ON THIS DATE (21ST APRIL) 146 YEARS AGO : IRISH HOME-RULER ELECTED TO WESTMINSTER.
Charles Stewart Parnell (pictured) was born on the 27th June, 1846, in Avondale, in County Wicklow, and became associated with the 'Irish Home Rule' organisation. He proved to be a thorn in the side of British injustice to the extent that he was once described in British political circles as "...combining in his person all the unlovable qualities of an Irish member with the absolute absence of their attractiveness...something really must be done about him...he is always at a white heat or rage and makes with savage earnestness fancifully ridiculous statements.."
On the 21st April, 1875 - 146 years ago on this date - the then 29-year-old C.S. Parnell was first elected to the British Parliament as MP for County Meath ; he kept his seat for that constituency for five years, and then moved to represent County Cork. He was generally 'well got' in political circles but was also looked at in a somewhat wary fashion by some of his own people as he was a Protestant 'Landlord' who 'owned' about 5,000 acres of land in County Wicklow and his parents were friends of and, indeed, in some cases, related to, the local Protestant 'gentry'.
He supported the 'Boycott' campaign and, in one of his many speeches, stated - "Now what are you to do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted? Now I think I heard somebody say 'Shoot him!', but I wish to point out a very much better way, a more Christian and more charitable way...when a man takes a farm from which another had been evicted you must shun him on the roadside when you meet him, you must shun him in the streets of the town, you must shun him in the shop, you must shun him in the fairgreen and in the marketplace, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him in a moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of his country as if he were the leper of old, you must show your detestation of the crime he has committed..".
However, in his early 40's, he was brought down by a 'crime' he himself committed - he took-up with a married woman, Katherine O'Shea (whom he subsequently married, in a registry office, as their church had refused to participate) ; divorce proceedings were heard over two days in 1890, Parnell was not represented and Katherine did not contest the evidence. Indeed, her husband, Captain William O'Shea, was by all accounts a waster, a gambler, a drinker, and a figure of £20,000 was mentioned by him in regards to making the whole sorry mess disappear.
But the damage was done : Parnell's political career was all but over and, at only 45 years of age, he died in Katherine's arms, in Hove, in England, from pneumonia, on the 6th of October, 1891.
'CORK MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, June, 1955.
At a meeting of Comhairle Ceanntair Corcaighe the following candidates who had been selected by Sinn Féin Conventions in the different areas were ratified ;
Cork Corporation - Liam Early and Seán O Murchú.Cork County Council - Owen Harold.Mallow UDC - Owen Harold.Skibbereen UDC - William O'Brien, Seán MacSwiney and CC O'Sullivan.Passage Town Commissioners - J. O'Regan.
Liam Early is a member of the Ard Comhairle of Sinn Féin, and Seán O'Murchú is Secretary of the 'Irish Engineering and Electrical Trade Union' and Secretary of the Cork Council of Irish Unions.
Owen Harold, a veteran of the Republican Movement, is Chairman (sic) of Mallow Urban District Council, and J. O'Regan is an outgoing member of Passage West Town Commissioners. The candidates for Skibbereen were instrumental in the formation of the O'Donovan Rossa Cumann of Sinn Féin and have brought about a wonderful revival of republican spirit in that town of the Phoenix Clubs... (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (21ST APRIL) 105 YEARS AGO : THE AUD, CON KEATING, CHARLIE MONAHAN AND DONAL SHEEHAN.
The Aud (pictured) set sail from the Baltic port of Lubeck on the 9th of April, 1916, carrying 20,000 German rifles, one-million rounds of ammunition, ten machine guns and some explosives, for use by Irish republican forces in the Easter Rising.
The British were waiting for a German gun-running ship and, on Friday, 21st April 1916, they boarded the Aud in Tralee Bay but Captain Karl Spindler managed to convince the British raiders that they were actually on board a Norwegian ship, which, he told them, was anchored for repairs.
Nevertheless, the British insisted that one of their warships should 'accompany' the Aud to Cobh (then known as 'Queenstown') Harbour and, as they approached their destination, on Saturday, 22nd April, Spindler and his men scuttled their own ship, were 'arrested' by the British as POW's and, within days, were transferred to prison of war camps in England.
