PETER O 'NEILL CROWLEY , CORK FENIAN, KILLED BY THE BRITISH IN TIPPERARY , 1867 .....

..... after three weeks in hiding in Kilclooney Wood in Tipperary , the three Irish rebels (Peter O'Neill Crowley , John McClure and Edward Kelly) were found by the British and , in the ensuing gun-battle, Crowley was killed . McClure and Kelly were later sentenced to life imprisonment .....


The county of Cork practically came to a standstill for the funeral of Peter O'Neill Crowley , in his native Ballymacoda ; the Fenian leader John Devoy said of the man -

" Peter O'Neill Crowley was one of the best men in the Fenian Movement , and Ireland never gave birth to a truer or more devoted son . His devotion to the cause of Irish liberty was sublime and his courage dauntless . "

The two men captured in Kilclooney Wood in Tipperary after the gun-battle , John McClure and Edward Kelly , were released four years later , in the 'general amnesty' of that year (1871).

Incidentally , the 'Kilclooney Wood Engagement' is considered to be the last action of the 1867 Fenian Rising ..... (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :


JOHN LINNANE OF LISTOWEL .

" John Linnane was a man of strong enthusiam and resolution , and such a man becomes loved and trusted in a time of national struggle . His religious conviction , his love of the Irish language , and his fearless activity as a soldier were an inspiration to all who knew him during ten difficult years .

He was killed on the thirteenth of April , nineteen-twenty-three , not far from the field in Gortaglanna where his old comrade-in-arms, Patrick Walsh, was murdered in nineteen-twenty-one by Black and Tans. John Linnane and Dick Bunyan and John Mullaney had a dug-out in a hayshed in Trineragh . (MORE LATER)>



A TALE OF TWO SHITTIES ...... Scene One - a distinguished building in Dublin > NOW READ ON .....

LIGHTS ! QUIET ON SET ! AND... ACTION -

DRUM ROLL < ORCHESTRA < and VOICEOVER ......


"Psst ! Hey Buddy .....
....wanna do a job for me ?

Don't matter what skills ya have , or if ya have a trade or not , man - and it's 'white-collar' stuff , won't dirty the hands - well, not with real dirt , ha-ha ! Inersted ? Here's your cut :

We start ya on a cool EURO 1541 a week , but it don't stop there - an associate of ours , right, Marty , from Kerry - hangs with the 'Adams Family' , this guy - shakin' down the 'one-five-four-one' grand on a weekly basis and, get this , buddy - Marty clicks another EURO 885 a week in - HA! HA! - "expenses" !

JEEZE , man , ya'd be crazy notta ! I mean it , dude , - EURO 2426 a week , every week ." Marty was sent in by 'Big Jer' , the Boss - " Gotta shake things up in there , Marty " , Big Jer said . "Sure thing," said Marty . But that's not the way it panned out .....


Marty got soft , ya know- comfortable - the broad was offa his back , things lookin' pretty good . So , Marty says to Bossman Jer - " Cut me some slack , man ; gimme time to stash some padding for the 'down-the-road' , like - you OK with that , boss ? " The Big Guy eyed up Marty : "Sure thing, Marty," he replied , " been there , done that , wrote the book , know what ya mean " , he said , winking .

But Jer was'nt finished - "Just one thing, man ..." . Marty froze : he knew from experience how good a huckster the boss was - he started to sweat . He knew well what Jer was capable of from the ( not so ) bad 'old days' ..... But he need'nt have worried - the boss knew the meaning (and price) of loyality : " Don't let the Family down , man " Jer said , walking towards a nervous Marty , "and pretty soon a weeks poke of EURO 2426 will be loose change . At my level , we call that a fair day's take ! "
The two men laughed out loud and hugged each other . Then , out of no-where, everything started shaking ; stuff falling offa the shelves , a real mess , and the very ground they were standing on pitched and rolled .

The bodyguards legged it , their new-found 'friends' standing in the background got offside , and all around them came crashing down .

"EARTHQUAKE !" , shouted Marty . "No " , said Jer , "I've seen this before . It's our own fault for having this conversation in the G P O " .


[END] (or is it.....?)


SOURCE -

financial figures : courtesy of the Free State 'Oireachtas' , released on Saturday 2nd August last - under the 'Freedom of Information Act' .


WORDS -

all my own . Really .


DRAMATIS PERSONAE -

Ah , ya know yourself ...
(.... go figure , buddy !)


FOREIGN RELEASE -

Yes . As a short play entitled 'Embarras de Richesses' .


