On the 12th September, 1919, a number of Irish organisations were 'outlawed' by Westminster.
Dáil Éireann, Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and the Gaelic League were all deemed by the British to be "dangerous organisations/assemblies" and the British Army and Westminster's 'police force' in Ireland, the RIC, were instructed to break-up meetings of those groups and 'arrest' those in attendance.
A network of about 80 venues was established in Dublin and throughout the rest of the country for use by the 'banned' organisations in which to conduct their business and it was in one of those venues, the Mansion House, in Dublin, that, on the 16th October (1919) , at midnight, the Sinn Féin organisation moved into to hold its Ard Fheis.
About 500 delegates attended and the full Clár (agenda) was gone through including, no doubt, several motions condemning the British for having 'banned' them!
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'WHY ARE THE DEAF BEING EXCLUDED FROM THE COMPENSATION SCHEME FOR ABUSED CHILDREN?'
Amid the considerable controversy about the deal struck between the Catholic Church and the State over compensation to victims of institutional child abuse, little attention has been focused on the proposed exclusion from the compensation scheme of a number of institutions run by the church where abuse clearly took place.
By John Cradden.
From 'Magill' magazine, March 2002.
The government's decision to pay 75% of a total compensation payout - that could amount to around €500 million - has been strongly criticised by groups representing victims of abuse.
They say that the Church has been let off too lightly over its complicity in the abuse that wrecked the lives of so many of those who attended Catholic institutions as children.
Yet such criticisms must arguably take second place to the likely exclusion from the compensation scheme of children with disabilities who ended up in orthopaedic hospitals and in schools for deaf and blind children.
Among those groups that have been loudest in their condemnation of this exclusion is the 'Irish Deaf Society', which has represented a number of survivors of abuse in schools for the deaf who told of systemic abuse by members of the religious orders who ran them...
(MORE LATER.)
In October, 1920, after a Catholic man was forcibly evicted from his home in the Marrowbone area of North Belfast, street riots ensued between loyalists and the British Army and nationalists and republicans.
Two men - a Mr John Gibson (55), of Byron Place, and a Mr William L Mitchell (25), of 20 Downing Street - were shot dead, and another man, a Mr Matthew McMaster (34), from Conlig Street, was run over by a British Army armoured car.
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A Catholic Bishop on the fence, politically, in Ireland in the 1900's -
"Home Government for all Ireland, with complete fscal autonomy, with adequate safeguards for minorities and guarantees that the race for positions and appointments shall go to the fttest ; this is the least that the gallant defenders of small peoples ought to grant to long-sufering Ireland..." - the words of 'The Most Reverend' Doctor Patrick Morrisroe, Bishop of Achonry (pictured), in January 1917.
On the 16th October, 1920, in connection with the on-going freedom struggle in this country, the good Bishop declared that "bad government" (by Westminster) was primarily responsible but he also said that the IRA had fostered "during the latter years ideals clearly impossible of attainment...".
Previously, Mr Morrisroe had described the 1916 Rising as.. "..a domestic tragedy, a hapless enterprise, an unfortunate occurrence.." , and stated.. "...to cast aside obedience, and by popular violence to incite to revolt, is therefore treason, not against man only, but against God.."
Speaking about Irish rebels, he sought to advise them that.. "...there is a law of the Church forbidding the Sacraments to persons who belong to organisations that plot or conspire against legitimately constituted authority, either publicly or privately, either by oath or without personal rights..." and then, struggling to secure a footing on the fence he had placed himself on, he asked that nothing he said should be taken.. "...to imply that we must be satisfed with the existing situation or that we are not to endeavour to secure our liberty.."
Mr Morrisroe also declared that.. "...they who rule should rule with even-handed justice, not as masters, but rather as fathers, for the rule of God over man is most just, and is tempered always with a father's kindness. Government should, moreover, be administered for the well-being of the citizens..."
A 'den of thieves', whether they be situated in Westminster or any other 'temple', should be cleansed...
