On the 11th December, 1919, a British politician, 'Sir' James Ian MacPherson (pictured - Mr MacPherson had been appointed, in January that year, by Westminster, as the 'Chief Secretary for Ireland') received a letter from the British 'Lord Lieutenant for Ireland', Field Marshall 'Sir' John Denton Pinkstone French (the '1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, PC ETC ETC'!).
The letter was in connection with directives issued by their Dublin Castle administration in Ireland, and disagreements by 'officials' in the Castle team about how best to keep the natives down.
British civil servant and 'Under-Secretary for Ireland', a Mr James MacMahon and 'Sir' John James Taylor, the British 'Assistant Under-Secretary for Ireland', didn't see eye-to-eye on the policies that would serve the Crown better than serve 'Paddy' (!).
In his letter, Mr 'Sir' John Denton Pinkstone French stated...
"..the anomalous situation of McMahon and Taylor is causing me a great deal of worry.
Efficient government is quite impossible as things are at present, and steps must be taken at once to cut MacMahon off from any access to papers or documents which really matter.
The place seems to be honeycombed with spies and informers and men who cannot be trusted..."
However - the (Irish and other) "spies and informers and men who cannot be trusted" that Mr French encountered in his world-wide 'military career' were cheated on the 22nd May, 1925, when Mr French died from bladder cancer...
==========================
A missionary agent for the 'Irish Church Mission', a Mr John Pearson, who was born in Donegal in 1862, married a Miss Charlotte Jane Cole McIntosh (a school mistress) when he was 19 years of age.
The couple had eleven children, of whom - by 1911 - only eight survived.
One of their daughters, Jane Violet, was born in County Louth, in 1903, and moved with her family to Dublin, where they lived in Number 105 South Circular Road.
On the 11th December, 1919, the then 15-soon-to-be-16-years-young Jane Violet was out on her pushbike when a British Army truck passed her - but the out-of-service British Army truck it was towing didn't : it ran over the poor girl, killing her.
It was an accident, but that was no comfort to her family.
==========================
'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.
Stories of abuse in schools for the deaf are commonplace in deaf communities throughout Ireland.
Some of these stories were dealt with on RTE's 'States of Fear' programme, and were severe.
The 'Commission To Inquire Into Child Abuse' considered four areas of abuse - sexual, physical, emotional and neglect and, as well as the sexual abuse that they say took place, many deaf victims strongly feel that the introduction of compulsory oral education into State schools for the deaf in the 1950's, which saw the use of sign language banned in many cases, constituted emotional abuse and neglect.
The 'Irish Deaf Society' pointed to recent research showing that compulsory oral education resulted in loss of confidence, self-esteem, and poor educational attainment among many profoundly deaf adults.
For example, pupils were often segregated into 'deaf and dumb' classes (for those who couldn't master speech) and 'oral' classes (for those who could).
The use of sign language and inability to speak were stigmatised under this system...
(MORE LATER.)
In June, 1919, when he was in England on Irish republican business, Mr Éamon de Valera disappeared from view.
He had been secretly smuggled aboard the 'SS Lapland' in Liverpool for transportation to America, for an eighteen-month fund-raising and publicity tour.
The exercise was a huge success, with Irish republicanism reinvigorated among the Irish and Irish-Americans in that country, and about $6 million raised for the 'Irish National Loan' purse.
On the 11th December, 1920, Mr de Valera was smuggled aboard the SS Celtic in New York harbour and prepared himself for the nine-day journey home.
==========================
On the night of Saturday, 11th December, 1920, 'A Company' of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Cork Brigade IRA took up an ambush position at Dillon's Cross, in Cork.
Two British Army Crossley Tender trucks, carrying armed members of 'K Company' of the British Army Auxiliaries, was due to pass through the Cross and, when they arrived at the scene, the IRA opened fire on them, killing one, a soldier named Spencer Chapman (a former officer in the 4th Battalion of the London Regiment of the 'Royal' Fusiliers) and wounding eleven others.
The Volunteers returned safely to base but, later that night, the Crown Forces went looking for them. Or anyone else they could get.
Dozens of them stormed into Cork City Centre, set fire to the commercial centre of the city and burned down both the City Hall and the Carnegie Library.
Over 60 premises were burned and looted, including two department stores, and two IRA Volunteers - brothers Cornelius and Jeremiah Delaney, Volunteers with 'F Company', 1st Battalion, 1st Cork Brigade IRA - were killed in their beds.
