TIM COUGHLAN - IRA VOLUNTEER 1906-1928 ; SHOT DEAD BY IRA INFORMER OR FREE STATE AGENTS ......?


.....claiming to have been fired on by one of the two men chasing him , the informer Sean Harling said that as he was running towards the hall-door of his house , he managed to fire a shot back in the direction of the men behind him and made it safely into his house ; he was not followed in , he said .....


He laid low in one of the rooms , observing the drive-way and the area around it , but there was no movement that he could see . He claimed that he then went out to investigate the area further and found the body of one of his alleged attackers ; the Free State 'Tribunal' that heard his 'evidence' exonerated him , but Sean Harling knew that he was definitely now a 'dead man walking' and pleaded with his Free State 'handler' , David Neligan , for payments due as well as extra money and expenses , as he wanted out of the country altogether ; Neligan paid him off , and Harling went to America .

Some facts emerged later to back up the IRA claim that the State , and its agent , Sean Harling , had co-operated in lying about the true sequence of events that took place that January night in 1928 : a Dr. Wilfred Lane carried out a post-mortem on the body of IRA Volunteer Tim Coughlan and , amongst other anomalies , discovered that the IRA man died as a result of being shot in the back of his head ....... (MORE LATER)>




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


MICHAEL SINNOT AND JAMES O'CONNOR OF TRALEE ......


.....Mrs. Lyons woke suddenly ; it was the noise of gun-fire that woke her . It was still dark out . She went downstairs with her daughter , but her house was full of Free State soldiers . Mrs. Lyons and her daughter were prevented from leaving the house . More shooting . Then nothing . The Staters then left her house .....


" She tried to light a candle , but her hands were shaking . Her daughter struck a match and lit the candle and looked at her . The girl was trembling , too , and her face was white . "Oh mother ," she said , "you're not fit to go out." Mrs. Lyons took the candle and groped her way to the hay-shed . The hay had been pulled down and was lying everywhere ; some of the boys' clothes were out in the yard ; there were cartridge-cases lying about ; the light of the candle fell on a pool of blood . She listened : there was no sound from the dug-out , not even a moan .

At last she lifted the candle and looked in . Jim was lying there , half-dressed , and Michael beside him ; they were covered with blood , riddled with bullets - dead . There was no sight or sound of the lorries or of the Free State soldiers : they had done their night's work and gone home . "


[END]



ROOTS #1 ......

...... [from 'The Sunday Business Post' , 9th February , 2003 , page 6] -

--- Lawyers acting on behalf of the British Labour Party advised Tony Blair and his colleagues that , while residents of "Northern Ireland" (sic) may well be British 'subjects' , they do not live in Britain and are therefore "ineligible for membership of the British Labour Party " !

YEAH ! And don't even THINK of looking for a driving licence ..... (but DO keep paying your tax , em, ok ...?)



ROOTS #2 ......

...... [from 'The Phoenix' magazine , 10th May , 1996 , page 12] -

--- " People who deny their roots , far from escaping the past , are forced to assume the history of another tribe . "

-- Eoghan Harris , professional 'West Brit' and Fine Gael's Number-One Ard Fheis script-writer .

And Eoghan should know - he's the leader of the tribe .....

TIM COUGHLAN - IRA VOLUNTEER , 1906-1928 ; SHOT DEAD BY IRA INFORMER OR FREE STATE AGENTS .......?


.....on the evening of 28th January , 1928 , a shooting took place in the vicinity of the informer Sean Harling's house , on the Darty Road in Dublin , which left IRA Volunteer Tim Coughlan lying dead on the street .....


The informer Sean Harling later claimed in his statement to a Free State 'Tribunal' into the shooting , that he got a lift home from work that evening in a friend's car , arriving outside his house , 'Woodpark Lodge' , on the Dartry Road , at about 6.30 PM which , he said , was earlier than usual .

He said he noticed two men looking at him from the other side of the street ; as he was walking up his driveway , towards the front door of his house , a shot was fired at him by one of the two men , who were by now , he claimed , running at him . Sean Harling then said that he took to his heels towards his hall-door , taking his gun out of his pocket as he ran , and fired a shot in the direction of the two men behind him .

He stated that he made it into his house and was not followed by either of the two men chasing him ...... (MORE LATER)>



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


MICHAEL SINNOT AND JAMES O'CONNOR OF TRALEE .....


......on 13th February , 1923 , Free State troops rounded-up a number of youths in the Currahane Sands area of Kerry and took them to Ballymullen Barracks in Tralee for questioning ....


