ON THIS DATE (30TH NOVEMBER) 122 YEARS AGO : DEATH OF THE IRISH 'GALLEY SLAVE / GOLDEN CHAINS' AUTHOR : OSCAR WILDE.
On the 16th October, 1854, a boy was born to a middle-class family who lived at Westland Row, Dublin : the child's father, 'Sir' William Wilde, was a doctor, and his wife, who was known to be 'unconventional' for the times that were in it - Jane Francesca Agnes (née Elgee aka 'Lady' Wilde) - was a poet who mixed in artistic and intellectual circles, and was left-leaning in her political beliefs.
The child was christened 'Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde' : Oscar Wilde (pictured).
Oscar was educated in Trinity College in Dublin and then in Magdalen College in Oxford, England, and won a 'double-first' in 'Mods' (one of the hardest examinations ever devised!) and the Newdigate Prize for Poetry but, nonetheless, had to revert to lecturing and freelancing for periodicals to make a living.
However, he persevered and, in his mid-30's, made a name for himself with 'The Happy Prince', followed three years later with 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' and, in that same year, 'A House of Pomegranates'.
He then took the world by storm and ensured for himself a place at the top table of literary giants with his works Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of being Earnest.
But 'life' intervened - being, as Oscar Wilde was, a gay man in the Victorian era brought with it even more dangers than for a heterosexual who 'played the field' : his affair (and letters) to his boyfriend lead to him serving two years in prison, after which he wrote 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' - "Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel." ('The Ballad of Reading Gaol', by Oscar Wilde, written after his release from Reading prison on 19 May 1897.) When he was released (at 43 years of age, in 1897) he went into exile and died, three years later, in Paris, on the 30th November 1900 - 122 years ago on this date.
Oscar was born on October 16th, 1854, in Westland Row, Dublin, and he died (at 2pm) on November 30th, 1900, in Paris, France. He was broke, financially - the last roof he lived under was a rented room in a '10th category hotel' (the Hôtel d'Alsace in Paris's Rue des BeauxArts).
He was permanently in debt and his boyfriend, 'Lord' Alfred Bruce Douglas ('Bosie'), when asked to help him out with a few bob, refused, and stated that Oscar was "wheedling at me like an old whore".
A few weeks before he died he had confided in a friend that he was "ill and without a penny", and was in debt to the amount of £400 at the time of his death.
"And now, I am dying beyond my means."
'TOMÁS MacCURTAIN COMMEMORATION...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
In his oration, Domhnall O Cathain said -
"There is work there for us all. One of the clearest things in Irish history is that history repeats itself and runs in cycles. There have been periods of resurgence, periods of quietness. Maybe Tomás MacCurtain was lucky in his time, he was born into a resurgent Ireland, but he was ready and waiting to harness the tide and direct it into the right channel.
There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune ; maybe the signs are showing again. Let us watch and be ready when the cycle has made complete revolution, when the heart of the nation throbs with new life, let us be ready.
Let the Republican Movement be there as the spearhead of a nation marching to freedom. When the great upsurge of public opinion will sweep into oblivion the unnatural barrier that divides our country, it will come only by honest endeavour on our part."
Let us be true to the heritage left us by Tomás MacCurtain, let us follow in his noble footsteps and help to realise what he lived for and what he died for.
(END of 'Tomás MacCurtain Commemoration' ; NEXT - 'The Late Patrick Henry, Sligo', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (30TH NOVEMBER) 187 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF A WORDSMITH.
'On November 30th, 1835 (187 years ago on this date) the small town of Florida in Missouri witnessed the birth of its most famous son.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (pictured) was welcomed into the world as the sixth child of John Marshall and Jane Lampton Clemens...approximately four years after his birth, in 1839, the Clemens family moved 35 miles east to the town of Hannibal. A growing port city that lay along the banks of the Mississippi, Hannibal was a frequent stop for steam boats arriving by both day and night from St. Louis and New Orleans.
Samuel's father was a judge, and he built a two-story frame house at 206 Hill Street in 1844. As a youngster, Samuel was kept indoors because of poor health. However, by age nine, he seemed to recover from his ailments and joined the rest of the town's children outside.