Two firefighters were among the half-a-dozen or so people that were shot and wounded by the Crown Forces that night/early morning.
Damages ran to over £3,000,000 and 1500 to 2000 people were put out of work by the destruction.
Incidentally, the 'Cork incidents' were discussed in the British 'House of Commons' on the 13th December (1920) and a 'Sir' Hamar Greenwood (who had been appointed by Westminster to the position of 'Chief Secretary for Ireland' on the 12th April that year) actually denied any involvement by Crown Forces in the burning of the centre of Cork City, and claimed, for instance, that the reason that Cork City Hall was destroyed by flames was because those flames drifted over from buildings that were on fire in Patrick St – a quarter-of-a-mile away, with a river in between...!
Perhaps his own people believed him...
==========================
Irish-born (but better known in Australia) Archbishop Patrick Joseph Clune (pictured, aka 'Dr Walsh'), known among Irish republicans to be pro-British, had a meeting in London with a Mr David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, in December, 1920, to discuss the 'Irish problem'.
The two men agreed that Mr Clune should travel to Dublin on the 11th December with a message from Westminster to the Irish republican leadership that the (32-County) Dáil would be allowed (!) to meet openly 'to discuss peace terms' but republican weapons would first have to be surrendered to the British Army and, by the way (!), Richard James Mulcahy and Michael Collins, two of the better-known rebels of the time, must not be allowed to attend any such meeting!
On his arrival in Dublin, Mr Clune was met by Bishop Fogarty of Killaloe, County Clare, who arranged for him to meet with Mr Arthur Griffith, the then 'Acting President' of the Irish Republic (and 'AP'of Sinn Féin) and delivered the 'peace terms' to him.
Two days later (13th December 1920), he got his reply from Mr Griffith - the terms demanded by Mr Lloyd George.. "...amounted to a call for surrender. There would be no surrender, no matter what frightfulness was used.."
Yet, less than one year later, Mr Griffith was to accept such a surrender ; he (and others) recognised the British Crown in Ireland and acknowledged the Free State's status as a 'New Dominion of the British Commonwealth', an acceptance which did not offer Irish unity.
"Put not your trust in Princes..."
==========================
In 1917, a Mr James Lawlor, from Inchicore, in Dublin, got a transfer from his job with Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) from Dublin to Lismore, in County Waterford.
On the 11th December, 1920, he had finished his shift (driving the regular evening goods train from Cork to Lismore) and was walking home when he was shot dead by a British Army soldier.
The soldier later claimed that Mr Lawlor "had failed to respond to a challenge to halt", so he shot him.
'The Cork Examiner', then a decent and proper newspaper, reported -
"At both masses on Sunday, the clergy referred to the tragic occurrence, and advised people to keep off the streets at night. Railway workers such as James Lawlor had no choice but to be on the streets at night on their way to and from work.."
If that were to happen now in our Occupied Six Counties, that same newspaper would start a 'GoFundMe' for counselling for the British soldier and would call for the Lawlor family to reimburse the British Army for the price of the bullet.
==========================
Apropos to our piece, above, in relation to Mr Arthur Griffith :
Mr Griffith was 'arrested' by the British on the 25th November, 1920, but continued to maintain his position as 'Acting President' from his prison cell.
At meetings of the (32-County) Dáil cabinet on the 27th November and the 4th December (both of which were presided over by JJ O'Kelly as Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil), he was asked to nominate a successor and, on the 9th December, he nominated Michael Collins.
That nomination was ratified at a cabinet meeting on the 11th December.
(Michael Collins's position as 'Acting President' was short-lived, as de Valera resumed his tenure on his return to Ireland on the 23rd December.)
==========================
On the 11th December, 1920, a Crown Forces raiding party broke their way into Number 198 Great Britain Street (now known as Parnell Street) in Dublin, and made their way down to the basement.
There they found what they were looking for - an IRA bomb factory/munitions dump, and all the material was taken away by them, but no arrests were made.
But, within days, the IRA established a new factory/dump at Numbers 1-2 Luke Street, in Dublin, and normal operations resumed...!
==========================
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.
Former US Congressman Bruce Morrison said -
"Nobody expects Irish nationals to be a terrorist threat in the US but, that said, if you board a flight in the US today you get the full treatment.
