'THE BREAK OF ARMAGH : A SUGGESTION BY A WORLD-FAMOUS POET'.
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, July, 1954.
Dear Sir,
The major portion of the multitude who were elated by the brilliant coup of fifteen Irish boys in Armagh - the most courageous and dramatic feat of this generation - do not realise its richest result ; namely, that it has awaked the world to the fact, long cloaked from them, that Britain - loudly bawling for Russia to free her oppressed satellites - has all along been maintaining by her side her own satellite in disrupted North-Eastern Ireland.
Since the brilliant 'Break of Armagh' there isn't now on the world's round a single civilised or semi-civilised country possessed of even one news-sheet but has been startlingly informed of Britain's own private satellite, complete with its governing stooges , its prowling, terrorising Gestapo, and paralysing army of occupation.
Between the world's ends there isn't a territory but has got a startling glimpse behind Britain's own Iron Curtain - got a glimpse of, and through, the 'Curtain' which a handful of gallant boys pierced.
They pierced and entered the den of Britain's alleged 'Lion', and they plucked his supposed 'Majesty's' beard, they pulled his nose, slapped his face and casually walked away with his most prized possession, revealing to the astonished world that which some had long suspected ; that the far-and-long 'British Lion' was, after all, only just a jackass who had camouflaged himself in a thieved lion's skin, to frighten the world's children with his endless horrendous braying.
But now, alas, no more! The fellow's fiercest braying now provoke more laughter-shouts than shivers...
(MORE LATER.)
'WHAT IS TO BE DONE? THE STRUGGLE IN THE 26 COUNTIES...'
The following article was solicited by 'IRIS' from a political observer in the 26 Counties. The article - whose author, John Ward, is not a member of the Republican Movement - is aimed at provoking discussion within (P)Sinn Féin. From 'IRIS' magazine, October 1987.
('1169' comment - please note that 'IRIS' magazine had, at that time, recently morphed from a republican-minded publication into a Trot-type mouthpiece for a Leinster House-registered political party.)
Getting more votes is not the be all and end all of the exercise, but is a rough guide to how people view (P) Sinn Féin.
History, 17 years and maybe even 60 years of it, sits like a monkey on Sinn Féin's back. A lot of republican history is full of emotional rhetoric*, not cold logic. To go back 61 years, those who went with Fianna Fáil in 1926 are always described as traitors and renegades, and those who stayed with Sinn Féin as pure-souled patriots. Maybe that was true, but the people, the republican-minded people, backed Fianna Fáil**, not Sinn Féin. Of course, maybe the people should have been dissolved!
To the working-class and small farmers of the late 1920's and 1930's, Sinn Féin, with its talk of the Second Dáil as the only legitimate authority in Ireland, was living in cloud cuckoo land***. At least Fianna Fáil seemed to be living in the real world because, as well as the national question, they talked about the everyday problems that faced the people...
(* '1169' comment - not so. If anything, '..a lot of republican history is full of emotional happenings, not "emotional rhetoric". Those who describe our history as "emotional rhetoric" do so for one reason - they are new to Irish republicanism [visiting from an Irish 'nationalist' background] and are attempting to change republicanism into a Trot-like type of what they perceive Irish republicanism to be. And that's the "cold logic" of that particular situation.)
(** '1169' comment - again, not so, but an understandable mistake, coming from such a 'nationalist' source : the author of that claim doesn't understand the difference between 'republicanism' and 'nationalism', and is so politically ignorant, in that regard, that they believe that an Irish republican would actually vote for Fianna Fáil in the first place! A 'nationalist' would, an Irish republican wouldn't, but try explaining that to a Trot...!)
(***'1169' comment - it was actually, for the most part, the republican-minded within the working-class and the small-farming population that sustained such republican institutions in Ireland, and were derided for doing so by 'trendy lefties' who had [and have] no respect for Irish history or culture. Those 'trendy' types are capitalists with a small 'c' who's idea of socialism is to give you marginally more crumbs from the table than a bigger 'bossman' would!) (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (28TH JULY)...
...in 1769 -
NAPOLEON'S IRISH JAILER BORN ;
Born in Galway on the 28th of July in 1769, ('Sir') Hudson Lowe further enhanced his military name when, at 46 years of age, he was appointed as the 'custodian' (jailer) of Napoleon Bonaparte on the prison island of St Helena, a remote island - a 'British possession' - in the South Atlantic Ocean (nearest landmass would be Africa).
