JULY 29th , 1848 : RIC , Firearms , Pikes - and Five Children .......
.......British Crown re-inforcements had arrived at the Widow McCormicks house at Ballingarry , County Tipperary , to rescue their forty-six colleagues who were hiding-out in the house , and who were holding the five McCormick children as hostages , in order to stop the Irish Rebels from attacking them . The Rebels had to flee the scene.......
William Smith O'Brien , Thomas Francis Meagher and Terence Bellew MacManus were captured , but John O'Mahony , James Stephens and John Blake Dillon escaped . John O'Mahony went to America and was one of the founders in that country of the American Fenian Brotherhood (or 'Clann na Gael' , referred to in Ireland as simply 'The Organisation' or the 'IRB') , while James Stephens made it safely to Paris , France , and , that being the time of Louis Napoleon , made contact with several 'secret societies' which existed in France at that time .
(Small 'tangent' - eight years later [ie in 1856] , James Stephens was to go on a 3,000-mile 'tour' of Ireland , mostly on foot , organising opposition to British mis-rule in Ireland) On Saint Patricks Day in 1858 (17th March) , James Stephens was one of those who took an Oath , in Dublin , -
- "...in the presence of God , to renounce all allegiance to the Queen of England , and to take arms and fight at a moments warning to make Ireland an independent Democratic Republic , and to yield implicit obedience to the Commanders and Superiors of this Secret Society . " That "..Secret Society ..." was the Irish Republican Brotherhood ...
(MORE LATER).
WHERE MOUNTAINY MEN HAVE SOWN :
war and peace in rebel Cork ,
in the turbulent years 1916-21.
By Micheal O'Suilleabhain : published 1965.
AISLINGI .......
"....... in Ireland , the 'vision' of freedom is known as the 'Aisling' - a desire to strike back at the British , and lead others in that Cause . One who had this 'Vision' was Tom Clarke ... "
" Tom Clarke was born in a British military camp at Hurst Park in the Isle of Wight , on 11th March 1858 . His father was then a Corporal in the British Army but , like Tom's mother , was Irish born . A year later Corporal Clarke was drafted to South Africa where the family lived until 1865 . Tom first saw Ireland about 1870 , when his father was appointed a Sergeant of the Ulster Militia and was stationed at Dungannon , County Tyrone .
Here Tom grew to early manhood , and his father wished him to follow in his own footsteps and join the British Army , but the 'Old Woman' had already enlisted Tom in her own small but select Army , and at a time when prospects appeared most dreary . For the gloom of the 'Famine' and the defeat of the Fenians still hung heavy over the land . Tom Clarke was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood by Michael Davitt and John Daly ; he could have had no more worthy sponsors .
In 1880 , at twenty-two years young , he emigrated to the United States where he joined Clann na Gael , and quickly volunteered for Active Service in Britain . The ship he travelled on struck an iceberg and sank , but he was rescued and landed on Newfoundland . Resuming his interrupted journey , he reached London where he was soon arrested - he had been followed from New York by 'Henri Le Caron' , a British spy . On 14th June , 1883 , at the 'Old Bailey' , he was , with three others , sentenced to penal servitude for life ....... "
(MORE LATER).
THE IRA ATTITUDE TO ELECTIONS .......
First published in 'AP/RN' , September 5th , 1981 .
Re-published here in 5 parts .
(2 of 5).
" There was also , at the time of the split , a simplistic republican attitude , heightened by the 1969 pogroms , to the 'Stickies' position . Therefore , there was a reaction within the Republican Movement against taking political control within the nationalist community or examining methods , even electoral , for doing this .
The 'Sticky' attitude towards elections is one of complete involvement with the system and cannot be divorced from their collaborationist attitude towards the RUC and loyalist paramilitiaries and reactionary elements within Fine Gael , and towards the whole national question , and the partitionist state , Leinster House and Stormont . ('1169 ...' comment - 'Stickies' [WP] then , Provos now ...)
Similarly , the republican attitude towards elections cannot be divorced from our total rejection of the six-county state , our struggle for the last twelve years , of unbroken resistance to the British government and to its crown forces , and our refusal to compromise with loyalism . "
(MORE LATER).