He then attended a private school in Hannibal. When Samuel was 12, his father died of pneumonia and, at 13, Samuel left school to become a printer's apprentice. After two short years, he joined his brother Orion's newspaper as a printer and editorial assistant. It was here that young Samuel found he enjoyed writing...' (From here.)
And, since then, millions of people have enjoyed his writings - "Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it." "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." And an Irish connection - 'Croker (NOT this one!) earned the undying wrath of (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) who in a mock eulogy to the Irish emmigrant got his facts wrong, but maybe not the tone, when he said -
"Yes, farewell to Croker forever, the Baron of Wantage, the last, and I dare say the least desirable, addition to English nobility...an all-round blatherskite and chief pillager of the municipal till..." ' This is the wordsmith in question...!
Born : November 30th, 1835, in Florida, Missouri, United States.Died : April 21st, 1910, in Stormfield, Redding, Connecticut, United States (...and don't ya just love the descriptive power of the term 'all-round blatherskite and chief pillager of the municipal till' ; I'll be robbin' that!)
"I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead, and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and they would be honest so much earlier."
ON THIS DATE (30TH NOVEMBER) 148 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF A BOOZY 'BULLDOG'.
'...he had drunk an estimated 42,000 bottles of Pol Roger champagne through his life ; he thought nothing of starting the morning with cold game and a glass of hock and ending it at 3am with the best part of a bottle of cognac..' (from here) .
'Sir' Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, PC, DL, FRS, RA, was born in Oxfordshire, England, on this date, 30th November 1874 - 148 years ago on this date - and evolved from a little pup into a pugnace britannicii, becoming top dog in British politics twice (1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955).
During the 1921 'Treaty of Surrender' discussions it was the then British 'Colonial Secretary to Ireland', Winston Churchill, who maneuvered a friend of his, South African Judge Richard Feetham into the position of 'Chairman' of said meetings, even though Churchill himself described that particular 'talking shop' as a "toothless body". Still - no harm to have its 'Chairman' in your pocket, an old British custom, practiced to this day.
But, drunk or sober, when he was on 'empire business', he himself was anything but 'toothless' '..a man who swilled on champagne while 4 million men, women and children in Bengal starved due to his racist colonial policies...a white supremacist whose hatred for Indians led to four million starving to death - "all who resist will be killed without quarter" because the Pashtuns need "recognise the superiority of race" - the man who loathed Irish people so much he conceived different ways to terrorise them, the racist thug who waged war on black people across Africa and in Britain...he found his love for war during the time he spent in Afghanistan ("we proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation..."(from here).
Yes, indeed - men like Churchill made Britain 'Great', as in that that country has done (and continues to do) some 'great' harm on the world stage.
"We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English." - Winston Churchill. And we Irish have always found the English ruling political class and its 'royalty' to be a bit odd. They refuse to be civilised.
'THE BRITISH STORY...'
Roy Foster (pictured) in the British media.
By Barra Ó Séaghdha.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
But no, the Professor is probably not referring to Conor Cruise O'Brien's book 'Ancestral Voices'. After all, reviewing the book for 'The Sunday Tribune', he found it as "stylish, mordant and discomfiting" as anything O'Brien had ever written, and he read "the historical sections of the book (including those dealing with very recent history) with unstinting admiration."
We must await clarification of the professor's change of mind, or an explanation of how self-indulgence is to be deplored only in certain writers. Reviewers of Roy Foster's book do not fall so totally under his charm ; Anne McHardy in 'The Observer' newspaper devotes most attention to the Adams/McCourt piece - her many substantial quotations from the essays leave little space for her own reactions.
She shows some awareness, however, of where Roy Foster is writing from - "But he opens himself to the charges he levels against others - of weaving his style of sea-hopping intellectual into the mainstream of Irish identity, and also lack of focus because, however much he obfuscates it with references to 'here' of Ireland, he must often have written in Oxford."