CHANCE OF A HAPPY ENDING -

As we say in this business : " Enfants Perdus" .

PETER O'NEILL CROWLEY , CORK FENIAN , KILLED BY THE BRITISH IN TIPPERARY , 1867 .....


....when they realised that the Fenian Rising had failed , Peter O'Neill Crowley and his second and third in command, John McClure and Edward Kelly , issued an order to their men to disperse .....


After the 'dispersal' order was given (towards the end of the first week in March 1867) , the three Fenian leaders - Crowley , McClure and Kelly - fled to the limited safety of Kilclooney Wood in County Tipperary .

On 31st March , 1867, a large force of British soldiers entered Kilclooney Wood and 'scouts' from the same force soon located the whereabouts of the three Irish rebels . Within hours they were surrounded by the enemy and ordered to surrender ; they refused . The three were well-armed , and fought courageously , but were no match for the numbers ranged against them .

The gun-battle lasted for several hours ; it ended when Peter O'Neill Crowley died , with at least three gunshot wounds to his body . John McClure and Edward Kelly were arrested and were later sentenced to life imprisonment . (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :

JACK FLEMING OF TRALEE ...

....a member of the IRA since 1914 , Jack Fleming joined an established column of the Volunteers in 1922 : the Free State troops occupying Tralee were aware of his movements ....

" He caused enquiries to be made ,in the following March , by a friend : he wanted to know whether it would be safe for him to sleep at home . A direct message from the Free State Barracks was the reply - " He will be safe when he gives up his gun. " Jack Fleming went into hiding then ; he had no thought of purchasing safety at a price .

On the twenty-eight of March the house where he was sleeping was searched for him and he was found . He was taken to Ballymullen Barracks , that sinister building which the people of Tralee pass even now with shrinking , such screams of agony used to sound , a year ago, from the Intelligence Room. It is only from a score of vague , inconsecutive narratives told by soldiers and by men who were prisoners there , that what happened then can be made out at all .

Jack Fleming was taken out during the night ; he was brought to the prison , half a mile away, before daylight, dying or dead ; his body was refused to his people . No more is known . No more is known except this one thing - he could have saved himself had he chosen to be a traitor , and he chose to die .


[END]


BRUSSEL'S 'BULL' ....

..... in July , 1986 , the (then) EEC (now 'EU') made a decision to feed calves on cheap surplus butter rather than making it available to the poor . This move was backed by Britain , Denmark and the Netherlands because , they said , it would have little effect on levelling excess butter stocks if it were given to the poor ! (See 'The Evening Press' , 16th July , 1986 , page 4 ).

..the 'Straight Banana' proposal from those clowns was a laugh at the time , but when you hear of the above nonsense it takes the smile from your face .


GAY ? - no , just queer ....

.... Eamonn Dunphy used to be a member of the British Labour Party , but later supported Fine Gael . He stated - " Capitalism is the lesser of the two conflicting evils in the world ." (The other , he said , was Marxism.) He joined Fine Gael the night Charles Haughey became Free State Taoiseach , saying "Fine Gael is the most liberal party in this country (sic)" . (See 'In Dublin' magazine , issue 259, 24th July 1986 , page 9.)

Now THAT'S something the bouncer should do him for ....

PETER O'NEILL CROWLEY , CORK FENIAN , KILLED BY THE BRITISH IN TIPPERARY , 1867 .....

.....in March 1867 , Peter O'Neill Crowley and his Fenian 'Circle' attacked an armed coastguard station at Knockadoon ....


The Knockadoon coastguard station , located about eight miles from Youghal in Cork , was staffed by ten armed employees ; they were over-powered and held captive and their rifles and ammunition taken . It is not perhaps as well known as it should be , but the 'main' Fenian Rising of 1867 lasted for just over twenty-four hours , although isolated attacks on the British continued for a few weeks .

When Peter O'Neill Crowley and his second and third in command , John McClure and Edward Kelly , realised that the Rising had failed , they knew the British would be determined to 'round-up' the leadership ; they issued orders to their 'Circle' to disperse ..... (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle , first published in 1924 -

JACK FLEMING OF TRALEE :


" Surely , in all wars , the most piteous stories are those that , to the worlds end, will never be told . To meet death in the night , alone among mocking enemies, knowing that no message from him will ever reach his comrades, that lies only will be told of him by his slayers , that the one sweet reward of sacrifice - a name remembered with love and praise among his people , may even be stolen from him in death - this, surely , is the hardest martyrdom a soldier can be called upon to endure .