When there is heightened scrutiny, what people didn't catch before, they will catch now."
People generally did well for themselves in the 60's, 70's and 80's, says Fr Flynn - "It was much more difficult to come to America, but as a result people were better prepared. Now, because flights are so cheap, it's easier to come.
But we are seeing people who have a lot less motivation, who are less prepared and more vulnerable as a result.
In the 1980's it was easy to get a driver's licence, but it is nearly impossible now. That limits the options open to people looking for a job.
In the last few years I have seen a significant number of girls, particularly, out of work for long periods of time. Many couples who come out end up with the guy subsidising the girl."
Josephine has been living permanently in New York for the last two years, but she had travelled to the US in the 1980's when it was possible to get a driving licence and a bank account...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 11th December, 1922, Liam Lynch wrote to Éamon de Valera expressing concern about the state of play in relation to the 'peace initiatives' and the rumours that were circulating in IRA circles about them.
He told Mr de Valera that he and others were insisting that the terms agreed at the Mid-October (1922) IRA Executive meeting (held in Poulatar, Ballybacon, County Tipperary) have to be adhered to ie that any agreement with Westminster or the Leinster House Free State administration will be based on Ireland not being part of the 'British Empire' and, to that end, the IRA Executive would have the last word on acceptance or otherwise of any such offer from the British or Staters.
On the 12th, Mr de Valera wrote back to Liam Lynch, stating, in effect, that he and others felt that the on-going military campaign by the IRA was losing the Republican Movement support, to which (on the 14th) Liam Lynch replied, rejecting that assertion.
Mr de Valera replied (on the 15th) saying that Lynch had too low an estimate of the strength and determination of their opponents and too high an estimation of their own ie preparing the ground to accept less than what was agreed on at the Mid-October meeting in County Tipperary.
Although both men had rejected the 'Treaty of Surrender', Mr de Valera was later to actually enforce it, politically and militarily, against Liam Lynch and his comrades who, to their credit, continued on with their struggle for proper justice.
==========================
In May, 1918, 28-year-old Pax Ó Faoláin (Patrick Pax Whelan, pictured), from Blackpool, near Abbeyside, Dungarvan, in County Waterford, was 'arrested' by the Crown Forces and charged in the local court with the 'offence' of "being observed wearing the uniform of an Irish Volunteer..."
On the 11th December, 1922, Pax Whelan, then the Officer Commanding of the First Battalion, West Waterford Brigade of the Volunteers and a member of the IRA Executive, was 'arrested' by the Free Staters for the same 'offence' - being an Irish republican.
And an Irish republican he remained for the rest of his life : born on the 8th July, 1890, Pax died on the 14th September, 1986, at 96 years of age.
'The Irish Press' newspaper carried the following obituary on the 15th September -
'Civil War veteran dies.
One of the best known Munster veterans of the War of Independence, Pax Whelan, of Abbeyside, Dungarvan, died at the age of 96 yesterday.
He was O.C. of the Deise Brigade of the Old IRA, directing operations against the Black and Tans, in Co. Waterford.
Later he joined the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War and was jailed in various English prisons...'
RIP, Pax.
==========================
On the 11th December, 1922, in a building in Kildare Street, Dublin (where the Leinster House administration now sit), the Free State Senate, another useless talking shop and holding-centre for failed and wannabe politicians, met for the first time.
A Mr James Henry Mussen Campbell (aka'Lord Glenavy') was elected to the Chair, prompting one of those present to declare - "The past is dead, not only for us but for this country (sic). We are assembled here no longer in a Nationalist or Unionist sense, but merely as members of the Senate..."
Wishful thinking - the State Senate, then and now (described, for instance, in 2008, by a journalist in 'The Irish Times', as "the most curious political grouping in the history of the Irish state..."), was and is an anti-republican, pro-unionist institution which seeks to maintain the political status-quo if not, indeed, to have this State (re-)join the 'British Commonwealth'.
No true Irish republican would have anything to do with it, except to assist in its abolishment.
==========================
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 -
"We can show that the conquest is not completed yet, nor is it likely ever to be now.
Such agents as we propose to establish would do an immense service to Ireland - they would gain the sympathy and assistance of other people, and aid materially in the upbuilding of the Irish Nation."
(END of 'Beir Bua' ; NEXT - 'Political Lifestyles', from 2003.)
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - appreciated!
Sharon and the team.