'The Spectator' characteristically offers a mixture of stereotyped thinking and candour ; thus Nicholas Harman's second sentence reads - "His Oxford professorship affirms his credentials as a serious historian, and his biography of the poer WB Yeats confirms that he can employ the accurate if unreadable details..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (30TH NOVEMBER) 139 YEARS AGO : 'INVINCIBLE' COURT CASE BEGINS AT THE OLD BAILEY, LONDON.
Pat O'Donnell (pictured) was a member of the 'The Invincibles' ('Irish National Invincibles'), a 19th-century organisation which opposed, in arms, British interference in Ireland. He is best known for having assassinated the informer James Carey (aka 'James Power').
When Carey told on 'Skin the Goat',
O'Donnell caught him on the boat —
He wished he'd never been afloat,
The dirty skite!
It wasn't very sensible
To tell on the Invincibles —
They stood up for their principles
Day and night.
And you'll find them all in Monto, Monto, Monto
Standing up in Monto, lan-ge-roo,To you!
In November 1881, a group was formed in Dublin with the objective of "removing all the principal tyrants from the country" ; they called themselves 'The Irish National Invincibles' and, within a few months, they were to make world headlines.
The group, consisting mainly of former Fenians, decided to announce their presence in a dramatic fashion - on May 6th, 1882, they assassinated two of Britains top officials in Ireland : Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and Under Secretary Thomas F. Burke in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, just yards from the Viceroy Lodge.
The British offered a reward of £1000 for information leading to the arrest of those responsible and put their top man in Dublin, Superintendent John Mallon of the 'G Division' of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (pictured), on the case. He arrested dozens of 'suspects' and repeatedly questioned those who were known to be in the Phoenix Park area that night, but to no avail.
Then, in November 1882, six months after the British lost their men, Superintendent John Mallon arrested a member of the Invincibles, Robert Farrell, and Mallon told him that they knew the identity of those that had carried-out the assassinations and advised Farrell to save himself - this was the same line that those previously arrested had been told but, unfortunately, Robert Farrell fell for it.
Within weeks, twenty-six men were arrested. The 'G' man, John Mallon, needed additional witnesses and evidence to build a substantial case against the men and reverted to form - three of the twenty-six men (Michael Kavanagh, James Carey and his brother, Peter) turned informers.
In April 1883, in Green Street Courthouse in Dublin, Judge O'Brien began to hear 'evidence' against thirteen of the men. Five of them - Joe Brady, Dan Curley, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey and Tim Kelly - received the death sentence and the other eight men were sentenced to long periods of imprisonment (nineteen year-old Tim Kelly faced three 'trials' before eventually being convicted, the jury at the previous 'trials' having failed to agree on a verdict).
Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley and young Tim Kelly were hanged in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin between May 14th and June 4th, 1883.
One of the informers, James Carey, was shot dead on board 'The 'Melrose' off Cape Town, South Africa, on his way to Natal to 'begin a new life' with his wife and children, on July 29th, 1883, by Donegal-man Patrick O Donnell, who was caught and escorted back to Ireland.
His 'trial' (all two hours of it) was held at the 'Old Bailey' in London on the 30th November 1883 - 139 years ago on this date - in front of Judge George Denman, a Liberal politician known to be in favour of public executions.
Pat O'Donnell was found guilty of 'wilful murder', despite having the best defence team that money could buy - his supporters had raised and spent about fifty-five thousand dollars on legal representation for him, but then, as now, the British wanted their 'pound of flesh'.
And they got it on the 17th December 1883 when they executed Patrick O'Donnell.
My name is Pat O’Donnell I was born in Donegal
I am you know a deadly foe to traitors one and all
For the shooting of James Carey I was tried and guilty found
And now upon the scaffold high my life I must lay down.
I sailed on board the ship Melrose in August 1883
James Carey was on board the ship but still unknown to me
When I found out he was Carey we had angry words and blows
The villain swore my life to take on board the ship Melrose.
I stood a while in self defence to fight before I'd die
My loaded pistol I pulled out at Carey I let fly
I gave to him a second one which pierced him through the heart
I let him have a third volley before he did depart.