There are men of Kerry who have died so , the manner of their end unknown . But this much is known of them - they could have saved themselves had they chosen to surrender to their torturers , to betray their comrades or to desert their cause . All that is known of their enemy's policy proves this : those who died knew a way to save themselves ; if they died it was because they would not take that way . Jack Fleming was best known in Tralee as a great lover of music and a skilled player of the pipes .

He had been a member of the Volunteers since nineteen-fourteen . In August , nineteen-twenty-two , he joined a column , but this was not known, he thought, to the Free State troops occupying Tralee ...... (MORE LATER)>



FILLING UP WITH IT ......>

....according to the 'Dubliners Diary' column of the old 'Evening Press' newspaper (12th September , 1992, page 11 - a Wednesday, if memory serves..) : British King George V once advised his sons - "In this business , it is wise never to pass up an opportunity to relieve yourself."

-- was the man full of piss , or was he just 'taking' it ?

-- or was he letting his sons know he was aware that they were full of s**t ?


FULL OF IT .....>

...... " 1916 challenges Irish nationalists to work to oppose any arrangement based on partition ; any such arrangement is doomed to failure ."

-- 'AP/RN' , 28th March , 1991 , page 2 . (...except, of course , Stormont and Leinster House - two parliaments set up by the British to maintain the imposed division on this island.)



.....AND OVER-FLOWING WITH IT -->

<-- " Accommodations with British-designed frameworks fly in the face of true justice and freedom ."

-- Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane , Provo leader , as quoted in 'AP/RN' , 2nd May , 1991 (page 7). Note that date - 2nd May 1991 ; on practically the same date (5th) of the same month (MAY) ten years earlier (1981) , Bobby Sands died on hunger-strike .

Had Bobby Sands or any of the ten men that died on hunger-strike that year made "accommodations with the British" they would not have died on hunger-strike .

Those men did not die so that others could make careers for themselves in Stormont and Leinster House by making "accommodations" with the Establishment ....

PETER O'NEILL CROWLEY , CORK FENIAN , KILLED BY THE BRITISH IN TIPPERARY , 1867 .....


...... 35-years young Cork man Peter O'Neill Crowley was in command of a Fenian 'Circle' of over one-hundred men .....


It is almost certain that Crowley and his 'Circle' were involved in the capture of the RIC Barracks at Ballynockane , County Cork, on the night of the 5th March , 1867 ; Fenian leaders J F X O'Brien , Michael O'Brien and William Mackey Lomasney had combined their forces into one 'Circle' consisting of over two-thousand Fenian fighters and , in early March 1867 caused havoc in Cork for the British administration -

- as well as capturing the Ballynockane RIC Barracks (and removing anything of value to the Fenian war effort) the Fenian's sabotaged large sections of rail-track used by the 'Great Southern and Western Railway' , destroyed the 'points-system' belonging to same and rendered inoperable the telegraph system in the district . In that same month (March 1867) , Peter O'Neill Crowley and his group attacked an armed coastguard station at Knockadoon .... (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :


JAMES WALSH OF CURROW -

" The killing of prisoners seemed to have become an almost mechanical practice in Kerry in March and April of nineteen-twenty-three . Over twenty were murdered on the roadsides of Kerry within twenty days . Some of them were Republican soldiers taken with arms and sentenced by their gaolers to death ; some were men taken unarmed in their own homes and killed by their captors out of hand . On March 22nd , James Walsh was taken , unarmed ; he was kept for a few days in Castleisland .

On Tuesday , the 27th, at about six in the morning , the prisoners were called out by Lieutenant McGinn . The street was lined with soldiers and two more prisoners , just captured, Daly and O'Rahilly, were there . The prisoners were marched along the Cordal Road and just outside Kingwilliamstown , at the cross of Glountane , a party of soldiers led Walsh away .

The people of Mount Falvey heard shots , but did not discover their meaning until evening , when they found James Walsh dead by the roadside , with a bullet wound in his head .

[END]



HE SHOULD KNOW ......

..... In 'The Sunday Tribune' of 31st January , 1993 , (page A11) , British 'Lord' Harold Wilson was quoted as having once said that -

- " a lie can be half way around the world before the truth has got its boots on ! " (...but not before you can put the boot in , eh, Harold ?)


..... AND SHE SHOULD KNOW BETTER ... >

< In an article published in 'The Sunday Tribune' on 10th January 1993 (page B6) , 'Workers Party', no, sorry - Democratic Left- oops! - eh, oh,whats it now ; that group that ex-WP/DL leader Pat Rabbitte leads now - yeah: the 'Labour Party' , that's the one .

