14 ON THE 11 FOR (2nd LAST OF) 24...!
Oh I know..
..I'm not sure about using that graphic either, but - it's Christmas month, and the lads haven't had a proper break (...in the Canary Islands, like..) so I sez to meself ah sure let them away with it, what harm. Just if they pull another stunt like that, they're outta here..!
The translation of it, they tell me, is that we'll be posting 14 pieces on Wednesday, 11th December 2024, and it'll be our second-last post for this year. Yeah, I think the cold might have got to them...
Among the instances we'll be mentioning is one in which, in the 1900's in Ireland, Westminster noted that the natives (!) were not behaving themselves, so one top British politician wrote to another and expressed his concerns that not only were their operatives in Dublin Castle fighting the Irish rebels, politically and militarily, but they were fighting each other, too...
A few paragraphs about Irish republican smuggling operations in the early 1900's, mentioning ports in England, America and Ireland - but what was being smuggled...?
The city centre area of a town in Munster was wrecked by the Crown Forces in the early 1900's, costing literally millions of pounds worth of destruction but, two days later when, unusually, the carnage was raised in Westminster, water-proof fires (!) were mentioned as a possible cause if, indeed, something like that had indeed, actually, happened at all...
This Irish Archbishop wasn't as clever as he thought he was or, indeed, as clever as the British apparently considered him to be - his alter ego/nom de plume and his motives were known about by the IRA but they agreed to meet with him anyway...
...and there'll be at least ten other stories from our political and military past as well.
So, if you're passing this way again on Wednesday, 11th December 2024, drop in and see what we're gonna be on about. And if you're not passing this way - then make a bleedin' detour, don't have us to come lookin' for ya...!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - see yis all on the 11th!
Sharon and the team.
Meself and the team are working on a 20-piece blog post for Wednesday, 22nd May 2024, but sure we'll probably have another two or three items to add to it between this and then (...that's 'cause they can't shut me up!)
And, as there are local council/corporation and EU elections due to be held in this State on Friday, 7th June 2024, we'll have a few paragraphs-worth to say about that, including - and this is an EXCLUSIVE!!! - (thanks to our combined experience and connections : ya wha', Shar...?!) we'll be telling you who the winners and losers are!
So check-in with us on Wednesday 22nd and then off with ya to the bookies on Thursday 23rd for a 'sure-thing' bet on the outcome of those elections...!
And we'll have other 'sure-fire winners' for you, too -
During this on-going struggle to remove the British military and political presence from Ireland, the Pope in Rome was asked by the British (who had been priming him) to address a few words to the Irish in regards to them having the cheek (!) to fight back against the British.
Well...he did, but Westminster went into a tail-spin when they heard what he said, and spun (!) into action again with a 'PR/Damage Control' operation to try and cover their own political arses...!
Ireland, 1920's - a road that the IRA had dug a trench across, to impede the progress of the British Forces from moving around the country, was filled-in by British troops and, as they presumed the IRA would open it up again, they weren't content to fill it in with just concrete and rubble...
Ireland, 1920's - the representatives of over 700 IRA Volunteers held a meeting to discuss logistics and an issue with their command structure was raised, discussed and voted on - a change was required and agreed on. But the IRA GHQ in Dublin thought otherwise...
From 1955 - The Irish Republican position on the Fianna Fáil grouping was discussed, especially in relation to how the media were playing with the issue...
From the 1850's - this Lady was born with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth : wealthy parents, good family 'stock', regular income from 'owning' thousands of acres of land, famous connections and friends...but she wouldn't and didn't hold back when it came to speaking up about the imposed 'tilt' on the 'Scales of Justice'...
...and that's just a few of the pieces we'll be writing about on Wednesday, 22nd May 2024.
So - if for nothing else other than the tips for the bookies - give us a shout on the 22nd.
Thanks for the visit, and for reading : see y'all again, hopefully, mid-week!
Sharon and the team.
And here's another 'Proclamation' (of sorts!) for ya - on Wednesday, 17th April 2024, we'll be here with a 14-piece post covering, as usual, Irish history and Irish politics from a traditional Irish republican point of view.
One of the pieces we'll be a-tellin' about concerns a wise Irish aul fella who availed of the animals he 'collected' to make comparisons with human nature, and took the opportunity to have a word or two with republican representatives in connection with why they were delighted with recent developments...
And if you can get your head around that, then the following subject matters - which we'll also be saying a few words about - should be no bother to ya...!
Staters tie themselves up in a word salad in attempts to avoid the obvious...
Ireland, 1920's - 'IRA General Order on the Handling of Women Spies' ('General Order No. 13') : options in regard to same were listed, but not always followed...
From 1955 - 'Westminster's apparent determination to claim the Irish race and nation as British is an indication of their grudging respect and secret admiration for us...'