" Sinnot and O'Connor were wanted . Where were they sleeping ? Clifford and Drummond (two of the young men seized by the Staters) were beaten to make them tell , but held out . Greer said something to the officer and was not hurt . Ryle's , in Currahane , was raided that evening . Among the raiders , to their amazement , the Ryle's recognised Greer - to whom they had given breakfast that morning - and he in the green (Free State) coat .

He led the raiding party away , then , over Currahane Sands . Mrs Lyons heard that Michael and Jim had escaped capture , and hoped that they would come to her , for a meal , before going to sleep in their dug-out . It grew late and there was no sign of them , so she left cups and bread and butter ready , hung the kettle over the fire and went to bed . She was awakened suddenly while it was still dark , by shots - a sharp , quick rattle of shots close to the house .

Soldiers were in the kitchen ; they would not let her or her daughter go out . The sound of firing went on and on . It was like no other firing she had ever heard . It ceased at last and the soldiers went away ...... (MORE LATER)>




SCREW YOU ......

...... " I believe in the United Kingdom . I value the Union . My agenda is not a united Ireland . None of us in this hall today , even the youngest , is likely to see Northern Ireland (sic) as anything but a part of the United Kingdom . That is the reality , because the conset principle is now almost universally accepted . "

--- British Prime Minister Tony Blair , speaking in Belfast on 16th May , 1997 .

The "consent principle" , Mr Blair ? Then put the question of British withdrawal to the people of Ireland - all 32 Counties . I'd say you'd have an answer within , oh , 45 minutes , Tony .



......SCREW ME -->

<-- " There was one lesson that we learned when we were in government . And that was that the British will promise you the sun , moon and stars , and then at the last moment try and put in something , or change something . And it was like that in history , everything I'd learned in school was coming true . Every time the Irish and themselves (Brits) made a deal , they would do something at the end to screw it up ! "

--- Maire Geoghegan-Quinn , Fianna Fail , in an interview in 'The Sunday Business Post' , 12th May , 1996 , page 26.

Well , actually , Maire - the Brits don't need to "screw up everytime" : they have you lot to do that for them !!

TIM COUGHLAN - IRA VOLUNTEER , 1906-1928 ; SHOT DEAD BY IRA INFORMER , OR STATE AGENTS .......?


......two ex-IRA men , Sean Harling and his brother-in-law Thomas Redican , had been 'turned' by the Free State ; Harling was responsible for arms-dumps being 'found' by the enemy , and he tried to turn the Movement on itself by spreading false rumours . In an attempt to discredit the organisation , he would 'throw his weight' around in pubs , shops etc , using his so-called Republican credentials ......


His 'handler' ('controller') was one David Neligan , a particularly vicious Free State operative who 'made his name' in the fight against Republicans in Kerry during the Civil War . Neligan's intention was to wreak havoc on the Republican Movement in Dublin , and Sean Harling and Thomas Redican were to be his instruments .

The IRA decided to take action against the two informers and , in a prelude to same , had instructed two of its Volunteers , Tim Coughlan and Archie Doyle , to monitor the movements of Harling and Redican . On the evening of 28th January , 1928 , Tim Coughlan and Archie Doyle were in the vicinity of Sean Harling's house when a shooting incident took place which left Tim Coughlan lying dead on the street....... (MORE LATER)>



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


MICHAEL SINNOT AND JAMES O'CONNOR OF TRALEE .


" Mrs. Lyons' farmhouse stands a couple of fields inland from Mrs. Connell's , on Currahane Sands . For the boys who were fighting for the Republic she had welcome and hospitality night and day . Michael Sinnot and Jim O'Connor were old friends of hers , and they were old comrades-in-arms : not so very old - they were , respectively , eighteen and nineteen years of age but Michael , the grandson of a Fenian , had joined the Na Fianna (youth movement) at the age of fifteen , and Jim was one of the hunger-strikers in Cork Jail at the time of Terence MacSwineys death .

They made a fine dug-out for themselves , with beds and blankets and all , under the hay in Mrs Lyons' shed . They got young Greer to help them to make it , and he , too , slept there , now and again . On February the thirteenth (1923) the boys had their breakfast ; some at Mrs. Connell's , young Greer at Ryles' , and went out . There were Free State troops in the neighbourhood : Clifford and Drummond and Greer were captured and taken to Tralee - to Ballymullen Barracks- to the Intelligence Room ...... (MORE LATER)>



SHOOTING......

