those conditions but actually benefited, financially, from same ; Irish land, free of impoverished 'tenants', was more valuable and easier to sell than if the same land was sold with 'troublesome tenants' on it.
That mindset is still prevalent in British 'High Society' to this day, but here's a newsflash for our snob British readers, for 'our own' gombeen snobs in Leinster House and for the 'asylum-seeking/refugee/migrant/vagrant'-pushing EU : we ain't goin' nowhere ; this is our country, not a dumping ground or a political and/or military base for your good selves.
Take your unwanted debris back to your own country, and leave us in peace!
THE MONTH UNSPUN...
The stories that hit the headlines.
From Magill magazine, August 2002.
Elan's accounts for 2002 were published on the 9th July, ending any hope that the drugs company may recover its past glories and causing severe embarrassment for the Irish-American investors who had defended it.
A company that had taken 33 years to build had fallen into despair in just six months.
The problems were essentially twofold - Elan's accounting practices made investing in the company look less risky than it actually was, and the Alzheimer's drug that the company was developing in the hope that it would be "the big one", failed clinical tests.
The "big one", therefore, never materialised, and Elan's complex system of shared investments could no longer bear the strain - one billion euro was knocked off the value of the 'National Pensions Reserve Fund' as a result of the chaos...
(MORE LATER.)
"The general condition of the county is unsatisfactory.
There were 18 outrages as compared with 27 committed during the previous month.
On 18/2/21 the Postmaster at Navan disappeared. He has not since been heard of and it is suspected that he has been the victim of foul play..."
- RIC report for Navan, County Meath, February 1921.
In the early hours of Friday morning, 18th February, 1921, a Protestant man, a Mr Thomas Hodgett (55, pictured), a Postmaster, was abducted from his home near Navan, in County Meath, by three armed men who claimed to be from the IRA.
He was taken away by the men, shot dead and his remains were thrown into the River Blackwater, but were not found until one month later.
The British claimed that his killing "was a Sinn Féin outrage against the minority religion...", but the IRA and local republicans denied all knowledge of the killing.
'The Irish Bulletin' newspaper investigated the shooting and stated that 'it was carried out by a County Inspector of the RIC and a notorious sergeant from Dublin Castle...'
Further words were exchanged between the IRA and the British, but no answers were forthcoming as to the 'who and why' of the shooting dead of Mr Hodgett.
Until 32 years later, that is...
"Three men were responsible for that murder. They were a policeman (sic) from Dublin Castle named Igoe, a civilian named Brady from Dublin, who was shot at the Bull Wall, Dublin a few weeks later, and RIC County Inspector Egan..."
- part of a letter written on the 13th January, 1953, by a Mr Gilbert, who lived beside the Hodgett family.
RIC Chief Constable Eugene Igoe, a Galway man, was in charge of a semi-'official' sub-unit of the RIC known as 'The Identification Company', whose function was to patrol the streets of Dublin searching for IRA men on the run who had come to the city for safety ; they were also known for occasionally shooting dead innocent civilians and leaving bogus IRA notes reading 'Death To Spies And Informers' on the corpses, making the murders appear to be the work of the IRA.
Mr (John Ellard) Brady was a 21-year-old man who was shot and killed by the IRA in Dublin in June 1921.
He was supplying information to the Crown Forces.
Mr Brady was sitting on a sea wall (near the Bull Wall area of Clontarf, Dublin) with two other men, a Mr Thomas Halpin (an ex-British Army soldier) and a man named Denver, when they were targeted by the IRA's 'F Company', 2nd Battalion.
Both Mr Brady and Mr Halpin were killed.
RIC 'County Inspector' (William) Egan had already been named, two years before Mr Gilbert named him, in a 'Bureau of Military History' (BMH 1951) statement as having played a part in the abduction and shooting dead of the Postmaster, Mr Thomas Hodgett.