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On the 16th October, 1920, British Army Auxiliaries forced entry into the home of the Feeney family in Corofin, in County Galway, and the four sons were taken outside.
Two of them were stripped by the Auxies and flogged and one was beaten over the head with rifle butts and punched repeatedly, then all three were kicked severely while on the ground.
Later that same night, a Corofin publican, a Mr John Raftery (pub pictured), was also attacked by the same gang ; we mentioned these attacks last week, 9th October.
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In October, 1920, A Mr Patrick Moylett (pictured, top), an Irish republican operative/businessman/IRB member and arms procurer for the IRA, was chatting to a Mr Herbert AL Fisher (the Minister of Education in the British cabinet), at an informal meeting facilitated by a Mr John Steele (pictured, above), the London correspondent of 'The Chicago Tribune' newspaper.
After that meeting, Mr Moylett made arrangements to meet with Mr Arthur Griffith, the acting president of Dáil Éireann at that time, and told him that, as far as he was concerned, Westminster was unofficially inquiring - 'fishing' - about the possibility of a settlement between themselves and the IRA.
For our own part here on the blog, we note that a 'Sir' Basil Home Thomson, spymaster, (British) colonial administrator, prison governor and director of intelligence at Scotland Yard, had been busy for about six months prior to the above-mentioned meeting distributing selectively leaked documents gathered by British intelligence to "prepare the ground for negotiation with IRA leaders...".
The outcome of those particular 'negotiations', when they happened, favoured 'the spymasters, colonial administrators, prison governors and directors of intelligence at Scotland Yard' more so than they did the Irish.
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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.
City officials arrived the following Friday and began asking questions of the survivors.
"I upped and left. I called for someone I knew to meet me and we made our way out of the hospital."
He stayed with a friend, whose sister-in-law was a nurse and looked after his injuries.
"Only for her I would have been in an awful state. It will never leave me, but I have to learn to cope with it. I was lucky to get out alive."
Whatever difficulties he had before September 11th, he is even more vulnerable now.
Some of the illegals from the North had republican backgrounds, and with the new discretionary powers being invested in the FBI and police, they may find it particularly difficult to remain below the radar of the State.
The crackdown will affect employers too, especially in the construction business - they will have no choice but to be more careful in future about employing undocumented workers...
(MORE LATER.)
"Business people must make their choice of the custom of their neighbours or the cowardly ruffians of the RIC. A sensible businessman will be able to judge which pays the best in the long run..."
- IRA recommendation to the business people who continued to do business with members of the Crown Forces, 1920's.
On the 16th October, 1921, a 'Sheriff's Officer' (a bill server for the [British] judical system in Ireland) in Raphoe, in County Donegal, a Mr Bernard Mailey, who had been advised by local republicans that his work on behalf of the Crown was not appreciated by the IRA, was on his way home from Mass when he was taken off the street by the latter.
Mr Mailey, who acknowledged that he was "the only sheriff’s officer in the county", not only served 'legal documents' on his neighbours and on anyone else that he was instructed to, also appeared in court to give evidence against the served parties.
The IRA shot him dead.
One of his 'sheriff office' colleagues, a Mr George Frend (described by neighbours as "a man of heroic consistency ; one of the most uncompromising and staunchest supporters of the British Government in Ireland..") was out and about on the 28th December 1920, re-establishing a petty sessions court in Moneygall, in County Offaly, when he was shot by the IRA.
He died from his wounds a few days later.
Mr Frend had acted against a number of tenants for refusal to pay rent and had also involved himself in a local land dispute.
Anyway - Mr Mailey's wife claimed compensation from the 'Irish Grants Committee', stating that her health "was completely shattered by the murder of her husband following a long period of apprehension from day to day that the threats frequently made would end as they did..."
But, really, when your job entails delivering 'legal' threats on behalf of a disputed 'Empire...'
