On the 19th June, 1919, the First Dáil Éireann (the 32-County institution, not the bastardised imitation which houses itself in Kildare Street, Dublin) approved the 'Dáil Loan' proposal and initiative, which was a programme to raise £500,000 to help finance the republican struggle.
It was hoped that half of that amount would be raised internally, and the other half would come in from America.
On the 27th August (1919), a count of the finance raised was done and, on the 28th, the organisers announced that the half-way stage had been reached - £250,000 was in the bank.
The fund-raising operation proved to be such a success that it became over-subscribed, to the point that the 'External' (ie 'funds from America') amount was formally changed from £250,000 to $25m, which was deemed to be achievable!
Unfortunately, the Staters got their hands on the funds : in 1924, they issued legislation entitled 'Dáil Eireann (sic) Loans and Funds Act, 1924' which, they claimed, vested the fund under their control and, in 1925, their court system released that money to the 'Executive Council' of the Free State administration.
In other words, money raised to support the Irish republican Cause was used by ex-republicans to campaign, politically and militarily, against that Cause.
As was said at the time (and since) - "Bad cess to them anyway..."
While Irish republicans in Dublin were counting their funds, an RIC 'Inspector General', a Mr Joseph Byrne, was reading a letter he received from the 'General Officer Commander-in-Chief' of the British Army in Ireland, a ('Lieutenant General Sir') Mr Frederick Shaw (pictured, 'KCB, PC ETC ETC!) -
"From Christmas, the British Army would no longer be able to provide outpost detachments, due to on-going demobilisations and overseas commitments. The Garrison in Ireland will not be in a position to carry out the police duties which have devolved upon it during the war and (will not) respond to the constant calls upon it to assist the police..."
Mr Byrne knew that his paramilitary outfit, the RIC, would not be able to hold off the Irish rebels without the assistance of the British Army but, instead of pleading his case with Mr 'Lieutenant General Sir' Shaw, he went over his head - on the 9th September, he wrote to a Mr John James Taylor, the British 'Under Secretary of State for Ireland', and told him that the withdrawal of British Army support will result in the widespread withdrawal of RIC members from smaller barracks.
Seeking a compromise, Mr Byrne suggested that smaller units of the British Army could be formed and dispersed throughout the country to assist the RIC (this was before Westminster partitioned Ireland) but sure didn't Mr Shaw get to hear of the conversation and he, in turn, decided to go over Mr Byrne's head - he wrote to the new British 'Chief Secretary for Ireland', a Mr James Ian MacPherson, suggesting that Mr Byrne's obvious unwillingness to recruit non-Irishmen to the RIC would be better addressed by the formation of...
"..a special force of ex-soldiers (to assist the RIC). The military necessity for concentration and training is diametrically opposed to the Police (sick - RIC) demands for dispersion and local support..."
And sure then didn't the 'Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police' (DMP), a Mr Walter Edgeworth-Johnstone (pictured) put in his tuppence worth - he wrote to Mr John James Taylor, the British 'Under Secretary of State for Ireland', telling him that a new outfit wasn't required in Dublin and that the certainty of disharmony and indiscipline meant that the proposal had "nothing to recommend it to either police or citizens.."
The RIC 'Inspector General', Mr Joseph Byrne, aware of the 'toing and froing chit-chat' that was going on in the ranks (!), also wrote to JJ (! - Mr Taylor ; Mr Byrne wrote to him on the 4th October [1919]) informing him that any such new outfit could not be controlled by the 'constabulary code of discipline' ie "listen, JJ - if this new gang are assembled and let loose in Ireland, they won't be as...ehh...well-mannered...as wha' we are and we're not gonna be answerable to or for them...".
The politicians in Westminster had their operatives in all of their political, military and paramilitary groupings in Ireland and were up to speed on the 'extra force'-type discussions, suggestions and correspondence that was taking place and, purely by coincidence, no doubt (!), three months later (ie in January 1920), a new grouping was formed and unleashed in Ireland : the Black and Tans.