Roger Casement, who was following behind the Aud in a submarine, landed safely, but was later captured in Kerry and transported to London where he was charged with 'high treason' ; he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging, and the sentence was carried out in Pentonville Prison, London, on the 3rd August, 1916.
Irish republicans, meanwhile, had made arrangements to transport the German equipment to Cahirciveen, in County Kerry ; three republican Volunteers - Con Keating, from Kerry, Charlie Monahan, Belfast, and Limerick-born Donal Sheehan were sent from the Dublin Command to liaise with Roger Casement and Karl Spinder but, on Good Friday, the 21st April, 1916 - 105 years ago on this date - on their way there, all three men (the first casualties of the 1916 Easter Rising) drowned when their car plunged off the pier at Ballykissane.
'Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild...'
NO RIGHT OF APPEAL...
Why the media consensus on a broad range of issues is increasingly disturbing. By John Drennan.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
We were soon back in business ; some mildly critical articles about the Flood Tribunal inspired Halloween-style levels of horror in Mr Dunphy, who surrounded himself with consoling cliques of 'Tribunalistas' who informed a remarkably calm nation that dark forces were stalking the land, conspiring to collapse Justice Flood's incubus. Happily, the absence of any response meant the 'debate' soon fizzled out and the media consensus returned to its normal uncritical adulation.
This was followed by another brief diversion as the discovery of some minor documentation on the Arms Trial saw the media again uniting to inform Dessie O'Malley that he had "serious questions to answer". The same journalists were equally unified in their pragmatic silence when it was revealed that O'Malley didn't have any "serious questions to answer" after all *. It's called 'vindication', but it happens awfully quietly here.
Indeed in most instances the silence was more eloquent that the clamour. The unity over the travails of the haemophiliacs was particularly touching ; bad news - bad for the advertising figures, that is - so it's best to get that sort of stuff off the front page. Similarly, when it came to the murder of Marty O'Hagan...well, he was only a tabloid hack, and what more do you expect up there in the badlands...? ('1169' comment * : Des O'Malley, and his colleagues in Leinster House, all have 'serious questions to answer', as they preside over a corrupt political system, operated from that institution, which financially benefits them at the expense of State citizens.) (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (21ST APRIL) 98 YEARS AGO : IRA CAPTAIN ABDUCTED AND KILLED IN DUBLIN.
20th April, 1923 : Frank Aiken is elected IRA Chief of Staff.
22nd April, 1923 : Free State troops surround Frank Aiken, Paidrag Quinn and Seán Quinn, the leaders of the Anti-Treaty forces in the Dundalk area, in a safe house in Castlebellingham. A firefight breaks out in which the two Quinns are wounded - Seán mortally - and subsequently captured. In the confusion, Frank Aiken manages to slip away...
Between the IRA election of Frank Aiken and the Castlebellingham incident (ie on the 21st April 1923 - 98 years ago on this date) 28-year-old IRA Captain Martin Hogan (pictured), from Dromineer in County Tipperary, was abducted from a Dublin street by the Staters, and shot to death. He was the fourth eldest son of Mr. Seamus Hogan, and was a member of the 1st. Tipperary Brigade, IRA. Seeking employment, he moved to Dublin and while there he joined the 1st Battalion of the Dublin City Brigade IRA.
He was out with his girlfriend in Dublin City Centre, at Eccles Place, Dorset Street, when they were surrounded by a group of about ten men from CID Headquarters, Oriel House. They bundled Captain Hogan away, leaving his girlfriend in a distraught state on the side of the road. When she regained her composure, she went looking for him, thinking that he had been kept in for an 'overnight stay' in a prison. The prison governor suggested she make her way to Oriel House and make inquiries there, which she did, only to be sneeringly told to "try the morgue".
His broken body was found the following morning, in an overgrown ditch on Grace Park Road in Drumcondra, Dublin ; he had been tortured before being shot, eleven times. No one was ever held responsible for his death. He is buried in the family grave in Killodiernan Graveyard, Puckane, County Tipperary.