'Sir' Lowe was known as a 'stickler' in regards to military matters, as was Bonaparte, and both men were the same age ; they clashed regularly, and each refused to fully recognise the military standing and/or authority of the other, guaranteeing a testy (albeit enforced) relationship between the two men. There was no love lost between the pair of them!
The Jailer Lowe was the son of a British Army surgeon and, although he moved among British so-called 'aristocracy' and was impressed by that sort, they were always a bit wary of him, as he really wasn't 'one of their own'.
He was 'gazetted an ensign' (began his career in the British Army) in 1781, when he was only 12 years of age (!) and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant ten years later and then, four years after that, received his stripes as a Captain.
He was 'Knighted' in 1814, at 45 years of age, and promoted to the rank of Major-General that same year and, shortly afterwards, received his stripes as a 'Quartermaster General', and was then placed as a British Army 'Commander' in Genoa within months of his 'QMG' promotion.
He lived to be 75 years of age, and died, in Chelsea, England, from paralysis, in 1844, and is buried in the graveyard in St Mark's Church, near Hyde Park Corner, in London.
"Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them..." (Napoleon Bonaparte.)
...IN 1846 -
'Impatience among some Young Irelanders with O’Connell’s views had been evident for some time before the split occurred in 1846. Thomas Davis, The Nation’s editor, clashed with O’Connell in 1845, leaving the relationship between O’Connell and the Young Irelanders tenuous. The following year many Young Irelanders decided there were too many differences between the views of the Repeal Association and the Young Irelanders.
Consequently, on 28 July 1846 the Young Irelanders seceded from the Repeal Association (and) formed the Irish Confederation...' (from here.)
'In Conciliation Hall in Dublin, on July 28th, 1846, Meagher gave a speech to the assembled throngs of Daniel O'Connell's supporters, defending the position of the Young Irelanders. O'Connell had called on all his supporters to renounce violent revolution as a means of freeing Ireland; the twenty-two year old Meagher had been chosen to give Young Irelands answer. Imagine yourself for a moment, at the age of twenty-two, standing in front of a crowded hall, filled with the supporters of a man called the "Uncrowned King of Ireland," and in front of that great man himself, about to give a speech rejecting that man's position...' (from here.)
A section of Daniel O'Connell's 'Loyal National Repeal Association' walked-out of a meeting which was being held in the Conciliation Hall in Dublin on the 28th of July in 1846 - 175 years ago on this date - and broke with the O’Connell-led 'Repeal Association' for good.
The so-called 'Uncrowned King of Ireland' objected to 'fighting fire with fire' ; even when Irish 'violence' was to be employed in self-defence, Daniel O'Connell's 'Loyal National Repeal Association' was against it.
This led to tension within that organisation, and a 'split' developed - those that left included William Smith O'Brien (a Member of the British Parliament, Harrow-educated, with an accent to match!), Thomas Francis Meagher and John Mitchel.
A new group was established - 'The Young Irelanders'.
That new group's political position was outlined in their newspaper 'The United Irishman' : a call for immediate armed revolt against the British, and a 'War Council' was appointed, comprising William Smith O'Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher and John Blake Dillon -
'..the rising petered out ingloriously. After a week's peregrination within Tipperary, accompanied by fluctuating bands of ill-fed and ill-armed peasants, whom he forbade to commandeer supplies, O'Brien's failure to capture a party of police barricaded in widow McCormack's house (pictured) near Ballingarry marked the effective end of the revolt. Though sporadic resistance continued till late 1849, O'Brien and three leading colleagues were quickly arrested.
Their death sentences were commuted to transportation to Van Diemen's Land, where they were joined by Mitchel and two other Young Ireland editors. The four later escaped to America. O'Brien, a better martyr than an insurgent leader, and his two remaining colleagues, were released in 1854 and returned to Ireland in 1856. Refusing to return to parliament, O'Brien lived quietly till his death in 1864...' (from here.)
That particular Uprising is derided by most historians and, while the character and the moral standing of the leadership of same is admired by those same detractors, they tend, in the main, to dismiss the 'foot soldiers' involved as 'a wild rabble', or somesuch.
But any man or woman who voluntarily steps into that breach, knowing full well the penalty they will face if unsuccessful, is, in our opinion, to be admired. That attempt to remove the British political and military presence from this country can be said to have led directly to the foundation of Fenianism, which in turn led directly to the Land League revolution and indeed the 1916 Rising.
