On the 10th September, 1919, the 'British Viceroy for Ireland', a Mr John French, and his political and military pal, a Mr Frederick Charles Shaw, the 'Commander of the British Army in Ireland', signed a proclamation outlawing Dáil Éireann.
Some days later, in Westminster political circles, an in-house letter came to light showing that the British 'Chief Secretary for Ireland', a Mr Ian Macpherson, and his buddy, a Mr Andrew Bonar Law, the 'Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal', had... 'allowed (!) Dáil Éireann to assemble and sit in consultation if they wished (but when they) conspired by executive acts to overthrow the duly constituted authority (by which they meant Westminster), then we had to act...'
And, in acting in that manner, the British inadvertently showed, and proved, that politics alone wasn't going to be enough to shift them from Ireland...
==========================
On the 10th September, 1919, a Mr George Frederick Ernest Albert (aka 'King George V of England', pictured) instructed his 'Lord Privy Seal of England', a Mr Bonar Law, to attend for a meeting with him and, on the 11th, the two men were in each others company.
Mr Ernest Albert questioned Mr Law about the measures that the British government were taking to protect... "..the lives of unoffending people in Ireland, and what measures were to be brought into parliament for the government of the country (ie Ireland)..?"
The "unoffending people" in Ireland were, no doubt, those who weren't fighting against the savage hordes unleashed on them by both Mr Albert and the political savage hordes he surrounded himself with.
Anyway - the poor man wasn't in the best of health, and he died, at 70 years of age, on the 20th January, 1936, in London, from a purposely-administered drug overdose.
Whether his death was an act of euthanasia, medically assisted suicide or murder, he should have been more concerned about his own governance than that of a country foreign to him...
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.
However, things were not straightforward, and it took difficult and prolonged negotiations to reach an agreement with Enterprise Oil which resulted in some Irish rig-workers being employed.
At one point, Enterprise Oil threatened to pull out of Foynes, which was being used as a service base, and relocate to Ayr in Scotland.
This move was prevented when Emmet Stagg TD told the oil companies that they could not claim Irish tax breaks while operating out of the jurisdiction.
Following these negotiations, a number of experienced Irish rig-workers got jobs on board the Petrolia drilling rig and were there when it hit a "huge gas find, almost a blow-out", as one worker describes it.
The pressure of the gas find was so high that it caused major technical difficulties and drilling was abandoned until 1998 but, eventually, almost two years later, the 'Sedco 711', owned by Sedco Forex, was contracted to drill and Enterprise Oil agreed 34 jobs for Irish rig-workers...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 10th and 11th of September, 1920, as the Newbridge and Athgarvan Companies of the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Brigade Kildare IRA (1st Eastern Division) were carrying out a number of successful raids for arms in their areas, their republican comrades who worked on 'The Irish Bulletin' newspaper published details of a 'false flag' operation by British forces.
In November, 1919, raids by the DMP and other British forces had yielded sheets of blank Dáil notepaper on which Westminster and Dublin Castle agents were issuing false orders and instructions to IRA Units countrywide in the hope of disrupting the Movement.
The republican newspaper had in its possession false orders and instructions issued on Dáil paper by Dublin Castle agents in January and April and it also published an intelligence report written by a British Army Captain, a Mr Frederick Harper-Shove, who was attached to the 'BA General Staff, Intelligence', and was better known in BA circles as a 'spy instructor' - he mostly operated from the 'spy school' in Hounslow, in West London, in a premises known as 'Cavalry Barracks/Silent Section'.
Mr Harper-Shove had been staying in the St Andrew's Hotel in Exchequer Street, Dublin, from where he wrote a letter to one of his spy buddies, a British Army Major, Jocelyn Lee 'Hoppy' Hardy -
"Dear Hardy,
Have been given a free hand to carry on, and everyone has been charming.
Re our little stunt, I see no prospects until I have things on a firmer basis, but still hope and believe there are possibilities..."
The "little stunt" was probably a reference to the 'false flag' orders/instructions he and his people were placing in Irish republican circles, in the hope that it would lead to IRA members executing their own people in the belief that they had been 'turned'.
When not trying to stitch good people up, Mr Harper-Shove was apparently stitching himself up - his military 'Medal Index Card' contains complaints from his superior officers that he was fond of wearing medals to which he was not entitled and, in his dealings with the 'Herbal Medicine' (!) industry, Mr Harper-Shove was known as a Lieutenant-Colonel, a rank he was never entitled to!