......In his book 'The Last Conquest of Ireland' , the 'Young Ireland' leader John Mitchel wrote --

--- " Sometimes an ejecting landlord or agent was shot by desperate houseless men . What wonder ? There were not half enough of them shot ! "

Note to Bertie and the rest of the political 'elite' : the 'Young Ireland' Movement and its 'fellow-travellers' (ie Robert Emmet and other 'men of violence') were not the 'pure-as-driven-snow' visionaries you would have us believe they were . They used physical force to obtain a political objective .

Best not to commemorate them , Bertie - it might draw comparisons ....


......FROM THE MOUTH -->

<-- On 14th September , 1724 , Pope Benedict XIII granted an indulgence of one-hundred days for each recitation of the 'Angelus' , and declared that if a person said three ' Hail Mary's 'at six AM , noon and six PM every day , he/she would get two-thousand-one-hundred days off purgatory every week !

That's 109,500 days off in one year ! WOW ! Dunno what the going rate is this century , but its bound to be even better ....

TIM COUGHLAN - IRA VOLUNTEER , 1906-1928 ; SHOT DEAD BY IRA INFORMER , OR FREE STATE AGENTS .......?


......although only in his late teens/early twenties , Tim Coughlan was one of the three-man IRA unit that assassinated the then Free State Minister for 'Justice' , Kevin O'Higgins , on 10th July , 1927 .....


The Free State Army and police constantly harassed Tim Coughlan and anyone he came in contact with , but he ignored the Staters and continued with his work for the Movement . The IRA Dublin Brigade had been made aware that two of it's ex-members , Sean Harling and his brother-in-law Thomas Redican , had been 'turned' by the Free State ; Harling once worked as a Secretary in the First Dail and , as with his brother-in-law Thomas Redican , had been interned by the Free State during the Civil War .

Sean Harling was responsible for the 'discovery' of IRA arms dumps by the Staters and for spreading false rumours in the company of Dublin IRA members , apparently trying to convince them that a leadership challenge should be mounted . He was also , it seems , 'under orders' from his Free State 'handler' (ie 'controller') to "throw his weight around" in bars , shops etc , in an attempt to discredit the IRA in general . (MORE LATER)>



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

EUGENE FITZGERALD OF TRALEE .....


......the Staters tortured Eugene Fitzgerald , breaking his leg . Then they shot him , wounding him badly . His mother was allowed in to see him on a Sunday morning - she knew he was dying .....


" On Monday morning , at nine o'clock , she was at the gate again . The soldiers refused to let her in ; she was crying and pleading and sending notes in to General Daly for two hours and a half . At half past eleven an officer drove out in a car and he threw her a bit of paper as he passed . Her son was dead since ten minutes past ten .

They opened the gate then and let her go to her son . "He had nothing to tell me and nothing to say to me . They did'nt begrudge letting me in then ." "

[END]



FOOL......

...... Ed Rollins , a one-time U S Republican Party 'Political Consultant' (ie spin doctor) once said -

-- " You can fool all the people all the time , if the advertising budget is big enough " !


.....AND OUR MONEY -->

<-- [from 'The Sunday Tribune' , 5th October , 1997 , page 4 ] -

- ' The Fianna Fail / Progressive Democrat Coalition administration have spent an average of £7000 punts a day on 'public relations' and the services of 'consultants' since it took up office just over 100 days ago '.

Rollins was right , and still is ; but we already know that .....

TIM COUGHLAN - IRA VOLUNTEER , 1906-1928 ; SHOT DEAD BY IRA INFORMER , OR FREE STATE AGENTS ?


The second-eldest in a family of nine , Tim Coughlan lived with his parents in the family home , in Inchicore , Dublin . Although only in his late teens/early twenties at the time , he had shoulderd a weapon against the Black-and-Tans and , later , against the Free State forces in the Civil War .

As a known member of the Dublin Brigade IRA , he was interned by the Staters during the Civil War and , if anything , became even more active within the IRA after his release . Tim Coughlan was one of the three-man IRA unit that assassinated the much-detested Free State Minister for 'Justice' , Kevin O'Higgins , on 10th July , 1927 (the other two IRA men were Archie Doyle and Bill Gannon). (MORE LATER)>



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

EUGENE FITZGERALD OF TRALEE .....

.....the Free State soldiers took their prisoner , Eugene Fitzgerald , to the beach and made him kneel on the stones ; if he told them the whereabouts of his IRA column , they swore they would let him go free .....

" It was then , when he refused , that they beat him and broke his leg . They threw him into the lorry again and drove along the road as far as Casement's Fort - the field where Casement was taken in nineteen-sixteen . The thought of Casement , who died for Ireland , was in his mind . There they took him out of the lorry and threw him on the ground and gave him one more chance . Would he tell ?