The investigation in the 1950's indicated that the real cause for the murder of Mr Thomas Hodgett was that he, unfortunately and inadvertently, divulged information through an indiscretion, picked-up on by British operatives in Dublin Castle, which made the local RIC and British Army look incompetent in the eyes of their Headquarters and had signed his own death warrant in doing so.
RIP Mr Thomas Hodgett.
On the same day that poor Mr Hodgett was abducted by armed pro-British forces, their colleagues about 50km (30 miles) down the road, in Dublin, sealed-off Mountjoy Square and went house-to-house searching for rebels and military equipment, but left the area empty-handed.
"Sinn Féin Courts started to function, and one of the trials was the eviction of a British ex-soldier from one of my father's houses at 63 Blarney Street, Cork..."
- Volunteer PJ Murphy, Cork, recalling the details, years later, of an event which he was involved in :
"..after the trial, Walsh gave the names of the court and the local Volunteers to the RIC and was rewarded with money for this information.
His sister got the draft and went to cash it in the local shop, where it was reported to the local Volunteers, and Walsh was arrested by the IRA, sentenced to be deported, left the country and went to Wales.
After a few months he returned.
We made two attempts to arrest him, and on each occasion he got away from us ; on the first occasion by diving into a shop full of women and children, and the second time by throwing himself off a high wall.
On each occasion he went to the military barracks and brought the military to our homes.
While with the British in Cork Military Barracks, Walsh fell into bad health and they transferred him to the Cork workhouse (the Workshop Infirmary, Douglas Road). One night in February 1921 he was brought out on a stretcher to the backgate of the workhouse and shot dead by the IRA..."
A letter which was written and signed by a British Army Captain, a Mr Campbell Joseph O'Connor Kelly ('Sixth Division Intelligence Officer') came to light about one week after Mr Walsh had been executed (18th February 1921), in which Mr Kelly stated that the informer had been rescued in the past by his troops when they raided the Cork Mental Asylum where he was being detained by the IRA.
After they had rescued him, the British sent him to England to lie low, but he soon ended up in Ireland again.
It was an armed six-man Volunteer ASU (under the command of Volunteer Thomas Crofts, 2nd Battalion, Cork No. 1 Brigade), wearing disguises, that removed that informer from his hospital bed, carried him down the stairs from his ward, out the workhouse gate, onto the road, and shot him dead.
The Officer Commanding of the Cork IRA 2nd Battalion, Volunteer Michael Murphy, described Mr Walsh the informer as "a definite spy and a low type".
A card was pinned to the body -
'Caught at last. Spies and informers beware. IRA.'
On the same day that one informer was paying his dues, another one was earning his keep in that same county.
British Army soldiers 'came across' an arms dump owned by the Kilbrittain Company of the Cork No. 3 Brigade of the IRA and took the munitions into their custody.
The haul would have consisted of between 15 and 20 shotguns (many of which were collected voluntarily during the 1918 conscription scare), about 20 'Service Rifles' (probably Lee-Enfield brand), a small number of revolvers and other handguns, 'home-made' bombs and mines, gelignite, guncotton and hundreds of rounds of bullets for the guns on site.
The equipment would have been wrapped in canvas, oiled, and hidden in bunkers with corrugated steel roofs, typically located in field corners near safe houses to allow for quick access by IRA Flying Columns.
As those British looters were looting Irish freedom equipment, 'The Times Of London' newspaper carried a news article about the 'Oxford Union' having voted 219 to 129 in favour of condemning the British government's actions in Ireland.
Appreciated, lads and lassies, thanks - but any chance ye could have organised a whip-around for a few bob to replace some missing items...?
On the 18th February, 1921, newspapers in Ireland covered the 'arrest' on the previous day, by pro-British forces, of a member of the pro-British 'police force', the 'Dublin Metropolitan Police' (DMP).
A Mr Eamon 'Ned' Broy (pictured, a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State poacher) was a DMP officer, working as a spy for the rebels, who morphed into a Free Stater who worked to a British agenda for anti-republican Leinster House conformists ( confusing, isn't it!) and was 'arrested' by his own people on the 17th for "collaborating with the enemy".
