On Tuesday and Wednesday, 19th and 20th August, 1919, the sixth session of the First Dáil Éireann (the 32-County body, not the Leinster House imitation that exists today) was held in the 'Round Room' of the Mansion House, in Dublin.
There were between 150 and 200 people present altogether, including a media contingent numbering in the dozens, comprising local and international journalists.
The assembly agreed that an Oath of Allegiance ("...must swear allegiance to the Irish Republic and to the Dáil..") to the (32 County) Irish Republic should be taken by all Dáil deputies, by members of the Irish Volunteers, officials of the Dáil and others as determined by the Dáil, and issues concerning the Dáil court system and the 'Land Bank Committee' were also discussed.
'The Irish Volunteers' then officially became the army of the Irish Republic (IRA) and shortly afterwards Volunteers taking the oath began using the term 'IRA' rather that 'IV'.
That was the Sixth Session of the First Dáil and, as it transpired, it was the fourth and final public session of the Dáil before the British administration suppressed and 'outlawed' the parliament on September 13th, 1919, forcing all subsequent sittings to take place in secret.
But, 'suppressed and outlawed' as they were, the rebel institution continued to meet!
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FAILING THE CHILDREN.
In every county in Ireland, children must put up with woefully inadequate school buildings.
The government says it is doing its best to improve the situation, but parents and teachers complain that the State's attitude is bureaucratic, secretive and uncaring.
Niall Stanage investigates.
From 'Magill Magazine', March 2002.
There was good news and bad news for the pupils of Colaiste Mhuire, County Cork, when the school year began last September.
The good news was that they were to be issued with thick, double-fleece jackets.
The bad news was that the classrooms were so bitingly cold they would have to wear the heavy clothing all day.
Overcrowding in St Coleman's National School, County Kilkenny, is so bad that a resource teacher sometimes conducts her lessons in a corridor.
Two teachers work from a cloakroom at Lumcloon National School in County Offaly, where the children's play area is next to a malodorous septic tank.
The Minister for Education, Dr Michael Woods TD, would prefer to avoid emphasising cases like these...
(MORE LATER.)
In late 1919/early 1920, a young Irish lad (21) by the name of James Duffy wanted some action and excitement so he took a notion to join the RIC.
And that's what he done and, in return they gave him an 'official'-looking uniform, a few shillings each week and a number - '69645'.
On the 19th August, 1920, Mr Duffy was travelling in the Boston area (near the border with the county of Galway, close to the town of Gort) in a car with other RIC members when they came under fire.
He was hit, and was eventually taken to Saint Bride's Nursing Home on the Sea Road in Galway City where he died from his wounds the next day.
He never knew that it was another RIC patrol which had mistakingly opened fire on the car, believing it to contain rebel fighters...
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(NOTE - MISTAKINGLY LISTED BY SOME OF OUR SOURCES AS HAVING HAPPENED ON THE 19TH [which is why we are mentioning it here]...)
On the 18th August, 1920, Volunteers attached to the Kerry No.1 Brigade (4th and 5th Battalions) of the IRA ambushed a British Army military supply lorry at Ballinclare, half a mile west of Annascaul, in the County of Kerry.
The foreign troops, 13 of them, surrendered after they realised they were outgunned, and the IRA captured rifles and other munitions before burning the truck.
Four British soldiers attached to the 'East Lancashire Regiment' were injured during the shootout and, following their surrender, IRA volunteers brought the wounded men to a local physician, a Dr. Kane, who treated them for their injuries (...the good doctor raised his voice and called the Volunteers "bloody fools" for not covering their faces!).
As the Volunteers were unloading the liberated munitions, some of their number provided an armed guard for the remaining nine enemy troops and marched them to a nearby farmhouse...where they were sat down, given tea, biscuits and cigarettes and held there until the operation was complete ; they were then marched into the town of Dingle, where they were released unharmed (...in our opinion, a leaded finish would have been safer for the Volunteers).
Anyway - politically and militarily, the British were fuming about how inept the successful ambush made them look.
On the 20th August (1920), a rebel who was known to the British and pro-British forces in the area, Volunteer Patrick Pierce Kennedy (Kerry No.1 Brigade and Castlegregory and Dingle [4th and 5th] Battalions), was crossing a field when he was spotted by a mixed patrol of RIC members and BA troops from the 'East Lancashire Regiment'.
They shot Volunteer Kennedy dead.
The IRA investigated the shooting and, in late September that same year, armed Volunteers attached to the 1st Battalion, Kerry No. 1 Brigade, boarded a train in Tralee, in the county of Kerry, and removed one of the passengers, a Mr Geoffrey Jasper.
Mr Jasper, from Shropshire, in England, was an ex-British Army soldier who, on the 29th June, 1920, had joined the RIC but had been dismissed from that grouping on the 29th August, 1920.
IRA Intelligence had pinpointed him as the man who shot Volunteer Patrick Pierce Kennedy dead and as an operative in the British Intelligence network in Ireland.
Mr Jasper was held and interviewed by the IRA for about five weeks and was then executed.
He is believed to be buried at Carrahane Strand or Banna Strand (near the town of Ardfert, in the county of Kerry).
RIP Volunteer Patrick Pierce Kennedy.
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'...built c. 1820, with integral square-headed (formerly round-headed) carriage arch to the southeast. Now disused. Pitched artificial slate roof with rendered chimneystacks and timber eaves course. Painted roughcast rendered walls with smooth rendered plinth. Render failing and exposing rubble stone construction. Square-headed window openings with six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows with limestone sills. No window openings to the rear elevation (southwest). Square-headed door opening with timber panelled door and overlight, accessed via concrete steps. Battened timber double doors to carriage arch to the southeast end of Main Street, Ballymahon...'