Where was I ? Right - well , in the issue of the 'Trib' mentioned up above (somewhere) , one of Pat's buddies , Liz McManus , stated -

- " Notwithstanding the prayers as gaeilge (ie in Irish) and the Celtic motif , what is remarkable about 'Dail Eireann' (sic) is how BRITISH (her emphasis) the place is . More British very likely , than the British themselves these days ." (Whatcha mean "these" days , Liz?)


As 'Rabbie' Burns wrote in 'Tam O'Shanter' , Liz -

-- " I wonder it didna turn thy stomach ."
(But when your stomach's as strong as your neck is hard .....)

PETER O'NEILL CROWLEY , CORK FENIAN , KILLED BY THE BRITISH IN TIPPERARY , 1867 .


A child born in the townland of Ballymacoda in County Cork , in 1832 , learned how to make a living from the land and was considered in the locality , as a young adult , to be what would now be called "a pillar of society" ; he was known as an expert farmer and had a wide circle of friends .

An Irish Republican at heart , Peter O'Neill Crowley joined the Fenian Movement in Cork and rose quickly through the ranks - at 35 years young , he was in command of a 'Fenian Circle' , which numbered more than one hundred men . (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :


BOB McCARTHY OF MONAREE ....

....captured by the Free Staters on the 24th March , 1923, the man who had fought with his comrades against the British Black and Tans was now being tortured by those same men that he once fought with , now wearing Free State Army uniforms ; they beat him senseless and stoned him with bricks . His sister was eventually let in to see him in Dingle Workhouse and he told her of his shotgun , still in the family house .....


" " Give it up to them when they come ," he said, "for the sake of the people of Monaree ." "Let me take the cap off your head," she said . It was crusted with blood . But he answered : " No, no, let it alone." "You are suffering," she said then , breaking down , "and you don't want me to see ." Bob seemed to tired to talk to her . "Our Lord suffered more," is all he said . Then the soldiers put her outside the gate .

An escort came out for him from Tralee ; the officer who shot Tom Sullivan was in charge . What they did to Bob on the road will never be known . They buried him in the Workhouse in Tralee .

[END]



... a tax on children's shoes ? - JOLLY GOOD ! ......... ~

You're on the ball out there !

A reader left a message in the site guestbook pointing out that it was a M/S Margaret Downes who interviewed Fine Gaeler Avril Doyle (see yesterday's piece) for the 'SBP' ; dunno wha' exactly Doyler said to her but , in that 'SBP' article , Maggie wrote -

- " Fine Gaeler's believe themselves to be the epitome of good breeding with superior taste ." Hear , Hear ! Always considered it so , meself ....


.........~ and worth every penny >

< .... In January 1993 , French industrialist Bernard Tapie was ordered by the French courts to pay one franc (then worth twelve old Free State pennies) in damages for calling Jean-Marie Le Pen , the then leader of the right-wing National Front , a bastard !

Better end for now , otherwise Fine Gael could cost me a pretty penny (groan)!

PATRICK O'DONOGHUE AND 'THE IRISH EXILE' REPUBLICAN NEWSPAPER , AUSTRALIA .....


.....within months of his release in March 1851 , Patrick O'Donoghue was again arrested and sent out of the district to 'work' , once again, on a chain-gang ; he was released after three months and dumped in another district , Launceston .....


While en route to his new destination , under guard, Patrick O'Donoghue's comrades rescued him and stowed him on the 'SS YARRA YARA' which was headed for Melbourne ; he laid low there and , again with the help of the 'Young Ireland' Movement , escaped to San Francisco .

On 26th January , 1850 , the first edition of 'The Irish Exile' newspaper was published in Australia , the first Irish Republican 'paper to be printed on that continent - on 22nd January , 1854 , the author, owner and publisher of that newspaper , Patrick O'Donoghue , died in San Francisco .

In Ireland , he took up arms against the British presence - in Australia , he continued the fight as best he could and , in America, he died ; his tired , battered and bruised body unable to keep up with his rebel mind . The man was ostracised by the British and their allies , and his work for Irish freedom suppressed by them : but the memory of Patrick O'Donoghue is still with us .....

[END]



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 ;


BOB McCARTHY OF MONAREE .

Bob McCarthy met with a death less merciful than his friend's . The enemies of the Republic had a great deal against him , for he had fought the Black-and-Tans in Dublin and the Free State troops in Kerry and was well-known. He was captured on March the twenty-fourth (1923), in Dunshean . He was sitting in a friend's house with a child on each knee when the soldiers rushed in and struck him on the head with a revolver . He was taken to Dingle and kept in the Workhouse that night . His sister heard that he was a prisoner and went in to Dingle and stood at the gate imploring the soldiers to let her in . She stood there hour after hour , though they refused her . She could not help crying , but she would not go away . At last they let her in and brought her to the yard .