Documents that he had typed for a Sinn Féin contact (a M/s Eileen McGrane [MacCarvill]) were found and his involvement with the rebels was discovered.
Mr Broy was charged with 'high treason' and imprisoned in Arbour Hill Prison, in Dublin, and was only released in August that year (1921).
He worked as a secretary/bodyguard for/to the Irish Treaty (of Surrender) negotiators and, after partition was forcibly accepted and implemented he joined the new Free State Air Corps with the rank of Commandant (later promoted to Colonel).
All of his personas died in January, 1972, at 85 years of age, in Rathgar, Dublin.
On the same date that those newspapers were writing about Mr Broy, about 50 miles (75 km) across the country and down a bit, in the RIC Barracks in the town of Monasterevin, in County Kildare, a 34-year-old RIC member, a Mr Thomas Bradshaw ('Service Number 63555', with 14 years 'service' in that grouping), from Newport, in County Tipperary - a troubled man - was ordered to prepare himself for 'patrol duties' in the morning.
He must have slept uneasily that night because the following morning (19th February 1921) he went into the stables attached to the RIC Barracks, removed his Webley MkVI revolver (serial number 391534) from its holster, placed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was heard by three of his RIC colleagues, a Mr James May ('Service Number 72428'), a Mr Abraham Harvey ('Service Number 74540') and a Mr Patrick Ryan ('Service Number 57520'), who rushed to the stables and found Mr Bradshaw on the ground, with blood pouring from the back of his head, but still breathing, laboriously.
He died minutes later.
==========================
DEATH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN...
Desmond Boomer, a Belfast engineer working in the Libyan oil-fields, disappeared seven years ago.
Officially, the plane on which he was a passenger crashed as a result of mechanical failure and pilot error.
But is that the real story?
Or were the Irishman and his fellow passengers unwitting victims of the shady war between Islamic fundamentalism and Mossad, Israel's intelligence network?
A special 'Magill' investigation by Don Mullan, author of 'Eyewitness Bloody Sunday'.
From 'Magill' magazine, January 2003.
Journalists Neil Livingstone and David Halevy claim the mission to assassinate Shqaqi was codenamed 'Operation Caesarea' and, according to the two journalists, by September 1995 some 40 well-equipped Mossad agents were in Malta posing as "rich tourists together with their wives".
They monitored Shqaqi as he passed through Malta on his way to Libya.
On the day Shqaqi boarded the ferry, the Mossad base in Malta was promptly notified and, again according to the two journalists, a speedboat then carried the operation's commander and hit men to Malta from Sicily.
Shqaqi booked into 'The Diplomat Hotel' in Sliema and went out for some early afternoon shopping. Two Mossad agents on a dark blue Yamaha XT motorcycle approached him and called his name...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (18TH FEBRUARY) 130 YEARS AGO : JOHN REDMOND'S UNHEEDED PLEA IN WESTMINSTER FOR IRISH POLITICAL PRISONERS IS PUBLICISED.
On the 17th February 1896, John Redmond (pictured) secured speaking time in the Westminster Parliament to discuss the plight of Irish political prisoners held in prison by the British political administration.
Such was the dire conditions endured by our prisoners, two 'Irish Unionist' (Free Stater) members of that political administration - Mr Horace Plunkett and Mr W.E.H. Lecky - actually supported Mr Redmond in his attempt to secure some sort of justice for those POW's.
During his plea to 'The House', it was announced on the 18th that he had said..
"...many hon. Members seemed to think that because it was contended that these were political prisoners who ought to be released, the Irish Members were thereby claiming that political offences ought not to be punished.
Nothing could be more absurd.
What they said was that there was a distinction drawn by all the nations in the world between the treatment of political offences and offences which sprang from the ordinary criminal instincts of mankind, and in dealing with every other nation in the world except with Ireland, England had been the first to draw this distinction...
...all persons to-day would admit that John Mitchell (pictured) was a political offender, but Englishmen of his day did not admit it, and they passed a special Act of Parliament dealing with the subject of treason in order that he might be treated, not as a political offender, but as an ordinary criminal.
