WILLIAM ROONEY , poet and journalist ; 1872-1901 .......
.......Are William Rooney and the countless others who were born into political conflict , common criminals? Are those same people guilty of keeping a criminal conspiracy going for over 800 years ...?
William Rooney dedicated at least ten full years of his 29 years on this earth campaigning against the British onslaught on Irish ways and culture , and went to an early grave because of those colonisers . If this small article , on this small weblog , inspires just one person to support the Irish Cause then William Rooney will still be fighting the British...
Be green upon their graves O happy Spring,
for they were young and eager who are dead.
With all things that are young and quivering with eager life be they remembered ,
for they move not here - they are gone to the clay .
They cannot die again for liberty ; be they remembered in their land , for aye ...
...green be their graves , green be their memory .
-- James Stephens.
Leabe i measc na bhFininni go raibh acu.
[END of ' WILLIAM ROONEY , poet and journalist ; 1872-1901 .......'].
(Tomorrow - Philip Grey ; 1827-1857 - An Irish Military Man).
WHERE MOUNTAINY MEN HAVE SOWN :
war and peace in rebel Cork ,
in the turbulent years 1916-21.
By Micheal O'Suilleabhain : published 1965.
COOLNACAHERA and COOMNACLOHY .......
".......We were well spread-out , and had the British Auxiliaries pinned-down from all angles......."
" I believe the first two shots were fired by John Riordan ('Jack The Rookery') and Jer Casey ('Strac') - they had no other option since the two British Auxiliaries rushed up to their positions . The Lewis-Gun and about twenty rifles opened fire on the Auxies while most of them were still on the lorries , and though they quickly sought cover , many fell dead on the road and along the dykes . Seafield Grant , the British Officer Commanding of the Macroom Auxiliaries , escaped the first burst of gunfire ; standing on a patch of green, south of the road , he gazed north-west towards the rocks . Two bullets scored tracks in the sod in front of him and , stooping , he examined the scars . Straightening up , he looked back along the direction indicated by the bullets , but just then a third bullet came which killed him .
His fall must have disheartened the enemy very much ; at first their fire was vigorous - bullets struck the flat surface of vertical rocks with a loud thud , or curved high into the air with a wailing note when a sloping rockface was hit. A Hotchkiss gunner appeared to have an idea of the location of our Lewis , as his shooting was getting better - it cracked over our heads for a while , prompting Hughie to shout at me - " Keep a look out for that fellow ." At length we located him - " ...just below Diarmaid na gComharsan's cottage ": one sharp burst from the Lewis and the Brit gunner , frightened or hit , dragged his gun backwards . We did not hear any more from him ...
The Auxiliaries' fire weakened and now and then a man or two made a dash for the cottages . We also saw other indications that they were hard-pressed ; one of the lorries was being turned about on the road by its driver ......."
(MORE LATER).
THE CONVICTION OF WILLIAM QUINN .......
' William Quinn was recently jailed for life in Britain having been convicted of the murder of a London policeman on the basis of evidence and an identification which has given rise to considerable controversy . '
BY MICHAEL FARRELL .
(First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , April 1988 , page 18).
Reproduced here in 9 parts.
(3 of 9).
In February 1975 , British Police Constable Stephen Tibble was shot dead on a West-London street ; in a follow-up search , British police discovered bomb-making equipment in a nearby house . William Quinn's fingerprints and those of an IRA Unit (later known as 'The Balcombe Street Four') were found in the house and , later that year, when the IRA Unit was captured after a siege in Balcombe Street , one of them was found to have the gun that killed British Police Constable Stephen Tibble .
None of this connected William Quinn all that directly with the Tibble shooting but , a few hours before Quinn was due to appear in the 'Special Criminal Court' on the assualt and IRA membership charges , PC Blackledge was ordered to fly to Dublin . He was told a man suspected of the killing was being held there and he was to see if he could identify him ; he was not told why the man was suspected .......
(MORE LATER).