On the 19th August, 1920, about 165 miles (265 km) up the road from the county of Kerry and over on yer right a bit, in the town of Ballymahon in the county of Longford, Volunteer Seán Connolly (a republican rebel right up until he was killed by foreign gunmen) and Seán MacEoin (a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher) were in charge of an IRA unit which was attacking the RIC Barracks (pictured) in that town.
Those men had known each other since their young school days in the village of Clonbroney, within the barony of Granard in Longford, and remained friends (but not comrades) even after Mr MacEoin took coin and uniform from the Staters.
Anyway - Volunteer Connolly managed to get onto the roof of the barracks, made a hole in it and threw a couple of home-made sulphur bombs into the building.
The 11 RIC members held their ground for a number of hours but surrendered in the early hours of the 20th and were taken prisoner by the rebels, who liberated 10 rifles, 4 revolvers, 12 grenades and assorted ammunition from their possession.
The Volunteers returned safely to base, with their newly-acquired munitions.
==========================
THE MONTH UNSPUN...
The stories that hit the headlines.
From Magill magazine, August 2002.
Labour's defence spokesman, Joe Sherlock, speaking in 'The Irish Times', said that lives could be lost as a result of the "shocking u-turn" on the helicopter contract.
The government countered by saying that it was not possible to maintain the high expenditure levels of the past five years, which had been "extraordinarily good times" for all concerned, but the Defence Forces in particular.
Also in 'The Irish Times', Health Minister Micheál Martin denied that the health jobs "freeze" amounted to "cutbacks" and pointed out that the number of people employed by the health service had increased by 30,000 since 1997.
'The Irish Independent' newspaper, meanwhile, chose to focus on the fact that the student grant had increased, rather than the increase in registration fees, but the Labour spokesman on education and science, Joe Costello, didn't - he denounced the cuts as "savage"...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 19th August, 1921, an IRA Volunteer, Lieutenant James Staines (pictured, 21, born in No. 63 Murtagh Road, in Stoneybatter, Dublin and, as an adult, moved to No 8 Proby Square, in Blackrock, Dublin), who was attached to the 1st Battalion, D Company, Dublin Brigade, was being transported by lorry, by the British, from his cell in Hare Park Internment Camp in the Curragh, Kildare, to Rath Internment Camp, a distance of about only a quarter-of-a-mile (both camps shared the same 'geographical footprint').
He escaped from his captors during the move and successfully thwarted their attempts to locate him, reported back to rebel headquarters for duty and, although 'on the run' (even though a truce was in effect), he maintained a low profile.
Until the 29th of April 1922, that is : he joined the new Free State 'Civic Guard', where he was given an 'official'-looking uniform, some coin and a number - '935'.
His 'job' moved him out of Dublin in 1924 and placed him in 'Maryborough' (Portlaoise, in the county of Laois) where he operated from for about three years, before being moved again, in 1927, to the town of Granard, in the county of Longford.
Mr Staines died from pneumonia on the 28th May, 1929, at Hardwicke Hospital, North Brunswick Street, Dublin, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
At the time of his death he was a 'sergeant, An Garda Síochána', but his death certificate lists him as 'a clerk'...
==========================
As then-IRA Volunteer Lieutenant James Staines was making his escape, about 130 miles (210km) down the country and over on yer left a good bit, in Abbeyfeale, in the county of Limerick, a 21-year-old British Army soldier, a Mr George Edwin Beech ('Service Number 5096217, 1st Battalion, 'Royal' Warwickshire Regiment'), from Warwickshire, in England, dived in to the River Feale to cool down - the temperture on that day was recorded as fluctuating between 18°C and 22°C.
Mr Beech drowned that day in the River Feale.
A British Army report into the incident stated -
'Drowning accidental under circumstances which could not have been prevented'.
But the truth of the unfortunate incident is that it could indeed have been prevented had Mr Beech not been in Ireland.
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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.
Throughout the world the families of the disappeared are trapped in a cycle of unending bereavement.
In such circumstances it is natural that every detail concerning the last moments of their missing loved ones is analysed for clues that might help find them or, at least, bring closure.
Support and solidarity in their quest for truth is essential, especially from their elected representatives and civil service.
On the fifth anniversary of his son's disappearance, Cormac Boomer wrote to the Irish government, asking it to press the Maltese authorities through the EU to establish an independent international inquiry.
He requested that as part of the EU's favourable review of Malta's application for membership, the government of Malta should be called to account for its handling of the investigation into the plane's disappearance...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 19th August, 1922, a Free State committee to consider/study political policy in the Occupied Six Counties issued its findings, suggesting "..that it is desirable that a peace policy should be adopted in regard to future dealings with the North and Ulster..."
That policy suggestion was driven primarily by a Mr Ernest Blythe, and it was formally adopted by the Leinster House administration.
Mr Blythe was in the Chair of a five-man 'North East Policy Committee' which appears to have had the objective of assuring other Free Staters that they really had no option other than surrendering the Occupied Six Counties to the British.
Mr Michael Collins himself was not on that committee nor, indeed, was he in Leinster House to hear that verdict, as he was in Cork, where a different verdict was imposed on him three days later...
==========================
On the same day that the above-mentioned committee released it's apologetic 'findings', other Staters were finalising the suppression and pulping of a report commissioned by themselves (in the form of Michael Collins)!
The report, entitled 'Facts and Figures of the Belfast Pogrom 1920-1922', was authored by Fr. John Hassan (aka 'GB Kenna') and published by O'Connell Publishers.
It told a truth best thought untold ('opening [old] wounds') so, having commissioned it, the Staters pulped it.
But 18 copies survived the censorship, hidden away for decades in private archives and, indeed, on church property, one of which was handed to an editor in the Belfast 'Donaldson Archives' company in the mid-1990's and, in around 1997, the company used that copy to (re)publish the text commercially.
