A LESS-THAN-USELESS FAILED INSTITUTION.
(No, not Leinster House - that it is the above goes without saying!)
We refer to the so-called 'League of Nations' organisation which , on this date in 1923 - 11th September - opened its doors on 'Day 1' of having somehow officially announced the 'birth of a new nation' - Ireland, all 26 of its 32 Counties, that is!
The new entity (!) was, unbelievably, allowed membership of that August body (!) as "a nation".
This despite the fact that the application was endorsed by a (Free State) political administration which was in turmoil and had only just 'officially' emerged from a war with its neighbour, Britain, the effects of which were still being felt in the country as a whole and, indeed, are still being felt to this day, as the issue remains unresolved.
The 'main man' at the time, in this then war-torn State, William T. Cosgrave - a republican-poacher-turned-Free State-gamekeeper - was delighted that the Free State was 'allowed' to join the then four year-old 'League', which was considered by both the home-grown and foreign political 'Establishment' as a 'sacred circle'.
The British representative in that failed grouping, amongst others, gave what was described at the time as an "..eloquent speech...a spontaneous manifestation of good-will toward Ireland (sic) (in which) felicitations were extended...(to the new member)..."
And why wouldn't Westminster (and its 'friends' in Ireland and abroad at the time) welcome an acknowledgement by Cosgrave and his ilk that, to all intent and purpose, they agreed with Westminster that the part of Ireland handed back to 'the Irish' was indeed considered to be a 'nation', as it helped propagate the lie that the (still occupied) six north-eastern counties of Ireland were "part of the Empire".
Mr Cosgrave died 48 years ago but the political fault-line he so ably gave succor to in 1923 (and before and after that year) lives on after him.
Nothing to be proud of.
On the 11th September, 1919, a Mr George Frederick Ernest Albert (aka 'King George V of England', pictured) asked his 'Lord Privy Seal of England', a Mr Bonar Law, what measures the British government were taking to protect... "..the lives of unoffending people in Ireland, and what measures were to be brought into parliament for the government of the country..?"
The "unoffending people" in Ireland were, no doubt, those who weren't fighting against the savage hordes unleashed on them by Mr Albert and the political savage hordes he surrounded himself with.
Anyway - the poor man wasn't in the best of health, and he died, at 70 years of age, on the 20th January, 1936, in London, from a purposely-administered drug overdose.
Whether his death was an act of euthanasia, medically assisted suicide or murder, he should have been more concerned about his own governance than that of a country foreign to him...
==========================
On the 11th September, 1919, a British Army soldier attached to the 1st Battalion of the North Staffordshire Regiment, a Mr Samuel Morley (34, 'Service Number 46695'), killed himself in the Curragh, in County Kildare.
He is buried in Stoke-on-Trent (Hartshill) Cemetery, in England.
==========================
On the night of the 11th September, 1919, the IRA raided the home of Mrs Florence Watt-Smyth, in Castlewarden, County Kildare, and took away any arms and munitions they found there.
A lineage between the woman of the house and a Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Watt-Smyth, from Larne, in County Antrim, seems possible, and would explain why the rebels were convinced that weapons were in the house.
If our family connections are accurate, the couple had a two-year-old child, James, at the time of the raid, who was born in Naas, County Kildare, and who followed his father into a life in the British Army.
When James was 27 years of age he was stationed in Burma (Staff Captain in the 'Special Operations Executive Force 136') and is listed as 'KIA, February 1945', and is buried in Taukkyan War Cemetery, in Burma ('Myanmar').
==========================
WHY DOESN'T THE CENSUS ADDRESS ETHNICITY...?
By Niina Hepojoki.
From 'Magill' Magazine, March 2002.
It has been suggested that James Joyce was one of the first artists ever to imagine a world without foreigners.
