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!)
Ireland, Declan Kiberd claims, has always been multi-cultural - "eclectic, open and assimilative", to use his words.
"The historical capacity of the Irish to assimilate waves of incomers should never be underestimated*. Eight centuries ago, after all, the Normans became more Irish than the Irish themselves**."
This assimilative capacity of Ireland has, however, been under strain*** with the latest wave of incomers to this country, be they in the form of asylum seekers, aliens or people with student or work visas.
Most recently, an advertisement by Amnesty**** on racism in Cork, prompted by Deputy Noel Flynn's famous remarks claiming that "asylum seekers are spongers", got the phonelines hopping wild on RTE's Joe Duffy show...
(*Nor should it be overestimated and/or abused, as is happening here now for decades - tens upon tens of thousands of 'asylum seekers/refugees/migrants', some from as far away as England (!), are already in this State, having 'lost' their passports and other ID on the ferry over, all looking for free accomodation and keep, unable and/or unwilling to offer anything in return.// ** And, as with the invading hordes today, not all the Irish welcomed them...// *** "under strain" in 2002 ; and way past our breaking point now, 22 years later.// **** The 'Amnesty Ireland' organisation works on behalf of foreign migrants, who they depend on for their very survival, not the indigenous Irish people.)
(MORE LATER.)
On the 4th August, 1919, two RIC members - a Mr John Riordan (43), from Macroom, in County Cork, and a Mr Michael J Murphy (19), from Leitrim - were killed in an ambush by Irish Volunteers at Eighty-One Crossroads, Mount Callon, near Ennistymon, in County Clare.
The republicans were attached to the Mid-Clare Brigade, and included Martin Devitt* (who was seriously wounded in the operation), John Joe Neylon and Seamus Connolly.
Ten days later (on the 14th August) a young Na Fianna Éireann member, Francis Murphy (15), from the village of Glann, near Ennistymon, in County Clare, arrived home at about 9pm, had his supper and joined the family in reciting the Rosary at about 10.30pm.
Francis then sat in his seat, in the small kitchen, to have a quick read before going to bed when, without warning, gunshots were fired at the house and at least three of the bullets smashed one window and killed the young lad, who died in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
Rumours were then circulated that one or other of the family's neighbours fired the shots into the house in a dispute over land and/or that republicans had shot-up the house because the family were "talking too freely about republican activities" but an inquest ruled "that he was killed after a British army patrol fired shots into his home..", apparently in retaliation for the 4th August shootings.
His funeral procession was a mile long, comprising motor cars, pedestrians, men on horseback and boys wearing mourning badges, and all accompanied his body to the family burial ground at Ennistymon.
(*Volunteer Devitt was killed by the RIC on the 22nd February 1920 in the village of Inagh, County Clare. RIP.)
==========================
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.
Almost 23 per cent of the population are functionally illiterate, easily the highest level in the EU.
Ireland ranks last in the OECD in terms of investment per pupil as a proportion of per capita GNP.
It is possible that the Irish government (sic) will never again see the kind of revenues that it had in the late 1990's and, if so, it has blown a historic chance to use its spending power to improve the lives of Irish people instead of cobbling together a series of give-away budgets that favoured the rich.
Maybe the government had no choice or maybe its lack of social policies was part and parcel of the neoliberal package that was necessary to attract US companies in the first place...
(MORE LATER.)
'PATRICK LYNCH
SHOT BY THE MILITARY IN HOSPITAL
AUGUST 14th 1920, AGED 43 YEARS
ALSO BURIED HERE, SISTERS
MARY, ANNIE and ELIZABETH'.
On the 14th August, 1920, a Mr Patrick Lynch, from the village of Hospital, in County Limerick, was taken from his house by British Army soldiers and brought to a near-by green area and shot six times in the head and body.
It was said at the time that the Westminster executioners believed that he was Liam Lynch, who was 'Number One' on their 'hit list'.
And it was also said at the time that a local man, a Mr Cyril FH Brewer (26), from London, England, was involved in the killing of Mr Patrick Lynch.