Then Mrs Carey came running up to the cabin where he lay
O'Donnell you shot my husband Mrs Carey she did say
O'Donnell you shot my husband Mrs Carey loud did cry
"I only stood in self defence kind madame", answered I.
The captain had me handcuffed and in strong irons bound
He gave me up as prisoner when we landed in Capetown
They turned me back to London my trial for to stand
And the prosecutors for the crown were Carey's wife and son.
To all the evidence they swore I said it was a lie
The jury found me guilty and the judge he did reply
"You'll never more see Erin's shore, O’Donnell, you must die"
On the 17th of December upon the scaffold high.
If I had been a free man could live another year
All traitors and informers I would make them shake with fear
Saint Patrick drove the serpents from the our holy sainted land
I'd make them run before me like the hare before the hound.
Farewell to dark old Donegal the place where I was born
And likewise to the United States which ne'er was known for scorn
And twice farewell to old Gráinne Mhaol with her fields and valleys green
For never more around Erin's shore Pat O'Donnell will be seen.
That British show trial against Patrick O'Donnell began on the 30th November 1883 - 139 years ago on this date.
FUNDS AND FINE GAEL'S LEADER...
Michael Lowry has so far been the focus of media attention about Fine Gael fundraising.
But the party's current leader, Enda Kenny (pictured), hosted a £1,000-a-plate dinner two days before the second mobile phone licence was awarded. And other guests say that one of the bidders for that licence was in attendance.
By Mairead Carey.
From 'Magill' magazine, January 2003.
Enda Kenny only last month demanded a signed pledge from past and present TD's (sic) that they did not receive any money from ESAT or Denis O'Brien.
However, he has so far not stated whether or not he knew the identity of the man who attended the fundraiser held on the 23rd October 1995. The mobile phone licence decision was announced two days later.
Stewart Kenny of Paddy Power Bookmakers, who was also present at the fundraiser, has confirmed to 'Magill' magazine that he took a bet on the outcome of the mobile licence competition from a Scandinavian businessman who said he was among those vying for the licence.
Members of a consortium which was bidding for the 'National Conference Centre' contract - the competition for which was being run by the State Department of Tourism, where Enda Kenny was minister - were also at the fundraiser...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (30TH NOVEMBER) 355 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF THE MAN WHO URGED THE IRISH "TO BURN EVERYTHING ENGLISH EXCEPT THEIR COAL".
"Burn everything English but their coal" - the 'Hibernian Patriot' [from the 'Drapier's Letters' collection], Jonathan Swift (pictured), an Irish author and satirist (perhaps best known for 'Gulliver's Travels' and for his position as dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin) was born in Dublin on the 30th November 1667 - 355 years ago on this date.
His father (from whom the 'Patriot' got his first name) was an attorney, but he died before the birth of his son. As if that wasn't misfortune enough, young Jonathan suffered from Meniere's Disease and, between the bill's mounting up and her sickly son, his mother, Abigail, found that she was unable to cope and the young boy was put in the charge of her late husband's brother, Godwin, a wealthy member of the 'Gray's Inn' legal society.
His position in St. Patrick's Cathedral ensured that he had a 'pulpit' and a ready-made audience to listen to him, an opportunity he readily availed of to question English misrule in Ireland - he spoke against 'Wood's Halfpence' and in favour of 'burning everything English except their coal' and, satirically, wrote a 'modest proposal' in which he suggested that poor children should be fed to the rich ('a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled..')!
In 1742, at 75 years of age, Jonathan Swift suffered a stroke, severely affecting his ability to speak, and he died three years later, on the 19th October, 1745. He was buried next to the love of his life, Esther Johnson, in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.
"It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind" - Jonathan Swift.
Thanks for the visit, and for reading ; we mightn't thank ya often enough, but we do appreciate it!
Sharon and the team.
ON THIS DATE (19TH OCTOBER) 277 YEARS AGO : DEATH OF THE MAN WHO URGED THE IRISH "TO BURN EVERYTHING ENGLISH EXCEPT THEIR COAL".
