On the 28th May, 1919, the British Prime Minister, a Mr David Llyod George, opened a letter he had just received from a political colleague of his, a Mr Walter Hume Long (pictured, the '1st Viscount Long').
Mr Long expressed his opinion about on-going discussions in Westminster in relation to the pros and cons of declaring the then Sinn Féin organisation to be an illegal entity, and outlawing it.
Mr Long suggested strengthening the 'police force' (sic), the RIC, first, describing that outfit as "incompetent or worn out", especially, he said, the leadership of that grouping.
He specifically referenced the RIC 'Inspector General' (who was appointed in 1916), a Mr 'Sir' Joseph Aloysius Byrne who, he said, "...had lost his nerve and should be replaced.." (by a hardline RIC member from Belfast, a Mr TJ Smith) - Mr Byrne had initiated a policy of compulsory retirement of RIC members whom he considered "unfit for service", which didn't go down well in political or military circles in Westminster as it was precisely the "unfit for service" (ie 'the loose cannon')-types that they wanted to 'police' Ireland!
This issue was discussed between the politicians for a few months and, in early November (1919), the British 'Lord Lieutenant of Ireland', Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French ('1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, PC...' ETC ETC!) wrote to Mr 'Sir' Joseph Aloysius Byrne ordering him to take one month's leave "to rest himself" (Mr French could not actually sack the man, as that would require input from the British Treasury and there was no guarantee that Treasury management would agree with the move).
Mr Byrne assured all and sundry that he was grand (!) and sure he took the few weeks off anyway but, when he returned to work in early December, he found a Mr TJ Smith sitting behind his desk, the locks on which had been changed, as had Mr Byrne's career trajectory!
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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.
Again, no one can blame the oil companies ; they are in the business of making profits and if a government facilitates them in this, they would be failing in their responsibilities to their shareholders not to take advantage of it.
Mike Cunningham is a former director of 'Statoil Exploration (Ireland) Ltd', and has wide experience in off-shore exploration and production and, in particular, the acreage off the western coast of Ireland.
A former chairman of the IOOA's Environmental Committee and former chair of its Labour Relations Committee, Mike Cunningham, now an independent oil and gas consultant, told 'Magill' magazine that no other country in the world has given such favourable terms as Ireland.
Following the 1992 concessions when royalties were abolished and oil and gas companies were given a 100% write-off against development and recovery costs, the tax rate was reduced from 35% to 25%...
(MORE LATER.)
On the night of Saturday, 3rd April 1920, the IRA attacked the RIC barracks in Carbury, County Kildare but, although unsuccessful in their endeavours to destroy the building on the night, they did succeed in destroying the moral of the enemy forces who were housed there.
Between requested transfers and orders from their bosses in Dublin, the barracks was soon abandoned because, now that it was known to be 'of interest' to the IRA, the enemy forces knew that the rebels would be back.
And back they were - on the night of the 28th May/early morning of the 29th, the IRA returned and destroyed the building, making it uninhabitable, as they had done with British and other pro-British outposts in the Kildare area, in Maynooth, Rathangan, Castledermot and Ballinonlert (between Rathangan and Clonbullogue).
Destroying enemy outposts and enemy moral in the one operation - good tactics!
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THE NUMBER'S UP...
How some famous gambling conspiracies came to light.
By Con Houlihan.
From 'Magill' Magazine Annual 2002.
At about the same time, another assault on the bookmakers hit the headlines - the 'Yellow Sam Affair'.
A horse of that name was backed in the betting shops to win a race in Bellewstown, County Meath, a course with no phoneline to the outside world.
There was a public phone a little distance away but it was manned and womanned so that no message could get through ; 'Yellow Sam' trotted up, and the bookies paid up.
The operation had the virtue of simplicity, it was a plot of a different colour, and the man at its centre had spent several years studying for the priesthood (his training wasn't wasted!).
He was a professional ; he didn't do it for the craic.
(END of 'The Number's Up' : NEXT - 'Cash No Excuse For RTE Putting Documentary To Death', from the same source.)
In January 1916, while taking part in an 'Irish Volunteers' revolver practice class, Volunteer Thomas Wilmot was accidentally severely wounded and was brought to Drogheda Memorial Hospital (near the Curragh Camp) but the incident and the hospital visit were not 'officially' recorded, as the British 'authorities' would have shown an interest.