On the 6th July, 1921, Mr Brewer was on his way to visit family members in Kilmallock, in Limerick, when Volunteers from the East Limerick Brigade IRA intercepted him and shot him ; he died from his wounds on the 7th.
Mr Brewer had only taken up his position in the RIC in February 1921.
The British 'War Office/National Archives' instructed that the file on Mr Brewer should not be accessible until 1950, for some reason...
==========================
One of the 'Big Houses' in Ireland, in 1920, 'Tyrone House' (pictured), a classic gothic style mansion, near the village of Ballindereen, in County Galway, built on a large estate (in the 1870's, that family claimed 15,777 acres in County Galway alone!) 'owned' by Christopher French St. George and his family, was rumoured in the vicinity to be on the verge of being repurposed (!) as a 20th Century-style 'migrant centre' - foreign men were apparently about to move in to it!
And it was indeed a 'grand' building -
'In the late Georgian style and the finest house in Ireland.
The ceilings were all painted by Italian masters and were regular works of art. The mantle pieces were all of rare Italian marble and very costly...'
The St George family were the main 'landlords' in the Ballindereen area but didn't socialise with their poorer neighbours - indeed, they insured that they kept their distance by hiring outsiders to collect their 'rents', and those outsiders were said to operate in "a heavy-handed manner".
On the 14th August, 1920, the 'Big House' was burnt to the ground and, shortly afterwards, the 'estate' was broken up and divided amongst the tenants.
Justice served, M'Lord...
==========================
A Mr John Coughlan, in his mid-to-late 40's, lived in a house on Barry's Lane in Cobh, East County Cork, with his wife and four children - one boy and three girls.
Two of his daughters were regularly seen in the company of British soldiers and he had been visited by the IRA and advised that socialising of that sort was not recommended, and that it would be for the best if it stopped.
It didn't.
On the 14th August, 1920, Mr Coughlan was arrested by the IRA and taken to a safe house in the village of Aghada, near Midleton, in Cork, which was owned by a Mrs May Higgins, where he was kept in a loft space while being questioned about the activities of his family.
A local IRA Volunteer, Michael Leahy, in a report to Ernie O'Malley, stated -
"The strangest thing about the first spy who met his death through us was that we didn't shoot him.
In Cobh we arrested this fellow, John Coughlan, for using his two daughters as prostitutes for the British, and we took him to Aghada and we wanted to (question him) for a while.
He was kept in May Higgins' house in a loft and there was a girl there. She was bringing him up his breakfast when she found him hanging to a rafter, dead..."
Four Volunteers were instructed to bury the body but, instead, they tied Mr Coughlan to an old cart axle and placed it in the sea - on the 3rd September that year his body was washed ashore at Ballybranagan Strand, eight miles south of Midleton, in Cork.
Harsh words, harsh 'burial'...and harsh times.
==========================
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 dated December 31st, 1969, Thomas Maguire said -
"An IRA convention, held in December 1969, by a majority of the delegates attending, passed a resolution removing all embargoes on political participation in parliament from the Constitution and Rules of the IRA.
The effect of the resolution is the abandonment of what is popularly termed the 'Abstentionist Policy'.
The 'Abstentionist Policy' means that republican candidates contesting parliamentary elections in Leinster House, Stormont or Westminster give pre-election pledges not to take seats in any of those parliaments.
The republican candidates seek election to the 32-county Parliament of the Irish Republic, the Republican Dáil or Dáil Éireann, to give it its official title.
The declared objective is to elect sufficient representatives to enable the 32-County Dáil Éireann to be re-assembled..."
(MORE LATER.)
Before he returned to Africa in mid-1921, a Mr Jan Christian Smuts (pictured), a one-time Boer general-turned-South African 'statesman and British diplomat' had spoken to Lloyd George and Éamon de Valera about the 'Irish problem', and had written to both men about that subject matter, too.
On the 14th August, 1921, one of the letters from Mr Smuts to Mr de Valera was 'leaked' (!) to the media.
The 'leaked' letter was one in which Mr Smuts had strongly advised Mr de Valera to accept the 'Dominion Status' which was offered by the British to the Irish (on July 20th).