But, by then, it was 'old news' and didn't create the furore which it would have created in the 1920's.
Which was the intention.
==========================
As the Staters were burning books, Volunteer Con Moloney, IRA Adjutant-General (and, like his family, a rebel until he died!) issued a General Order stating that the IRA would operate in 'Active Service Units' not exceeding 35 armed guerrillas in each Unit (some sources state that it was the IRA Chief of Staff, Liam Lynch, who issued the General Order).
The Army was also instructed to commandeer, when necessary, property belonging to (pro-British) Unionists to accommodate the Units as they moved around the country, and were reminded that the order to decommission road and rail infrastructure still stood.
In 1922, A 16-years-young youth, from Martinstown, in the county of Kildare, Patrick Behan, joined the Stater Army on that birthday and was wounded in an 'accidental shooting' on the 12th August that year, while 'on duty' in the townland of Ferrycarrig, in the county of Wexford.
He died from that wound on the 19th of that month in St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin.
A comrade of his, an ex-British Army soldier, a Mr Christopher Hynes, who lived at No. 154 Stella Gardens, in Irishtown, Dublin, was 'on duty' for the FSA ('Service Number 1964') in Cleeve's Factory in the village of Bruree in the county of Limerick when he was hit with a bullet in an 'accidental shooting'.
Mr Hynes died from that wound on the 19th August (1922).
==========================
"Shot dead through head.
19th August 1922.
Shot through cell window while a prisoner in Kilkenny Gaol, after capture by the Provisional Government..."
- a family member of IRA Captain Seán (Jack/John) Edwards, who was shot dead through a prison cell window by a Free State Army sentry.
Captain Edwards was a POW.
It was said at the time that he was shot in revenge for the shooting dead, four days earlier, of an FSA member, a Mr Edward O'Brien, who was killed by the IRA in Barrack Street, Waterford.
RIP Captain Seán Edwards.
==========================
As Captain Edwards was cowardly executed in Kilkenny by a Stater, about 130km (80 miles) across the country, in the townland of Plassey, in the county of Limerick, an IRA Volunteer (with four years service for the Republic) on Active Service for the Mid-Limerick Brigade, Volunteer John Butler (26, from Chapel Lane) was trying to evade capture by Collin's Crew.
His only option was to swim across the Grand Canal, which he tried at Ryan's Lock, but he drowned in the process.
(Note - some sources list this as having occurred on the 13th August 1922, but our own records point to it having happened on the 19th.)
RIP Volunteer John Butler.
==========================
As Volunteer Butler dived into the Grand Canal to avoid capture, about 35 km (22 miles) up the road in Clarecastle, in the county of Clare, his comrades in the Mid-Clare Brigade were laying siege to the Stater Army troops who were stationed in the barracks in the town of Clarecastle.
The attack lasted for about two hours when they received word that Stater reinforcements were approaching the scene, so the rebels withdrew.
The barracks suffered substantial damage, and the IRA ASU returned safely to base.
==========================
In September, 1900, a Mr Arthur Griffith and Mr William Rooney formed a cultural and political organisation which they called 'Cumann na nGaedheal'.
The organisation merged with the 'Dungannon Clubs' and the 'National Council' and, in 1905, a new political organisation - 'Sinn Féin' - was established.
On the 27th April, 1923, a public meeting was held in the Oak Room of the Mansion House in Dublin, Chaired by a Mr William T. Cosgrave ('President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State' ['head of government'] and 'State Minister for Finance'), with the purpose of "organising the supporters of the Anglo-Irish Treaty" ie anti-republicans.
The grouping that emerged from that meeting called itself 'Cumann na nGaedheal' (! - the 'Society of the Gaels') and, unfortunately, in our opinion, it was successful enough to the point that it formed a government for the Free State from 1923 until 1932.
On the 15th July, 1923, a public rally was held in Naas, in the county of Kildare, addressed by, among others, Messrs Kevin O'Higgins, Éamonn Duggan and Ernest Blythe and, on the 19th August, 1923, a 'Cumann na nGaedheal' branch was established in the village of Athy, in the county of Kildare, by an ex-Sinn Féin member, a Mr Peter P. Doyle, who was elected its president.
In 1933, that grouping spawned itself into the 'Fine Gael' party which, again unfortunately, in our opinion, is still fooling some people today and is still as anti-republican as it was when it was first engendered.
==========================
On the 19th August, 1924, the 'British Colonial Office Adviser on Irish Affairs' (and the 'Second Secretary and Constitutional Adviser' to Westminster during the 'Treaty of Surrender' discussions), a Mr Lionel Curtis, wrote a letter to his colleague, a Mr Winston Churchill, the British 'Chancellor of the Exchequer' at the time.
In his letter, Mr Curtis assured Mr Churchill that a Mr Richard Feetham, a British-born South African Supreme Court judge, who had been appointed as the Chairman of the 'Boundary Commission', was the right man for the job!
He was, said Mr Curtis, "...a man of conservative temperament who could be counted on to reject any preposterous and extravagant claims being made by Dublin...".
In other words, he wasn't a neutral chairman who would give room to discuss proposals ; no, he was a chairman who would dismiss proposals which would query Westminster's 'writ' in Ireland as 'preposterous and extravagant' proposals.
The Free State representative on that Commission, a Mr Eoin MacNeill (and his 'backroom staff', Messrs. Kevin O'Shiel and Edward Millington Stephens) were aware of Mr Feetham's reputation (!) but, by then, had already been brought so far into the British tarantula's web that there was no going back.