1918 - British military conscription in Ireland, IRA membership increases ; but not for the best...
...and that's just five out of the fourteen pieces we'll be writing about, on Wednesday, 17th April 2024.
Check back with us then, if you can - don't leave us talking to ourselves!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading - see ye on the 17th, hopefully!
Sharon and the team.
1920 - A 'MISHAP' IN AN ENGLISH PRISON.
In the 1800's, scientific and weight/measure skills etc had been acquired from abroad and brought back to Ireland by this well-known Irish rebel, who had gathered like-minded individuals around him and put a plan together to 'introduce' those skills to the British political and military establishment in this country...
In the late 1850's in Ireland, such was the level of suffering witnessed by the various clergy in the country and by some in the business community that they supported an organisation which had not been 'granted legal status' by Westminster...
This Irish political leader had somehow convinced thousands of Irishmen that their best interests - politically, militarily and financially - lay in propping-up the very 'Empire' that was doing, worldwide, what it was also doing to them...
Ireland 2002 (and still true today, unfortunately) - we had then lost our once-famous empathy and, considering how society has hardened-up since then, it seems that we get our retaliation in first now...
From Lusk in County Dublin to Ashbourne in County Meath, this Irish military fighter gained such a reputation that, having captured him, the British took him to their own country and moved him from prison to prison in an attempt to break him - they couldn't, so a 'mishap' occurred...
Ireland, 1920 - this young Irishman had one 'job' (!) on in the morning and a second appointment made for early that afternoon - but the morning session didn't go as planned and he never made it to the second one. But he did make it into our history books...
A comparison made in the late 1980's between the 'Establishments', their paid-for spokespeople in the 'free press' and in society in general and how things were much the same 2,000 years ago...
We'll have a seven-parter ready (so I'm told!) for the blog for this Wednesday, 20th September 2023 ; so have some manners, won't ya, and don't leave us reading it all by ourselves!
I'll be Counting (*groan!*) on ya for the 20th...
Thanks for the visit, and for reading ; see yis then!
Sharon and the team.
ON THIS DATE (7TH JUNE) 96 YEARS AGO : TWO IRA MEN EXECUTED BY WESTMINSTER.
Patrick Maher (left), executed by the British on the 7th of June 1921 - 96 years ago on this date.
Ned Foley, executed by the British on the 7th of June 1921.
"Fight on, struggle on, for the honour, glory and freedom of dear old Ireland. Our hearts go out to all our dear old friends. Our souls go to God at 7 o'clock in the morning and our bodies, when Ireland is free, shall go to Galbally. Our blood shall not be shed in vain for Ireland, and we have a strong presentiment, going to our God, that Ireland will soon be free and we gladly give our lives that a smile may brighten the face of 'Dear Dark Rosaleen'. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!" - the last words of Limerick (Ballylanders) IRA man Patrick Maher, 32 years of age, to his comrades.
Patrick Maher and his comrade Ned Foley were hanged in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin by Westminster on Tuesday 7th June 1921 - 96 years ago on this date - for their 'involvement' in the rescue of Tipperary IRA man Seán Hogan ; Patrick Maher, who worked as a clerk at Knocklong railway station and was about three miles from the scene of the rescue when it happened, was not involved in that operation. The two men were charged with the 'murder' of two RIC men (Peter Wallace and Michael Enright): - Patrick Maher strongly protested his innocence but, even though two juries failed to reach a verdict, he was convicted (by a military court martial) and sentenced to death. He was one of 'The Forgotten Ten' IRA Volunteers (Kevin Barry, Patrick Moran, Frank Flood, Thomas Whelan, Thomas Traynor, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Bryan, Bernard Ryan, Edmond (Ned) Foley, and Patrick Maher) - Kevin Barry was executed in 1920 by the British and the other nine men were put to death in 1921. All ten were buried in the grounds of Mountjoy Jail in Dublin, where six of them were placed in the same grave.
John Ellis, the British hangman hired to execute Maher and Foley, had 'proved his worth' to Westminster by previously carrying out other 'jobs' in Ireland for that institution - he and his assistant, Bill Willis, had listed in their bloody CV the names of Roger Casement and Kevin Barry. The most poignant appeal for clemency was made by Edward Wallace, the father of RIC Sergeant Peter Wallace, who wrote to the Commander in Chief of British forces in Ireland, Sir Nevil Macready - "The tragedy will pass heavily on me during the remaining years of my life, if any lives are sacrificed on account of my son's death. My son and daughter join with me in imploring you to be clement and merciful to those who have been tried in connection with the tragedy. May God forgive those who were really guilty. I do."
Thousands of people had gathered outside Mountjoy Jail in Dublin in protest against the executions, but to no avail (it should be noted that at the time, Munster and a small part of Leinster were under British 'martial law' and those executed there were shot as soldiers, but Dublin was under civilian law and that is why those executed in Mountjoy were hanged).