All men of all parties admitted that the Fenians were political offenders, but anyone who listened to the speech of the hon. Member for South Mayo (Mr. Davitt) the other night, who knew his history, and heard what he suffered in prison, would recognise that though he was a political offender he was not treated as such.
In this case the Government still maintained the fiction that these men were not political prisoners ; but when all these men had been released, and when another generation of Englishmen looked back on these transactions, they would, perhaps, be just as willing to admit that they were political prisoners as men of the present day were willing to admit that the hon. Member for South Mayo (Mr. Davitt) and John Mitchell were political prisoners of their day...
Michael Davitt....was it not a disgraceful thing for England and for the Imperial Parliament that every generation with relentless regularity had in face a question of amnesty? England's Government of Ireland involved this — that she was almost the only country in Europe which was never, by any chance, without some political prisoners in her gaols.
An amnesty movement had become part of recognised political life in Ireland ; he remembered that the first political meeting he ever attended was an amnesty meeting.
The first debate he ever heard in the House was when, some 20 years ago, he came to listen to his father making a speech in favour of the amnesty of the political prisoners of his day.
Irishmen had recently been blamed for telling the English people that in any foreign complications they had not the sympathy of the Nationalists of Ireland.
Irishmen would have been liars and hypocrites if they had said anything else..." (From here.)
Mr Redmond and company were 'put in their place', albeit eloquently, by the political Dandies they were sitting with, which wasn't the first time that such proceedings ended in that manner.
Indeed, Thatcher did much the same, although less eloquently.
The only solution is to ensure that there are no more Irish political prisoners been held for political ransom by Westminster and the best way to ensure that is by Westminster withdrawing, politically and militarily, from Ireland.
Until that happens, we will always, regrettably, have Irish men and women incarcerated for political actions against the Crown.
ON THIS DATE (18TH FEBRUARY) 82 YEARS AGO : LAST FULL DAY ON EARTH FOR A REBEL POACHER-TURNED-FREE STATE MILITARY GENERAL.
'JJ O'Connell (pictured) joined the Irish Volunteers in 1914, becoming Chief of Inspection in 1915, and travelled the country organising volunteer corps, as well as contributing to the Irish Volunteer's journal and delivering lectures on military tactics to both the Volunteers and Na Fianna Éireann.
He also delivered a series of lectures about the famous Irish battles to the Gaelic League in Dublin (but) was not a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood as he believed that soldiers should not be a part of secret societies...
At the time the 1916 Easter Rising, O'Connell was operating in Dublin under instruction from Joseph Plunkett.
He was dispatched to Cork by Eoin MacNeill to try to prevent the Rising. Following the Rising, he was arrested and held in Frongoch internment camp from April to July 1916.
In 1918 he was again arrested and interned, spending time in Wandsworth Prison with Arthur Griffith for the alleged involvement in the fabricated German Plot.
During the Irish War of Independence, he was a member of the Irish Republican Army headquarters staff, as Assistant Director of Training and, after the killing of Dick McKee, as Director of Training. He coordinated, and was the principal lecturer, for a training course for military officers.
The course was run clandestinely in the premises of the Topographical Society on Gardiner Street in Dublin. A sympathetic doorkeeper allowed O'Connell's group in at night when the society was not present. Topics delivered by O'Connell included tactics, ordinance and engineering. In the IRA split after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was ratified, O'Connell took the pro-Treaty side...' (from here.)
On the 26th June, 1922, Leo Henderson and a group of 'Irregulars/Dissidents' left the then republican-occupied Four Courts, which had been taken over on the 14th of April by anti-treaty forces '..and arrived at Ferguson's Garage on Dublin's Baggot Street, accusing them of doing business with Belfast ; this was, they said, in violation of the boycott the IRA had placed on the city due to violence against nationalists there.
Leo Henderson, their leader, seized a number of cars at gunpoint, and was on the point of driving back to the anti-Treaty stronghold of the Four Courts when he was arrested by pro-Treaty/Free State troops.