The letter highlighted only the alleged beneficial offerings (!) of accepting such a status, ignoring the down-side and restrictions of it and, indeed, the fact that the letter was released for public consumption (ie propaganda) at all prompted one Free State-minded politician, Timothy Michael Healy, to declare -
"To publish in advance of the text of the Cabinet offer and thereby give the world a false and unwarranted idea of its generosity, was sheer mischief...sharp practice.."
A pro-British historian, a Mr David George Boyce, was later to opine (wrongly, in our opinion)-
"That offer (of Dominion Status) had been wrung from the (British) government only at the last moment and after a protracted and bitter struggle which caused a revolt of the British conscience ; but once it was made, and made publicly, British public opinion decided that its leaders had adequately recompensed the Irish : justice had not only been done, it had been seen to be done.."
Mr Lloyd George later admitted that the decision to release the letter was "...because of the importance of ranging on the side of our proposals all sane opinion, not merely in this country and in Ireland, but throughout the whole world.."
Nothing "sane" about British imperialism, and especially not in connection with Ireland.
==========================
A British Army Private, a Mr M. Moody, who was attached to their 'Royal Welsh Fusiliers' regiment, was "accidentally shot dead in the 'New Barracks' in Limerick City" on the 14th August 1921. No more information on the incident or on Mr Moody is available.
==========================
FROM ANTI-TREATY, TO 'LUKE WARM', THEN ANTI-TREATY AGAIN, THEN...
Frank Aiken, a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher (Francis Thomas Aiken, pictured), was born on the 13th February, 1898, at Carrickbracken, in Camlough, County Armagh, and was active in Irish republicanism from about 15 years of age, when he joined 'The Irish Volunteers'.
He was also involved politically with the Sinn Féin organisation in Armagh and was one of the leaders of the Fourth Northern Division of the IRA, which operated in in the borderlands of Armagh, South and West Down and North Louth.
He stayed with the Republican Movement following the split over the 'Treaty of Surrender' and succeeded Liam Lynch as Chief of Staff of the IRA on the 20th April 1923 (a position he held until the end of 1925) ; he was actually with Liam Lynch (30) on the 10th April (1923) on the Knockmealdown Mountains when Liam Lynch was killed.
On the 20th April, 1923, the IRA Executive met in Poulacapple, in County Tipperary, to discuss the campaign against the Staters. Those present included Frank Aiken, Liam Pilkington, Sean Hyde, Sean Dowling, Bill Quirke, Tom Barry, Tom Ruane (replacing Michael Kilroy, a respected Irish republican at the time), Tom Sullivan (replacing Sean Lehane), Sean McSwiney, Tom Crofts, P J Ruttledge and Sean O'Meara.
Frank Aiken was, as stated, elected Chief-of-Staff, and an Army Council consisting of himself, Liam Pilkington (pictured) and Tom Barry was appointed. The new Chief-of-Staff proposed that peace should be made with the Leinster House administration on the basis that "the sovereignty of the Irish Nation and the integrity of its territory is inalienable" and this was passed by 9 votes to 2.
His standing among most republicans at the time was good ; he was, after all, the IRA leader who, on the 14th August, 1922, with his IRA Division (consisting of between 300 and 400 IRA fighters), had recaptured the town of Dundalk, in County Louth, freeing about 240 republican POW's in the town, seizing 400 rifles and imprisoning the 400-strong Free State Army garrison.
However, he made no attempt to hold the town and, in fact, he and his men played no further significant part in the fight against the Staters and, in May, 1923 - as IRA Chief of Staff (20th April 1923 to 12th November 1925)- he issued a 'cease fire and dump arms order'.
In the State election of August, 1923, he won a seat in County Louth as a Sinn Féin abstentionist candidate, a seat he held on to until the early 1970's, but not as an abstentionist or, indeed, not for Sinn Féin ; at an IRA Convention held in November 1925, Frank Aiken notified his audience that his political friend, de Valera, was not altogether opposed to the then existing republican political administration entering the Free State Leinster House 'parliament' but the IRA objected and withdrew its allegiance from de Valera and his people and re-pledged allegiance to its own Executive, the Army Council. And Aiken's own actions also led to his expulsion from the IRA.