(There are conflicting reports on where exactly Captain Mártan Ó hÓgáin was done to death by Free Staters : some reports have it that he was killed in action in Poulacapple, Tipperary, whilst others state that he was killed on the Gracepark Road in Whitehall, Dublin. It was common practice then for the Staters to 'lift' republicans off the street, torture and interrogate them before killing them and dumping their bodies in an area hundreds of miles away from where they were born and/or from the scene of the crime.)
ON THIS DATE (21ST APRIL) 27 YEARS AGO : PAUL HILL ('GUILDFORD FOUR') WINS HIS APPEAL.
On the 21st April, 1994 - 27 years ago on this date - Paul Hill (pictured) won his appeal against a conviction for an IRA shooting in the Occupied Six Counties.
'The story began in late 1974, following IRA bombs at pubs in Guildford in Surrey and Woolwich in London, which killed seven people and injured a hundred more. The British police picked-up two young Belfastmen, Gerry Conlon and Paul Hill, and interrogated them ; Conlon is said to have confessed to bombings, adding that Annie Maguire, his aunt, showed him and others how to make bombs in the kitchen of her London home. Paul Hill is said to have confirmed this.
The police raided the Maguire house, arrested the occupants and searched the place : nothing was found in the search and none of the people would admit to knowing anything about bombs. But forensic tests on the fingernails of six of the people, and on a pair of kitchen gloves used by Annie Maguire, were said to have yielded traces of nitroglycerine. On this 'evidence', the seven defendants were found guilty of handling explosives.
Patrick and Annie Maguire were sentenced to fourteen years, the judge remarking that he wished he could jail them for life. Annie's brother, Seán Smyth, also got fourteen years. Annie's sixteen year old son Vincent got five years, and her thirteen year old son Patrick got four years. Her brother-in-law, Guiseppe Conlon, and a family friend, Patrick O'Neill, both got twelve years. Closer examination of the facts surrounding the Guildford and Woolwich bombings raised enough doubts to lead even Sir John Biggs-Davidson, a 'Pillar of the Establishment' who does not lightly criticise the courts, to conclude that a miscarraige of justice took place.
Gerry Conlon and Paul Hill, who allegedly confessed to the Guildford and Woolwich bombings and implicated Conlon's Auntie Annie, were later jailed for sentences which stand in the 'Guinness Book Of Records' as the longest ever handed down in Britain - natural life and thirty-five years, respectively.
Yet doubt was cast on this conviction too when, in January 1977, four admitted IRA men - on trial for other bombings and killings - said they had bombed Guildford and Woolwich too. This was clearly un-welcome news to the authorities, for when the IRA men were tried they were simply not charged with the Guildford and Woolwich killings...' (The above is a shortened and edited version of a piece we posted here in 2005, and gives an indication of how British 'justice' impacted on Paul Hill, among many others. More about the 'Guildford Four' can be read here.)
It was while he was being questioned about the Guildford bombing that Paul Hill 'confessed' to the 1974 killing of Brian Shaw, a British Army soldier. The conviction stood for five years after he was released for the Guildford bombing, only for it to be quashed ("...unsafe and unsatisfactory..") by 'Sir' Brian Hutton, the then Six County 'Lord Chief Justice', on the 21st of April, 1994 - 27 years ago on this date.
"Upon my release I took some comfort from the thought that at least my misfortune would lessen the possibility of it happening to others. Alas it would appear that nothing has been gleaned from the many miscarriages of justice, especially those with political overtones. We now live in an age in which you can disappear into a black hole, be held without charge indefinitely and subject to torture, whilst Ivy League educated politicians play verbal gymnastics with the meaning of the word..." - Paul Hill. And how right he is.
'COMMENTS...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
Prisoners' Support ;
A unanimous decision of the GAA Convention sent a motion to Congress asking that the proceeds of the Railway Cup Finals on Saint Patrick's Day be devoted to the Irish Republican Army Prisoners' Dependents' Fund.
Pocket-Money for the Governor ;
"The financial position of the Six-County Governor has been steadily growing worse and he is now badly out of pocket", Major Lloyd George (the son of the man who created partition) told the British House of Commons recently, so the House stepped-up Wakehurst's pocket-money to £14,000 per annum. How much of it is danger money?