Despite his many enemies, he stitched-up (!) a long life for himself - he died in 1974, at 88 years of age, in Gateshead, in Tyne and Wear, North East England.
That, at least, is true about the man...
'SCAB!
This is Robert Bruce, who continued to drive (British Army) munition trains while his comrades are being dismissed (for refusing to drive them).'
- Mr Bruce was the driver of a train from Belfast to Dublin on the morning of the 10th September, 1920, and the above comment was written on a placard that was made for him...
After he stationed the train in Dublin, he had a few hours before doing the return journey so he went to a pub in nearby Talbot Street, and had a pint or two.
He finished his drinks and left the pub - immediately outside, three IRA Volunteers identified themselves to Mr Bruce, showed him their placard, moved him over to a street pole and, using a length of chain and a padlock, secured him to it and placed the placard around his neck.
He wouldn't agree, but he got away lightly...
At the same time as Mr Bruce was trying on his jewellery, 155km (about 96 miles) up the road, in County Leitrim, Volunteer Patrick Gill, a middle-aged farmer from Corlara, Kilmore, County Roscommon was walking down the street in Drumsna, County Leitrim, with his sister, Elizabeth, and one of her friends, a M/s Netley.
The three friends were on their way home after attending the wake of a colleague, a Mr Bernard O'Beirne, and were walking slowly through the village when, without warning, shots were fired from the back of a British Army lorry, and Volunteer Gill fell down, dead.
An inquest was held and a Lieutenant Wallace, from the East Yorkshire Regiment of the British Army, claimed that Volunteer Gill was shouted at three times to stop, refused to do so, and was shot dead because of the danger he presented to the armed soldiers present!
The verdict reached was that "death was caused by a shooting by persons unknown..", while a coroners jury subsequently found that Volunteer Gill "had been murdered without provocation".
RIP Volunteer Patrick Gill.
==========================
ON THIS DATE (10TH SEPTEMBER) 69 YEARS AGO - LESSONS IN HOW TO KILL PEOPLE QUICKER.
"The British wanted to understand the harm that atomic explosions caused, and it was decided to use Australians, without their full knowledge and consent, as human guinea pigs. Australians were there simply to provide the labour, the bodies needed to get the tests done, the land to explode the bombs on, and, as it was later revealed, to function as lab rats for the British scientists..."
On the 10th September 1956, the British, not content with the carnage they inflicted in Dusseldorf 14 years earlier, wanted to see if they could blow things up quicker and kill even more people with less effort, and hundreds of British nuclear 'trials' took place in South Australia, about 800 kilometres north-west of Adelaide, between 1956 and 1963, at the Maralinga site, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area.
A total of seven major nuclear tests were performed,along with hundreds of minor trials, with approximate yields ranging from 1 to 27 kilotonnes of TNT (4.2 to 113.0 TJ).
Frank Walker, the author of the above-pictured book, came across the minutes of a meeting held on the 24th May 1957 between members of the 'UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment', chaired by Professor Ernest Titterton, during which the group agreed to continue its testing programme to determine the long-term effects of nuclear explosions on Australian citizens and also agreed to continue secretly testing the bodies of dead babies, infants, children, teenagers and young adults (of which the known total examined was given as 21,830!) for radiation contamination.
This violation of the dead apparently started innocently enough (!), with testing carried out on soil samples, graduating from that to tests on dead animals and then to its final phase - tests on dead humans, to discover "...if Strontium-90 is entering the food chain and getting into humans..."
'The site was contaminated with radioactive materials and an initial cleanup was attempted in 1967. The McClelland Royal Commission, an examination of the effects of the tests, delivered its report in 1985 and found that significant radiation hazards still existed at many of the Maralinga test areas.
It recommended another cleanup, which was completed in 2000 at a cost of $108 million. Debate continued over the safety of the site and the long-term health effects on the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land and former personnel.
In 1994, the Australian Government paid compensation amounting to $13.5 million to the local Maralinga Tjarutja people...'
A 'small price' to pay, I'm sure, for such invaluable knowledge - how to kill people quicker than you had done before.
'Progress' indeed.
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.
What is needed is the establishment of a structured co-production scheme, involving both organisations and all Irish broadcasters - as well as BBC Northern Ireland (sic), a frequent co-financer of independent productions - which would lift Irish arts documentary out of the thankless rut into which it has declined.
As for RTE, the need to create a strong, individual identity for the station has never been greater.