The soldiers were kicking a football and her brother was among them . They were forcing him to kick the ball . He was swaying on his feet and was all stained and dusty . When she went to him he stared and seemed not to know her. His eyes were half-closed and there was blood on his head . "Oh, Bob, do you not know me ?" she asked him , and he said slowly : "You are my sister." They had beaten him , he told her , and stoned him with bricks . He seemed troubled about a shotgun that was in the house . (MORE LATER)>




SAME AS IT EVER WAS .......

.... on 10th January 1993 (a Sunday , if memory serves...) the Free State 'Labour Party' held a "Special Conference" to discuss forming an administration in Leinster House with one of the other parties , to make up the numbers required to obtain power ; the then leader of that party , Dick Spring , stated (amongst other things) --

---- " Let them sneer as we build houses on a scale not seen in many years , as we tackle waiting lists in the health service , as we bring Irelands commitment to the Third World up to international standards and as we take a seventy-five per cent cut in salary to put us on the minimum wage ." (WELL ok , then - that last part I just put in to keep ya all on yiser toes ; but the "sneer-houses-tackle-health service-Third World" diatribe is all Dick's doing : honestly - see 'The Sunday Business Post' , 17th January 1993, page 12).

The poor 'oul Dick that he is , he never did get his arse on the top seat in Leinster House : which is maybe just as well .....

..... in 1988 (see the same issue of 'The S B P' , page 12) Fine Gael Leinster House member Avril Doyle stated : " I can't think of anything worse than being Taoiseach . You'd want to be a masochist to become even leader of the party ." MASOCHIST ? So that's what happened our own 'Tricky Dicky' - he ended up as the cowboy in the 'Village People' and made enough money to buy-out the YMCA !

PATRICK O'DONOGHUE AND 'THE IRISH EXILE' REPUBLICAN NEWSPAPER , AUSTRALIA ......


.....the success of the newspaper brought it , and its owner/editor/publisher Patrick O'Donoghue to the attention of the pro-British authorities , and he was arrested for 'leaving the allocated district' by the District Governor Sir William Denison .....


Patrick O'Donoghue was sentenced to work for one year with a chain-gang , wearing a convicts uniform and 'living' in a convict station - in effect, a large 'out-house' . In March 1851 he was released and taken back to Hobart Town ; he promptly put 'The Irish Exile' newspaper back into print again , and began writing about his prison experience , as a political prisoner, forced by Governor Denison and his administration to suffer the same prison conditions as rapists , muggers and thieves .

Once again , the Governor moved against the newspaper - within months of his release , Patrick O'Donoghue found himself back on a chain-gang, this time further afield , at Cascades Penal Station . After three months of limb-wrenching slavery , Governor Denison ordered that O'Donoghue be released and sent out of the district , to Launceston . (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle , first published in 1924 -

THOMAS O'SULLIVAN OF BALLINEANIG .....


.....Tom O'Sullivan was sleeping in a 'safe-house' when the Staters called ; his mother heard the shots and stood crying , then she heard more shots . The man with Tom later told a fellow-prisoner what had happened .....


" They were hiding and spoke to one another , not thinking the enemy were near , but they heard a voice call out suddenly : "that's 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 . " [ END] .



.....welcome to the (smoke) FREE 'nanny' STATE -

-- the proposed all-out ban on smoking , due to be introduced in this State on 1st January next in public buildings , workplaces (if we still have any) pubs etc (to be enforced by a new division of the Free State Gardai , the 'Packetpigs' who , in turn, will get information from their touts , the 'cigcops' .....) is not a new concept in the arena of 'State Control' :

...... George Bernard Shaw once said (in relation to the Irish Censorship of Publications Act , which was passed in 1929) - " We shall never be easy until every Irish person is permanently manacled and fettered , gagged and curfewed, lest he should let the truth out about something " .

...... Edna O'Brien said , re the same 1929 Act - "There's more kinds of bondage than one !"


However , if the 'Packetpigs' catch ya havin' a sly smoke in a musty corner of the damp cellar in your local , and question you re your knowledge of the new 'law' , you could use the same defence that Free State Civil Servant Padraig O'hUiginn used in the 'Beef Tribunal' : " I was not aware that I was aware if I was aware " .

Then , when the 'Packetpigs' are trying to figure that out , ya leg it ....