'
The United Irishmen's rebellion in Ireland in 1798 was well supported throughout the country and the English were, as in every conflict they started throughout the world, ever eager to 'make an example out of the rebels', to persuade others not to join an existing rebel force or to start such a fightback themselves.
In Ireland that year, the rebels controlled many towns in the county of Kildare and more than held their own against the Crown Forces when the latter attempted to take those towns back under their jurisdiction.
But the English, having practically unlimited resources at their disposal, began to get the upper hand and the rebels were offered (and negotiated) terms of surrender by British Lieutenant General 'Sir' Ralph Dundas, the Commander of the 'Midland District Militia'.
The rebels were to march to the Gibbet Rath area of the Curragh, in Kildare, on the 29th May, surrender their arms and would then be 'allowed' by the English to return to their homes.
Hundreds of armed rebels headed of from the Kildare townlands on the 29th, and arrived at Gibbet Rath that same day, as agreed, only to be met there by a different commanding officer - General Dundas had been "called away" and a General 'Sir' James Duff was now in charge.
General Duff had a reputation for achieving victory at any cost, as had his section of the army (known as 'Roden's Foxhunters', who were headed-up by a 'Viscount Jocelyn') : a number of his men had been injured and killed in the course of the conflict, and he bore a grudge.
And his soldiers did, too, and they had been overheard in late May drunkenly boasting about how they intended to slaughter any rebels who presented themselves at Gibbet Rath on the 29th - and, actually, when the rebels left the towns on the 29th, hundreds of them left the main procession and made their own way out of the area, as they were (rightly, as it transpired) fearful of what awaited them at the surrender/amnesty point.
Those that went to Gibbet Rath to claim their amnesty handed their weapons over to the English, as agreed, but were then surrounded by General 'Sir' James Duff and his soldiers ('Roden's Foxhunters/Light Dragoons', the 'Monasterevan Cavalry', and at least one other militia force).
General Duff addressed his men and, pointing at the hundreds of now-unarmed rebels, instructed them to "Charge! And spare no rebel..."
Over 350 Irish rebels were slaughtered there on that day by the English.
It was reported that in one street alone in Kildare that night (Claregate Street), 85 widows were counted and, within a 10 mile radius of the Curragh, there was hardly a house or cottage that didn't have a father, brother or son killed.
Some of the rebels were buried in Kildangan Cemetery, some were buried in the Grey Abby in Kildare and others in Nurney Cemetery.
('1169' Comment - a 'gibbet' is an English word meaning an upright post with a projecting arm for hanging the bodies of executed men and women, and 'Rath' is an Irish word meaning an ancient circular enclosure or fort surrounded by an earthen wall.)
'Near the edge the Curragh, in the county of Kildare,
Lies land free from blackthorn and gorse,
For 'tis said the Almighty, leaves Gibbet Rath bare,
From a sense of regret and remorse.
Heed the word ye Croppies, take your Musket and Pike,
Lay them down and be off on your way,
For the Crown gives fair quarter, to young and old alike,
On this twenty-ninth morning of May...'
On the 29th May, 1920, the RIC Barracks in the village of Carbury, in County Kildare was attacked by the IRA and destroyed by fire.
That same building and institution had been attacked in April (1920) but the rebels were not successful then, and the RIC deserted it, knowing that it was 'on the radar' for future attention.
Two days before that happened, the RIC Barracks in the town of Ballyduff Lower, in County Waterford, was burned to the ground by the IRA - it had been evacuated by the RIC in 1917, and a baker, Nicholas Hally, moved into it, with his family, but they were moved out before the 27th. The building had to be destroyed before the RIC could move back into it.
Incidentally, by June 1920, 456 RIC Barracks throughout the country had been evacuated, 40 of which were made uninhabitable by the IRA ; over the Easter period alone in 1920, more than 300 of those 456 buildings were put out of operation.
==========================
On the 11th November, 1919, Crown Forces raided the Headquarters of Dáil Éireann at 76 Harcourt Street in Dublin, and anything that wasn't actually nailed down was removed from the premises by them, including dozens of bundles of official Dáil Éireann notepaper.
After a few months, British Intelligence hit on the idea of using the stolen Dáil notepaper for nefarious purposes and, on the 29th May, 1920, the Movement used other channels to issue an 'in-house' warning to all Departments that any orders/requests/instructions etc received on Dáil notepaper was to be verified first before any action was taken.