Incidentally, the official Boundary Commission report remained under wraps for over four decades ('...to prevent a severe political crisis, the British, Free State, and Northern Ireland governments agreed to scrap the report and maintain the existing border..') because the report recommended very minor adjustments to the imposed border and, rather than ceding large nationalist areas of the Six Counties to the Staters, the British were seeking to transfer parts of Donegal to the occupied area!
Not the "stepping stone...freedom to achieve freedom" that some promised it would be...
==========================
Thanks for poppin' in, and for reading - bring a friend next time!
Sharon and the team.
We'll be back with another few bits on Wednesday, 2nd September, 2026.
...and I'll still be givin' out on 'X' and 'Facebook' as well, if yer looking for me!
ON THIS DATE (5TH AUGUST) 43 YEARS AGO - 22 ALLEGED IRA MEMBERS JAILED FOR A TOTAL OF 4,000 YEARS.
Christopher Black (pictured), one of the many so-called 'supergrasses' that inflicted heavy damage on the then republican movement, which he had joined in 1975.
On the 5th of August, 1983, 22 alleged members of the IRA were jailed for a total of more than 4,000 cumulative years on the testimony of Belfast IRA man Christopher Black, who had been 'arrested' and subsequently 'turned', in the notorious Castlereagh torture centre in East Belfast, by the British in November 1981.
Four of those 'arrested' were given life sentences with 18 others receiving shorter prison terms - one man alone, Kevin Malgrew, faced the most charges (84) and was sentenced to jail terms totalling 963 years.
The political 'fine-tuning' of the British 'justice' system in the Occupied Six Counties had already been done and allowed for alleged informers - 'supergrasses' - to testify in court in return for, amongst other benefits, immunity for themselves, even if they implicated themselves 'in activities of a serious nature'.
Christopher Black received such assurances and gave information that lead to the arrests of 38 alleged combatants, 22 of whom were then sentenced to a total of 4,000 years in prison.
Eighteen of those convictions were overturned on appeal on the 17th of July 1986.
The 'supergrass' scheme was employed by the British to arrest about 600 alleged paramilitaries but the fact that those informers were each paid between £50,000 and £100,000 and were themselves 'imprisoned' in safe houses with, in the main, no contact with or from family members and/or friends induced a form of 'Stockholm Syndrome' in Black and those of his ilk to the point that they would allow their captors - the British State and its representatives - to practically 'school' them in the nature of the 'evidence' that was required.
More about that informer can be read here, but it's hard to believe that, if Christopher Black (or other [P]IRA informers) were active today they would be ordered by their own leadership to 'step forward' and voluntarily divulge whatever information they had on republican activity to the British, as per instructions from Martin McGuinness.
A definite case of the above-mentioned 'Stockholm Syndrome' but, in the case of Mr McGuinness, he (and others) actually welcomed the opportunity to work on behalf of Westminster!
"We must lay the sure foundations of national health and industrial prosperity (first)..."
In 1919, the British involved themselves in political and military 'campaigns' in Afghanistan, Russia, Northwest Pakistan ('the Waziristan Campaign'), Egypt and, of course, Ireland.
They were 'stretched', politically, militarily and financially.
Their Prime Minister, a Mr Lloyd George, uttered the above sentence on the 5th August, 1919, at a cabinet meeting in Westminster, during which he warned his colleagues of the effect on public opinion of the continuing high military spending, stating that their first priority had to be their own people.
A Mr Winston Churchill, the British 'Secretary of War and Air' (!), stated that the (British) army could very well be reduced to about 320,000 members within the year, which prompted Mr Lloyd George to ask why the army needed to be so big (up from about 255,000 members in 1914/15).
Mr Churchill replied -
"Our responsibilities during the War had considerably increased, especially in regard to Ireland and the East..."
Your "responsibilities", Mr Churchill, should have been with English people and England, not Irish people and Ireland...
(Incidentally, an Irish historian, a Mr Keith Jeffery, was later to state that what he termed 'imperial overstretch' became a constant theme in British policy towards Ireland during the following few years - "In the hard light of the post-war world, and vividly illustrating the consequences of imperial overstretch, overseas vision had to be tempered with domestic economy..."
In other words, Westminster's ego was bigger than its pocketbook.)
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ON THIS DATE (5TH AUGUST) 108 YEARS AGO : GAA FANS HARASSED BY BRITISH ARMY AND RIC.
'In July 1918 the British government declared the GAA a 'dangerous organisation' and Gaelic games were banned.
The British authorities informed the GAA that no hurling or football games would be allowed unless a permit was obtained from Dublin Castle.
On 20 July 1918, the GAA held a meeting in the Sackville Street rooms in response to the Dublin Castle edict. Those at the meeting unanimously agreed that no such permit should be applied for, under any conditions, and instead defiantly organised a series of matches throughout the country. After a short discussion, it was decided that no permits would be asked for under any conditions and provisional councils, county committees, leagues and clubs were to be notified accordingly, and also that no member was to participate in any competition if any permit had already been obtained.
It was further decided to arrange for Sunday, 4 August, at 3 pm, a series of matches throughout each county to be localised as much as possible. The GAA organised a game in every parish, and on 4 August 1918 around 1,500 hurling or football matches were held throughout the country on what became known as 'Gaelic Sunday'.
In Dublin, matches were played in Clondalkin (!), at Croke Park, Phoenix Park, Ringsend, Sandymount, Baldoyle, Fox and Geese, Crumlin, Balneary, Clonsilla, Terenure, Church Road and Bray. In all, there were 22 football and two hurley matches throughout each county to be localised as much as possible..'
(from here.)
On the 5th August, dozens of reports of 'stop and search' harassments of GAA fans by the British military and their RIC colleagues were published in the newspapers, with some 'arrests' being made.
That was back when the GAA had balls to spare (excuse the language and the pun) and they actually knew where they stood as an organisation, in relation to the British military and political presence in this country.