Henderson's comrades in the Four Courts in response arrested a pro-Treaty General, JJ O’Connell and, within 24 hours, Free State artillery was battering at the walls of the Four Courts in central Dublin. The first shots of the Irish Civil War were caused by a row over selling cars to Belfast...' (from here.)
Not altogether the full story, although the 'bones' of what actually happened are there ; Harry Ferguson's garage (pictured) was a well-known Belfast automobile company, with a branch on Baggot Street, in Dublin.
It was known to be unsympathetic to the 'Irregulars' and had blatantly ignored an overall directive from the IRA that for-profit business dealings with Belfast should cease until business bosses in that city took steps to ensure the safety of their nationalist workforce.
Leo Henderson and his men commandeered about 15 cars which had been sent, for sale, to Dublin from Belfast - the IRA's intention, as well as to be seen enforcing the 'Belfast Trade Boycott', was to use the vehicles, as part of the war effort, against the continuing British political and military presence in the Six Occupied Counties and in their campaign to overthrow the then-fledging Free State political administration.
Leo Henderson was captured by the Staters, with ex-IRA man Frank Thornton in command of them and, when the IRA leadership heard that Henderson had been 'arrested', they discussed abducting Collins himself or Richard Mulcahy in retaliation, but decided instead to seize Free State General Jeremiah Joseph (JJ) 'Ginger' O'Connell, who was Richard Mulcahy's Deputy Chief-of-Staff.
At 11.15pm on the night of Tuesday, 27th June, 1922, 'Ginger' was arrested in Dublin by the IRA after an evening out with his girlfriend - the couple had gone to the theatre and, after the girlfriend was dropped home, 'Ginger' went to McGilligan's Pub in Leeson Street for a few pints and, as he left the pub, the IRA seized him and held him in the republican-occupied Four Courts.
Ernie O'Malley actually telephoned Free State General Eoin O'Duffy, who was in Portobello Barracks, and told him that 'Ginger' will be returned to the Staters in exchange for Leo Henderson.
The republicans knew that 'Ginger' was valued by Collins and his renegades - he was one of the few that eagerly conveyed the 'cancel-the-Rising'-order from Eoin MacNeill in 1916 and both Collins and Mulcahy regarded him as a safe pair of hands.
Collins's political and military bosses in London were notified about 'JJ Ginger' being held in republican custody and made it clear to Collins that if he and his Free State colleagues didn't take steps to remove the republicans from the Four Courts, they would - the Staters had already decided to attack their former comrades in the Four Courts and had already accepted the offer from Westminster of equipment with which to carry-out the task.
British artillery, aircraft, armoured cars, machine guns, small arms and ammunition were by then in the possession of Collins and his team, who then used the 'JJ kidnap'-incident as a further 'reason' to press ahead with the assault.
At 3.40am, on Wednesday, 28th June 1922, the republican forces inside the Four Courts were given an ultimatum by Collins and his men, acting in support of Westminster - 'surrender before 4am and leave the building'.
The republicans ignored the threat and held their ground and, less than half-an-hour later - at about 4.30am - the Staters opened fire on the republicans with British-supplied 18-pounder guns and practically destroyed the building (pictured), an act which was recently described as "..a major national calamity..an assault on the collective memory of the nation..such actions are considered as war crimes..a cultural atrocity.."
The IRA held out for two days before leaving the building, but fought-on elsewhere in Dublin until early July, 1922, with Oscar Traynor (who later joined the Fianna Fáil party) in command.
'JJ Ginger' was rescued by his Stater colleagues on Friday, 30th June 1922 when they finally managed to enter the then shell of a building where the Four Courts once stood and, within months, was demoted from a Lieutenant-General to a Major-General and then to a Colonel, a position he was to remain at.
He got married in 1922 and, between 1924 and 1944 (he died, aged 56, in the Richmond Hospital in Dublin from a heart attack on the 19th February of that year), he was shifted around like a pawn on a chess board : chief lecturer in the FS Army school of instruction, director of Number 2 (intelligence) bureau, OC equitation school, quartermaster-general and director of the military archives.