In his essay 'Strangers in Their Own Country', Professor Declan Kiberd defines this Joycean world as... "..one possible once men and women begin to accept the foreigner in the self* and the necessarily fictive nature** of all nationalisms, which are open to endless negotiations."***
('1169' comment -* There is no "foreigner in the self" [except, perhaps, for those that are 'Woke'] as far as any indigenous people should be concerned ; we are what we are, and shouldn't seek to change our very DNA to suit anybody.
** - Nationalism is not of a "fictive nature" ; rather it is of a factual narrative and nature.
*** - "endless negotiations" ie 'those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others...' ; the very 'building blocks' of a 'Woke' structure!)
In September 1999, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) piloted a version of a question which mixed together nationality and ethnic origins.
This pilot came out of a public consultative process, which resulted in a government memorandum from the CSO recommending that the question be included in the 2001 census.
However, none of the consulted bodies were happy about the wording of the question.
The government decided against the inclusion of ethnicity, quoting, for instance, "the sensitivity of the issue" as one of the reasons. Sources involved in the pilot say that ethnicity as a question in the census form remains a "controversial issue" ; some fears have also been expressed about the possibility that the census could be hijacked*...
(* Not "hijacked", but availed of, to point out that, then - 2002 - the State was being filled-up with foreigners.
Now - 2024 - we're full. And have been for over a decade, at least.)
(MORE LATER.)
John Toner was born on the Newtownards Road in Belfast in 1870 and, when he was 20 years of age, he got a job in the Belfast shipyards but, in his late 40's, now living in Cable Street in the city, had to give it up for health reasons - it was tough, noisy industrial work, and he had damaged his hearing (tinnitus?) from the constant din.
He still needed to earn a living and was trying to do so as a carter and, on the evening of the 11th September, 1920, as he was on his way home from his rounds, he was shot dead by a British Army soldier.
The soldier later stated that John Toner was in breach of the curfew and refused to stop when shouted at to do so, so he shot him.
Mr Toner was practically deaf.
The poor man is buried in Dundonald Cemetery, in Belfast ('Grave Number E6 152').
==========================
ONE-ARMED BANDIT...
On the 11th September, 1920, at least four men in disguise entered the yard of Kilkenny Post Office, attacked a Post Office driver, beat him up, bound and gagged other employees and stole eleven full bags of post.
The raiding of Post Offices and removing postbags was one of the ways that the IRA gathered intelligence so, naturally, they were blamed for the raid, even though they denied it.
On the night of the 10th October, what was said to be the same gang of men drove, in a hired car, to the home of a Mr John Power, in Thomastown, County Kilkenny, who was the manager of a creamery business and, at about 2am, banged on his halldoor, shouting "Come down and open the door immediately. We are the Black and Tans..!"
On opening the door, Mr Power was bundled back inside, all house lights were turned off and his safe was robbed of about £75, a fortune in those days - the daily pay of a Private in the British Army at that time was about two shillings, and there were 20 shillings in one pound : about 3 years wages for a British Army soldier was taken in that house raid.
However, it is believed that Mr Power, in his report about the robbery, wrote that one of the raiders had no left arm, a description that fitted one of the 11th September Post Office raiders.
Newspaper reports had recorded the recent dismissal of a one-armed British Army Auxiliary Major, a Mr Ewen Cameron Bruce (pictured) for 'conduct unbecoming an officer' - the man was a thug, and would apparently do anything for money.
An investigation revealed that British Army Auxiliary Major Ewen Cameron Bruce and his nephew, Temporary Cadet Alan Thomas Bruce, had recently hired a car and picked up two other men - a Lieutenant Cooper and a Sergeant Blake of the British Army Devonshire Regiment - and the four men carried out both of the robberies.
All the thieves were members of the 'Auxiliary Division' of the RIC based in Woodstock House, Inistioge, in County Kilkenny, and it was discovered that the mail bags from the Post Office raid were taken back to 'A Coy' British Army base at Inistioge, where they were looted for cash and other valuables.