Even before the 'Top Table' in the GAA agreed to campaign for dropping Rule 21 and roll out the welcome mat for armed British and pro-British terrorists in this country, a sea-change had taken place around that 'Top Table', prompted by 'political considerations'.
If such an edict was issued today by the British in relation to GAA clubs in the Occupied Six Counties, the Ulster GAA leadership's first reaction would more than likely be to seek financial compensation for 'loss of earnings', and the GAA 'Top Table' would be ok with that, provided it got a share of the spoils.
A ball-less own goal, if you like.
ON THIS DATE (5TH AUGUST) 148 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF MARGARET MARY PEARSE ANNOUNCED.
On the 4th of August, 1878, James and Margaret Pearse (nee Brady), then living in number 27 Great Brunswick Street in Dublin, celebrated the birth of a daughter, Margaret Mary, pictured (a sister for their future son, Padraig).
As a child, Margaret went to school at the Holy Faith Convent in Glasnevin, Dublin, and liked the experience so much that she wanted to train as a teacher, which she did, even though she didn't think too much of the education system that existed in the country at the time.
And neither did her brothers, Padraig and William - so all three set about establishing their own school, in Cullenswood House, Rathmines, Dublin, in 1908.
In 1916, Padraig and William were executed by the British for their part in the Easter Rising that year, which left Margaret Mary in charge of the school, a position she maintained (with great assistance from a Mr Fergus De Búrca) until the early 1930's.
In the 1930s, the then relatively new 'Fianna Fáil' party was on the look-out for 'names' to help boost its political profile, and Margaret Mary was approached by two people she knew, a Doctor James McCann and her work colleague, Mr Fergus De Búrca, and it was suggested to her that she join the new party and contest a seat in a Leinster House election for it, in the then 'Dublin County' constituency.
She agreed, although one must wonder how and why she did so, as she must have known that Fianna Fáil's political policy, then and now, was counter to that which her brothers, and thousands of other political fighters, fought and died for.
In 1933, at 55 years of age, Margaret Mary, who was introduced as 'a spinster from St Enda's College', won a seat in Leinster House for Fianna Fáil but lost that position (on the seventh count) four years later but, as continues to happen now, that failed candidate was 'tucked away' in the Free State 'Senate' on the so-called 'Administrative Panel' for futher use by her Free State party.
Margaret Mary (pictured) stayed in that well-remunerated talking-shop until she died, at 90 years of age, in 1968, in Linden Convalescent Home in Dublin, on the 7th of November that year.
Sad to say that herself and, indeed, her mother, Margaret, 'lent themselves' to Fianna Fáil (and the Free State) as 'figureheads' ie the Fianna Fáil party and their State used the Pearse name as leverage when it was seeking votes and political legitimacy.
THE GREAT OIL AND GAS ROBBERY...
(Extra information, from various sources -)
Ireland sits on an Atlantic margin geologically similar to Norway’s North Sea yet, while Norway built a $1.5 trillion sovereign wealth fund from oil and gas, Ireland banned offshore exploration in 2019 and remains about 80 per cent import-dependent for gas.
Estimates (pre-ban) Barryroe up to 1.6 billion barrels oil equivalent and Dunquin, Druid, Drombeg gas prospects and Porcupine Basin alone could hold about 10 billion barrels.
If developed, this State could be energy self-sufficient, slash household bills, fund the entire HSE budget from royalties, and still have hundreds of billions left for future generations (or, indeed, to squander on foreign vagrants) just like Norway.
Instead we pay Arabs while leaving Irish hydrocarbons literally untapped in the ground which, in our opinion, is the result of 'brown-envelope planning'.
Time to reopen the Atlantic margin before the lights go out ; pre-existing State licences (which were agreed to before the ban) are still honoured and active, some of which run until 2034, but the area remains 'officially' closed to new entrants ; the 'planning' must not have been sufficient...
(END of 'THE GREAT OIL AND GAS ROBBERY' ; NEXT - 'Failing The Children', from 2002.)
On the 5th August, 1920, an IRA ASU in Gortahork (under the command of Volunteer Frank O'Donnell), in the county of Donegal, finalised their arrangements for an operation to take place the following day.
On the 6th, the Volunteers took up an ambush position near Gortahork and detained a three-man RIC patrol, who were reluctant to surrender but done so after one of their number was wounded.
This was an operation for munitions, and any military equipment carried by the RIC was taken from them and they were released.
The Gortahork IRA was a highly organised and efficient unit, and was attached to the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade of the 1st Northern Division of the rebel army.
==========================
THE MONTH UNSPUN...
The stories that hit the headlines.
From Magill magazine, August 2002.
The government announced that there would have to be major cuts in Exchequer spending, and first to go were the Sikorsky helicopters on order for the Defence Forces (sic).
Over €12 million had already been put aside for their purchase in this year's defence budget and, following that, it was announced that 800 health jobs would not be filled this year, saving the Exchequer another €10 million.
One day later, the government increased the registration fees for third-level colleges from €396 to €670, an increase of just under 70 per cent, to the fury of college students.
Meanwhile, the maximum maintenance grant increased five per cent to €2,510 for the 2002-2003 academic year...
(MORE LATER.)
"A service was established in all (British) government departments in the area, General Post Office, telephone exchange, RIC headquarters and Victoria military barracks..."
- Volunteer Frank (Francis Joseph) Crummey (pictured, 47 years of age in 1921, a school teacher by profession), IRA Third Divisions Intelligence Officer.
"In a few short months we had practically completed a copy of every important file in the Military Headquarters..."
- Volunteer David McGuinness, who worked alongside Volunteer Crummey.