When he said "No" , one of them fired . He thought the pain would kill him , but he did'nt die . He heard them arguing in the corner of the field ; some wanted to leave him and some wanted to take him on . Those got their way , and they put him back in the lorry and took him into Tralee . She saw him on Sunday morning again . She knew then that he was dying , though he spoke to her and did not know it himself ..... " (MORE LATER)>



BIG BUSINESS ......

......Safety investigator Byron Bloch exposed the dangers of the Ford Pinto in the 1970's .

The car had an extended rear bumper which , when hit by another car , drove the petrol tank up against the rear axle and set the car on fire - dozens of 'Pintos' went on fire this way , and Bloch discovered a memo written by the Ford Company that analysed the costs involved :

180 'burn deaths' and 180 serious injuries would cost $50 million dollars ;
The cost of fixing each 'Pinto' , at $11 dollars per car , would cost $137 million dollars . So Ford decided to do nothing !

A Mr Richard Grimshaw , a 'Pinto' owner who nearly died in a 'Pinto' car crash , sued Ford and a jury awarded him $137 million dollars in punitive damages against the company ! (See 'The Sunday Tribune' magazine , 18th January , 1998 , page 37.)



.....AND BUSINESS AS USUAL -->

<-- ( From 'The Sunday Business Post' , 11th January , 1998 , page 14) --> The Fianna Fail / Progressive Democrat (present) Free State administration cut the 'Youth Development Fund' from £20 million punts to one-and-a-quarter million punts ; the £20 million punts had been earmarked by the previous Free State administration (Fine Gael/Labour/Democratic Left) but was reduced by Fianna Fail/Progressive Democratics at the end of 1997 - the money was needed to provide disadvantaged young people with alternatives to using drugs .

Less than two months before the above-mentioned cut-backs (ie November , 1997) the 'Ireland On Sunday' newspaper reported [see same , 23rd November , 1997 , page 6] that drug addicts were costing Dublin an estimated £300 million punts a year !

This figure included £60 million punts to the victims of crime , and £50 million punts spent on prison and policing costs . It was estimated then (ie 1997) that there were eight thousand drug addicts in Dublin .

Are all 'junkies' working-class 'yobbos' who don't vote and therefore , in the eyes of the establishment , don't count ?

RICHARD DALTON WILLIAMS ; 'SHAMROCK' OF 'THE NATION' NEWSPAPER ......


......in June 1848 , Richard Dalton Williams and 'Young Ireland' leader Kevin Izod O'Doherty published a weekly newspaper called 'The Irish Tribune' , but only five issues were printed before it was suppressed by the British in early July 1848 .....


However , the British used 'The Irish Tribune' newspaper as a reason to arrest Richard Dalton Williams and Kevin Izod O'Doherty ; both men were charged under the 'Treason-Felony Act' with "intent to depose the queen and levying war." A famous barrister of the time , Samuel Ferguson , defended both men in a trial which lasted five months and caused great embarrassment to the British .

Eventually , in November 1848 , Williams and O'Doherty were acquitted ; Williams went back to studying medicine , and qualified as a doctor , in Edinburgh , in July 1849 . In June 1851 , he emigrated to America and , whilst in New Orleans , met and married an Irish woman , Elizabeth Connolly ; the couple moved to a town called Thibodeaux in Louisiana , where he wrote his last poem - 'Song of the Irish-American Regiments.'

On 5th July , 1862 , just shy of his fortieth birthday , Richard Dalton Williams died of consumption in Thibodeaux, Louisiana , in America . A patriot , a poet and a publisher , Dr Richard Dalton Williams is one of the hundreds , if not thousands , of almost unknown and/or forgotten Irish men and women that played their part in the on-going struggle to remove the British presence from Ireland .

They deserve to be remembered somewhere ......

[END]



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

EUGENE FITZGERALD OF TRALEE.....

.....the Free Staters raided Mrs Connell's house and dragged Eugene Fitzgerald away with them ; his father got word the next day that Eugene was lying wounded in Tralee Jail ....


" For five days the mother was at the gate all day long , waylaying the officers , imploring the sentries to let her in . They grew tired of it . "I'll shoot you if you don't shut your mouth !" one of them shouted , and another jeered : "What a loss the rebel is !" "My son is no rebel," she answered , "but thank God , he is a man ." At last , on Saturday night , less than an hour before curfew , they let her in .