Despite its shortcomings, it still has a loyal viewership, and can only bolster this loyalty by building a reputation as something different, something daring, something which taps into the interests of its audience and documents the obsessions of their imagination...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (10TH SEPTEMBER) 83 YEARS AGO : CIVILIANS TARGETED BY BRITISH.
"The destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized community life throughout Germany [is the goal]....it should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives ; the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale; and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories...."
- Air Marshal Arthur Harris, Commander in Chief, Bomber Commander, British Royal Air Force (from here).
On the 10th of September 1942, 100,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on Dusseldorf, Germany, by 476 British Royal Air Force bombers - the objective was as stated above by one of Britain's more infamous 'mad bombers', a psychopathic mass murderer who, along with the man who issued him his instructions (and agreed that the first wave of RAF bombers should drop explosives thereby opening up the infrastructure for the second wave, incendiary bombs) , Churchill, should have been tried for war crimes, along with Goebbels and Himmler, amongst others.
Yet the British continue to propagate the myth that they are 'peace keepers' and here, in Ireland, they have found a gaggle of willing fools to assist them in spreading that myth.
On the 10th September, 1922, as IRA rebels from the Kerry No. 1 Brigade were consolidating their hold on the Kerry village of Tarbert, a Free State Army convoy was ambushed by the IRA near the village of Rathmore, in County Kerry.
The Staters were under the command of a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher, a Mr James McGuinness, who had fought with the IRA against the British but was now fighting against his old comrades (he participated in the Stacumney Ambush in July 1921).
Mr McGuinness survived the IRA ambush, but seven other Free State Army renegades were killed before the rebels withdrew, as FSA reinforcements with an artillery piece arrived on the scene.
As the rebels were withdrawing, Mr de Valera was writing a letter to a Mr Joseph McGarrity in which he outlined how the Staters had started the Civil War in Ireland and also voiced his concern that public opinion in the country was moving in the direction of support for the Treaty of Surrender ; other supporters of that Treaty, in Westminster, were - on that same date - reading the 'Weekly Intelligence Summary' from the 'Dublin District of the British Army', in which the British military leadership in Ireland noted that "there are no signs of double dealing at present (by the Staters)..." in relation to their support for the Treaty and, by association, their willingness to suppress the 32-County Republic.
So - 103 years later - no change there, then...
==========================
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.
In October 1996, ten months after the incident, the Maltese Board of Inquiry was officially informed by Tunisia that local fishermen had pulled wreckage from the plane to the surface.
However, the Tunisian government has never identified the fishermen, the name of their vessel or the exact location where the wreckage was allegedly discovered, nor were they pressed by the Maltese Board of Inquiry to do so.
On 14th November 1996, the inquiry in Malta was shown photographs of the wreckage taken by the Maltese Charge d'Affaires in Tunis, including photographs of Captain Bartolo's wallet and its contents, allegedly found amongst the wreckage, but no specific information is given regarding the actual date the wreckage was 'discovered'.
The Maltese Board of Inquiry report, published in January 2000, states that ... "..following the recovery of the wreck, a search was carried out in November 1996 in the indicated area, but the search proved unfruitful..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (10TH SEPTEMBER) 102 YEARS AGO : FINAL PREP DAY FOR A LON-ANNOUNCED (AND IMAGINED) 'NEW NATION'!
A LESS-THAN-USELESS FAILED INSTITUTION.
(No, not Leinster House - that it is the above goes without saying!)
We refer to the so-called 'League of Nations' organisation which, on this date in 1923 - 10th September - was preparing to open its doors on 'Day 1' of having somehow officially announced the 'birth of a new nation' - Ireland, all 26 of its 32 Counties, that is!
The new entity (!) was, unbelievably, allowed membership of that August body (!) as "a nation".
This despite the fact that the application was endorsed by a (Free State) political administration which was in turmoil and had only just 'officially' emerged from a war with its neighbour, Britain, the effects of which were still being felt in the country as a whole and, indeed, are still being felt to this day, as the issue remains unresolved.
The 'main man' at the time, in this then war-torn State, William T. Cosgrave - a republican-poacher-turned-Free State-gamekeeper - was delighted that the Free State was 'allowed' to join the then four year-old 'League', which was considered by both the home-grown and foreign political 'Establishment' as a 'sacred circle'.
The British representative in that failed grouping, amongst others, gave what was described at the time as an "..eloquent speech...a spontaneous manifestation of good-will toward Ireland (sic) (in which) felicitations were extended...(to the new member)..."
