Two men, obviously workmen making their way along the quays to their jobs, started us speculating on what role the trade unions would have been guided into were James Connolly alive and the Republic under attack.
It was the first time I heard Mellows on the play of social forces in the crisis of the Treaty ; I was present at the Dáil Éireann session when he made his speech against the Treaty but, while what he said then impressed me greatly, it gave no indication of the pattern of ideas he uncovered now.
The Four Courts fell and its garrison became prisoners, and with it members of the IRA Executive - Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Joe McKelvey and Peadar O' Donnell. In the angry mood of the thronged cells in Mountjoy Jail, the prisoners instinctively turned to Mellows as the one among us who must, somehow, be able to explain how the Republican Army could permit itself to be overrun by much weaker military forces and why certain men of courage, hitherto devoted to independence, should choose to enter on a road of struggle to overthrow the Republic and raise on its ruins a parliament which rested on the penal British Government of Ireland Act 1920.." (From 'There Will Be Another Day', by Peadar O'Donnell, first published in January 1963.)
'..on the 14th April 1922, Anti-Treaty forces under the command of Rory O'Connor occupied the Four Courts and several other buildings in Dublin city. A tense stand off between Pro and Anti-Treaty Forces commenced. Anti-Treaty forces hoped that their occupation of the courts would ignite a confrontation with British troops and thus unite the pro and anti Treaty forces. However, this hope never materialised.
Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith ('1169' comment - Both Free Staters, pro-Treaty - they were sold a pup, and they tried to sell it to others by subterfuge - in Griffith's own words "I have signed a Treaty of peace between Ireland and Great Britain. I believe that treaty will lay foundations of peace and friendship between the two Nations. What I have signed I shall stand by in the belief that the end of the conflict of centuries is at hand..") came under increasing pressure from London to assert the new governments authority in Dublin and remove those occupying the courts...on the 22nd June 1922, two men assassinated soldier and Unionist politician Sir Henry Wilson in London.
Though it was stated that the men were acting on their own initiative, it was suspected that they were acting on orders from Anti-Treaty forces. This action produced an ultimatum from the British government, that they would attack Anti–Treaty forces in the Four Courts unless the Free State government took action. Collins issued a final ultimatum to those occupying the courts. The three-armed parties involved had now reached a point of no return.
Civil War was now inevitable...on the 28th June 1922 (101 years ago, on this date) at 04.10 hours, the bombardment commenced. Shelling was to continue for a number of days..' (from here.)
Emmet Dalton led the Free State attack on the Four Courts ; he was an Irish rebel-turned-Free Stater, who was born in America on March 4th 1898 and died in Dublin on March 4th 1978 - his 80th birthday, and also the bicentenary of the birth of the man he was named after - Robert Emmet.
Dalton sold out in favour of the 'Treaty of Surrender' in 1921 and made a (Free State) name for himself by attacking republican positions from the sea, actions that his British paymasters considered as having 'turned the tide' against the Irish republican resistance.
He was with Michael Collins on the 22nd of August 1922 when the latter was shot dead by republican forces in West Cork (Béal na mBláth) and is said to have propped up a dying Collins to place dressings on his wound. He resigned from the Free State Army shortly after Collins was killed, and was appointed as the clerk of the Free State Senate, but resigned from that, too, three years later, and opened a film production company, Ardmore Studios, near Bray, in Wicklow. He died, aged 80, on the 4th of March 1978, the same date and month that he had been born on, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
He, Collins, Griffith and those others were wrong at the time when they propagandised that their 'treaty' offered "the end of the conflict of centuries" as they were experienced enough to realise that that wasn't the case.
They cursed the rest of us for their own ends.
'NORTHERN IRELAND' FLAG ACT.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
It was reported in 'The Evening Mail' newspaper on the 14th March 1955 that -
'The annual conference of the 'Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers Union', at their Easter Conference at Blackpool, will discuss the 'Northern Ireland (sic) Flag and Emblem (Display) Act 1954'.
A resolution from the Manchester Textile Branch calls on the government "to use its good offices with the Northern Ireland (sic) Government" to secure the repeal of the Act.
'Enactment such as this by a legislative body which is bolstered and subsidised by Britain is contrary to the British people's conception of democratic government, and violates every principle of freedom', says the proposal...'