The historian Charles Townshend wrote that despite the "cogency and prophetic accuracy" of the objections to any such 'special force of ex-soldiers', their objections were overruled, and so it was that the Irish had a new foe to contend with...
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ON THIS DATE (27TH AUGUST) 46 YEARS AGO : BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT FIGURE EXECUTED IN IRELAND.
HOW THE GAY LIFE KILLED MOUNTBATTEN.
Encounters with youths exposed him to IRA.
BY FRANK DOHERTY.
First published in 'NOW' magazine, Volume 1, No.4, October 1989, page 37.
British 'Lord' Louis Mountbatten was killed because of his homosexuality, according to Irish Republican sources ; 'Lord' Mountbatten died in August 1979 when his boat was blown up at Mullaghamore, County Sligo, by the Provisional IRA.
A book published in Britain in October 1989 by a former British Intelligence Officer gave details of 'Lord' Mountbatten's gay life and claim that he was a risk to British State security ; but, ironically, 'Lord' Mountbatten proved to be a bigger threat to his own security.
It was his liaisons with three young Irish boys which led to his assassination - it was information obtained indirectly from one of the boys which drew the attention of the IRA to 'Lord' Mountbatten's presence in Ireland, and the same source provided details about his movements.
'Lord' Mountbatten regularly slipped away from his Irish Special Branch guards for homosexual encounters. The IRA had expected his cabin cruiser to be used for such a meeting with a teenage boy on the day he died. They planted a radio-controlled bomb in the engine compartment on the boat, killing Mountbatten and three others, including a 15-year-old Enniskillen boy ; the bombing brought widespread condemnation and an immediate crack-down on the IRA on both sides of the Border.
It came on the same day as 18 British Paratroopers were killed at Narrow Water, near Warrenpoint, County Down, in an IRA double ambush.
The new book , 'The Greatest Treason' by Richard Deacon, claims that Mountbatten passed secret information to the Russians ; Deacon, whose real name is Donal McCormick, is an ex-intelligence Officer who was a close friend of the former head of the British Secret Service, 'Sir' Maurice Oldfield.
Author 'Richard Deacon'(/Donal McCormick) quotes an unnamed former CIA Officer as saying -
"What we could never understand was how Mountbatten, a known homosexual and therefore a security risk, managed to achieve the kind of promotion and jobs he got..." 'Deacon' says - "It was known inside the (British) Navy long before World War Two that he was a homosexual, sometimes even risking such conduct in his cabin when at sea..."
The author describes 'Lord' Mountbatten as "... devious and egotistical.."
The IRA bomb was detonated from a car parked on the shore as 'Lord' Mountbatten sailed past a couple of hundred feet away : a pulse-coded transmitter of a type not used before was brought in from South Armagh because the IRA believed that British security officers may have fitted ECM (Electronic Counter-Measure) equipment in Classiebawn Castle which would have prematurely detonated any radio-bomb they attempted to plant.
The IRA spent nearly two months setting-up the assassination, relying on information from 'Lord' Mountbatten's homosexual contacts to track his movements. Mountbatten was an uncle of both (British) 'Queen' Elizabeth and her husband, 'Prince' Phillip, and was interested in what homosexuals call 'the rough trade' and liked to have 'contacts' with 'working-class' youths.
He was particularly attracted to boys in their early teens and it was this characteristic which made him especially vulnerable to the IRA, because he needed to slip away from his personal bodyguards to keep dates with such boys, some of whom came in contact with IRA men.
His vice habit was similar to that of the former British Secret Service Chief, 'Sir' Maurice Oldfield, who was appointed 'Ulster (sic) Security Co-Ordinator' by Margaret Thatcher in the wake of the Mountbatten assassination.
'Sir' Maurice also slipped away from his 'personal protection detail' - a team of handpicked, plain-clothes British 'Royal' Military Policemen - on various occasions while he was living in Stormont House, beside Stormont Castle in Belfast, but a plan by the IRA to kill him during one such expedition into County Down failed when he was unexpectedly moved back to London.
