Sunday, February 20, 2022

COMIN' AT YA...!

AND WE'RE (almost) BACK...!

Our BIG birthday party (a 21st - not mine, by the way : I'm not THAT old...!) couldn't have been timed better - Covid restrictions in this State were just about lifted in time for that gig, so we had about one-hundred people in the venues, after almost two years of party lock-downs. We went wild!

The party went on for the best part of two days, and carried over into two other venues ; it was loud, colourful, and great craic, well worth the effort and all the prep work that went into it. Seriously gonna have one of them for my (next) BIG birthday party!

The christening was a more muted affair ; we toned it down to the extent that the State cops only had TWO noise complaints to deal with, and wasn't it the same cops that were practically chasing us from venue to venue over the birthday party. We're on first-name terms with them now...!

Anyway - enough chit-chat.

On Wednesday, 23rd February 2022, we'll be posting a still/soon-to-be-collated blog post comprising eight articles, one of which - our 'Short Story' offering - will itself be comprised of 12 instances which occurred in this country between 1919 and 1943.

So listen up, will ya - our heads are still hurtin' after our outings ; don't have us doin' all this 'less yer gonna call back and check us out!

We'll be writing about how, in the early 1920's, hundreds of men openly crossed the border from Derry into Donegal under the watchful eyes of the RUC who not only stood back and done nothing but actually encouraged 'migrations' of that nature...this group of IRA POW's were removed from their cells and executed by the Staters because their colleagues had come off worse from an encounter with the IRA...this 'fair day' didn't turn out to be 'fair' for this man, who hoped to get the drop on republicans...this IRA operation in Dublin didn't go as planned with disastrous consequences for the Volunteers involved.

This Cork tout felt comfortable enough to contact his handlers by post, but his letter fell in to the 'wrong hands', as far he was concerned...this RIC man thought it was 'fair game' to practice his marksmanship on a flock of birds, but one of his colleagues wouldn't agree...this British Army 'superman' was lauded as such by his own people, but then 'natural causes' stepped-in...IRA GHQ in Dublin instructed their organisation in this particular county not to proceed with their planned 'leaflet drop' but it was done anyway - the local republican leadership didn't see who done it.

These three country-based RIC members had passed their information on to their colleagues in Dublin Castle and thought it was a good idea to go to a posh hotel for lunch. But it wasn't...the visit to the cinema wasn't a social outing for these IRA Volunteers, and it wasn't too social for their quarry, either...

All of the above, and more, will be comin' at ya on Wednesday, 23rd February 2022.

Thanks for the visit, and for reading ; see ye on the 23rd!

Sharon and the team.