'THE PRESS' Newspaper , October 1797 - March 1798 .
Too Radical for the Radicals .......
....... as M.P. for Kildare , the 'Rebel Lord' , Edward Fitzgerald , attended a political 'Dinner Party' one night ; his refusal to hide his 'rebel streak' had an immediate effect on his 'career' .......
At that dinner party he joined in a toast to the abolition of hereditary titles and was , shortly afterwards , 'cashiered' (ie "discharged with ignominy") from the British Army (and from the 'Establishment' ie - 'those that dinner-partied' !) by way of punishment !
He went to Paris in 1792 , at 29 years young and , two days after Christmas that year , he married a 19-years-young girl , Pamela , thought to be the daughter of Mme de Genlis . It was generally accepted that Pamela's father was the 'Duke' of Orleans - a 'family connection' which was to re-bound on Edward Fitzgerald a few years later ... (Incidentally - while in Paris , 'Lord' Edward Fitzgerald stayed with a certain Mr. Thomas Paine.)
In 1793 , Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald returned to Dublin and lived in Frascati House in Blackrock ; three years later (ie 1796) , 'Lord' Edward Fitzgerald travelled to Basel in France with Arthur O'Connor and Wolfe Tone to seek assistance with an armed Rising against the British ; but his above-mentioned 'family connections' were raised at a meeting with the French military .......
(MORE LATER).
A STICKY END.......
Rise and decline of the 'Officials' .
No by-line.
First published in 'IRIS' magazine , Volume 1 , No. 2 , November 1981 , pages 76 and 77.
Re-published here in 8 parts .
(6 of 8).
It is the height of political bankruptcy to blame one's failure on an assault from " the ultra-left ... " and " the right... " at once ! But then the 'Sticks' always did slander the Republican Movement in precisely this way . The truth is that the Nationalist people of Belfast showed their determination to fight British imperialism and support the hunger-strikers . There is nothing " ultra-left" or "right" about this , it is just a resurgence of Republican resistance .
The 'Officials' were now so far away from that tradition that they could not recognise the fact .......
(MORE LATER).
HAMMER AND TONGS.......
'Survivors' : collected by Uinseann MacEoin .
Reviewed by Tim Pat Coogan.
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , December 1980 , page 53.
Re-published here in 7 parts .
[7 of 7].
The 'Survivors' are part of the heritage of the community they shape and leave behind them and they have an obligation to tell that community , for which the men mentioned above in particular shed their own and others' blood , endured incredible privations , bitterness and dissention , what it was that motivated them to take the decisions and courses they did . The proper study of man is man .
We can learn guidances for our own actions by studying the actions of others ; it is many years since I researched my IRA book , in the 1960's to be exact , when I first discovered that in many parts of the country it was the example and in some cases the direct encouragement of some of the figures mentioned above in 'Survivors' (who , in turn , often were influenced firstly by their mothers) which had brought some of the figures I was then interviewing into 'the Movement' .
They in turn later brought others in . The existence of economic deprivation , the British Army and the sectarian assassins have in turn ensured that as long as this country is divided there will be 'Survivors' .
[END of ' HAMMER AND TONGS - 'Survivors' '].
(Tomorrow : 'BIG BROTHER HAS ARRIVED' - from 1980 ).