==========================
Tenants, renters and local people around the Clogher/Castlebar area of County Mayo were having trouble in, and with, the large estate and lands (640 acres) that were in the possession of a Mr James Fitzgerald-Kenney (pictured, a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher), and let it be known that they needed better rental arrangements and/or, if they grouped together, to purchase the holdings from him, to be divided up fairly between the present tenants, but Mr Fitzgerald-Kenney would have none of it.
A boycott of all dealings with the man was organised, but two of his many employees - a Mr Michael O'Toole and a Mr Martin Ferragher - ignored their neighbours and the boycott, and continued to work for him.
On the 29th May, 1920, when the two 'boycott breakers' finished their days work for Mr James Fitzgerald-Kenney, they went to a local pub, Downey's, in Clogher, for a few pints and, after closing time, were walking home when they were jumped-on by about twenty masked men and beaten up.
Mr O'Toole died that night and his companion, Mr Ferragher, survived until the 17th June, when he died from his wounds.
On the 14th August (1920) five men were 'arrested' by the RIC and brought to 'court' in connection with the incident and two of them - Jeremiah Bourke and Paddy Coleman - were charged with murder and held in Sligo Jail but, on the 7th October that year, both men were released from 'custody' in what has been described as "mysterious Circumstances..."
Mr James Fitzgerald-Kenney died in 1956 in a nursing home in Dublin, and had risen to the top tier of politics in the Free State ; he was 'State Minister for Justice' between 1927 and 1932.
After his death, his 28-room mansion and his lands were sold to a timber company, but the house was destroyed in a fire in 1970. The State Land Commission then took control of the house wreck and the land, and divided it up locally.
==========================
IRA Captain Tom Sheridan (23) (pictured), Drumbrade Company, Ballinagh Battalion, Cavan Brigade, needed extra weapons for his men and, on the 29th May, 1920, he and a few comrades established an ambush position at Kilsallagh, near Ballinagh, County Cavan, to relieve two RIC members of their arms.
When the RIC members arrived they were instructed to surrender but one of them, named Johnson, turned around immediately and opened fire, hitting Captain Sheridan and his brother, Packie.
In the confusion, the RIC escaped and the Volunteers left the scene ; transport was arranged and the wounded IRA men were taken to Dublin ; Captain Sheridan was taken to the Mater Hospital but died there two days later, and his brother was taken to Jervis Street Hospital where he was treated, incognito, for about six weeks.
On release from the hospital, he went 'on the run', as he was now a wanted man.
Incidentally, on the night of the attempted arms procurement operation, the Sheridan family home in Drumcrow was set ablaze by Crown Forces ; Tom and Packie's parents, one sister and two of their brothers were in the house at the time, but all of them managed to escape the blaze.
==========================
ON THIS DATE (29TH MAY) 302 YEARS AGO : BUILT AND 'BURIED' IN LEINSTER HOUSE!
He was advised by his colleagues that that part of town was 'dangerous and unfashionable' but, so sure was he of his 'standing' within his societal ranks, that he declared that "..wherever I go, fashion will follow me.." ('1169' comment - a statement made for a 'sheep' metaphor, considering that the 'sheep' are still following the inhabitants of that House!)
Have to admire their chutzpah and, indeed, their time-management skills, a 'gift' they obviously passed-on to James : at 25 years of age, Jimmy married the 15-years-young 'Lady' Emily Lennox, who was descended from 'King' Charles II and was therefore, obviously (!), a distant fifth cousin of 'King' George III, for it would take some time-management skills to parent the nineteen children that the couple had (Yes! - 19 children ; nine sons and ten daughters!), enough kids, if one were to be cynical about it, to say that the House Staff were kept busy with that task alone!
And James left them to it - he died in Kildare/Leinster House, in 1773, on the 19th of November, at 51 years of age, from 'unspecified causes'.
Exhaustion, probably...!
On the 29th May, 1921, the IRA attacked the Castletownroche RIC barracks in County Cork, resulting in the death of one Black and Tan member and the wounding of one of his colleagues.
There were no rebel casualties.
An IRA Volunteer, Thomas Barry, who later lived in Number 29 Pembroke Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, took part in that operation ; between 1918 and 1919, he served as a Battalion Adjutant in the Cork area.