Churchill Cumann ;
No! It's not the name of a Conservative Club in London - it's the official title of a Fianna Fáil Cumann in Kerry. No wise-cracks allowed, but a recent notice in 'The Kerryman' newspaper was headed - 'Fianna Fáil (The Republican Party), Churchill Cumann.' Actually, Churchill is the name of a locality in Kerry! (MORE LATER.)
Thanks for reading,
Sharon.
We hope you'll check-in with us on Wednesday, 28th April 2021, when we'll be detailing the disgraceful events in a certain Irish county in Easter Week in 1916, when the local leadership of the 'Irish Volunteers' handed their members weapons over to the British military in the area in an attempt - 'successful', as it turned out - to 'keep the peace' in that county. Those 'Irish Volunteer' leaders were granted 'passports' by the British to travel throughout that county, and further afield, to call on other 'Irish Volunteer' branches not to take any military action during the Rising. Unbelievable, but it happened ; a very disturbing incident in our history.
See you on the 28th April 2021.
ON THIS DATE (22ND APRIL) 115 YEARS AGO : DEATH OF A POLITICAL OPPORTUNIST.
'William Henry O’Shea [pictured] (pronounced “O’Shee”, a fact that gave rise to much worthless humour in the clubs and music halls at the time of the divorce decree) was born in 1840, the son of a Catholic Limerick solicitor. He was educated in England. He travelled at his father’s expense before his father purchased a commission (for him) in the 18th Hussars...
He married Katharine Wood in 1867. Profligate and commercially unsuccessful (he was made bankrupt in 1869, and would be again), he and Katharine were increasingly dependent on the generosity of her extremely wealthy aunt..he was a member of parliament for Clare 1880-5 and was imposed by Parnell on Galway in 1886. He abstained on the Home Rule Bill and resigned. He gave evidence against Parnell at the special commission and in late 1889 instituted proceedings for divorce. His divorce broke Parnell’s leadership of the Irish Party. O’Shea descended into the obscurity in which he died (on the 22nd April) at Hove in 1905. As one re-approaches Capt O’Shea one might think perhaps that he had been stereotypically cast as a knave...(but he was)..a villain of resilience. His caricatural aspects work in an almost Dickensian way to mitigate his profound unpleasantness of character...' (from here.)
And there's more here about this unsavoury political character, but...as our readers in America would say - "Enough Already..!
God knows that there are more than enough 'unsavoury political characters' out there to write about, especially so during this Covid 19 period, which has brought even more rogue characters of that type - from Leinster House to the White House, and other political institutions in between - into the public eye.
Instead, a few paragraphs on the innocent bystander (!) in Mr. O'Shea's life (he died, by the way, on the 22nd April, 1905 ; 115 years ago on this date) : Katharine Wood -
Born in 1846, on the 30th January, Katharine Wood (pictured) matured into an unwitting femme fatale, said to be practically solely responsible for 'the most notorious scandal of the late Victorian Age' - the downfall of Charles Stewart Parnell and the split which followed in the 'Home Rule Movement'.
'Kitty' was a name she would have hated, as it was slang for a woman of loose morals. In fact, she only loved two men in her life and married both of them, though the marriage to Parnell was to prove tragically short-lived as he died in her arms after a few brief months of happiness. She was born Katharine Wood and was known as Kate to her family. Her father was a baronet, a member of the British aristocracy and her brother a Field Marshall, although their grandfather had started life as an apprentice and was a self-made man.
The Woods were closely linked with the Gladstone family and Katharine often acted as a go-between with William Gladstone when Parnell was trying to persuade the British government to grant Ireland independence. She had married William O'Shea at the age of twenty-one, not long after the death of her father, and the marriage had produced a son and two daughters. O'Shea neglected his wife and pursued his own pleasures while she was often left to bring up the children alone, while also looking after her elderly aunt. She played the part of a dutiful wife, however, and hosted dinner parties to help her husband's career. Parnell, an important figure in Irish politics, was always invited, always accepted and yet never showed up.