Incidentally, Mr Bruce, who was wounded five times in July 1917 in France at the 'Battle of Passchendaele', losing his left arm as a result, had legged it back home to England when the finger started to be pointed at him and was arrested by his own people there and returned to Ireland to stand trial ; he got away lightly, too - a one-year prison sentence, with his nephew, Temporary Cadet Alan Thomas Bruce, receiving a three-month sentence.
Also, on the same date (11th September 1920) that Mr Bruce and his fellow bandits were going to or coming from the Post Office that they robbed, the Newbridge and Athgarvan Companies of the 7th Brigade Kildare IRA were out and about themselves, raiding several venues where they knew arms and munitions could be had.
Different priorities...
"Sir,
The desire you express on the part of the British Government to end the centuries of conflict between the peoples of these two islands, and to establish relations of neighbourly harmony, is the genuine desire of the people of Ireland.
I have consulted with my colleagues and secured the views of the representatives of the minority of our Nation in regard to the invitation you have sent me.
In reply, I desire to say that I am ready to meet and discuss with you on what bases such a Conference as that proposed can reasonably hope to achieve the object desired.
I am, Sir,
Faithfully yours,
Eamon de Valera."
- the text of a letter sent from a Mr Éamon de Valera, in the Mansion House, Dublin, to a Mr David Lloyd George, in London, on the 8th July, 1921.
It was known at the time that, as part of their 'peace' offering, the British were intending to partition Ireland, an intention which was focussing the minds of many people, and groups, in Ireland.
On the 14th July, the meeting was held in London and, although no actual agreement was recorded as having being made, Mr Lloyd George made it clear that neither a republic nor independence for all 32 counties of Ireland was on the table, adding that he (Mr Lloyd George)could "...put a soldier in Ireland for every man, woman and child in it.." if the IRA did not immediately agree to stop fighting.
Way to 'negotiate', Mr George ; de Valera wanted an Ireland entirely separated, politically and militarily, from Britain, while the British insisted that loyalty to their 'King' and some form of 'association' must remain.
Meanwhile, at home, in August, Mr de Valera secured political approval to change the 1919 Dáil Constitution to 'upgrade' his official office from 'Prime Minister/Chairman of the Cabinet' to the title of 'President of the Republic' and, in his 'new' position, on the 11th September, he received a delegation from County Down, described as a 'joint Nationalist-Sinn Féin delegation', who expressed misgivings in relation to the country being partitioned, as did similar delegations he met with from Derry, Antrim, Belfast and the Glens.
'For' and 'against' opinions were expressed, and one speaker, an elected councillor, a Mr James Baird (a 'Rotten Prod'!), opined that... "...partition would place power in the hands of those responsible for the pogroms.."
And partition did just that - 'placed power in the hands' of Westminster and its puppet/Vichy 'parliament' in that part of Ireland, the Stormont Administration.
==========================
On the 11th September, 1921, Michael Collins released figures showing that 1,700 Irish republicans were still interned by the British and another 1,500 were separately serving prison sentences (including 40 women)
.
Within a few months, Mr Collins and his Stater colleagues and comrades were doing the same, and worse, to Irish republicans (...including women).
==========================
THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE.
Emigration from Ireland to the United States continued throughout the 1990's, although the reasons were no longer so bluntly economic.
Now, in the wake of September 11th, the US authorities have been granted increased powers to investigate legal status, and Irish illegal emigrants are more vulnerable than ever before.
By Mairead Carey.
From 'Magill Annual', 2002.
The crackdown and its consequences ; a prisoner serving a life sentence in upstate New York left Ireland with his family at the age of two. Seventeen years ago he was convicted of murder and is currently serving out the final days of his sentence.
He is due out on parole in the coming days, and will be released into the custody of the 'Immigration And Naturalisation Service' (INS) and, because his family never took citizenship, he will be immediately deported to Ireland.