On the 5th August, 1921 (some sources give the date as the 6th?), Volunteer Crummey's son, Francis Joseph (18), and another young Volunteer, Freddie Fox (19, from Lisburn, County Antrim), were armed and on IRA business on the Earlswood Road in Belfast (they were following up on a lead about an RIC member, a Mr Richard Harrison, who was part of John William Nixon's 'Murder Gang') when they were stopped on the street by an RIC patrol.
Shots were exchanged, one RIC member was hit in the leg and, in the confusion, the two Volunteers hurriedly left the scene but were pursued by the RIC members and, during the subsequent chase (or during an altercation with the wife of another RIC man who had intervened, according to some sources?), Volunteer Crummey's gun was discharged, the shot hit his comrade, Volunteer Fox, in the stomach, and both men were 'arrested'.
Volunteer Freddie Fox died in the 'Royal Hospital' in Belfast from the wound on the 15th August, 1921.
RIP Volunteer Freddie Fox.
==========================
Elsewhere in Belfast on that same day, a shop owner, a Mr Charles Green (42), was working in his premises in College Court when an armed men entered and shot him.
He died later from the wound.
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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.
Desmond Boomer's father said -
"However, given the immense pressure Malta found itself coping with, especially the very dangerous threats emanating from Islamic fundamentalists in Tripoli, we must question the source of these two well-placed reports.
Given the numerous imponderables in the crash theory, our ongoing suspicions are understandable."
One of those suspicions is the possibility that pilot Carmelo Bartolo may have been offered as a sacrificial lamb in order to appease the blood lust of members and supporters of Islamic Jihad who had vowed retaliation against Malta if the assassins of Shqaqi were not brought to justice...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 5th August, 1922, an 'off duty' (!) member of the 'Ulster Special Constabulary', a Mr Samuel Hayes (45), was having a few pints in the Britannic Bar on the Newtonards Road in Belfast, relaxing after a hard day throwing his weight around the neighbourhood.
There was a commotion on the street outside the pub and a man burst in to the bar and ran throught it, apparently looking for a back door.
Just then at least two armed men stormed into the pub and fired shots at the first man ; one of the bullets hit Mr Hayes and he died later from the wound.
==========================
As Mr Hayes was sipping from his last pint, the fight between the IRA and the Stater Army in and around the town of Kilmallock, in the south of the county of Limerick, was continuing.
The Leinster House militia (FSA) was about 2,000 strong and had the use of (borrowed-from-the-British) artillery, but what really worried the rebels was the fact that, days earlier (2nd and 3rd July 1922), the Staters had landed from sea in the towns of Fenit and Tarbert, in the county of Kerry.
The Kerry rebels who were fighting in Kilmallock in Limerick wanted to return to their own county to defend it against the Staters and their fellow rebels, from Cork, anticipating a sea borne invasion of Cork by the Staters, also wanted to return to their home county to defend it.
This left the town of Kilmallock practically undefended and the FSA took it on the 5th : they established a HQ in Hartnett's Hotel in the town of Castleisland and, from a basecamp in Tralee, they took the town of Farrenfore.
Bad cess to the Staters, then and now.
==========================
The Dublin Brigade IRA picked Saturday, the 5th August, 1922, for their operation against the FSA (and against the much-reduced British military and political presence still in the newly-spawned so-called 'Free State'), and mobilised about 250 Volunteers to take part in it (the Volunteers were mobilised across the mountains and outlying northern and western districts).
The well-drafted plan of action was to destroy/destabilise the infrastructure (main roads, canal access, railway bridges etc) which gave access to Dublin ie to 'cut off' and isolate the city from the rest of the country and halt the FSA offensives, from Dublin, into republican-held Munster.
IRA Units were in place in what were at the time rural outlying villages (ie Blanchardstown, Ashtown, Raheny, Malahide, Howth, Kilakee, Roundwood etc) with instructions to dismantle road and rail infrastructure, railway bridges, road crossings, stone bridges, to trench roads etc but they were not then aware that the Staters had captured documents outlining the plans of the IRA operation.
About 160 Volunteers were captured by the FSA, with between 90 and 100 eventually returning safely to base.
Mr John Dorney, the Irish historian, described that operation as "...an even greater disaster for the Dublin Brigade than the attack on the Customs House had been in 1921.."
Yes, indeed - the 'Cut-Off And Isolate' operation of the 5th August, 1922, was "a disaster", but the 1921 Customs House operation (despite an IRA-acknowledged heavy military cost) was a major propaganda/publicity success and a blow to the British civil administration in Ireland.
==========================
As the Free Staters were 'arresting' republicans in the Leinster area, an FSA soldier, a Mr Michael Purcell, was shot dead in Tralee in the Munster county of Kerry and, in that same Munster county, an FSA Captain, a Mr Brian Houlihan, and two of his comrades, were wounded in an IRA attack on a supply lorry which was on its way to the town of Castleisland when it was fired on at Knockeen Cross.
Mr Houlihan was shot in an arm and in both of his kidneys and was removed from the scene to hospital, where he died from his wounds on the 6th (some reports state that he died within minutes of been shot on the 5th).
==========================
"Outrages have been committed against retired policemen...(by those who)...talk and wrangle for days about their shadowy republic. I deplore this conduct.."
- the words of virulent anti-republican Cardinal Michael Logue (pictured), as quoted in 'The Clare Champion' newspaper on the 5th August 1922.
This priest, a staunch Free Stater and the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, not only didn't believe in an 'All-Ireland', but used his position and standing within the community to repeatedly condemn those who did.
He aligned himself fully with the Staters and was loud and constant in his condemnation of those who were prepared to fight on for a 32-County Irish Republic.
Mr Logue died at 84 years of age on the 19th November, 1924, in the then - and now - still occupied Irish county of Armagh.