(To be fair [!] to Mr Oldfield, he wasn't the only high-ranking queer in British military and political circles that caused trouble for their 'majesty'...)
GAS LADS...
The massive finds of oil and gas on our western seaboard could ensure Ireland's financial security for generations.
Wealth approximating that of the Arab countries is within our grasp, but the Irish government seems content to sell off our birthright for a handful of votes and a few dollars.
In a special 'Magill' report, Sandra Mara investigates just what we are giving away, and why.
From 'Magill' magazine, March 2002.
An Irish rig-worker told 'Magill Magazine' -
"It doesn't end there.
They also want an interconnector gas pipeline laid from Ireland to the UK, so they can export surplus Irish gas, owned by the oil companies, into Britain and then on to Europe, while Ireland will have to buy its domestic gas needs from the oil companies at the going rate!
It seems too far-fetched to be believable that anyone, much less a government, would agree to such a deal."
SIPTU's 'National Offshore Committee' spokesman, Padhraig Campbell, confirmed to 'Magill' magazine that his union met with 'Enterprise Oil' in 1996 to discuss jobs on the rig and, at that time, there had been a long-standing agreement in place with the drilling companies that an agreed number of experienced Irish-based rig-workers would be employed on rigs drilling in Irish waters for the duration of the drilling season, with the option that these workers could remain on when the drilling moved out of Irish waters...
(MORE LATER.)
On the night of the 26th August/morning of the 27th August 1920, two British Army lorries drove into the town of Naas, in County Kildare.
Both lorries had been observed driving at speed on the Newbridge Road and, tyres squealing, turning into Basin Street and then onto Main Street.
One of the lorries pulled-up at Staple Dowling's pub on the corner of Basin Street and the other parked at the Town Hall, and ten armed and 'uniformed' Black and Tan members jumped out of each lorry.
The Tans were seeking revenge for the death of two of their comrades, a Mr Patrick Reilly and a Mr John Haverty, who were killed in the nearby Greenhills area in a shoot-out with Irish rebels on the 21st August.
The armed men split-up into groups and went searching for targets - they tried to gain entrance to a butcher shop (at Number 11 South Main Street, owned by a Mr Denis Patterson) and hammered on the locked door of JJ White's shop (18 South Main Street ; the family were well-known rebels - Jimmy, Ned, Paddy and Mick Whyte were all members of the Irish Volunteers while their sister May was at one time commanding officer of the Naas Cumann na mBan organisation).
Groups of them were noisely congregated outside Broughal's Pub and Boushell's Family Bootmaker and Leather Merchant shop (owned by Mr Ben Boushell and two of his sisters, who lived over the shop), which was next door to the RIC Barracks, a fact which didn't disturb them at all and, incidentally, the RIC later claimed that they believed they were under attack, which is why they didn't venture outside!
They smashed windows and doors and gained entry to Broughal's Pub and Boushell's Shop, which they looted before setting fires in both premises, they then formed up on the Main Street and, for about ten minutes, celebrated their 'victory' by firing shots into the air.
The Tans then got back into their lorries and, firing shots as they went, left the village by the New Row Road.
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CASH NO EXCUSE FOR RTE PUTTING DOCUMENTARY TO DEATH...
It has been a disastrous 12 months for RTE.
£23.5 million in cutbacks, a bid to increase the licence fee rejected, an enforced postponement of digital expansion, and a predicted £20 million loss to report for 2001.
By Belinda McKeon .
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
RTE is not, and may not for some time, be in a position to give full backing to arts documentary, but this does not excuse its complete withdrawal from the scene.
It takes little imagination to see that a small investment in a good proposal would give RTE a stake in what, with additional funding from other sources, could become a viable product, yielding both commercial and cultural kudos for the broadcaster.
But RTE is not alone in responsibility for this fragmented genre : while the Arts Council's contribution to TG4 has produced the exemplary SPLANC, in real terms its contribution is minimal, amounting to the funding of at most three low-budget documentaries.