And that's one thing that the British or the Staters can't take from us - our history, and our links to previous generations that sought to remove the British political and military presence from this country.
'MÓR MÓ NÁIR...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
The girl said to me - "You know, I used to hate being asked to sing at gatherings because I never knew any songs except the ones I learned at school, and I felt an awful fool, in the middle of all the latest songs, getting up to sing 'Silent Oh Moyle' or 'An Chuilfhiann' ".
No wonder she felt a fool, for 'Bimbo' and the 'Chuilfhiann' somehow just don't mix!
But so it goes : long ago we rejected our language because 'gentlemen' spoke the English and no clod-hopper of an Irish-speaking savage would be employed by the government of the conqueror. Now, in deference to the imported slush of the music hall and nightclub, we turn our backs on our own songs and dances and wholesome Irish fun.
But, Girls of Ireland! We have it in our power to shed the slough of weakness and apathy. We can band ourselves together in Sinn Féin and help drive out not only the actual army of occupation of a foreign power, but the even more destructive force of its pagan and immoral influence. For Ireland cries - Mise Éire ; Sine mé ioná an Chailleach Béarra.
Mór Mo Ghlóir ; Mé do rug Cú Chulainn cródha.
Mór mó Náir ; Mo chlann féin do dhíol a máthair.
Mise Éire ; Uaignighe mé ioná an Chailliach Béarra!
(END of 'Mór Mó Náir'. NEXT - 'An Empty Formula', from the same source.)
PROPER 'STAYCATION' LOOMING...!
And it is a proper one, this time ; no (adult) children with us, no grandchildren, no squabblin', no taking turns to babysit etc etc!
Just the five of us - the NYC Girl Gang, properly constituted - and, even though we won't be in our usual destination, we will be footloose and fancy-free in this State, and maybe a trip or two across Britain's border in Ireland to visit our friends, colleagues and comrades in the O6C.
We are looking forward to it but, at the same time, we are disappointed not to be taking-up the many offers we have received over the past few months from our buddies in NYC, our second home. Try as we did, combinations of Covid restrictions and our own timelines plus family commitments etc ganged-up on the five of us to ensure that we were unable to get our acts together to try and sleep(ish!) in the city that never does - not this year, anyway - but we intend to enjoy our staycation here as best we can anyway.
We are heading off on our great two-week (mis-)adventure (!) on Saturday, 7th August next and, if we successfully avoid being banned, jailed and/or held hostage somewhere, we should arrive home to Dublin on Saturday, 21st August 2021. Well...some of us should, anyway!
We'll be posting as usual next Wednesday, the 4th of August, but probably won't be in a fit position to string two words together until Wednesday, 25th August. Or maybe sooner, depending on when bail is posted what state we're gonna be in after our escape in this State...!
Check us out, if ya can, between this and then - we're almost on our one-millionth hit and, vain and all as we are, we value your contribution to our efforts in achieving world domination. Or somethin' like that...!
(Oh and sorry for the fuzzy out-of-focus pic, but I had to do something to protect the innocent. Ah no, wait...that doesn't make sense...!)
Thanks for the visit, and for reading : see y'all next Wednesday, 4th August!
Sharon.
ON THIS DATE (19TH MAY) 112 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF OWEN LANCELOT 'SKEFF'.
The inscription on the Sheehy Skeffington headstone reads - 'Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Rose Skeffington, born Magorrian in Ballykinlar, Co. Down. Died at Ranelagh, Dublin 16th April 1909.
And Francis Sheehy Skeffington her son / murdered in Portobello Barracks April 26th, 1916 and his wife Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Feminist, Republican, Socialist, Born May 1878 / Died April 1946.
And their son Owen Lancelot Sheehy Skeffington, born May 19th 1909, died June 7th, 1970 who, like them, sought truth / taught reason and knew compassion.'
Owen Lancelot Sheehy Skeffington was born in Lower Leeson Street, in Dublin, on the 19th May 1909 - 112 years ago on this date - into a politically and socially active family (both his parents were in agreement that the child should not be baptised as they were not fully supportive of any particular structured religion) : his father, Francis, was executed by firing squad in Easter Week, 1916, on orders issued by 'guilty-but-insane' British Army Captain J.C. Bowen-Colthurst and his mother, Johanna Mary 'Hanna', was a social activist and a supporter of the 'Irregulars' (although she did briefly flirt, politically, with Fianna Fáil, when they were first spawned).