On Sunday, 14th October 2001, nine of those men were reinterred in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin by representatives of a 26-county state in an 'official' ceremony and, on Friday 19th October 2001 this state made the final arrangements to do the same for the tenth man, Patrick Maher, who was reburied in his home parish of Glenbrohane in Limerick (at the request of his family) on Saturday, 20th October 2001. Both reinterments were carried out by a state which none of the ten men were fighting for - a 26-county free state - as the objective of the republican campaign - then (1920/1921) and now (2017)- was and is for a free Ireland, not a partially-free Ireland. And, to add insult to injury, the then Free State 'minister for justice', John O'Donoghue, was the 'official figurehead' present, on both occasions, during which he delivered the graveside orations. Irish republicans are looking forward to the day when those moral and political misappropriations can be corrected.
PROSE AND CONS.
By prisoners from E1 Landing, Portlaoise Prison, 1999.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS :
Grateful thanks to the following for their help, support, assistance and encouragement, and all those who helped with the typing and word processing over the past few months. Many thanks to Cian Sharkhin, the editor of the book, Mr Bill Donoghue, Governor, Portlaoise, Mr Seán Wynne, supervising teacher, the education unit in Portlaoise Prison and the education staff, especially Zack, Helena and Jane. Education officers Bill Carroll and Dave McDonald, Rita Kelly, writer, print unit, Arbour Hill.
First Print : November 1999, reprinted March 2000, illustrations by D O'Hare, Zack and Natasha. Photograph selection : Eamonn Kelly and Harry Melia.
IN MY HEART. (By Keith Sinnot.)
I've been alone some time now
it's seven years in all,
I miss my Mum and family
God I miss them all.
I hear their laughter every day
it soothes me when I'm mad,
memories of when we were one
lift me when I'm sad.
Forever I will love you all
but forever is not long enough
for the love I must repay.
And I carry with me in my heart
the times we laughed and wept
and I carry with me in my heart
your love, in all its depth
no matter what life deals to me
my love for you remains.
I love it when we laughed and played
and when we sung a song,
although alone and far away
in my heart you will always stay.
(Next - 'The Eyes Of The Bard Can Be Hard', by Greg Tarrand.)
RICOCHETS OF HISTORY...
At the end of a year in which *IRA decommissioning has been met with widespread euphoria, Phil Mac Giolla Bháin takes a stubborn look at the facts and concludes that the celebration party may be a little premature. From the 'Magill Annual 2002' (*PIRA).
The same Belfast dynamics which tore up Cathal Goulding's blueprint for proletarian revolution might well yet undo the best laid plans of conflict resolution dating back to Hume/Adams. The key concept - that nationalists can sit anywhere on the equality bus and that they have a right to express their will to steer the bus in the direction of a 32-county state - still gets the lynch mobs out in Belfast and Portadown.
The pipe-bombing pogrom in the narrow-minded streets around Glenbryn is driven by this belief system. They are the rough trade of this worldview, but the ideas exist also in more genteel quarters. Having a leader of unionism who thinks that Sinn Féin ministers need 'house training' shows that the colonialist mindset is alive and well on the Stormont veranda.
Put it all together - the pipe bombings, the melting possibility of a united Ireland, the massive leap of faith which may or may not pay off, the ingrained culture of carrying arms - and it is still time to tread carefully.
(END of 'Ricochets of History'. NEXT - 'Perceptions', by Cliodna Cussen, from 1991).
GROWING UP IN LONG KESH...
SIN SCÉAL EILE.
By Jim McCann (Jean's son). For Alex Crowe, RIP - "No Probablum". Glandore Publishing, 1999.
Biographical Note : Jim McCann is a community worker from the Upper Springfield area in West Belfast. Although born in the Short Strand, he was reared in the Loney area of the Falls Road. He comes from a large family (average weight about 22 stone!). He works with Tús Nua (a support group for republican ex-prisoners in the Upper Springfield), part of the Upper Springfield Development Trust. He is also a committee member of the 'Frank Cahill Resource Centre', one of the founders of 'Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh', the local Irish language primary school and Naiscoil Bharr A'Chluanaí, one of the local Irish language nursery schools.
His first publication last year by Glandore was 'And the Gates Flew Open : the Burning of Long Kesh'. He hopes to retire on the profits of his books. Fat chance!
"HEY, DO YOU WANT ANY DRUGS...?".
My friend went on to tell me about how contraband was the currency of the crims and how everything had a price, especially cigarettes. I asked him if he needed any fags or tobacco and if he did, not to hesitate to ask myself or one of my cage-mates for whatever he needed. "If there's anything that I can do for you, let me know," he said in reply, which made me think - I remembered that my friend worked in the prison kitchens.