This failure to expand beyond TG4 amounts to a complacency which must be checked ; neither can the Irish Film Board bankroll an entire industry single-handedly...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 19th August, 1921, Volunteer James Staines, a prisoner in Hare Park Internment Camp in the Curragh, County Kildare, jumped into the back of a delivery lorry which had unloaded its cargo in the prison area, and escaped.
The British 'sought him here, they sought him there, those British sought him everywhere...' (!), but Volunteer Staines evaded capture.
On the 27th August, in a fit of the huffs, the 'General Officer Commanding the British Forces in Ireland', a Mr Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, issued an order cancelling all leave on parole for republican prisoners, pending a return of Volunteer James Staines to the Curragh Internment Camp by a certain timeline...which came and went, but still no sign of Volunteer Staines!
He did not return and, days later, parole was subsequently re-instated by Mr Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready, who obviously realised that a fit of the huffs was not gonna win the day for him!
Incidentally - to add to poor Mr Mac's woes - a week later (ie in early September), fifty-four republican POW's escaped from the same internment camp through a tunnel they had dug : but history doesn't record if Mr Mac threw a huff or had a temper tantrum...!
On the same date that the good general O/C was having his first huff, some of those he and his people supported in this country attacked a house in Nelson Street, in Belfast, and bombed it and, over the next few days, shot at least two men - Thomas Rafter (18), shot on North Queen Street, and Colin Fogg (42), shot on Lepper Street ; both men died from their wounds two days later.
The 27th August 1921 was 'Day 8' (the final day) of the First Session of the Second Dail, at which the main business was the appointment of five plenipotentiaries (pictured) to negotiate a Treaty with Westminster.
The five men - Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Robert Barton, Eamon Seán Duggan, and George Gavan Duffy - couldn't agree on the fact that the offered terms and conditions were less than had been fought for and defended their different positions back home in Dublin, in Dáil Éireann.
During those discussions in Dublin, Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins voted in favour of it, Robert Barton voted in favour but later changed his opinion and campaigned against it, Eamonn Seán Duggan and George Gavan Duffy voted in favour of it, with the latter proclaming -
"My heart is with those who are against the Treaty, but my reason is against them, because I can see no rational alternative..."
On the 7th January, 1922, the Dáil held a vote on that offering from Westminster and, for shame, it was ratified by 64 votes in favour, and 57 against and, on the 14th January, the pro-British members of the 'House of Commons of Southern Ireland' (another anti-Irish-republican grouping) also endorsed that 'agreement', thus spawning the corrupt Free State, which is still in operation to this day...
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DEATH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN...
Desmond Boomer, a Belfast engineer working in the Libyan oil-fields, disappeared seven years ago.
Officially, the plane on which he was a passenger crashed as a result of mechanical failure and pilot error.
But is that the real story?
Or were the Irishman and his fellow passengers unwitting victims of the shady war between Islamic fundamentalism and Mossad, Israel's intelligence network?
A special 'Magill' investigation by Don Mullan, author of 'Eyewitness Bloody Sunday'.
From 'Magill' magazine, January 2003.
Shipping vessels and oil-rigs in the Mediterranean were also contacted and asked to participate in the search.
Philip Bartolo, now deceased, son of the missing pilot Carmelo Bartolo, told Desmond Boomer's father, Cormac, that the searching planes travelled the Piper Lance's expected route back to Malta.
They flew at around 500 to 1,000 feet, but found nothing.
"No one will ever convince me that that plane went down in the water and nothing floated from it," he told Cormac Boomer.
At 12 Noon, the US Embassy in Malta offered assistance, and a US Air Force P3 Orion aircraft was dispatched from Sigonella Air Base in Sicily to join the search operation, which took place from 3rd to the 10th December 1995, and concentrated on the FIR boundaries between Malta, Libya and Tunisia.