Volunteer Wilmot was attended to by a Dr. Laurence Rowan, who was a medical officer with the Republican Movement, and the rebel was soon back in action, in defence of his country.
He witnessed, in early 1921, the British military opening an internment camp (Rath Camp) for Irish republicans at the Curragh and, indeed, was one of the first Volunteers to see that dreadful structure from the inside - on the 28th May that year he was 'arrested' by the Crown Forces and imprisoned there.
Volunteer Wilmot was released (as were all the republican internees) in December (1921) after the 'Treaty of Surrender' was signed by Michael Collins and his people and was approached by the Staters to accept an 'Officer Commission' from them and, like all good Irishmen and women, refused the offer and continued his work on behalf of the Republican Movement.
Incidentally, Volunteer Thomas Wilmot was also a member of the GAA, the Gaelic League and the ITGWU, as were his near-neighbours Mr Matthew Cardiff and Mr John Lee, who were 'arrested' with him by the British on the same date (28th May 1921) and held in Rath Camp.
And on their way to detain the above-mentioned three Irishmen, the Crown Forces would have more than likely took timber planks from Rath Camp and loaded them into their trucks, as that material was required to drive over the trenches that the IRA had dug into roads in the Kildare area, to impede their ability to travel in and around the county.
Also, on the 28th, telegraph poles were knocked down in the Gormanstown and Kilcullen areas, presenting enemy forces as targets as they attempted to remove the blockages ; indeed, according to ascertained British Military records, in the four weeks ending May 28th (1921), 76 of their operatives were killed, and 106 wounded.
Those records were later adjusted to show that, between the beginning of May that year and the middle of July, 114 RIC members and 48 British Army soldiers were shot dead in Ireland.
While the IRA were blocking roads in Kildare on the 28th, eight armed IRA Volunteers in Cork were knocking on the front door of the Fitzgerald house in the Ballysheehan area of Mallow, County Cork.
When the door was opened, two brothers - Thomas and Henry* - were told they had been tasked with 'trenching a road' and were instructed to leave now with the IRA ASU, which they did.
The two brothers didn't know it then, but the IRA Intelligence Department had linked them with the near-capture of Volunteer Thomas Hunter, from Castletownroche, near Fermoy, in County Cork, that same month, after which Henry Fitzgerald had somehow acquired £75 to purchase a horse and a car.
The bodies of both men were found shortly afterwards near the Cork village of Killavullen ; they had been executed as spies.
(* Henry Fitzgerald was an ex-member of the British Army 'Royal Fusiliers' Battalion, Service Number 102762)
On that same date (the 28th May 1921), other Cork Volunteers (attached to the 'Flying Column' of the 3rd Cork Brigade IRA, pictured) maintained the ambush position they had secured on the 27th, which covered about 360 meters (four hundred yards in total) outside the village of Gloundaw (between Dunmanway and Drimoleague) on high ground, all of whom were armed with rifles.
It had been arranged that Volunteers from the Drimoleague Company would ambush the RIC in that village, in order to draw the British Auxiliaries and other military/paramilitary enemy forces out from Dunmanway and into the IRA ambush position, but no reinforcements were sent to aid their RIC colleagues.
The ambush squad withdrew from the area on the evening of the 28th.
The body of "a weak-minded drifter", a Mr Daniel McCarthy, was found near the Post Office in the Cork village of Ovens on the 28th ; he had been shot nine times and a notice was pinned to his body -
'Spies And Informers Beware.
IRA.'
Mr McCarthy had been observed, more than once, conversing with British military figures in the town of Ballincollig and, when 'arrested' by the RIC on a misdemeanour charge, was placed in detention with IRA prisoners in Ballincollig British Army Barracks.
The IRA POW's spent about three weeks in his company, in detention, before sending out word to their comrades that he was not to be trusted and, upon his release, he was arrested near the Lee Cinema in Patrick Street in Cork by Volunteers attached to the 3rd Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade.
He was taken in a horse and cart to the village of Kilumney and handed over to Volunteers Leo Murphy, Dick Murphy and others, held and questioned for a few weeks and then taken from there to the village of Ovens where he was shot dead.