As far as the American authorities are concerned, he is Irish, even though he has spent 43 of his 45 years in the US.
There are some in the US who believe that this case is a measure of things to come ; in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11th, there is a growing intolerance to the undocumented.
Mohamed Atta was an illegal, and so were the other 17 hijackers.
A crackdown is being called for, and the thousands of Irish who are living in the US illegally will not be immune from any new measures brought in...
(MORE LATER.)
Eoin O’Duffy, left in pic, inspects a guard of honour in 1933 ; 'He was an IRA man, a supporter of the Treaty and of the Irish Free State, a fascist and...a defender of democracy..' (!)
On the 11th September, 1922, Free State Army General Eoin O'Duffy was appointed the first Commissioner of the new Free State 'Civic Guard' which, in August 1923, was renamed as the 'Garda Síochána na hÉireann' and from 1925 referred to as 'An Garda Síochána'.
Mr O'Duffy must have been glad that he and his people had no jurisdiction in our six north-eastern counties because, on the same date that he was appointed, the 'Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1922' received 'Royal Assent' ie it came into force which, among other civil misdeeds, abolished proportional representation in local government elections and required a 'Declaration of Allegiance' from persons elected to, or employed by, local political authorities.
And we'd take an educated guess here and suggest that one of the first cases to be investigated by Mr O'Duffy and his colleagues could have been to find out who it was that fired a shot at the FSA Bishop's car from the ruins at Jigginstown Castle in Naas, County Kildare, as it drove past, on the 11th September (1922) : the Catholic Church leadership was about to annouce that those who shoulder weapons against the Free Staters were to be banned from the Church Sacraments.
The Jigginstown Castle sniper gave them their answer...
==========================
A Mr Denis Whelan, a labourer, from the Dublin Road, Maudlins, Naas, in County Kildare, was 'arrested and detained' by Free State soldiers on the 11th September, 1922 ; there is no record of what happened to Mr Whelan, or who he was, but a man by that name, and from Maudlins, was known to be an IRA Volunteer with the 1st Battalion, 7th Brigade of the 1st Eastern Division of the IRA, and he would have been known in the Kill, Kilteel, Rathmore and Straffan areas.
==========================
"They (the IRA) have now adopted a type of warfare, of which they have years of experience.
They now operate over territory which they know.
They are now better armed and better trained than they were against the British.
In short, they* have placed me and my troops in the same position as the British were a little over a year ago..."
- Free State Army Major General James Emmet Dalton (pictured), in a letter he sent on the 11th September, 1922, from Cork, to his Commander-in-Chief, Michael Collins, both of whom were republican-gamekeepers-turned-Free State-poachers.
* - It wasn't the IRA who placed the FSA in that position ; they did that to themselves.
==========================
On the 11th September, 1922, comment was raised in Leinster House in relation to their army having attacked the IRA rebels in the Four Courts in Dublin, on the 28th June.
Their 'Minister for Justice', a Mr Kevin O'Higgins (pictured), declared -
"We had very good reason to believe that we anticipated by a couple of hours the creation of conditions under which this Parliament never would have met – conditions that would have brought back the British power – horse, foot, artillery and the Navy – in hostile relations to this country..."
Ironic, considering that it was Mr O'Higgins and his political and military colleagues, supported by their owners in Westminster, who posed the biggest threat to Ireland, and still do.
Also, before they went home after their days work on the 11th, the members said a few words about the then on-going strike by Post Office workers and a vote was held which showed that the majority of those politicians were against recognising the right of public servants to strike.
"Hostile relations" indeed.
The next day (12th September), the 'President of the Executive Council' of the Free State, a Mr William Thomas Cosgrave (pictured) stated -
"The action taken was not for the mere formula of the supremacy of parliament, but a formula for the security of the people, of the security of their lives, and the value of their money in the country..."