When he was three years young, his father took him to Mountjoy Jail, in Dublin, to visit his mother, who was a 'guest' in that institution for a couple of months, having upset the 'political establishment' by her actions in defence of women's rights : the favour was returned two years later when his mother took him to the same prison to visit his father, who was 'guesting' there in payment for his part in the anti-conscription campaign!
As a young man, Owen was educated in America and in Sandford Park School in Dublin and supported himself by teaching the French language in Trinity College in Dublin where he made a name for himself as '...a brilliant orator, a fearless champion of civil and human rights, and an inspiring teacher, known simply and affectionately to generations of Trinity students as 'Skeff'...'
He involved himself in Free State politics and sat in the State Senate on a number of occasions between 1954 and the year he died (from a heart attack), 1970. He would not have found much 'truth, reason and/or compassion' in that institution.
'AITHBHEOCHAINT NA GAEDHILGE.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, June, 1955.
Ní gá annseo a rá go bhfuil an sprid náisiúnta lag. Tá sé chómh dona agus a bhí riamh - muna bhfuil sé níos mease. Faoi láthair tá an tír múchta i nGalldachas agus má leannann an sceal mar atá bhféidir nach fada go mbeidh ar Náis iúntacas chómh marbh le h-Art - agus cé raghaidh chun na socraide?
Sé an locht is mó na nach dtuigeann fiú amháin na daoine ar a dtugtar 'fior-Ghaedhil' an ceist i gceart.
National Apostacy - what led to this national apostacy? One thing only, a shallow and perverted interpretation of Ireland's claim to sovereignty! If they have had the audacity to tell you, as they have, that Ireland is free, or worse still, that "this part" (a cursed phrase) of Ireland is free, is it not obvious that such people have a compromisable notion of 'freedom'?
How can we expect them to approach Aithbheochaint na Gaedhilge in the true spirit...? (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (19TH MAY) 223 YEARS AGO : 'REBEL IRISH LORD' CAPTURED BY THE BRITISH.
'Lord' Edward Fitzgerald (pictured) was born on the 15th October 1763, in Carton House, County Kildare ; he was the 12th child of the first 'Duke' of Leinster and Emilia Mary, who was the daughter of the 'Duke' of Richmond.
At 16 years young he joined the 'Sussex Militia' and was posted to America on 'active service' - he was severely wounded at the battle of Eutaw Springs, when he was 18 years young (in 1781) and returned to Ireland. At 25 years young he went to Canada and re-joined the British Army, following which 'adventure' he again returned to Ireland and was elected as M.P. for Kildare.
The events at a political 'Dinner Party' which he attended one night was to have a profound effect on his 'career', as his refusal to hide his 'rebel streak' had immediate consequences ; he joined in a toast to the abolition of hereditary titles and was, shortly afterwards, 'cashiered' (ie "discharged with ignominy") from the British Army (and from the 'Establishment' ie 'those that dinner-partied'!).
He went to Paris in 1792, at 29 years young and, two days after Christmas that year, he married a 19-years-young girl, Pamela, thought to be the daughter of Mme de Genlis. It was generally accepted that Pamela's father was the 'Duke' of Orleans - a 'family connection' which was to re-bound on Edward Fitzgerald a few years later (incidentally - while in Paris, 'Lord' Edward Fitzgerald stayed with a certain Mr. Thomas Paine, pictured.)
In 1793, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald returned to Dublin and lived in Frascati House in Blackrock ; three years later (ie 1796), 'Lord' Edward Fitzgerald travelled to Basel in France with Arthur O'Connor and Wolfe Tone to seek assistance with an armed Rising against the British ; but his above-mentioned 'family connections' were raised at a meeting with the French military - he got a 'frosty' reception from the French because his wife was considered to be connected to the 'Royalists'!
However, the honesty of his political conviction became obvious to the hosts, and his statement to them (the 'French Directory') that the strength of the United Irishmen organisation stood at approximately 280,000 armed men helped convince them to send assistance - the 'Hoche Expedition'
Edward Fitzgerald was not with the rest of the leadership of the United Irishmen organisation in March 1798 at the home of Oliver Bond in Bridge Street, Dublin, when the British raided and 'arrested' those within, acting on information sold to them by the informer Thomas Reynolds. When British Major Henry Sirr (pictured) realised that Fitzgerald was not amongst those captured, he offered a 'bounty' of £1,000 for information leading to his capture.