On the same date that Mr McCarthy's body was found in Cork, the IRA in Dublin staged an attack at the corner of Saint Stephens Green and Cuffe Street on two British military Crossely Tender trucks which were transporting enemy troops (attached to 'C Company').
An IRA Volunteer, Leonard Fox, was captured in Saint Stephen's Green and a civilian, a Mr Joseph Miller, was wounded in the ensuing gun battle ; he died from his wounds on the 3rd June.
RIP Joseph Miller.
Back in Cork, on the 28th, Volunteer Diarmuid Hurley (pictured), Officer Commanding of the Active Service Unit attached to the Cork Number 1 Brigade, was shot dead in the townland of Carrigogna by the RIC "while trying to escape".
Volunteer Hurley was buried secretly by his comrades the next day in a tomb at North Churchtown Cemetery, about two miles east of Middleton, on the highway to Youghal, in County Cork.
RIP Volunteer Diarmuid Hurley.
On the same day that enemy forces executed Volunteer Hurley, an elderly Irish woman, a Mrs Mary Foley (aged in her late seventies), was shot dead by a foreign soldier in Waterford, about 80 miles (130km) away.
"A woman named Mrs Foley, aged nearly 80, was shot at Carriglea, near Dungarvan, by a man in a military or police lorry while she was gathering sticks by the riverside ; whether an inquiry has been held; and what reason is given for the killing of this woman...whether he is aware that a woman named Mrs. Foley, aged nearly 80, was shot at Carriglea, near Dungarvan, by a man in a military or police lorry while she was gathering sticks by the riverside ; whether an inquiry has been held ; and what reason is given for the killing of this inoffensive woman...?"
(From here.)
Mrs Mary Foley and two of her grandchildren were gathering firewood by the side of a river on the 28th May 1921 when a passing British military patrol opened fire on them.
The poor woman died shortly afterwards from her wounds but, thankfully, the children were not injured.
The inscription on Mrs Foley's memorial stone reads -
"Saighdúirí Sasana do lámaidh í agus í ag bailiúghadh brosna."
("English soldiers murdered her while she was gathering firewood.")
"The deceased was arrested while on Volunteer duty in May, 1921, and was ill treated, was sentenced to six months hard labour by Courtmartial while in Prison in Spike Island, health was neglected..."
The deceased mentioned above is Volunteer/Scout William Creedon, from Sleaveen West, Macroom, in County Cork.
Volunteer/Scout Creedon had been tasked by 'A Company' of the Macroom Battalion of the Cork Number 1 Brigade to monitor a bridge near the farm where he worked as a labourer, as the IRA were aware that at least two British soldiers would regularly meet-up with their girlfriends on the bridge, and the IRA also wanted to meet-up with the two armed thugs.
The British soldiers, however - living on their nerves, as usual - noticed William Creedon's presence and they 'arrested' him on the 28th May (1921) and forced him back to their base in Macroom Castle, where they battered him to the extent that his abdomen started swelling.
It might have been awkward for them had Volunteer/Scout Creedon died in their custody, so they transferred him to Spike Island Internment Camp, where his condition further deteriorated, prompting his removal to Cork Military Hospital in Victoria Barracks, where he died on the 2nd July 1921.
RIP Volunteer/Scout William Creedon.
"The Frocks are, I verily believe, going to allow me to send over all the troops that I have got in England to Ireland..."
- a note gleefully written by 'Sir' Henry Wilson (pictured), the British Army military commander in Ireland (and political advisor to Westminster), to the British military attaché in Paris, on the 28th May, 1921.
It took him about six weeks to organise it, but between the 14th June and the 7th July, 17 battalions of British troops were sent to Ireland bringing the number of British troops in this country to 60,000.
And today, 28th May 2025, there are at least 1,500 (acknowledged) British Army soldiers in our six north-eastern counties, assisting pro-British 'police forces' the RUC/PSNI and the Free State AGS, State army, politicians and judiciary to enforce and uphold the British claim of political and military jurisdictional control over those six Irish counties.
Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.
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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.
Desmond Boomer was en route home to Belfast for his Christmas holidays when he disappeared.