The only people that have ever had "security" in this State, and that have got "value" from it, are the State 'Establishment', not the ordinary people. In fact, it was, and is, that same 'Establishment' that have, and are, destroying whatever hope the ordinary people have for 'security and value'.
After Mr Cosgrave finished his spiel, those present in Leinster House held a vote on the motion 'That the Dáil (sic) approves of the action that the Government has taken and is taking to assert and vindicate the authority of this House...' and, not surprising, that motion is passed by 54 votes to 15, proving that (political) contortionists can clap themselves on the back.
==========================
In a letter he sent to Mary MacSwiney on the 11th September, 1922, Mr Éamon de Valera stated -
"Reason rather than faith has been my master.
For the sake of the cause I allowed myself to be put into a position which it is impossible for one of my outlook and personal bias to fill with effect for the party.
Every instinct of mine would indicate that I was meant to a dyed-in-the-wool Tory, or even a Bishop, rather than the leader of a revolution..."
Would have been better all around, Mr de Valera, had you followed your instincts...
==========================
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.)
REPUBLICANS AND THE STATE :
In a statement on July 25th, 1987, Thomas Maguire wrote -
"I refer to my statement, dated 22nd day of October, 1986, and I speak again, as the sole surviving Teachta Dála of the Second Dáil Éireann, and the sole surviving member of the Executive of the Second Dáil.
In that statement, I referred to my recognition in December, 1969, of the Provisional Army Council of the IRA, which had remained true to the Irish Republic, as the lawful Army of the Thirty-Two-County Irish Republic.
I also stated on 22nd October, 1986, that I did not recognise the legitimacy of an Army Council, styling itself 'the Council of the Irish Republican Army', which lent support to any person or organisation styling itself Sinn Féin, and prepared to enter the partition parliament of Leinster House.
I referred, as well, to the IRA Convention, which had taken place shortly before the 22nd October, 1986. The Executive of the IRA had, by a majority, oppopsed entering Leinster House..."
(MORE LATER.)
On the 11th September, 1923, 'The London Times' newspaper wrote that 'Article 12' of the Treaty would result in a "considerable modification of the present boundary", a kite-flying exercise in support of other pro-British loyalists who were opposed to Westminster abandoning them, as they saw it, by the issue of partitioning Ulster ie for maintaining jurisdictional control over only six of Ulster's nine counties.
'Article 12' stated -
'If before the expiration of the said month, an address is presented to His Majesty by both Houses of the Parliament of Northern Ireland to that effect, the powers of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland, and the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act., 1920 (including those relating to the Council of Ireland) shall, so far as they relate to Northern Ireland continue to be of full force and effect, and this instrument shall have effect subject to the necessary modifications.
Provided that if such an address is so presented a Commission consisting of three Persons, one to be appointed by the Government of the Irish Free State, one to be appointed by the Government of Northern Ireland and one who shall be Chairman to be appointed by the British Government shall determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland, and for the purposes of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and of this instrument, the boundary of Northern Ireland shall be such as may be determined by such Commission.'
The reason the Free Staters 'reluctantly accepted' both of those paragraphs was because of the wording "...in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland.." which, they professed to believe, meant that they could eventually vote the Six Counties out of existence!
This talking shop/kicker-of-cans-down-the-road commission continued to talk and kick cans until November 1925, when it announced it had completed its work and then released its final report, to great acclaim. Not.
Incidentally, on this date - the 11th September - in 1925, the Chairman of the Boundary Commission, Mr Justice Richard Feetham (a [pro-British] South African Supreme Court judge) issued a 'Chairman's Memorandum' in which he outlined what was described as "a very restrictive view of the Commission's work under Article 12.." ie 'we won't be changing it, never mind tweaking it. Take it as is or leave it...'
The Staters took it, and announced it as a victory!
We have wrote about that can-kicking enterprise before, and no doubt will refer to it in the future.
==========================
Thanks for the visit, and for reading!
Sharon and the team.