==========================
On the 29th May, 1921, a Mr John Sullivan-Lynch answered a knock at his halldoor at Castle Cottage, in Carrigrohane, in County Cork.
A number of Volunteers from 'H Company', 1st Battalion, Cork Nunber 1 Brigade, IRA, removed him from the house and drove off with him in their car.
At that time, Mr Sullivan-Lynch worked as a parcel clerk in the local railway station but he was an ex-British soldier, and had done his bit (!) for 'King and Country' with the Connaught Rangers (aka 'The Devil's Own', 2nd and 6th Battalions), the Leinster Regiment (2nd Battalion), and the 'Prince of Wales Leinster Regiment' (Royal Canadians).
He was discharged from the 'Royal Canadians' as 'surplus to requirements' on the 5th March 1919 and, shortly afterwards, got the job at the railway station.
His background was known about in the Carrigrohane area but he was let get on with his new life until a near-neighbour of his, an IRA Volunteer named Patrick O'Sullivan, spotted him repeatedly entering the 'Orderly Room' of the British Army Ballincollig Military Barracks, and mentioned this to two other IRA Volunteers.
The three Volunteers made it their business to keep an eye on him, and again and again he was observed calling in to the 'Orderly Room' ; they notified an IRA Officer, Leo Murphy, who brought the information to the attention of the IRA Brigade leadership.
On the 29th May (1921) he was taken away for questioning in the Aherla area of Cork (IRA Third Battalion area) and, a few days later, handed back to 'H Company'.
He was executed as a spy on the 5th June that year - on the 9th June, his wife was ordered by the IRA to leave County Cork, never to return, and she fled to Belturbet, in County Cavan (she was awarded compensation of £2,650 by the Staters in 1922).
On the 17th July, the IRA's First Southern Division headquarters informed their General Headquarters that... "...John Sullivan-Lynch was executed as a spy on the 5th ult. The sentence was confirmed in the usual way by the Commander. He made a written confession of his guilt before his death..."
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On the 29th May, 1921, as a 12-man patrol of the 'Ulster Special Constabulary' was making its way through Mullaghfad Cross, County Fermanagh(between Fivemiletown and the Monaghan border) gunfire rang out and two of their number - Robert Coulter and James Hall - fall to the ground.
British sources later claimed that Mr Coulter died at the scene, whereas Mr Hall "...was seriously wounded and dragged himself to a nearby house owned by a Sinn Féin member who refused him assistance..". Those sources also claimed that the USC had been ambushed by 40 IRA Volunteers.
Mr Hall also lost his life on that date.
==========================
In late August, 1920, on the eastern outskirts of Cobh, in County Cork, about eight armed IRA Volunteers, under the command of Michael Burke, emerged from around a forge at a quarry, surprising about a dozen armed British soldiers who were casually dismantling a hut once used by their own people.
One of the British soldiers, a Private Joseph Young (of the 'Cameron Highlanders Regiment') was mortally wounded after resisting the Volunteers, who disarmed them, loaded the weaponry into a waiting car and, like it, disappeared into the night.
The blacksmith who owned and operated the forge, John P. O'Connell (59), who was the President of the local (Cobh) GAA club, had nothing to do with the August 1920 arms procurement operation.
But he did own and operate the forge.
On the 29th May, 1921, Mr O'Connell and a friend were walking on the Harbour Row in Cobh, and three British 'Cameron Highlander' soldiers were walking towards them. As they were just about to pass each other, a Captain Gordon Duff, who knew that Mr O'Connell owned the forge, insisted that Mr O'Connell should salute him, but the GAA man refused the 'offer'.
With that, Captain Duff drew his revolver and shot Mr O'Donnell dead.
IRA Officer Michael Leahy stated later that Mr O'Connell.. "...had no part at all in the attack on the Camerons at the quarry. The action of the British officer was obviously done by way of getting his own back for the shame brought on his regiment by the coup brought off by the Cobh Volunteers a year previously..."
==========================
On the 29th May, 1921, as he was entering his lodgings on Anglesea Street in Dublin, a barworker, Patrick Smith, was approached by three men and told to walk with them to Dame Street. As the four men were making their way there, one of them pulled out a revolver and shot Mr Smith dead.