There are three possible explanations -
Firstly, that the light aircraft, which had experienced serious mechanical difficulties on its outbound flight from Malta, was irresponsibly flown into a raging Mediterranean storm by its experienced pilot and crashed off the coast of Tunisia, that Desmond Boomer and his travelling companions were abducted by Islamic fundamentalists and may still be alive or - and this possible explanation cannot be easily dismissed - all five passengers were in the wrong place at the wrong time when Islamic fundamentalists arrived to exact revenge on a marked man, the pilot, Carmelo Bartolo...
(MORE LATER.)
In late May 1922 - after the Treaty of Surrender had been signed, and with the approval of Michael Collins, the chief signatory of that foul document - 55 Free State Army troops and 31 IRA Volunteer soldiers joined forces and 'put it up' to Westminster (and to the politicians in Leinster House) by 'occupying', as the British claimed to see it, two towns which straddled the border between the Free State and the Occupied Six Counties.
The 'incident' became know as 'The Battle of Pettigo And Belleek', which are the two towns referenced, and it's notable as the last time that both the Free State Army and IRA forces fought alongside each other against the invasive British military and political presence in Ireland.
The rebels held out for about two weeks against a better armed and supported enemy force, comprising military might and a vichy-type 'local civilian committee', and marked the first occasion since the signing of the Treaty Of Surrender when part of the so-called 'Free State' was occupied - without the consent of Leinster House - by an external power.
Today, 103 years later, Free State politicians are again occupied - financially, morally and spiritually - this time by a 'Woke' mindset favouring the EU, the WHO and the WEF, but with their own consent.
However, we digress : you can read more about this 'Irish military invasion of Ireland' here...
Meanwhile, about 100 miles (160 km) down the road in Dublin, on the 28th May (1922), the IRA caught up with an RIC member, a Mr William Leech, whose name had being brought to their attention in relation to the killings in Limerick of nationalist/republican political figures.
The RIC man's routine showed that he walked, with his girlfriend, down what was then Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street) in Dublin, towards Westland Row Railway Station, between 10pm and 10.30pm, on a Sunday and, on the last Sunday in May, 1922, he took his last walk along that route ; the IRA shot him dead.
On the 28th May, 1922, sixty-four members of the pro-British 'Special Constabulary' organisation found themselves under military siege by the IRA in their base at Magheramenagh Castle (pictured) near Belleek, in County Fermanagh.
Reinforcements were begged for by the trapped Crown Forces and a convoy of five Crossley Tender trucks, carrying 'A Specials', from the town of Garrison, in County Tyrone, was dispatched to their location.
As the convoy was passing through the town of Belleek, on the Donegal-Tyrone border, it was ambushed by the IRA and at least one 'A Special' paramilitary, a Mr Albert Thomas Rickerby, was shot dead during the gun battle, which lasted several hours.
The 'A Special' reinforcements then withdrew from the area, skedaddling back to their base, and their 'house arrested' (!) comrades in the castle loaded themselves on to a few boats and legged it (!) to Boa Island in Lough Erne.
While sheltering from the nasty rebels on Boa Island, about 100 'Special' reinforcements arrived to keep them company, least they should feel lonely and dejected...
On the same date that pro-British forces were comforting each other on Boa Island, a Mr James Kelly and his wife, Honoria, were standing outside their house in the village of Sonnagh, near Charlestown, in County Mayo, having a heated discussion about politics with their neighbour, a Mr Michael McIntyre, the son of an anti-Treaty County Councillor, a Mr John McIntyre.
Mr McIntyre aimed his shotgun at the couple and fired, hitting Mrs Kelly in the face, neck and chest.
The poor woman died within fifteen minutes.
RIP Mrs Honoria Kelly.
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"The dumping of arms does not mean that the usefulness of the IRA is past, or release any member of it from his duty to his country.
On the contrary, it is clearly our duty to maintain the Army Organisation intact.
Discipline must be maintained, reports returned, and officers must do their utmost to safeguard their men and get them back to their civilian work.
No man must leave Ireland unless ordered by GHQ to do so..."
-Mr Francis Thomas Aiken (pictured), the new IRA Chief of Staff (and a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher) in a memo he released to IRA Officers on the 28th May, 1923.
Three years after he wrote those words, he assisted in the foundation of the anti-republican 'Fianna Fáil' grouping ; so much for his 'duty to Irish republicanism...'
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Sure you knew us when we had nuthin'...!
Sharon and the team.