It met with no success...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 27th August, 1922, the Free State Leinster House administration announced that it was now increasing its recruitment drive for its military and had agreed in-house to maintain a force comprising 35,000 soldiers ; on that same date, in Kerry, Free State Army soldiers 'arrested' two IRA Volunteers, Seán Moriarty and James Healy, and paraded the two rebels through the town of Tralee.
The two Volunteers were taken to Balloonagh Convent where, out of sight of the public, they were placed standing up against a wall and their captors opened fire on them.
Both men fell to the ground, presumed dead by their murderers, who then marched out of the convent grounds and returned to their barracks.
Local men rushed over to the two Volunteers and discovered that most of the gunfire had been directed at Volunteer Moriarty, who had been "riddled with bullets..." but, although hit a number of times, Volunteer Healy was still alive - he survived to fight another day.
RIP Volunteer Seán Moriarty.
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ON THIS DATE (27TH AUGUST) 112 YEARS AGO : FIRST FULL DAY OF A 146-DAY LOCKOUT IN DUBLIN.
The workers, who were fully supported by James Larkin, a revolutionary socialist who despised capitalism and supported the underprivileged, wanted better working conditions and the right to join a trade union without being penalised or sacked for doing so.
The tram workers were not then unionised (either were Dublin Corporation employees, building workers or the staff that worked in Guinness Brewery) but they had admired and supported Larkin and the then four-years-young, ten-thousand-membered ITGWU in the manner in which they had been fighting for improved conditions for the so-called 'unskilled workers' in Dublin, who were, mostly, members of the ITGWU : the workers and their trade union representatives were strongly agitating for a shorter working day (to work 8 hours a day rather than 12 or more hours a day), for better provision (if not actual jobs) for the many unemployed in the city, guaranteed pensions for workers who survived into their 60th year and a 'Labour Court', of sorts, where disagreements could be aired and settled in a neutral atmosphere.
Also worth remembering is the fact that anti-republican Arthur Guinness refused to close his premises or follow other such advice/demands from William Martin Murphy and, while he didn't actually join with Murphy and other employers in directly opposing the strikers, he organised for what was a large sum of money in those days - £500 - to be donated to a 'fighting fund' set-up by Murphy and other employers - '...(the Guinness company) had a policy against sympathetic strikes, and expected its workers – whose conditions were far better than the norm in Ireland – not to strike in sympathy ; six who did were dismissed.
400 of its staff were already ITGWU members, so it had a working relationship with the union. Larkin appealed to have the six reinstated, but without success..' (from here.)
The lockout ended after 146 days as the workers and their families were literally penniless and starving, even though their conditions, wages, hours worked, health and safety issues etc remained unchanged, and they were 'obliged' to sign a pledge that they would not join a trade union.
However, if any good came out of it, it was that the strikers had at least laid claim to the principle of joining a trade union* and had seen that, properly organised, they could defend themselves from attacks by the military and political establishment.
Writing in a letter to his brother Gregory he said... "We are all here on Larkin's side.
He'll beat hell out of the snobbish, mean, seoinín employers yet, and more power to him."
Ashe supported the unionisation of north Dublin farm labourers and his activities brought him into conflict with landowners such as Thomas Kettle in 1912.
During the lockout, Thomas Ashe was a frequent visitor to Liberty Hall and became a friend of James Connolly.
Long prior to its publication in 1916, Thomas Ashe was a practitioner of Connolly’s dictum that "the cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour".
Like Jim Larkin and James Connolly, Thomas Patrick Ashe was a supporter and organiser of 'the men (and women) of no property'.
(*In 1913, trade unions were not managed by 'rainbow-flag'-waving degenerates, and were worth joining and fighting for.)
On Monday, 27th August 1923, the Leinster House 26-County political assembly held its first 'General Election' for the area of Ireland (ie 26 out of the 32 Counties) that it purported to hold jurisdiction over.
The election was won by the 'Cumann na nGaedheal' party ('pro-Treaty Sinn Féiners', as they seen themselves), who won 63 seats, with 39% of first-preference votes cast, while the then abstentionist Sinn Féin organisation won 44 seats with 27% of the first-preference votes.