==========================
"No definite military problem exists outside the Southern Division (Cork/Kerry/Limerick/Waterford) area.
We should postpone parliament until we can clean this matter up definitely (that is, his military campaign against the IRA!).
If parliament did not meet until the 24th of August our military position would be very favourable..."
- a Mr Michael Collins, in a memo he sent on the 5th August 1922 to one of his political bosses, a Mr William Thomas Cosgrave.
Mr Collins was shot dead on the 22nd of that month by the IRA in an ambush at Béal na Bláth in the county of Cork, a "problem" area, apparently...
==========================
As Mr Collins was sending that memo, the long running strike by farm labourers (pictured) on farms and farmlands owned by the Keane, Devonshire, Villers-Stuart, Musgrave and Ussher families in the Blackwater Valley in the county of Waterford came to an end with a partial defeat for the strikers.
The landed gentry had, in May that year (1922), stated their intention to cut wages (in most cases, from 38 shillings to 30 shillings a week and an increased working week ie from 45 hours a week to 54 hours) and the labourers, supported by a trade union leadership which wasn't yet in bed with the bosses, objected, and talks were held but, in early August, the labourers and other farm workers had had enough, and downed tools.
That industrial action coincided with the Stater Army having moved in to Waterford in late July and, money following money, they 'unofficially' supported the gentry as, indeed, for shame, did the latest batch of recruits into the IRA once it was safe to join ie once the 'Truce' came into effect (the 'old hands' described those new 'gimme-a-medalers' as 'truceileers' - the sons of and/or linked to farmers and landowners, and it is estimated that, during the pause in the fighting, the IRA expanded from about 15,000 members to over 72,000 by November 1922).
The strike was over, rather than settled, but it blew-up again in 1923 and, this time, the Staters publicly came down heavy on the strikers...
==========================
ON THIS DATE (5TH AUGUST) 138 YEARS AGO : 'LITTLE PHIL' MEETS HIS MAKER.
"The only good Indian is a dead one" - 'Supreme Commander' of the US Army, Major Philip Henry Sheridan (pictured) who, despite being only five feet and five inches tall, made a 'big' (and bad) impression on the native American population.
He was born in Albany, New York, on the 6th of March 1831, the son of Irish immigrants from Cavan who had to leave Ireland because of the attempted genocide ('An Gorta Mor').
He 'made his name' by his evil treatment of the native American population, and was responsible for the slaughter of the Lakota Indians at Wounded Knee in 1890, where one-hundred victims, under Chief Big Foot, were massacred by the U. S. 7th Cavalry ; about half of the dead were women and children.
The slain body of Chief Big Foot (his Lakota name was Si Tanka, 'Spotted Elk'), propped up in the snow at Wounded Knee.
The Wounded Knee massacre was the last of the Indian uprisings, and prompted Sheridan to state that...
"...the only good Indian I ever saw was dead."
He knew he was in the wrong in what he was doing, as he said so himself : in 1878, he made a report to his Army superiors in which he stated -
"We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them, and it was for this and against this they made war.
Could anyone expect less?"
He wouldn't argue against the fact that he and other armed 'Bluecoats' were 'occupiers/invaders' in a land where they were not welcome yet he had no hesitation in planning the 'best practical' methods of removing the natives from their lands and, indeed, with that objective in mind, he once stated that he had "...never once taken a command into battle and had the slightest desire to come out alive unless I won...."
He died on this date (5th August), at 57 years of age, in 1888, in Bristol County in Massachusetts - one battle he didn't win, and didn't deserve to win.
The Irish and the Native Americans have a common enemy - imperialism.
Mr Phillip Sheridan was on the wrong side.
(Incidentally, it was Mr Sheridan who personally reinstated Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and gave him standing orders "to kill all the warriors, capture all the women and children, destroy all camps and material goods, and kill all the ponies..."
Shame on the man.)
ON THIS DATE (5TH AUGUST) 57 YEARS AGO : UVF ATTACK ANOTHER ANTI-REPUBLICAN ORGANISATION.
The main RTE studios, 'Montrose', Donnybrook, Dublin (pictured), after the UVF bombed same on the 5th August 1969, 57 years ago on this date.
No one was killed and no structural damage was done to the building and, afterwards (and to date), both organisations - RTE and the UVF - continued to propagate an anti-republican agenda.
RTE reported on the attack against it with the following statement but, despite rumours, never mentioned the probability that British State collusion (so-called 'rogue elements'!) could very well have played a part in the operation -
'The explosion occurred at exactly 1.30am and could be heard over a wide area of Dublin city.
It is believed that the explosion may have been caused by a time bomb placed at the rear wall of the studio building.
There was no structural damage to the building but there was damage to the large structural plate glass panels which are a feature of the building.
No staff were injured by the explosion. At this stage Gardaí are investigating what happened but so far there have been no arrests. It was later discovered that the bomb had been planted by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).'
Ironic to think that, as per our caption, above, one anti-republican grouping could turn so violently on another. But credit where it's due ; RTE, to date - despite that 1969 misunderstanding - remains as wedded as ever to the same anti-republican agenda that it freely operated at that time.
At least they're consistent in that once bought, they stay bought, no matter what!
On the 5th August, 1924, the then British Prime Minister, a Mr James MacDonald Ramsay wrote to the wife of 'Lord' Londonderry (that particular 'lord' had been brought into this world with the name Charles Stewart Henry Vane-Tempest-Stewart!), a Mrs Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart (! -'Marchioness of Londonderry', a so-called 'aristocrat', pictured) outlining his concerns about a Mr ('Justice') Richard Feetham, a British-born South African judge and Oxford graduate who, at that time, was the Chairman of the Boundary Commission in Ireland.