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (28TH JUNE) 225 YEARS AGO - 'UNITED IRISHMEN' LEADER EXECUTED BY THE BRITISH.
We won't re-post the whole piece but, having said that, we couldn't let the date pass without referencing its relevance to the man, and drawing your attention to this article, from the 'Library Ireland' website :
'Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey (was) an estated gentleman of about £3,000 a year, in the County of Wexford, a barrister, and commander of the Wexford insurgents in 1798. He was born about 1762, educated at Trinity College, Dublin, studied at the Middle Temple, and was called to the Bar in 1782. Before the insurrection of 1798 he "was in tolerable practice as a barrister, and was extremely popular with all parties. He was high-spirited, kind-hearted, and good-tempered, fond of society, given to hospitality, and especially esteemed for his humane and charitable disposition towards the poor."
He resided at Bargy Castle, and when the insurgents took the field in May 1798, in the north of the county, Harvey, with his friends Colclough and FitzGerald, was immediately imprisoned in Wexford on suspicion.
After the defeat of the royalists at the Three Rocks, Wexford was evacuated by the small garrison that remained, and the prisoners were on 30th May released by the inhabitants, who implored Harvey to intercede with the insurgents for the safety of the town. This he did, and upon its being occupied by the insurgents he was appointed Commander-in-Chief...' (from here.)
Farewell to Bargy’s lofty towers, my father’s own estate
And farewell to its lovely bowers, my own ancestral seat
Farewell each friend and neighbour, that once I well knew there
My tenants now will miss the hand that fostered them with care.
Farewell to Cornelius Grogan, and to Kelly ever true
John Coakley and good Father Roche, receive my last adieu
And fare-thee-well bold Esmond Kyan, though proud oppression’s laws
Forbid us to lay down our lives, still we bless the holy cause.
Farewell my brave United men, who dearly with me fought
Though tyrant might has conquered right, full dearly was it bought
And when the sun of freedom shall again upon you shine
Oh, then let Bagenal Harvey’s name array your battle line.
Although perchance it may be my fate, in Wexford town to die
Oh, bear my body to the tomb wherin my fathers lie
And have the solemn service read, in Mayglass holy towers
And have twelve young maids from Bargyside, to scatter my grave with flowers.
So farewell to Bargy’s lofty towers, since from you I must part
A stranger now may call you his, which with sorrow fills my heart
But when at last fate shall decree that Ireland should be free
Then Bagenal Harvey’s rightful heirs shall be returned to thee.
Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey 1762 - 1798.
'LAW AND SOCIETY :
IS IT TIME TO ASK QUESTIONS OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION?
We have always been a society with a facility for the creation of myths. However, not even the most dewy-eyed devotee of the dreams of the Celtic Twilight could have invented the present status of the legal profession in Ireland.'
By John Drennan.
From 'Magill Magazine', November 2001.
The dominant viewpoint is that barristers are currently playing a crucial role in exorcising political corruption in Ireland, as dodgy politicians, bankers and others experience the modern-day equivalent of the religious missions of the 1950's.
Within the Dail (sic) politicians defer to them, whilst within the media no one seriously questions practitioners of the law because they are seen to be beyond reproof and rather powerful enemies. Whispers of discontent about the salaries of top barristers in cases funded by the taxpayer tend to be no more than just whispers - the kind of bugbear so beloved of taxi-drivers and lefty students.
Most other people simply accept the payment of fees of £1,500 per day* to each senior counsel as a necessary evil in a society where truth lies at the bottom of a tribunal...
(*'1169' comment - that figure [£1,500] was the standard in 2001 ; today [2023], senior counsel get a 'brief fee' of €1,716 and 'refresher fees' of €858 per day. The 'brief fee' for junior counsel and solicitors is now €1,144 and 'refresher fees' are €572 and €418 per day, respectively.) (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (28TH JUNE) 101 YEARS AGO : FREE STATERS (WESTMINSTER PROXIES) DELIVER ULTIMATUM TO THE IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY.
The first shots of the Irish Civil War were caused by a row over selling cars to Belfast...' (from here.)
Not altogether the full story, although the 'bones' of what actually happened are there.
Harry Ferguson's garage was a well-known Belfast automobile company, with a branch on Baggot Street, in Dublin. It was known to be unsympathetic to the 'Irregulars' and had blatantly ignored an overall directive from the IRA that for-profit business dealings with Belfast should cease until business bosses in that city took steps to ensure the safety of their nationalist workforce.