No information is available on Mr Smith's political affiliations, if any.
==========================
'HATE SPEECH' LEGISLATION IN IRELAND IN 1918...
'A WANTED MAN.
Fruitless Police Search in County Kildare.
Naas Meeting and After.
'The police in County Kildare are still in search for Mr. Art O'Connor (pictured) on some charge under the Defence of the Realm Act, but up to the present have not succeeded in tracing him.
Armed with a warrant for the arrest of Mr. O’Connor, in consequence, it is said, of a speech recently delivered by him, a number of police in two motor cars were pulled up at Celbridge police barracks on Friday evening, where they remained for a considerable time. A Sinn Féin meeting was announced to be held in Celbridge that evening, and the presumption is that the police, with whom were the County Inspector and District Inspector, expected Mr. O’Connor would attend the meeting, after which the arrest could be easily effected.
Somehow word got abroad of the object of the constabulary activity, and the police not finding Mr. O’Connor in the town afterwards motored to his residence, Elm Hall, Hazelhatch. There they discovered that Mr. O'Connor was not at home, and having made a search they returned.
It is now stated that while the police were in Celbridge Mr. O'Connor visited the town, and was actually within some yards of those who were inquiring for him, but crossing the Liffey bridge, unseen by them, he reached his home, again getting away from there in a motor before the police searched.
Another Escape...
Mr. O'Connor attended a meeting at Naas, on Sunday, and delivered an address. He was received with much cheering, and, in the course of his speech, declared his allegiance to Ireland and the men who were deprived of their liberty, whose only crime was love of country, and claimed his own God-given right to existence and freedom in his own country.
During his speech several policemen were present, and Mr. Supple, County Inspector, R.I.C., happening to drive past, in a trap, pulled up on seeing Mr. O'Connor and consulted with some of his men, some of whom were observed to ride in different directions in bicycles.
Meanwhile, a double file of Volunteers lined up from the rear of the platform to Church lane, adjoining, and when Mr. O’Connor had finished speaking, and while great cheering again broke out, he stepped off the platform, and, accompanied by half a dozen young men, passed through the file of Volunteers, and walked up the laneway. Here he was awaited by some others, who, it is presumed, conveyed him elsewhere, but he was traced no further.
Searching in Vain...
Meanwhile a diversion was caused by a rush towards the corner of the Protestant Church adjoining, and here an impenetrable screen of men with bicycles opposed a number of policemen who believed that their quarry was behind. Excitement rose high, but no conflict occurred, and a few minutes later found the police search in vain for their man...'
From 'The Freeman's Journal' newspaper, 29th May 1918 ; 'Hate Speech' legislation...
'AN OLD AND UNFAIR CRITICISM...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
While it is one thing to disagree with a person's point of view, and I usually disagree with Aknefton's, yet it is quite another thing to find such a conservative writer historically inaccurate.
It places futher reading of this commentator's work under suspicion, though I do not question that the statement was made in good faith.
To answer it we have only to quote Sceilg's words in 'Stepping Stones', dealing with 1925 and 1926 -
"In accordance with a resolution from the Rathmines Cumann, calling on the Executive Committee to formulate within three months a national, economic and cultural programme, the Standing Committee instantly selected a sub-committee, Father O'Flanagan being Chairman.
I, Secretary, to draft a national programme.
We worked at it assiduously, but Mr de Valera never once showed the slightest interest in it..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (29TH MAY) 140 YEARS AGO : A "MISUNDERSTANDING" OCCURS BETWEEN OSCAR AND CONSTANCE!
- Oscar Wilde (pictured, with his wife, Constance Lloyd) was born on the 16th of October, 1854, into a middle-class family who lived at Westland Row in Dublin : his father, 'Sir' William Wilde, was a doctor and his mother, who was known to be 'unconventional' for the times that were in it - Jane Francesca Agnes (née Elgee aka 'Lady' Wilde ['Speranza of The Nation']) - was a poet who mixed in artistic and intellectual circles, and was left-leaning in her political beliefs.
The child was christened 'Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde' : Oscar Wilde.
Oscar was educated in Trinity College in Dublin and then in Magdalen College in Oxford, England, and won a 'double-first' in 'Mods' (one of the hardest examinations ever devised!) and the Newdigate Prize for Poetry but, nonetheless, had to revert to lecturing and freelancing for periodicals to make a living.