Phew! Are yis all still with us? Not much to go now, and no more bleedin' extra-barrel names...!
Anyway - didn't Mr Ramsey give it to Mrs Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart, in writing, that he was of the view that it was a mistake for Mr Feetham to believe that the Boundary Commission could only make "minor changes to the border" (ie Mr Ramsey was apparently hoping, and he himself believed, that that Commission should expand/increase the occupied territory - one of the other three Ulster counties or perhaps one of the 'bordering' Free State counties!).
But sure didn't Mrs Edith Vane-Tempest-Stewart repeat Mr Ramsey's concerns in one or other of the 'aristocratic' circles she hung out in and word got back to Mr Ramsey that his doubts about Mr Feetham and the Commission were now practically public knowledge and he needed some damage limitation to take the bad look off it.
He and his people put it about in the social media circles of the day that he was simply repeating some of the "mere gossip" he himself had heard...!
A typical politician - evasive, cowardly and untrustworthy, not believing that he should accept accountability for his own words.
==========================
ON THIS DATE (5TH AUGUST) 107 YEARS AGO : DEATH OF TWO BRITISH 'POLICE OFFICERS' IN IRELAND ANNOUNCED.
'Derrymore is a townland approximately four miles from Ennistymon and the same distance from Inagh. As a result of agrarian trouble some years before the war, a man named Kildare had been murdered, and consequently the RIC (pictured) built a hut in the area.
A sergeant, a constable and a number of other police went into occupation to try to identify the murderer. Their attempts, however, were unsuccessful and because of this they lost the confidence of the local people.
Sergeant O’Riordan and Constable Murphy did their rounds of duty on bicycles and their movements were carefully watched by the local IRA members in the Lavareen Company area. It had been noted that the men got off their bicycles at the bottom of the hill near 'Curtin's Gate' and it was here the ambush party, which consisted of Martin Devitt, John Joe Neylon, Jackie and Micko McGuane and Mickey and Tom Kelleher, lay in wait.
After getting off their bicycles, as the party had hoped, the sergeant took the lead and his comrade followed at a distance of about one hundred yards. When the sergeant reached Curtin’s Gate he was rushed on and overpowered.
This had been the signal to attack the constable, whose rifle was slung over his shoulder in the usual way.
Because of his surprise the constable fell across the bicycle and his shoulder strap became entangled in the handlebars and had to be cut by the IRA in order to get the rifle.
The ambushing party then dispersed delighted with their success as this had been their first attempt to disarm RIC in the area. The two policemen departed, shocked and swearing vengeance but glad to have escaped with their lives. A house search was carried out and locals, including some of the men who took part, were questioned, but no information was given.
Following the success of this ambush another one was planned for August 4th of the same year.
However, this time the policemen put up a fight and both were shot dead.
This ambush occurred at a place called '81 Cross' which is about three and a half miles from Ennistymon and only three quarters of a mile from the hut in Derrymore. The policemen were returning from Ennistymon to the hut at about eleven fifteen p.m. when they were fired on from behind a ditch.
They were not wounded by the first volley of shots and the Sergeant drew his revolver and fired on a man he saw in the ditch. The shooting continued and Constable Michael Murphy was shot dead. Sergeant John O’Riordan was wounded and died shortly afterwards...' (from here.)
One of the IRA Volunteers was wounded in that operation, but he lived to tell the tale. One of the RIC men, Michael 'James' Murphy (badge number 69587) was only 20 years young when he died, having been shot through the heart. The other British 'policeman', John O' Riordan, who was 44 years of age at the time, died from his wounds.
But their colleagues in the British Army wanted revenge ; this is from the same source as above -
'...ten days later...a fifteen year old Sinn Féin Boy Scout was shot dead while reading a book by the fireside at his home in Glann, on August 14th, 1919.
At an inquest his father told of how the family had retired to bed on the night of the 14th at about 10.20 p.m. while Francis (pictured) remained in the kitchen reading a book. At about 12.30 a.m. he was awakened by the sound of shots and falling of mortar in his own room. Another shot was fired and then he saw a flash going through the partition.
As he went into the kitchen, he found his son lying in a pool of blood but he could see nobody about. After receiving evidence of some locals including Pete Connole, a night watchman for the West Clare Railway, the jury concluded that the murder was carried out by the (British) military as revenge for the shooting of the two policemen and passed the following verdict -
'Francis Murphy, of Glann, Ennistymon was unlawfully and wilfully murdered..by a bullet unlawfully and wilfully fired by members of the (British) military..which caused immediate death'.'
15-years-young Francis Murphy had played no part in the IRA ambush of the two paramilitary 'policemen' but the young lad was associated with the Republican Movement, so the IRA leadership sent one of its operatives, Michael Knightly, from Dublin, to County Clare, to investigate what had happened.
He went, as instructed, and handed his report in to Arthur Griffith -
"On returning to Dublin I went to Sinn Féin headquarters and informed Mr. Arthur Griffith that in no doubt young Murphy had been shot by crown forces. Mr. Griffith attached considerable importance to the matter and appeared to think that it would be a serious blow to British rule in Ireland if it could be proved that their forces had resorted to such measures.
He engaged Mr. Patrick Lynch, Kings Counsel, to attend the inquest on behalf of the Murphy family. I attended the inquest as a reporter and gave what assistance I could to elucidate the facts. A verdict of murder against British crown forces was returned..."
The verdict obviously didn't bring young Francis back to his family, but hopefully it gave them some small comfort.
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - really appreciated, sure yer helping us to get to 5 million hits, so why wouldn't we appreciate ya!
Sharon and the team.
We'll be back with a few more bits and pieces on Wednesday, 19th August 2026.
...but I'll still be givin' out on 'X' and 'Facebook' as well, if yer looking for me!