Annoyed and perplexed by these apparent snubs she went to confront him in person at his office in Westminster in July 1880. The effect was immediate ; "This man is wonderful and different," she was to write later. Parnell was a bachelor who had once loved and been rejected, and never took an interest in women again until he met Katharine. It was a suicidal love as she was married to a fellow Irish MP and was a respectable wife and mother. The power of the attraction between the two, however, was impossible to resist and before long they were living together in her home in Eltham in the suburbs of London.
They had an illicit 'honeymoon' in Brighton and Katharine was to bear three children to Parnell while still married to O'Shea, the first of whom died soon after being born. It is even thought that she bore Parnell a son who could take his name after they finally married, although this child was stillborn. O'Shea knew of the relationship but turned a blind eye to it. Then the Aunt died and left Katharine a large inheritance and he decided to divorce his wife and shame Parnell publicly. The ensuing scandal ruined Parnell's career and his health.
His traditional supporters in Catholic Ireland turned away from him when they learned he had been living with a married woman even though he and his beloved Katharine became man and wife after they married at Steyning register office in Sussex, the county where they made their home. In an attempt to revive his flagging fortunes, Parnell went to Ireland and spoke at a public meeting in County Galway. He was caught in a thunderstorm and developed a chill from which he never recovered. Seriously ill, he returned to be with Katharine and died soon afterwards.
They had been married for only four months. It is estimated that half a million people lined the streets of Dublin to pay their respects to Parnell as his coffin was taken to Glasnevin cemetery to be buried near Daniel O'Connell. Later Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins were also laid to rest nearby. On the granite stone above his grave lies just one word – 'Parnell', enough to identify Ireland’s flawed hero whose dream of a free and united country at peace with Britain was destroyed by his love for a married woman.
And what happened to Kitty, as the world now knew her? It was all too much for her and she lived out her days quietly in Sussex. She never married or fell in love again but looked after her children and died at the age of seventy-five. When she was buried, only her immediate family came to the funeral and on her grave monument were the names of both her husbands with that of Parnell, the great love of her life, above that of O'Shea who gave her the name she is known by. There is no sign of 'Kitty', however. By the gravestone is a plaque placed by the Parnell Society with Parnell's promise to her: "I will give my life to Ireland, but to you I give my love.." Katharine Wood died on the 5th February 1921, at 75 years of age, in Littlehampton in Sussex, England, and is buried there. (from here.)
And there you have it - O'Shea and Parnell were both bounders who attempted to take advantage of an innocent woman. That's my take on it, and I'm stickin' to it, regardless of what the other team members of this blog think about it..!
'SINN FÉIN VICTORY.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, June, 1955.
Two Prisoner Candidates Elected To Thirty-Two County Parliament!
Northern republicans on road to freedom : Thursday, May 26th 1955, is a landmark in Irish history. A new chapter has been opened. The total vote cast for Sinn Féin candidates, great though it was, is of secondary importance to the new spirit of co-operation and voluntary service to Ireland that has spread throughout the country.
We are proud of the response made by the republicans in the North to Ireland's call for freedom and unity ; after years of betrayal and confusion - in spite of enemy tactics to disrupt and 'friendly' efforts to discourage - the republicans of the North have proved that the courage and idealism of the O'Neills and the O'Donnells lives on. The election is a phase in the Sinn Féin campaign to organise all Irishmen into one united people to end forever British occupation and influence in Ireland, to restore to the Irish people their fundamental right to govern themselves and to develop the resources of Ireland for the happiness and prosperity of the Irish people.
It is now the task and duty of all Irishmen to rally to the support of Northern republicans in their demand for a 32-County Parliament. Sinn Féin has the plans, you have the power - join Sinn Féin and unite the Nation!
(END of 'Sinn Féin Victory'. NEXT - 'Disruption Tactics Fail', 'National Unity' and 'Democracy!', from the same source
.)
ON THIS DATE (22ND APRIL) 145 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF A 1916 EASTER RISING LEADER.
On the 22nd April, 1875, Michael Joseph O'Rahilly ('The O'Rahilly') was born in Ballylongford, in County Kerry. He had a busy, well-travelled and interesting life and took part in the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, during which he was killed in the fighting.