However, he persevered and, in his mid-30's, made a name for himself with 'The Happy Prince', followed three years later with 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' and, in that same year, 'A House of Pomegranates'.
He then took the world by storm and ensured for himself a place at the top table of literary giants with his works 'Lady Windermere's Fan', 'A Woman of No Importance', 'An Ideal Husband' and 'The Importance of being Earnest'.
But 'life' intervened - being, as Oscar Wilde was, a queer man in the Victorian era brought with it even more dangers than for a heterosexual who 'played the field' : his affair with (and letters to) his boyfriend led to him serving two years in prison, after which he wrote 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' -
"Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel ;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel."
('The Ballad of Reading Gaol', by Oscar Wilde, written after his release from Reading prison on the 19th May 1897, at 43 years of age)
He then went into exile and died, three years later, in Paris, on the 30th November 1900 ; he was then sixteen years married to Constance Lloyd (they had that "misunderstanding" on the 29th May, 1884 - 140 years ago, on this date) and, while they were on 'good terms', their marriage was a strained one...
SO, FAREWELL THEN, CELTIC TIGER....
It had to happen, sooner or later.
Most of the pundits and economists were too busy singing the Celtic Tiger's praises to notice, but a few critical observers worried all along about the weaknesses of a boom economy that depended so much on a few companies from one place - the United States.
By Denis O'Hearn.
From 'Magill' Annual 2002.
Even they mostly provided routine things like packaging and printed materials.
If we account for the fact that two-thirds of 'local purchases' in the electronics sector consisted of one foreign company buying parts from another, then TNC's were buying a substantially smaller share of their supplies from Irish firms as the 'Celtic Tiger' developed.
If the idea that foreign companies are 'rooted' in Ireland is a myth then the 'Celtic Tiger' growth strategy has always been vulnerable and, possibly, unsustainable.
For most Irish people, however, the main immediate worry is not what happens to Gateway or Dell ; rather, the main worry is what happens to services and construction, where the jobs were created...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (29TH MAY) 226 YEARS AGO : COMMUNIQUÉ RE FATHER MURPHY OF BOOLAVOGUE ISSUED.
At that time, students for the priesthood were ordained before they went to study at colleges in continental Europe, as seminaries were still forbidden by penal laws in Ireland. John Murphy was ordained by Bishop Sweetman of Ferns before leaving to study at a Dominican college in Seville in southern Spain in 1780. Sweetman was an ardent nationalist who had once been imprisoned in Dublin Castle on a charge of gunrunning.
Returning home five years later, Fr. Murphy was made curate in Kilcormuck, better known as Boolavogue, where he had a thatched chapel. Catholic churches were forbidden in some Wexford parishes by local landlords. He lodged with a tenant farmer and travelled round the parish on horseback. Bishop Sweetman was meanwhile succeeded by Dr. James Caulfield, who held very different political views. He stated - "Loyalty to the good gracious King George III ; submission to His Majesty’s government ; and observance of the laws are to be a religious and indispensable duty to every Catholic."
The country was then under martial law, which was ruthlessly enforced by the army with the help of two new armed auxiliary forces, militia and yeomen. Both imposed a reign of terror on the people. On 26 May, twenty-eight local men were taken into Carnew and shot dead by the yeoman. When Fr. Murphy and his people heard this and also learned that the yeomen planned a raid on Boolavogue, they decided to resist. Armed with one gun and a few pikes, he and about thirty local men intercepted the yeomen, led by a Lieut. Bookey, as they began burning the houses in Boolavogue. When Bookey and another yeoman were killed, the rest fled. The Wexford Rising had begun..." (from here.)
On the 29th May, 1798 - 226 years ago on this date - a terse communiqué was issued from Dublin Castle confirming the rumours that had swept the city a day earlier ; for the first time in the rebellion, a detachment of British soldiers - in this case over 100 men of the North Cork Militia - had been cut to pieces in an open engagement at Oulart, County Wexford, and the town itself was ablaze.
During the 1798 Rising, Wexford had 85 priests, of whom only 11 joined the rebels, including Fr Murphy of Boolavogue.
He was captured, flogged and hanged in Tullow, County Carlow, on the 2nd of July, 1798, aged in his mid-forties. He was one of the few decent priests, recognised as such by the British and dealt with accordingly by them.