The number of available seats had been expanded from 128 to 153, of which Independents won 16, the Farmers Party 15, Labour 14 and Independent Labour 1.
Five women were elected, of whom only one took her seat - a M/s Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll (sister of the late Mr Michael Collins, killed in August 1922) - the other four female seatholders (Constance de Markievicz, Dr Kathleen Lynn, Caitlín Brugha, and Mary MacSwiney) were republican activists and, as such, would not sit in a Free State assembly.
And today, 102 years later, that principled policy holds fast - no genuine Irish republican activist would sit in a Free State political assembly which purports to be 'Dáil Éireann'.
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ON THIS DATE (27TH AUGUST) 102 YEARS AGO : SINN FÉIN WINS 44 SEATS IN FREE STATE ELECTIONS.
Besides this State election, 1923 was an eventful year for Irish republicans : on the 2nd January, Cathal Goulding was born in East Arran Street in Dublin, and on the 13th of that month Free State President W.T. Cosgrave had to find somewhere else to live.
On the 10th of April, Liam Lynch was shot dead by Free State forces, on the 14th of that month Austin Stack was captured by the Staters and on the 23rd of that month, Sinn Féin politician Seán Etchingham died. Three of our twenty-two republican hunger-strikers died in that year - Joe Witty, from Wexford, on the 2nd September, Denis Barry, Cork, on the 20th November and Andy O'Sullivan, also from Cork, on the 22nd November.
The 27th August 1923 election results, in which Sinn Féin polled 286,000 votes (29% of those that voted), winning 44 seats, can be accessed here.
At the time, there were over 11,000 Irish republicans in jail in the State, for refusing to accept any British political or military presence in Ireland and, for the same reason, the elected Sinn Féin representatives refused to take their seats in Leinster House as those sitting in that assembly had to take an oath of allegiance to the English 'King', George V, whereas nowadays they just utter same to themselves, mentally (and morally).
ON THIS DATE (27TH AUGUST) 227 YEARS AGO : EVENTS LEAD TO THE INAUGURATION OF GENERAL JOHN MOORE AS THE 'PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CONNACHT'.
"Playing the very Devil with the country...."
Beside this, John Gilpin's famous pace sinks to the level of a peddler's jog, nor did Tam O'Shanter's Mag e'er display such mettle as their panting, sweating beasts, spurred on until the blood dripped from their flanks.
So great was their fright, indeed, that they never stopped for breath until they had reached the town of Tuam, forty miles away ; and even here they paused scarce long enough to eat, and then made on to Athlone. At this place an officer of carabineers, with sixty of his men, arrived on the afternoon of the 29th of September. These heroes had covered a distance of over seventy English miles in twenty-seven hours! No wonder the battle has been jocularly styled "the Races of Castlebar"!' (from here.)
Ten weeks after the United Irishmen had been crushed at Ballynahinch, Co. Down, and two months after the fall of the rebel camp at Vinegar Hill, near Enniscorthy in County Wexford, Humbert landed at Kilcummin strand, on Killala bay, with about 1,100 officers and men of the army of the French Republic.
Four days later, on Sunday, 26 August, having taken Killala and Ballina, Humbert led about 700 of his men, and about the same number of untrained Irish recruits, in an amazing all-night march down the almost trackless west shore of Lough Conn, arriving next morning - 27th August 1798 - in front of the startled British garrison of Castlebar. The force opposing Humbert numbered about 1,700......
As you can read via the links, above, this was a short-lived victory, physically, that is, but, morally and spiritually, it, and other 'failures' like it, gave future generations added incentive to continue the struggle.
Which, if nothing else, is one aspect of this campaign that we will always have until we no longer need it ie when we, or a future generation of the indigenous Irish, can bring this campaign to a just conclusion!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - appreciated!
Sharon and the team.
(We'll be back on Wednesday, 10th September 2025.)