And why wouldn't Westminster (and its 'friends' in Ireland and abroad at the time) welcome an acknowledgement by Cosgrave and his ilk that, to all intent and purpose, they agreed with Westminster that the part of Ireland handed back to 'the Irish' was indeed considered to be a 'nation', as it helped propagate the lie that the (still occupied) six north-eastern counties of Ireland were "part of the Empire".
Mr Cosgrave died 60 years ago but the political fault-line he so ably gave succor to in 1923 (and before and after that year) lives on after him.
Nothing to be proud of.
On the 10th September, 1923, the newly-spawned Irish Free State became a living oxymoron, when it was admitted to the 'League of Nations' organisation.
"We can no longer say, as we could formerly about the Irish question, that it is an internal matter..."
- the words of a Mr Antrobus, an official in the British Colonial/Dominions Office, in a letter he sent on the 19th of that month to a Mr Lionel Curtis.
Mr Antrobus opined that the Free Staters could now take a complaint against Westminster to the League because delays in appointing the Boundary Commissioner violated an 'international agreement' ie the Treaty of Surrender but, of course - as correctly judged by the British - the Free State Leinster House administration wouldn't dare bite the hand that fed them ; it would bark, but not bite.
"Our friends' heads (the Free State government) are, of course, pretty full at the moment, but this would soon change once they realised that their position in the world counted for little apart from their position in the British Commonwealth of Nations..."
- the reply to Mr Antrobus from Mr Curtis (on the 25th September) : then, and now, the Free State politicians consider(ed) themselves to be 'world players' when, in reality, they are occasional pebbles in the shoes of the real players.
==========================
ON THIS DATE (10TH SEPTEMBER) 102 YEARS AGO : AN IMPOSTER JOINS A CLUB!
"The elected Parliament and Government of the Irish Republic pledged the active support of the Irish Nation in translating into deeds the principles enunciated by the President of the U.S. at Washington's tomb on July 4th, 1918, and whole-heartedly accepted by the people of America during the war. We are eager and ready to enter a World League of Nations based on equality of rights, in which the guarantees exchanged neither recognise nor imply a difference between big nations and small, between those that are powerful and those that are weak. We are willing to accept all the duties, responsibilities, and burdens which inclusion in such a League implies..."
- the words of Michael Collins, delivered to a meeting of (the 32-County) An Chéad Dáil (the First Dáil, 1919-1921) in April 1919, in relation to the then-probable formation of a 'League of Nations' organisation (which was formed in January 1920) .
The British forcibly partitioned Ireland in December 1922 and, on the 10th September 1923, the then three-years-old 'League of Nations' organisation accepted the Free State (a 26-county entity) as a member of the club - had that grouping been called the 'League of States' rather than the 'League of Nations' then we would not be writing this piece but for any so-called 'organisation of nations' to accept a request for membership from a landmass that contains a little more than three-quarters of its own land brings to mind the Groucho Marx quote - "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member"!
And, in a further twist of logic, 'Time' magazine stated -
"Ireland was admitted into the sacred circle of the League of Nations by unanimous vote. On all sides there were spontaneous manifestations of good-will toward Ireland. In eloquent speeches, representatives of Britain, France, China, Persia and other countries extended felicitations to the Free State representative...." again confusing the Free State as being 'Ireland', rather than part thereof.
Incidentally, this very issue caused a rift between U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and the then leader of the Clann na nGael organisation in America, Judge Daniel Cohalan - the Judge was known to be of the opinion that the 'League of Nations' was a ploy by the British to integrate themselves into American society.
It was he and the Clann organisation that financed the opposition to Wilson's 'League of Nations' proposal - indeed, of the estimated $900,000 dollar 'war fund' that the Clann had, only $115,000 dollars was spent in Ireland ; the other $785,000 dollars was spent in attacking the 'League of Nations ' or "Britains League", as Judge Daniel Cohalan and John Devoy called it.
But that's a story for another day...!
==========================
"(The Boundary Commission) will hand over to the Southern States (sic) the Catholic parishes which were anxious to join them, but which would, on the other hand, transfer to the North those Protestant parishes which are now in the Free State..."
- British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, addressing an audience in Wales, on the 10th September 1924.