"Oh mother ," Eugene said , when he saw her , "why did you come so late ? How will you get home in time ? " He had a bullet wound through his body from side to side ; his left leg had been broken and crushed to pulp . "I wish the bullet went through my heart ," he said , "to put me out of my pain ." The Free State soldiers had taken him to the beach . They made him go down on his knees there on the stones ; they wanted to know where the rest of the column were hiding , and if he told them they swore he would go free ...... (MORE LATER)>




FACT .......

....... The All-Ireland (32 County) Dail continued to function underground until 1938 , when it delegated its executive powers to the Army Council of the IRA , in accordance with a resolution of the First Dail in 1921 . With the 1969 split , Tom Maguire , the last and faithful survivor of the All-Ireland Dail stated that the Provisional IRA was the successor of the 1938 body - similarly , following the 1986 split , he nominated the Continuity IRA as the legitimate IRA . Tom Maguire died in 1993 , aged one-hundred-and-one (101) .



.......AND FICTION -->

<-- " There are big changes coming in Dail Eireann (sic) and we will be a big part of it ."

--- Provisional Sinn Fein Leinster House member , Caoimhghin O'Caolain , as quoted in 'The Sunday Business Post' , 8th June , 1997 , page 3 .

....the only "big changes" so far , Caoimhghin , are in your salary and expenses !

RICHARD DALTON WILLIAMS ; 'SHAMROCK' OF 'THE NATION' NEWSPAPER .....


.....in its July 1851 issue , 'The Nation' newspaper praised one of its contributors , 'Shamrock' (Richard Dalton Williams) , describing him as "robust and vigorous , impetuous and noble - he excels all his contemporaries in imagination and humour ." .....


Richard Dalton Williams , now a member of the 'Young Ireland' Movement , put his medical training to good use during 'The Great Hunger' of 1845 - 1849 , by helping to ease the suffering of hundreds of cholera victims ; he was by now a hardened opponent of British mis-rule in Ireland and had joined the 'Irish Confederation' group , which was founded in January 1847 by William Smith O'Brien and other 'Young Irelanders' who had dis-agreed with Daniel O'Connell's 'Repeal Association' . He was quickly elected to Council level in the 'Confederation' .

Richard Dalton Williams was the driving force behind a short-lived newspaper called 'The Irish Tribune' , which he published with the assistance of 'Young Ireland' leader , Kevin Izod O'Doherty ; the first issue was published in June 1848 , but only five issues of the weekly 'paper made it on to the streets before it was suppressed by the British in early July that year ...... (MORE LATER)>



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

EUGENE FITZGERALD OF TRALEE .....

......Eugene Fitzgerald was Mrs Connell's nephew , and was staying in her house in Currahane ; her house was raided by the Free Staters again and again . He had been a Volunteer since the fighting began , a scout when he was thirteen years young .....


" "He was a great scholar , all the same," his mother says . " He had French and Latin and Irish and typing , and shorthand ; a grand boy , he was, and a fine tradesman ." He was fighting in Listowel in July (1922), and in Limerick . In January nineteen-twenty-three , he was in Currahane . Mrs Connell used to be saying to herself that there was no danger at all ; the house was so well out of the way . But out-of-the-way houses are known to men who used to be sheltered in them from the Black-and-Tans , and who are doing the Black-and-Tans' work for them now .....

It was in the dark night the soldiers broke in ; half of them were drunk : it was no good at all for old Mrs Connell or Bridie to plead or scream . Where would help come from ? What did the soldiers care ? "Bring out the bastard" they were shouting , "and we'll do for him abroad on the beach ." So , reeling and shouting and threatening , they dragged Eugene away . Word came to Eugene's father next morning that the boy was lying wounded in Tralee Jail ......" (MORE LATER)>



FACT ......

...... before he was executed by the British , Padraig Pearse stated :

" We seem to have lost . We have not lost . To refuse to fight would have been to lose ; to fight is to win . We have kept faith with the past , and handed on a tradition to the future . If you strike us down now , we shall rise again and renew the fight . You cannot conquer Ireland . You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom . If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom , then our children will win it by a better deed ."



.....AND FICTION -->

<-- " For the first time , the smug circle of power in Leinster House will be dented by the presence of Sinn Fein (sic) when TD's (sic) assemble on Thursday , 26th June ."

-- Micheal MacDonncha , Provo employee in Leinster House , 'AP/RN' , 12th June , 1997 , page 9.

And if you can't beat the "smug circle" , Micheal , - join them ! Just ask Martin and his daughter in Kerry how to go about it .....