"Friday April, 29 1916. The General Post Office in Dublin, occupied on the Monday as the headquarters of republican insurrection, was burning fiercely. The insurgents inside had decided they had to make their escape across Henry Street to the network of small houses and shops on Moore Street.
A small party of twenty armed men dashed across the open street to establish a toehold there and to clear out a British barricade. At their head was a distinguished looking gentleman in green uniform, complete with Victorian moustache and sword.
The charging party was hit by volleys of British bullets from the barricades on both sides. Four Volunteers were killed outright. Their leader, the moustached gentleman, fell wounded in the face. He managed to drag himself out of the line of fire to Sackville Lane, where he lay, bleeding, grievously injured. His name was Michael O'Rahilly..." (from here.)
More information re 'The O'Rahilly' himself - 'His interest in Irish history led him slowly and inexorably towards nationalism. The first indication of nationalism is in a letters controversy in 1899 in the European edition of the New York Herald, following celebrations of Queen Victoria's 80th birthday. Rahilly criticised the celebrations, pointing out the miseries her reign had inflicted on Ireland. Some of his criticism was censored by the paper as too offensive..' - can be read here, and his family history can be read here.
'SING of The O'Rahilly,
Do not deny his right;
Sing a "The" before his name;
Allow that he, despite
All those learned historians,
Established it for good;
He wrote out that word himself,
He christened himself with blood.
How goes the weather?
Sing of The O'Rahilly
That had such little sense
He told Pearse and Connolly
He'd gone to great expense
Keeping all the Kerry men
Out of that crazy fight;
That he might be there himself
Had travelled half the night.
How goes the weather?
"Am I such a craven that
I should not get the word
But for what some travelling man
Had heard I had not heard?"
Then on Pearse and Connolly
He fixed a bitter look:
"Because I helped to wind the clock
I come to hear it strike."
How goes the weather?
What remains to sing about
But of the death he met
Stretched under a doorway
Somewhere off Henry Street;
They that found him found upon
The door above his head
"Here died The O'Rahilly.
R.I.P." writ in blood.
How goes the weather? (By William Butler Yeats.)
('The O'Rahilly's' grandson, Ronan, 79 years of age, died on Monday last, 20th April. The poor man was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013 and had been resident in a nursing home in Carlingford in County Louth for the last years of his life. "How goes the weather", Ronan? Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.)
FIT TO PRACTISE?
As social work in Ireland reaches a landmark, Phil MacGiolla Bháin argues that the profession is flawed beyond salvation. From 'Magill' magazine, July 2002.
This is a landmark year for social work in Ireland, with the 'Irish Association of Social Workers' celebrating 30 years of existence ; as good a time as any to evaluate what social work has become over its relatively short lifespan.
There is no social work equivalent of the 'Irish Medical Council' which, last year, found against Dr. Moira Woods in relation to her investigation into child sex abuse at the Rotunda Hospital more than a decade before. Social workers, rather than being practising professionals, are employees of health boards. There is no 'Fitness to Practise Committee' for social work, and so there is little formal sense of what is good or bad social work practice.
Perhaps the most telling piece of evidence about what social work actually is right now was contained in an article in the summer/autumn 2001 edition of 'Irish Social Worker' on "Evidence Based Social Work", the newest fad in social work. All social work practice must now be 'evidence based', it told us, which might lead the reasonable person to ask - 'If you are now basing what you do on evidence, what did you base it on before you were relying on evidence...?' (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (22ND APRIL) 97 YEARS AGO : IRA 'POACHER-TURNED-GAMEKEEPER' ESCAPES FROM IRA SAFE HOUSE.
"Seán Quinn was a high ranking officer in the Fourth Northern Division of the Irish Republican Army and staunchly anti-treaty. He was ultimately killed by his own countrymen, Irish Free State troops...according to the sources, Seán was at safe house in Castlebellingham in County Louth on April 22, 1923 with his brothers Padraig and Malachi, and other anti-treaty IRA leaders. A Catholic priest who said Sunday Mass betrayed them and soon a large force of Free State troops surrounded their safe house when Seán decided they had to shoot their way out. Both Seán and Padraig were shot and captured. The others escaped. A week later, the civil war ended. Seán died from his injuries a month later on May 22, 1923 in St. Bricin’s Hospital in Dublin...(he) ultimately died for a cause he believed in – total Irish independence from Britain with no strings attached..." (from here.)