That fact on its own meant nothing, but it made me think of the exotic foodstuffs at his disposal. Like scallions. "Here, see if you can get me any scallions." "Scallions?" he said,"Of all the stuff I can lay my hands on, why settle for scallions?", he asked. "With scallions you can make Champ," I drooled. "Jesus, Champ..." ,he said, "..I haven't tasted Champ in months!" "And we haven't tasted Champ in years..", I replied. "Right," he said, "if it's scallions you want, it's scallions you'll get."
At suppertime that night, the lorry approached the gate of Cage 11, and I could see my friend peering around the side of it. He winked at me, and I took this to mean that he had got the scallions and I was delighted. He lifted a container off the back of the lorry, taking great pains to show me which one held the exotic contraband... (MORE LATER).
ON THIS DATE (7TH JUNE) FOUR YEARS AGO : A PERSONAL REFLECTION.
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (far left, and his funeral service, above), pictured in 1954 : from this blog, June 2013 - 'Funeral arrangements : Reposing at Smyth's Funeral Home, Roscommon, on Friday 7th June 2013, from 5.30pm to 8.00pm, followed by Removal to the Sacred Heart Church. Requiem Mass on Saturday at 11.30am with Burial afterwards in St. Coman's Cemetery. Family Flowers only. House private Saturday morning. Donations, if desired, to CABHAIR (Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependants Fund), 223 Parnell St, Dublin 1 and to the Roscommon-Mayo Hospice.'
'Born in Longford in 1932 to a republican family, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh studied at UCD where he gained a degree in commerce. During his time at UCD he became involved with Sinn Féin and joined the IRA, of which his father had also been a member. Although by profession a teacher, Ruairí spent most Of his time as a training Officer for the IRA and in 1954 was appointed to the Military Council Of the IRA, eventually being IRA Chief Of Staff until 1962. He was elected as Sinn Féin TD in the Longford – Westmeath constituency in 1957. In 1970 Ruairí Ó Brádaigh led the walkout from the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis after the majority voted in favour of the abolition Of Sinn Féin's policy of abstention. He became President of Provisional Sinn Féin which he held until his resignation in 1983. In 1986, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh again led a walk out, this time from the Provisional Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, when they voted to drop the abstention policy. He and several supporters established Republican Sinn Féin..' (from here.)
"In the coming year we must present to the whole Irish people our framework of a federation of the four provinces of Ireland - in a post British withdrawal situation - with maximum devolution of power and decision-making to local level, with the complete separation of church and state and the building of a pluralist society and with neutrality and non-alignment in foreign affairs as the best hope for all the people of this island...this requires massive political and structural change on both sides of the border in order that all of us may escape from the political strait-jacket North and South designed for us in the Westminster parliament and imposed on us by the English ruling class to our detriment. Such a solution remains our only hope of growing and developing naturally as a people and enjoying our cultural heritage. God speed the day...!" - Aitheasc an Uachtaráin Ruairí Ó Brádaigh don 85ú Ard-Fheis de Shinn Féin in Óstlann an Spa, Leamhcán, Co. Atha Cliath, 21ú agus 22ú Deireadh Fómhair, 1989 (Presidential Address of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh to the 85th Ard Fheis of Sinn Féin in the Spa Hotel, Lucan, County Dublin, 21st and 22nd October 1989). And I still go looking for him at the Ard Fheis ; I miss him. But, thankfully, that which he stood for and represented is still here.
ON THIS DAY NEXT WEEK (WEDNESDAY 14TH JUNE 2017)...
..we should be just about finished one of our multitasking jobs - this Sunday coming (the 11th June) will find me and the raffle team in our usual monthly venue on the Dublin/Kildare border, running a 650-ticket raffle for the Cabhair group; the work for this event began yesterday, Tuesday 6th June, when the five of us started to track down the ticket sellers and arrange for the delivery/collection of their ticket stubs and cash and, even though the raffle itself is, as stated, held on Sunday 11th June, the 'job' is not complete until the following night, when the usual 'raffle autopsy' is held. The time constraints imposed by same will mean that our normal Wednesday post will more than likely not be collated in time for next week (14th June) and it's looking like it will be between that date and the Wednesday following same before we get the time to put a post together. But check back here anyway - sure you never know what might catch our fancy between this and then, time permitting!
Our second multitasking job, which we have assisted with but won't be there in person for, is the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown which, unfortunately, clashes with the raffle. And, as talented (!) as we are, we actually can't be in two places at the one time, but we hope that Peter and the behind-the-scenes crew can struggle on without us and the weather holds for all concerned (even though we'll be in a nice, dry, warm hotel!). And, as arranged, we'll meet-up in the raffle hotel afterwards and have a chat about how both gigs went. And maybe share a pint (of cider) or two...!
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