'At Boolavogue as the sun was setting o'er the bright May meadows of Shelmalier
A rebel band set the heather blazing and brought the neighbors from far and near
Then Father Murphy from old Kilcormac spurred up the rock with a warning cry
"Arm, arm," he cried, "For I've come to lead you, for Ireland's freedom we'll fight or die..."
BEIR BUA...
Republicanism in history and today.
Published by the James Connolly/Tommy O'Neill Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin, The Liberties, Dublin.
August 1998.
('1169' comment - 'Beir Bua' translates as 'Grasp Victory' in the English language.)
ROBERT EMMET AND THE IRELAND OF TODAY...
"I think I can speak for the young men of the Volunteers.
So far, they have no programme beyond learning the trade of arms ; a trade which no man of Ireland could learn for over a hundred years past unless he took the English shilling.
It is a good programme ; and we may almost commit the future of Ireland to the keeping of the Volunteers.
I think I can speak for a younger generation still : for some of the young men that are entering the National University, for my own pupils at St. Enda's College, for the boys of the Fianna Eireann.
To the grey-haired men whom I see on this platform, John Devoy and Richard Burke, I bring, then, this message from Ireland that their seed-sowing of forty years ago has not been without its harvest, that there are young men and little boys in Ireland to-day who remember what they taught and who, with God's blessing, will one day take —or make - an opportunity of putting their teaching into practice..."
(MORE LATER.)
FROM 29th MAY 2019 - A FEW WORDS WE WROTE ABOUT MICHAEL DAVITT...
MICHAEL DAVITT TV PROGRAMME, TG4, 9.30PM, WEDNESDAY 29TH MAY 2019.
Martin's wife, Sabina, and their five children, were given temporary accommodation by the local priest in Straide. The family were eventually reunited, in England, where young Michael attended school for a few years. His family were struggling, financially, so he obtained work, aged 9, as a labourer (he told his boss he was 13 years old and got the job - working from 6am to 6pm, with a ninty-minute break and a wage of 2s.6d a week) but within weeks he had secured a 'better' job, operating a spinning machine but, at only 11 years of age, his right arm got entangled in the machinery and had to be amputated.
There was no compensation offered, and no more work, either, for a one-armed machine operator, but he eventually managed to get a job helping the local postmaster. He was sixteen years young at that time, and was curious about his Irish roots and wanted to know more - he learned all he could about Irish history and, at 19 years young, joined the Fenian movement in England. Two years afterwards he became the organising secretary for northern England and Scotland for that organisation and, at 25 years of age, he was arrested in Paddington Station in London after the British had uncovered an IRB operation to import arms. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, on a 'hard labour' ticket, and served seven years in Dartmoor Prison in horrific conditions before being released in 1877, at the age of 31, on December 19th.
Almost immediately, he took on the position as a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB and returned to Ireland in January 1878, to a hero's welcome. At the Castlebar meeting he spoke about the need "...to bring out a reduction of rack-rents..to facilitate the obtaining of the ownership of the soil by the occupiers...the object of the League can be best attained by promoting organisation among the tenant-farmers ; by defending those who may be threatened with eviction for refusing to pay unjust rents ; by facilitating the working of the Bright clauses of the Irish Land Act during the winter ; and by obtaining such reforms in the laws relating to land as will enable every tenant to become owner of his holding by paying a fair rent for a limited number of years..."
The new organisation realised that they would be well advised to seek support from outside of Ireland and, under the slogan 'The Land for the People', Michael Davitt toured America, being introduced in his activities there by John Devoy and, although he did not have official support from the Fenian leadership (some of whom were neutral towards him while others were suspicious and/or hostile of and to him) he obtained constant media attention and secured good support for the objectives of the Land League.
Michael Davitt died at 60 years of age in Elphis Hospital in Dublin on the 30th of May 1906, from blood poisoning - he had a tooth extracted and contracted septicaemia from the operation. His body was taken to the Carmelite Friary in Clarendon Street, Dublin, then by train to Foxford in Mayo and he was buried in Straide Abbey, near where he was born.
'Michael Davitt - Radacach : The story of the land activist'. (...write-up here.)
Thanks for the visit, and for reading!
Sharon and the team.
