THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION , 1921-1925 .......
A British 'sleight-of-hand' which caused a mutiny within British forces in Ireland.......
....... in 1935 , 'Sir' Richard Dawson Bates' friends in the Orange Order called his bluff (between 23rd and 27th June that year) after forcing him to either take them on or 'back down' - he choose the latter . But he was still arrogant ; he introduced internment for Republicans in 1938 .......
'Sir' Bates was born in 1877 , and was a solicitor (in Belfast) by profession . He was Secretary to the Ulster Unionist Council at 28 years young , and held that position until he was aged 44 (ie from 1905 to 1921) . In 1921 , he was elected to Stormont and was appointed as the 'Minister of Home Affairs' , a position he held for 22 years (ie from 1921 to 1943) .
At 66 years of age (in 1943) he retired to the 'back benches' , where he stayed until 1945 . He died four years later (in 1949) at 72 years of age , having been a 'proud Orangeman' for all his adult life .
And this was the man to whom the 'A' and 'C' Specials , who had mutinied and taken their own Officers as hostages had , on 16th December 1925 , handed their letter of demands to : 'Sir' Bates was not impressed .......
(MORE LATER).
HOW THE GAY LIFE KILLED MOUNTBATTEN.......
Encounters with youths exposed him to IRA.
BY FRANK DOHERTY.
First published in 'NOW' magazine , Volume 1 , No. 4 , October 1989 , page 37 .
Re-published here in 5 parts .
(2 of 5).
'Lord' Mountbatten regularly slipped away from his Irish Special Branch guards for homosexual encounters . The IRA had expected his cabin cruiser to be used for such a meeting with a teenage boy on the day he died .
They planted a radio-controlled bomb in the engine compartment on the boat , killing 'Lord' Mountbatten and three others , including a 15-year-old Enniskillen boy ; the bombing brought widespread condemnation and an immediate crack-down on the IRA on both sides of the Border .
It came on the same day as 18 British Paratroopers were killed at Narrow Water , near Warrenpoint , County Down , in an IRA double ambush .
The new book , ' The Greatest Treason' by Richard Deacon , claims that Mountbatten passed secret information to the Russians ; Deacon , whose real name is Donal McCormick , is an ex-intelligence Officer who was a close friend of the former head of the British Secret Service , 'Sir' Maurice Oldfield .......
(MORE LATER).
DE VALERA AND THE AMERICAN CONNECTION .......
By Micheal MacGiolla Phadraig .
From 'NOW' magazine , Volume 1 , Number 4, October 1989 , pages 28 and 29 .
Re-published here in 6 parts .
(4 of 6).
Thousands of subscribers were involved , many having given only tiny amounts of around three dollars each . De Valera , with an astuteness for which he had already become famous , announced that any subscriber who wished to have his Dail External Loan bonds converted into cash to help a new Irish Republican venture could do so ; that venture was a new national daily newspaper - 'The Irish Press' .
Dev followed this up by making a fund-raising tour of the U.S. in 1929 , appealing for money to give the Republican Movement its own voice , needed in the face of a hostile establishment press in Ireland .
Throughout his time in America , de Valera used the term " ... the Republican Party ... " when referring to the organisation behind the newspaper idea . The Judge in the New York court case also referred in his summing up to ".. the Republican Party in Ireland . "
The terminology is crucial to Fianna Fail's claim to ownership of ' The Irish Press' .......
(MORE LATER).