In May, 1926, he assisted de Valera and others in founding the Fianna Fáil political party and so began his political 'career' in the employ of a State which he once fought against ; his new career '..placed him at the forefront of Irish and international Free State politics...' as, indeed, that same 'career move' did for those that went into that particular gutter before and after him. But not one of them could take our republican principles with them.
He died at 85 years of age in St Vincent's Hospital, in Dublin, from pneumonia, on the 18th May 1983.
On the 14th August, 1922, a 'Special Constable', a Mr Albert Ross, was shot dead in Ballymena Barracks, in County Antrim, by one of his 'Special' colleagues who, apparently, mistook Mr Ross for an intruder.
In our opinion, they were all intruders...
==========================
"(Liam) Lynch was one of the few men I ever met whose authority while under command I accepted without question. He was also my friend, or I liked to think so. How can he be like a military man but have the appearance of a responsible superior of a great religious order. He was by nature most abstemious and he never raised his voice, which was gentle..."
- George Lennon, IRA Volunteer who served with IRA Chief of Staff, Liam Lynch.
On the 14th August, 1922, Liam Lynch and his staff abandoned their Headquarters in Buttevant, in County Cork, and retreated to the mountainous area near Ballyvourney.
He was killed by the Free State Army on the 10th April 1923 in the Knockmealdown Mountains on the border of counties Tipperary and Waterford.
RIP.
==========================
On the 14th August, 1922, as the Free State Army were searching for an IRA Column (led by Ned Bolfin) in the Arigna Mountains (pictured) in North County Roscommon, they found an IRA field hospital, staffed by four nurses.
It's not often referenced but, in the 1920's, among the first appointments to IRA Brigades was the Brigade Medical Officer (BMO), who was usually a doctor-in-practice in the Brigade area and who was known to be a (silent) supporter of the rebels.
Each 'BMO' was tasked to organise a medical service in his/her district and recommend appointments of doctor Volunteers as 'Battalion Medical Officers'.
He/she also organised a nursing service from the ranks of Cumann na mBan members, who were either formally trained nurses or had been trained in first aid with emphasis on war wounds, especially the control of hemorrhage and the treatments required for shock.
These Cumann na mBan nurse/medic Volunteer women were known to be very capable and efficient at their job, and acquired further significant experience and rendered priceless service during the fight against the British and, later, during the IRA fight against the treacherous Free Staters.
==========================
On the 14th May, 1916, the Lakeside Hotel (pictured) in Killaloe, County Clare, was taken over by the British Army ('G Coy') as an operational base, and they terrorised the community from there until the 22nd February 1922.
Between the 12th and the 14th of August, 1922, the IRA ensured that the building would never again be used by anti-Irish forces, British or Free State, by burning it to the ground.
At the time, the hotel was owned by a Mr John McKeogh and his family and, in 1924, he was given a 'Decree for Reconstruction', including a financial award, by the Free State administration in Leinster House, to rebuild the hotel.
However, then as now, these things move slowly (...unless you're looking to house 'asylum seekers/refugees/migrants', apparently...) and it was not until 1929 that their few bob came through.
And then a friend of Mr McKeogh's in Leinster House put out feelers regarding "compensation in this case of exceptional hardship" as Mr McKeogh and his family had lost their incomes between 1922 and 1929 arguing, presumably, that had the awarded compensation been paid in 1924, when the 'Decree' was issued, the family would have been able to rebuild the hotel and earn a living.
Perhaps they should have taken their case against Westminster which, as it happened, was responsible for the financial ills visited on the family...?
==========================
On the 14th August, 1922, during its annual conference, the Labour Party leadership here criticised the IRA "for acting without popular support" and also criticised the Leinster House regime "for waging war without (full) Dáil (sic) support...on the civil war our views cannot be too often or too emphatically expressed. In a word they are : a plague on both your houses. Neither side serves any working class interest, and our job is to steer clear of both..."
Which proves that, even in 1922, wide fences were built which, even from their own 'yard', are not visible today...**
==========================
Thanks for the visit, and for reading!
Sharon and the team.
