In early 1921 , IRA units in the Ulster area carried out many raids for arms on RIC and British Army barracks - in one of these operations , Matt Fitzpatrick, a Volunteer and,at the time, O/C of the Wattlebridge Company IRA, was badly injured and captured by the British....

Fitzpatrick was taken to Monaghan County Hospital under heavy guard and was to be moved to Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast when fit enough ; he was known to the British as a Republican operative and, as such, was marked by the Brits for execution as an example to the IRA .
The O/C of the Monaghan Brigade, Dan Hogan, knew that if Fitzpatrick was moved to the Belfast jail his fate was sealed : a meeting of the IRA Brigade Staff was called and it was agreed that Matt Fitzpatrick would be rescued from the hospital..... (MORE LATER)>>


Shortly before his death , Graham Greene said of religion - " I think its a mystery. It is a mystery which cannot be destroyed; even by the Church ! "
----- the same can be said of the Irish struggle for freedom - "....it cannot be destroyed; even by (so-called) Republicans ". The Provisionals are making a mockery of themselves and their attempts to surrender, without actually saying as much, tarnishes the people that went before them.
They should amalgamate with the SDLP and/or Fianna Fail , and do Republicanism a service.

.....a small group of Irish Republicans left the College of Surgeons during the 1916 Easter Week fighting , to set fire to shops around the Russell Hotel, which was occupied by British troops ; William P.Partridge was one of that group.....

...a young Na Fianna Eireann member, Fred Ryan, was shot dead and Margaret Skinnider was badly wounded on that operation . Putting his own life on the line, Partridge carried the wounded woman back to the College of Surgeons. After the surrender , Partridge was court-martialled, sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude and transferred to prison in England.
However, he was released from Dartmoor Prison in April 1917 , suffering from Brights disease, and he returned to his native Roscommon where he died on July 26th, 1917 , not having reached his 40th birthday .

A quiet unassuming gentleman from all accounts, William P.Partridge deserves his place in Irish history , more so than the 'suits' that, today, have attempted to steal the mantle of Irish Republicanism and prostitute it and themselves before the Brits and the Free Staters.
Thankfully , there are still many like William P.Partridge around , and involved, today .


In 1982 , America's CIA carried out a 'psychological profile' of Libya's Colonel Gadafy ; they found that he was "judged to suffer from a severe personality disturbance" and that he used excessive amounts of sleeping pills and other various 'uppers' .In a follow-up report some years later, the CIA reported that Gadafy wore make-up and high-heel shoes and carried a teddy-bear during a 1984 trip to spain !
Come on, lads - the "severe personality disturbance" part is perhaps believable , but you spoiled the whole report with the 'lipstick,high-heels and teddy-bear' thing .... (what would a psychological profile on Ian Paisley and his (sudden?) fixation on lips reveal?).

.....William P.Partridge , born in Ballaghadereen in County Roscommom during the 1880's , a friend and comrade to the Republican Movement and its leadership, joined the Irish Citizen Army on its formation in November 1913 ; on April 19th, 1916, James Connolly sent Partridge to Tralee in County Kerry to supervise the distribution of the (at least) 20,000 rifles that were to be landed on the Banna Strand , a consignment organised by Roger Casement.
However, Partridge learned on Good Friday that Casement was arrested and 'The Aud'(the ship carrying the rifles) had been scuttled by its crew after it had been intercepted by a British Navy ship . He returned to Dublin.

William P.Partridge was among the Irish Citizen Army contingent commanded by Michael Mallin and Countess Markievicz in St Stephens Green on Easter Monday and the College of Surgeons the following day. During the fighting of Easter Week , the British occupied the Russell Hotel in Harcourt Street and Partridge was among a small group of Republicans who left the near-by College of Surgeons to set fire to shops around the hotel ..... (MORE LATER)>>


The 'Sunday Life' 'newspaper' , June 23rd, 1991,page 12 -
" I would never repudiate the fact that I am an Irishman " - Ian 'Big Lips' Paisley !
The 'Dublin Tribune' newspaper, June 20th, 1991, page 10-
" The everlasting violence in Northern Ireland(sic) is fuelled by lack of job opportunities " - the late Jim Mitchell , Fine Gael.
The former does'nt know what to do about his Irishness , and the latter does'nt understand his Irishness.
Well pucker up , Ian , and understand this - the Brits will wash their hands of you and yours as soon as it suits them.....

A man born in Ballaghadereen in County Roscommon during the 1880's was well known in Republican circles at the time, but history has apparently left him behind......

During his short life, William P. Partridge was a politician , a soldier and a trade union activist : he moved to Dublin some time around 1910 and became involved in James Larkin's newly formed Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) . In the municipal elections of 1911 , he was elected to Dublin Corporation .
The 'Great Lock Out' , which began in August 1913, ensured that Partridge and Larkin were kept busy , and also brought James Connolly into contact with the Ballaghadereen man ; in October 1913, William P. Partridge was asked by the ITGWU to do a fund-raising tour of England and to enlist the support of workers in that country for the strike in Ireland.
When the Lock-Out ended in February 1914, James Larkin departed to America; Partridge worked with James Connolly in re-organising the Union and the two men also assisted in organising the 'Women Workers' Union' . (MORE LATER)>


A Derry man, Charles Thomson, was the Secretary of the 'Continental Congress' of America and , as such, helped to transcribe the final draft of the U S Declaration of Independence ; Thomson was the first person to read it, both in Congress and publicly . He also served as Chief Executive of the American Government , a position he held several times between 1776 and 1789, during illnesses of the Congess Presidents. Charles Thomson also designed the 'Great Seal' of the United States - like William P. Partridge , Irishman Charles Thomson has been overlooked in the history books .