Leo Henderson and his men commandeered about 15 cars which had been sent, for sale, to Dublin from Belfast - the IRA's intention, as well as to be seen enforcing the 'Belfast Trade Boycott', was to use the vehicles, as part of the war effort, against the continuing British political and military presence in the Six Occupied Counties and in their campaign to overthrow the then-fledging Free State political administration.
Leo Henderson was captured by the Staters, with ex-IRA man Frank Thornton in command of them and, when the IRA leadership heard that Henderson had been 'arrested', they discussed abducting Collins himself or Richard Mulcahy in retaliation, but decided instead to seize Free State General Jeremiah Joseph (JJ) 'Ginger' O'Connell, who was Richard Mulcahy's Deputy Chief-of-Staff.
At 11.15pm on the night of Tuesday, 27th June, 1922, 'Ginger' was arrested in Dublin by the IRA after an evening out with his girlfriend - the couple had gone to the theatre and, after the girlfriend was dropped home, 'Ginger' went to McGilligan's Pub in Leeson Street for a few pints. As he left the pub, the IRA seized him and held him in the republican-occupied Four Courts ; Ernie O'Malley actually telephoned Free State General Eoin O'Duffy, who was in Portobello Barracks, and told him that 'Ginger' will be returned to the Staters in exchange for Leo Henderson.
The republicans knew that 'Ginger' was valued by Collins and his renegades - he was one of the few that eagerly conveyed the 'cancel-the-Rising'-order from Eoin MacNeill in 1916 and both Collins and Mulcahy regarded him as a safe pair of hands.
Collins's political and military bosses in London were notified about 'JJ Ginger' being held in republican custody and made it clear to Collins that if he and his Free State colleagues didn't take steps to remove the republicans from the Four Courts, they would - the Staters had already decided to attack their former comrades in the Four Courts and had already accepted the offer from Westminster of equipment with which to carry-out the task ; British artillery, aircraft, armoured cars, machine guns, small arms and ammunition were by then in the possession of Collins and his team, who then used the 'JJ kidnap'-incident to press ahead with the assault.
The republicans ignored the threat and held their ground and, less than half-an-hour later - at about 4.30am - the Staters opened fire on the republicans with British-supplied 18-pounder guns and practically destroyed the building (pictured), an act which was described as "..a major national calamity..an assault on the collective memory of the nation..such actions are considered as war crimes..a cultural atrocity.."
The IRA held out for two days before leaving the building, but fought-on elsewhere in Dublin until early July, 1922, with Oscar Traynor (who later joined the Fianna Fáil party) in command.
'JJ Ginger' was rescued by his Stater colleagues on Friday, 30th June 1922 when they finally managed to enter the then shell of a building where the Four Courts once stood and, within months, he was demoted from a Lieutenant-General to a Major-General and then to a Colonel, a position he was to remain at.
He got married in 1922 and, between 1924 and 1944 (he died in the Richmond Hospital in Dublin from a heart attack on the 19th February of that year), he was shifted around like a pawn on a chess board : chief lecturer in the FS Army school of instruction, director of Number 2 (Intelligence) Bureau, OC equitation school, quartermaster-general and director of the military archives.
We wonder did he consider himself to be the man who, alongside Westminster and his Free State comrades, started a Civil War in Ireland...?
'WAITING TO FALL...'
If this year sees the end of the 'Age of Tribunals', it won't be a moment too soon.
By John Drennan.
From 'Magill' magazine, January 2003.
Ironically, it is at their moments of supposedly great triumph that the most serious flaw of the tribunals is unmasked.
The wonderful 'Flood Tribunal' report revealed that Tom Brennan knowingly misled the tribunal, John Finnegan had given false and misleading accounts, 'Rambo' Burke had received corrupt payments, James Stafford was a liar and so forth.
The list of those who hindered and obstructed the tribunal ran to six pages and consisted of 18 names.
But four months after the report, the tranquillity of those gentlemen's lives - one high-profile raid by the CAB on Ray Burke's house aside - is as undisturbed as the conscience of a tribunal barrister...
(MORE LATER.)
Thanks for the visit, and for reading,
Sharon and the team.