On Sunday, 22nd April 1923 - 97 years ago on this date - Seán Francis Quinn (Seán Proinsias Ó Cuinn), an Adjutant General in the Fourth Northern Division of the Anti-Treaty IRA, was in a safe house in Castlebellingham in County Louth, temporarily keeping a low profile with his two brothers, Padraig (Quartermaster General) and Malachi. IRA Volunteer Ned Fitzpatrick was there as well, as was their Officer Commanding, Frank Aiken. In the confusion caused by the shoot-out, after they were surrounded by the Staters, Frank Aiken escaped (Malachi and Ned escaped capture by hiding in the attic) and, just over a month later (on the 24th May, 1923 - two days after Seán died) Frank Aiken issued a 'Ceasefire' order and instructed 'all Units to dump arms'.
Mr. Aiken went on to make a political career for himself in the same political institution he had fought against - the Leinster House administration. He
campaigned for, and won, a seat in Leinster House that same year (1923) and, in 1926, assisted other turncoats to establish the Fianna Fáil party. He served the Free State faithfully until he died in 1983, at 85 years of age ; he was second-in-command ('Tánaiste') of the political apparatus in the Free State from 1965 to 1969, 'Minister for External Affairs' twice, State Minister' for Finance, and for the 'Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures', and for Defence, and for Lands and Fisheries. A very busy man, then, who spent his time shoring-up that which he once fought to tear down.
He died from 'natural causes', at 85 years of age, on the 18th May, 1983, and was buried with full Free State 'honours' in Camlough, County Armagh - one of our six counties which remain under British jurisdictional control. For now, anyway...
'PUPPETS'.
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, November 1954.
We have been asked what do we think of the "wonderful" replies that Mr. de Valera has being giving to Basil Brooke and the verbal thrust and parry they have been carrying on during the last two weeks or so. These queries are usually accompanied by remarks like "Dev shook him that time" or "Dev didn't leave him a leg to stand on."
Quite frankly, we are thoroughly sick of this 'Punch and Judy' show - the type of nonsense which has been carried on between the Leinster House and Stormont puppets since 1922. It has got us nowhere and it will get us nowhere. That is the fact and we must face it ; Stormont is a puppet operating under the protection of the British armed forces of aggression and Leinster House is also a puppet, born out of the surrender of 1922, and operating "by the leave" of the British invader and ever watchful not to do anything which would discommode him or cause him to make effective his threat of "immediate and terrible war".
But we will be told that Mr. de Valera did not accept the surrender in 1922. No, maybe not, though recent speeches make even that doubtful. What is fact is that he has worked the Free State according to the rules laid down by the British, for many more years than anyone else. The very fact that some people still imagine him to be a republican make him a much more effective instrument for carrying out British policy in Ireland than any of the first Free Staters. (END of 'Puppets' ; NEXT - 'Republican Aid Committee' and 'Fr. Liam Pilkington Departs For Ireland', from the same source.)
('1169' comment - that last paragraph can be best summarised by the old adage 'if you get a name as an early riser you can stay in bed all day'. There are still those today in Leinster House 'that some people still imagine to be republicans' and are therefore 'more effective instruments' at implementing Free State and British fiscal etc policy in this State than either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael are ; the supporters of those 'republicans' will tell you [as they themselves have been told by their political leadership] that it's "all part of the bigger picture...the leadership have a plan, they know what they are doing..". They forget, or don't want to acknowledge - because it doesn't suit their narrative - that throughout our history there are very well recorded instances of 'republicans' going into Free State and/or British-imposed 'parliaments' to "change the system...bring it down from the inside.." only for them to become part of that system. They become politically contaminated and the coin in their pocket becomes their endgame.)
Thanks for reading - Sharon and the '1169' team. Stay safe - watch what you do, and where you do it!