.....the patrol of Black and Tans and RIC men fired on each other, as the RIC men were reluctant to shoot known Sinn Fein members as per instructions issued by the Tans....

The above incident was one of many which was outlined to the Court of Commission - over the following few months numerous accounts of atrocities committed by the RIC, Tans, Auxiliaries and the regular British Army in Ireland were read into the record. In early 1921 , the Court published its interim report which , as expected, put the Brits in the world spotlight and was a major embarrassment to them .
The Commission had set-out to get international media attention focused on British military activity in Ireland and was successful in that . Now , over 80 years later, media attention is fixed on the Six Counties as yet another treaty buckles under the weight of its own contradictions.....


The Dublin administration attempted only once to refer the situation in the Six Counties to the United Nations :
This was when the then Free State Minister for External Affairs, Patrick Hillery,in August 1969, on behalf of the Dublin Administration, sought a meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the possibility of sending UN troops, or a joint Irish-British contingent, to the Six Counties to monitor the situation. Britain stated its belief that Article 2(7) of the UN Charter (non-intervention in domestic affairs of states) prohibited discussion of the North . Hillery replied by detailing the history of partition and declared that his administration did not "in any way concede(to the British) the right to exercise jurisdiction" in the North (as per then Articles Two and Three of the Free State Constitution).
However ,further consideration of the question was suspended, and that ended the UN 'role' in the North !
In 1998 , the fig-leaf of Articles Two and Three were done away with in the Stormont Treaty in a vain attempt to appease the Unionists and the British ; they grabbed the opportunity with both hands and continue to demand more......

.....the ex-RIC man,Daniel Crowley, told the Court of Commission that the RIC men on patrol with the Black and Tans were there to point out Sinn Fein members so as the Tans could shoot them , and then burn their houses.....

He told the Court of Commission of one incident in which the Black and Tans attempted to shoot members of the RIC patrol which was accompanying them - Crowley spoke of how, on the night of May 21st, 1920, an RIC/Tan patrol, which was heavily armed, raided the home of Maurice Walsh ,the Chairperson of the Clogheen (Tipperary) District Council (a local politician) . The tans had told the RIC members with them that it was their intention to kill Walsh and his family and burn their house ; the ex-RIC man , in his evidence, stated that himself and the other RIC men "reminded him(the man in charge of the Tans) that he was not in the (British) army now, and he said to me that when he left the training depot he was told that he could not be subjected to any discipline whatever if he shot any Sinn Feiners " .
Crowley went on to point out that the issue then developed into a verbal row between the Black and Tans and the RIC, then punches were thrown and, finally, the Tans fired their weapons at the RIC ( I have not been able to determine what injuries both sides caused to each other but, hopefully, they were all good shots !) . .... (MORE LATER)>>


.....it was only in 1989 that the then Stormont Education Minister, Brian Mahwinney, decided not to lower the status of the Irish language in the new curriculum - this still left the language on the fringes in English-medium primary schools and 'a low-status option' at secondary level......

In 1990, the Brits established the 'Ultach Trust' with a fanfare of media present but, five months later (and in a much quieter manner) they withdrew funding from Glor na nGael !
Also , it should be remembered that the 'Education Reform Order' of 1989 , which purported to give the Irish language equal status with French, German, Spanish and Italian as a choice in language studies in secondary schools , still left our first language as a 'lower status' one , said to be 'equivalent to classics' , when schools fulfil their timetabling obligations .
....like the Fianna Fail politician that ordered dozens of young trees to be planted in his ward just weeks before the election (in which he retained his seat) and then , within weeks of his victory, ordered that all the trees be dug up !
Give it to you in one hand........

..... the 'American Commission of Inquiry on Conditions in Ireland' , which was launched in August 1920, started to take evidence in a Washington office on November 19th, 1920....

The British declined an invitation to attend Court sittings, but an undertaking was secured from them that passports and other required travel-passes etc would be issued to people travelling from Ireland to testify ; the British were also asked to state that reprisals against those testifying would not be taken, and gave that commitment.
One of the first witnesses asked to attend the Court was a Catholic priest, Fr Michael Griffin, of Gurteen in County Galway - however, the following day the Court received word that Fr Griffin had been murdered by the Black and Tans. The Court heard evidence from an ex-RIC man (who had resigned in June 1920), Daniel Crowley, who was anxious to speak about British activities in Ireland : he described how, in March 1920, the RIC had been ordered to accompany the Black and Tans on all patrols - the RIC were to help identify 'likely suspects' to the Tans.
Crowley explained - " They (RIC) were to go on an armoured car with a machine-gun , and every man who took a prominent part in the Sinn Fein movement they were to stand up in front of his own house and turn the machine-gun on it. In the armoured car there were put 120 cans of petrol and also 120 Mills bombs, and the reason for this was that they were for burning houses" . (MORE LATER)>>


In 1923,the teaching of Irish in public elementary schools in the Six Counties was restricted by the then Stormont administration to ninty minutes per week. In 1927, British Lord Charlemont , the Stormont Minister of Education (one of Lord McGuinness' predecessors!) told a delegation from Comhaltas Uladh that Irish was dead or dying and French was a more useful language. And so things remained , until March 1989, when the then Education Minister Brian Mahwinney, reversed his own plan to lower the status of Irish in the new curriculum - this still left the Irish language on the fringes in English-medium primary schools and 'a low-status' option at secondary level .... (MORE LATER).