We wonder did he consider himself to be the man who helped give 'credence' to the Civil War...?
"We no longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army, and renew our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic..."
- part of a Proclamation issued on the 18th February 1922 to Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy and other pro-Treaty leadership figures from the Officer Commanding of the Mid-Limerick Brigade IRA, Volunteer Liam Forde.
The split between Irish republicans and the Stater renegades was widening.
That Brigade was the first military unit of the IRA to formally break with the pro-Treaty Free State administration : it was a direct act of defiance against the Pro-Treaty leadership following the signing of the Treaty of Surrender in December 1921, which Irish republicans viewed (and still view) as a betrayal of the Republic.
Those repudiated by the republican forces included Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy (the FS 'Minister of Defence') and Eoin O'Duffy (the 'Chief of Staff' of the Stater Army).
The IRA, rightly, no longer felt bound by the decisions of a political administration which now swore allegiance to the English Crown.
On the cusp of civil war...
In an unrelated/coincidental development in London, as Volunteer Forde and his fighters were making the lie of the land clear to the Staters, a British Army Field Marshall, a Mr Henry Wilson, stepped down as 'Chief of the Imperial General Staff' and, back in Ireland, at that same time, Ballylongford and Ballybunion RIC barracks in County Kerry were handed over to the IRA.
The then British Prime Minister, a Mr David Lloyd George, had his hands full on that 18th February - wondering whether his proxy Free State militia in Ireland could take on and defeat the Irish republican forces, who he could get to replace Mr Wilson (!), and what use would the IRA make of the two surrendered barracks?
As Mr George was juggling his 'what ifs' in London on the 18th, the uncertainties for an RIC member in Belfast had been removed.
The RIC 'Sergeant', a Mr Eugene Ahern (51), a Cork man, was due to be buried the next day in Emlaghfad Graveyard, which is located about one mile from the town of Ballymote, in County Sligo.
On the 15th of February, 1922, Mr Ahern and his patrol returned to Springfield Road Barracks in Belfast and were packing-up for the night ; the RIC member beside him was dismantling his machine-gun (he had removed the ammunition drum but never cleared the barrel) when the gun went off.
The bullet in the barrel caught Mr Ahern in his side, nearly blowing him off his feet ; he was rushed by his colleagues to the near-by 'Royal Victoria Hospital' but died within minutes of being admitted.
He was buried on the 19th.
In Sligo, as stated - not in his native Cork.
The day before Mr Ahern was buried, news broke of the death of a member of the Black and Tans in Limerick, a Scottish man, Mr Lauchlan McEdward (20, 'Service Number 81157').
Mr McEdward, described by some British sources as "a Scottish Temporary Cadet with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)" and by others as "a Black and Tan during the Irish revolutionary period..." was said by those sources to have met his death "during an incident involving the accidental discharge of a gun that was being unloaded" and/or "fatally shot while out walking when attacked by several gunmen...".
The (deliberate, in our opinion) obfuscation would be done for a number of reasons - to mask the shame on him and his family for being associated with that gang of lowlife armed paramilitary thugs, to prevent an attack on those attending his funeral service by those opposed to the Black and Tans and/or in an attempt to confuse the enemy on the reliability and accuracy of their intelligence networks.
And in yet another 'accidental death', on the same date that Mr McEdward's killing was announced, an 'Ulster (sic) Special Constabulary' patrol was 'on checkpoint duty' at a location known locally as 'Spawell', between Enniskillen and Kinawley, in County Fermanagh, when a lorry failed to stop for them.
So they opened fire on it.
The lorry stopped abruptly at an impromptu angle and some of the USC checkpoint party approached it, cautiously, guns at the ready.
They opened the drivers door and discovered that the driver, now dead, was one of their own - 'Special Constable' James McInnes (25).
Ooops...
==========================
ON THIS DATE (18TH FEBRUARY) 103 YEARS AGO : IRA VOLUNTEER'S LAST NIGHT WITH HIS MOTHER.