Edward Fitzgerald ('wanted for treason') went 'on-the-run' but, two months later (ie on May 19th, 1798 - 223 years ago on this date) Major Sirr's men raided a house on Thomas Street, in Dublin (after receiving information from another informer, Francis Magan) where Fitzgerald was staying ; a struggle ensued, during which Edward Fitzgerald shot one of his attackers dead but was himself shot in the arm - he died, apparently from that wound, in Newgate Prison, on the 4th June 1798, at 35 years young.
NO RIGHT OF APPEAL...
Why the media consensus on a broad range of issues is increasingly disturbing. By John Drennan.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
However, as smiling refugee children were featured on every bulletin, there was a relative absence in coverage of any of the World Trade Centre funerals.
Sadly, the station's slip continued apace as it described Mr bin Laden as a "Saudi dissident". Apparently, over in Montrose, Mr bin Laden is no more sinister a figure than Peter Weir. The next threat came from an ogre called Desmond Connell - himself a dissident against the new clerical ethic of keeping one's gob shut - who is such a threat to society that he has been the subject of two media scandals this year.
"Bejaysus", sez the plain people of Ireland, "he must be a terrible important man indeed to be pulled up so constantly by them journalist fellas..." Er, no - he's actually the leader of an embattled religious minority now that consumerist secularism has become the state religion. As liberals, we really should be championing his right to free speech...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (19TH MAY) 124 YEARS AGO : OSCAR WILDE RELEASED FROM PRISON.
On the 19th May 1897 - 124 years ago on this date - Oscar Wilde was released from prison ; he had been given a sentence of two years hard labour for gross indecency - homosexuality - which was illegal in Britain at the time. His 'relationship' with 'Lord' Alfred Douglas was the 'sin' involved.
Oscar was forty years old at the time, and the 'Lord' Alfred was sixteen years his junior but knew how to manipulate circumstances and individuals. He was of slim build, said to be handsome and used his demeanour to balance his feckless attitude towards finances and other people's feelings in general. And poor Oscar was taken in by him, as were young boys and other men, when the 'Lord' strutted his stuff in Oxford.
After his release, Oscar was given a temporary roof over his head by a socially-conscienced and open-minded man of the cloth, Stewart Headlam, as interesting a character as Oscar Wilde was ; he was married to a lesbian (Beatrice Pennington) and also maintained 'close relations' with known homosexuals William Johnson and C.J. Vaughan, among others ;
'...he was a member of the Fabian Society, a Christian Socialist who attacked the wide gap between rich and poor and warned the working class that they should distrust middle-class reformers (and) he presented Jesus Christ as a revolutionary. He believed that that God's Kingdom on earth would replace a "competitive, unjust society with a co-operative and egalitarian social order.." '
(from here).
In prison, Oscar's health deteriorated due to his living conditions (he was not used to roughing it, in that particular manner) and, on his release, came to rely on alcohol to get him through the day. He died in Paris, on the 30th of November, 1900, at 46 years of age, from cerebral meningitis following an ear infection.
'Yes, death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of death's house, for love is always with you, and love is stronger than death is..' - Oscar Wilde.
'FORCE : MORAL OR PHYSICAL?'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
Mr Cosgrave at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis made quite clear the essential difference between the so-called 'nationalists' and the Republican Movement ; he stated that "...partition could only be ended speedily by the exercise of moral pressure and persuasion.."
One hundred and twenty years ago Daniel O'Connell misled the Irish people into acceptance of his policy of 'moral force' ; moral force did not prevent the ships laden with Irish wheat and oats leaving Ireland while the population was decimated by famine (sic) and emigration. John Mitchel, with clarion call, urged his countrymen to arm. Their wealth and lives were being stolen under the protection of British guns. Only guns could talk to guns.
The brave and the true of that generation rallied to Mitchel's call but, before they were properly organised, the British Government passed a new coercion act - 'Treason Felony' - to deal with the dangerous situation of Irishmen armed to resist British aggression. The question is - which policy was best for Ireland? O'Connell's moral force or Mitchel's physical force...? (MORE LATER.)
Thanks for reading,
Sharon.