One of the legal referees involved in the Boundary Commission fiasco, a Mr Kevin Matthews, stated that an award based on the wishes of the population in parishes would mean that large portions of Counties Tyrone, Fermanagh and Armagh would go to the Free State as well as Derry City, Strabane and Newry, which the British wouldn't countenance, so they loaded the dice by granting themselves two votes on the Commission - their own, and that of the Six County rep, whom they picked!
Mr Matthews repeatedly voiced concern regarding the legality of that move, arguing that Westminster did not have the unilateral authority to make such an appointment and that parliamentary legislation was required (...a point we have made numerous times on this blog), and the British 'Judicial Committee of the Privy Council' supported his argument (having ruled in June 1924 that the British government did indeed need to pass legislation to nominate the Six County representative to the commission).
However, the Commission (chaired by a Mr Richard Feetham, a friend of Westminster) rode roughshod over the ball-less Free Staters and, in its 1925 report, ultimately recommended no changes to the imposed border, a decision that proved highly controversial but went legally unchallenged by the Staters, who were quite happy to rule over (?!) the portion of Ireland that Westminster had allocated to them.
Shame on them, but it wasn't unexpected...
==========================
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - appreciated!
Sharon and the team.
(We'll be back on Wednesday, 24th September 2025.)
1919 - The British Government was apparently concerned about what was happening in Ireland but, seemingly, only to the point that those it considered to be unoffending Irish people (!) might be treated the same as the rebels...
...that's one of sixteen pieces we'll be posting about here on Wednesday, 10th September, 2025, and that particular piece emphasises the propaganda practises that 'The Empire' employed in the approximate 54 to 65 countries that Westminster colonised and/or annexed and in the approximate 171 countries in total that were affected by it's political and/or military 'influence' ie where it exerted significant military and/or political control.
And, unfortunately, Ireland is included in those figures.
1920, Westminster and Ireland - a British spy network in Ireland was uncovered by the IRA, as was a 'spy instructor' ; the 'work' they were doing was investigated by the rebels as was the main player, the 'instructor' : and some of his 'extracurricular' activities were then made public...
1922 - the British administration in Ireland was, as expected, keeping a close eye on Mr Collins and his supporters to ensure that they were indeed on-side with the Treaty of Surrender and were actively engaged in hunting down the republican renegades (!) - updates re the lack of any such double-dealing were regularly sent back to Westminster...
1923 - "Put silk on a goat and it's still a goat' : this foreign august body of world leaders and intellectuals might just as well have been presented with a naked man as they declared, in unison - 'Oh the kings clothes are immaculate, not a stitch out of place, all is in order, move along there, nothing to see here...!'
...and that's all yer gettin' for now!
As stated, we'll be putting clothes (I'll get me coat...!) on the back of the above four pieces, and about a dozen other ones, on Wednesday, 10th September, 2025 : so do, please, give us a shout then ; sure we're tailor-made for ya...!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - see yis again on the 10th!!
Sharon and the team.
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...
==========================
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.
On the 26th August, 1913 - 107 years ago on this date - at about 9.40am, drivers and conductors on Dublin trams stepped-out of their vehicles and 'walked off the job' ; they, and other workers, were objecting to the poor working conditions they were forced to endure and their lack of rights to challenge those conditions, including an 'unofficial' workplace 'rule' that would practically ensure that if a worker joined a trade union he or she would be sacked.
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.
It should be remembered that the Catholic Church as an institution decided not to organise 'soup kitchens' etc or offer assistance of any kind which might be of benefit to children during the lockout, as those poor kids were the sons and daughters of the striking workers and that particular church supported the employers and branded Jim Larkin (pictured) as a 'political troublemaker'.
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.
One of the better known connections between Irish republicanism and that period in our history was that Thomas Patrick Ashe (pictured), who was a member of the 'Irish Republican Brotherhood' (IRB) and who had established IRB circles in Dublin and Kerry and eventually became President of the IRB Supreme Council in 1917, and espoused the Labour policies of James Larkin.
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.
'Free State Keeps Ireland Down...' : a poster used and distributed by Sinn Féin in the 1923 Free State general election.
'Justice and Brotherhood-not Flogging and Tortures....Sinn Féin will abolish the murder gangs and secure the life, liberty and property of the people...' : a leaflet used and distributed by Sinn Féin in the 1923 Free State general election.
'A Self-Reliant Nation.....Ireland Free and Therefore Strong, Prosperous and Peaceful...' : a 1923 Sinn Féin election poster.
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...."
'On they rode, hearing a menace in every whisper of the wind, a cannonade in every rustling of the leaves.
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.)