On the 19th February, in 1923, IRA officer Thomas O'Sullivan, of Ballineanig, Kerry, was shot dead by a Free State Army officer near Dingle, in that same county.
The Stater who shot him was an ex-IRA man who had been expelled from the Republican Movement for misconduct and, as such, must have felt right at home with his new comrades.
This account of the death of Volunteer Thomas O'Sullivan is taken from Dorothy Macardle's book 'The Tragedies Of Kerry' -
' "I had twelve children, but I had none like him," Mrs. O'Sullivan says.
Tom was twenty-two years old when he was killed ; he was a teacher of Irish and a fisherman, and he was a Volunteer since the Black-and-Tan time ; he was Commandant of his Battalion when he died.
They (the Staters) came raiding for him in December, with their lorries, but his mother got him away. He was going fishing and had his hand on the kettle, going to make himself a cup of tea, when she ran in with the warning and he made out through the back door. She lifted a bucket and went up the road towards them thinking to hold them awhile in talk.
"Who's that man running?", the officer shouted to her, and she called back "I don't know at all.."
"You know well, you devil!" he answered, "'Tis your son, Tom," and he went down on his knee and fired. The bullet slit Tom's jersey, but Tom was not hurt. But the danger to him seemed more than she could bear.
"Wisha, give me your gun," she said to Tom that night, "and I'll carry it into town for you."
"No, mother," he answered, "that's what I'll never do. I didn't take my oath to break it," he said. "I know what's before me, and I'm satisfied to face that."
He used to come home sometimes, never to sleep, but maybe to change his clothes. He came in on the eighteenth of February (1923). His mother thought he looked troubled. "Have you any letter from Dan?" he asked her at once. Dan, his brother, was in jail. She gave him the letter and he read it under the lamp.
"Dan's all right," he said with relief in his voice, and gave her the letter again. Then he said, "Come down with me now."
She went with him down the bohereen.
It was getting dark and she could not well see his face. Suddenly he put his arms round her. "Goodbye, mother," he said.
"Why do you talk like that, Tom," she said, half-crying, "and you always so brave?"
"Ah, mother," he answered, "I'll be under locks from you soon." He took her hand then and they walked together a little further on.
He was going to sleep in a house across the fields, where he'd be safe, he said.
He started to go but came back to her again : "You're not ashamed of me, mother?" he asked her. It was in Irish, the speech of her heart, that she answered him.
In the dark of the night a man came to her door. It was Bob McCarthy, Tom's friend : she knew him well.
"'Tis pity to be disturbing you," he said, "but the Staters are in the fields below. Where's Tom?"
She told him and he ran out.
She was on her knees praying when she heard a shot fired. She started up and drew the bolt and ran out. She stood, crying out her prayers and blessings, against the gable of the house when she heard another shot and another again.
The man who was with Tom hiding in a hollow knows what happened then, but he is a prisoner, sentenced to fifteen years.
Only the little that he told to a fellow-prisoner, since released, is known -
"They were hiding and spoke to one another, not thinking the enemy were near, but they heard a voice call out suddenly : "That's O'Sullivan! I know his talk." They knew the man who spoke. He had been expelled from the Volunteers for misconduct and was a Free State Officer now. His kind were the most vindictive, always. Tom O'Sullivan must have known that this was death. The man saw him and fired, and Tom fell.
He was badly wounded and put his hands up as he lay on the ground.
"I surrender to you," he said. "Get a priest for me before you do any more." The man fired again and Tom moaned, "O Jesus and Mary come against me" and died.
Bob McCarthy evaded the enemy that night. He had another month to live. It was he who came to Mrs. O'Sullivan to tell her that her son was dead...'
That Free State officer, and other sleveen's of his type, still reside in, and operate from, Leinster House.
Parasites.
RIP Volunteer Thomas O'Sullivan.
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - appreciated!
Sharon and the team.
(We'll be back on Wednesday, 4th March 2026.)