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Having managed to obtain Khaki-type uniforms from a friendly prison officer, two IRA men interned in Ballykinlar Camp (which, at the time, held around 1,700 republican prisoners) in County Down had decided to use them in an escape attempt.
On the 16th October, 1921, the two republican prisoners - Patrick J. Colgan (a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher), from Maynooth in County Kildare, and Maurice 'Mossie' Donegan (pictured, aka 'Thomas Fitzpatrick') from Cork, placed in-house made 'dummies' in their beds, donned the 'British Army khaki uniforms' over their own clothes, mingled beside their captors and managed to leave the Camp.
But both men were recaptured in a car the next day on the road between Drogheda and Dublin (at a joint BA and RIC road checkpoint) and were taken to a British Army Barracks in Drogheda and, from there, were transported back to Ballykinlar Internment Camp where they were kept in solitary confinement for six weeks.
They were then taken to Belfast, court-martialled by the British and sentenced to six months hard labour in Belfast's Crumlin Road Gaol.
'Mossie', for one, knew that that was about the only use that the enemy's uniform could be put to...
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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 :
One of the predecessor organisations of Sinn Féin, the Dungannon Club, wrote in its manifesto in 1905 -
"Can Ireland be served by men taking an oath of allegiance to England?
Can she be represented by them?
Will she consent longer to be misrepresented?
Their action today gives sanction to the fraudulent union of the two peoples, for they, proclaiming themselves representatives of the Irish people, acquisce and assist in the government of Ireland by England.
A representative Council of the whole people of Ireland can be brought into existence, a Council which would have the full sanction and approval of the governed, and which would work in their interests.
In their hands would be the real government of the country, for their decrees would be obeyed and given effect to by the people..."
(MORE LATER.)
On the 16th (and in to the 17th) of October, 1922, the IRA Executive met in a venue in the village of Poll an Teara (Poulatar) , a townland in Ballybacon, Barony, in County Tipperary.
The meeting was called to agree on the minimum terms that would be accepted in any peace negotiations with the Free Staters, to discuss the composition of an Irish Republican Government, to confirm that Éamon de Valera would be the 'President of the Republic and Chief Executive of the State' and to confirm that any military or political arrangements with Westminster or Leinster House would first have to be approved by the IRA Executive.
This was the first meeting of the IRA Executive since the attack on the Four Courts in late June (1922) except for a meeting of the eight then available members in Fermoy, County Cork, on July 15th.
Four members of the 16-strong Executive - Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Joe McKelvey and Peadar O'Donnell - were absent (and two others - Michael Kilroy and PJ Ruttledge - only arrived at the end of the proceedings), as they were being held as prisoners by the Staters, but, nonetheless, an Army Council was established, consisting of Liam Lynch, Ernie O'Malley, Liam Deasy, Tom Derrig and Frank Aiken.
A declaration calling for the setting up of the Republican Government was agreed and signed, and the Executive agreed, unanimously, to execute all the members of Leinster House who had voted for the 'Public Safety Act', but this order was later changed to target only nine of the Stater reps and to arrest two of them.
The Executive reiterated, rightly, its opinion that the Leinster House administration was a usurpation which derived its 'authority' from the English parliament.
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In connection with the elections to be held in England later that month, a political meeting was held on the 16th October (1924) in the town of Omagh, County Tyrone, at which nationalists were urged to abstain as a 'protest vote' against the forced partition of six Irish counties.
Those in attendance demanded that a plebiscite be held to determine the wishes of the inhabitants of the then newly-enforced border area.
The general election was held on the 29th October and the 'Conservative/Tory Party' (pro-partition) won a landslide majority (413 seats), the Labour Party was reduced from 191 to 151 seats and the Liberal Party went down from 159 seats to only 40 seats.
Most nationalists boycotted the polls and the pro-partitionists quickly claimed that the results were proof that partition was acceptable!
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Thanks for the visit, and for reading - appreciated!
Sharon and the team.