"Burn everything English but their coal" - the 'Hibernian Patriot' [from the 'Drapier's Letters' collection], Jonathan Swift (pictured), an Irish author and satirist (perhaps best known for 'Gulliver's Travels' and for his position as dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin) was born in Dublin on the 30th November 1667 ; his father (from whom the 'Patriot' got his first name) was an attorney, but he died before the birth of his son.
As if that wasn't misfortune enough, young Jonathan suffered from Meniere's Disease and, between the bill's mounting up and her sickly son, his mother, Abigail, found that she was unable to cope and the young boy was put in the charge of her late husband's brother, Godwin, a wealthy member of the 'Gray's Inn' legal society.
His position in St. Patrick's Cathedral ensured that he had a 'pulpit' and a ready-made audience to listen to him, an opportunity he readily availed of to question English misrule in Ireland - he spoke against 'Wood's Halfpence' and in favour of 'burning everything English except their coal' and, satirically, wrote a 'modest proposal' in which he suggested that poor children should be fed to the rich ('a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled..')!
In 1742, at 75 years of age, Jonathan Swift suffered a stroke, severely affecting his ability to speak, and he died three years later, on the 19th October, 1745 - 277 years ago on this date. He was buried next to the love of his life, Esther Johnson, in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.
"It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind" - Jonathan Swift.
'TOMÁS MacCURTAIN COMMEMORATION...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
In his oration, Domhnall O Cathain said -
"In his validictary address to the insurgent Volunteers on the Friday before the surrender, Pádraig Pearse wrote - 'Justice can never be done to their heroism, to their discipline, to their gay and unconquerable spirit in the midst of peril and death..'.
As in all his writings, Pearse spoke not only for his own time and for the past but also for the future.
How full, how complete a description of the 16 men who went over the barrack wall in Omagh, how beautiful, how fitting an appreciation of the eight men in the court of 'imperialist justice'. And to follow in the same strain with Pearse, if they did not win they had deserved to win, and like the Volunteers they had won a great thing.
The 1916 Volunteers had redeemed Dublin from many shames. The Armagh and Omagh Volunteers had pulled aside the veil, unloosened the drapery of words, had shown us all the light ; they had floodlit the path of freedom, had shown that there was but one way. They had shown that the staccato of the Thompson Gun was the most effective way of making the Orange junta sit up and take notice.
They did for Ireland what Ireland needed to have done for her. They did for Ireland what Ireland deserved to have done for her..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (19TH OCTOBER) 102 YEARS AGO - BRITISH 'HAMAR' MISSES ITS TARGET.
British 'Chief Secretary for Ireland', Lieutenant-Colonel 'Sir' Hamar Greenwood (pictured, and short video here showing 'the Hamar' rewarding his troops in this country for the destruction they wrought while maintaining 'law and order') promised to put an end to republican "outrages" but that was just another outrageous false promise by the British!
In May 1920 the British Foreign Secretary, 'Lord' George Nathaniel Curzon, proposed vigorous 'Indian measures' to suppress the rebellion in Ireland and he and other British imperialist 'gentlemen' formulated a policy with that objective in mind. On the 9th August 1920, the British 'Lords Commissioners' announced that 'Royal Assent' had been granted for the following 14 items -
1. Overseas Trade (Credit and Insurance) Act, 1920.
2. Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920.
3. Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, 1920.*
4. Aberdeen Corporation Order Confirmation Act, 1920.
5. Pilotage Orders Confirmation (No. 3) Act, 1920.
6. Local Government Board (Ireland) Provisional Orders Confirmation (No. 3) Act, 1920.
7. Ministry of Health Provisional Order Confirmation (Chesterfield Extension) Act, 1920.
8. Mid-Glamorgan Water Act, 1920.
9. Wallasey Corporation Act, 1920.
10. Life Association of Scotland Act, 1920.
11. Uxbridge and Wycombe District Gas Act, 1920.
12. Exmouth Urban District Council Act, 1920.
13. North British and Mercantile Insurance Company's Act, 1920.
14. Lever Brothers, Limited (Wharves and Railway) Act, 1920.
On the 19th October 1920 - 102 years ago on this date - the British 'Chief Secretary for Ireland', Lieutenant-Colonel 'Sir' Hamar Greenwood (who later threatened to resign his position if Westminster agreed to a ceasefire with Irish republicans before they had surrendered their weapons!) stated, re the British 'law and order' campaign in Ireland -
"The outrages against the police and military forces since the 1st January last, which I regret to say include the loss of no less than 118 lives, are as follows: police killed -100, military killed -18, police wounded -160, military wounded -66. There have been 667 attacks on police barracks, resulting in most cases in their complete destruction.
There has been an organised attempt to boycott and intimidate the police, their wives and relations. The hon. Member will realise that I cannot publish the steps that are being taken to cope with the campaign of murder, outrage and intimidation, but I can assure him that the means available to the Government for protecting all servants of the Crown in the discharge of their duties, and for bringing to justice those who commit or connive at outrages, are steadily improving.
Fighters in every clime;
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers bemocked by time.
War dogs hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighters in every clime -
Every cause but our own. (Emily Lawless, 1902 ; "With the Wild Geese".)
She was born into a politically mixed background, the eldest daughter and one of eight children ('Sir' Horace Plunkett was her cousin).
Her father was 'Titled' by Westminster (he was a 'Baron') even though his father (Emily's grandfather) was a member of the 'United Irishmen'.
Her brother, Edward, seems to have taken his direction from his father rather than his grandfather - he held and voiced strong unionist opinions, wouldn't have a catholic about the place and was in a leadership position within the anti-Irish so-called 'Property Defence Association'.
Perhaps this 'in-house' political confusion, mixed between staunch unionism and unionism with sympathies for Irish nationalism/republicanism, coupled with the 'whisperings of shame' that Emily was a lesbian and was having an affair with one of the 'titled' Spencer women, was the reason why her father and two of his daughters committed suicide.
She wrote a full range of books, from fiction to history to poetry, and is best remembered for her 'Wild Geese' works, although some of her writings were criticised by journalists for its 'grossly exaggerated violence, its embarrassing dialect and staid characters..' - 'The Nation' newspaper stated that 'she looked down on peasantry from the pinnacle of her three-generation nobility..' and none other than William Butler Yeats declared that she had "an imperfect sympathy with the Celtic nature.." and that she favoured "theory invented by political journalists and forensic historians."
But she had a great talent :
After Aughrim :
She said, "They gave me of their best,
They lived, they gave their lives for me ;
I tossed them to the howling waste
And flung them to the foaming sea."
She said, "I never gave them aught,
Not mine the power, if mine the will ;
I let them starve, I let them bleed,
they bled and starved, and loved me still."
She said, "Ten times they fought for me,
Ten times they strove with might and main,
Ten times I saw them beaten down,
Ten times they rose, and fought again."
She said, "I stayed alone at home,
A dreary woman, grey and cold ;
I never asked them how they fared,
Yet still they loved me as of old."
She said, "I never called them sons,
I almost ceased to breathe their name,
then caught it echoing down the wind
blown backwards, from the lips of fame."
She said, "Not mine, not mine that fame ;
Far over sea, far over land,
cast forth like rubbish from my shores
they won it yonder, sword in hand."
She said, "God knows they owe me nought,
I tossed them to the foaming sea,
I tossed them to the howling waste,
Yet still their love comes home to me."
She considered herself to be a Unionist although, unlike her brother, she appreciated and acknowledged Irish culture (or, in her own words - "I am not anti-Gaelic at all, as long as it is only Gaelic enthuse and does not include politics..") and, despite being 'entitled' to call herself 'The Honourable Emily Lawless', it was a 'title' she only used occasionally.
She spent a lot of her younger days in Galway, with her mother's family, but it is thought that family tragedies drove her to live in England, where she died, on the 19th of October 1913 - 109 years ago on this date - at the age of 68, having become addicted to heroin. She is buried in Surrey.
Emily Lawless, 1845-1913.
'FORTH HIS BANNERS GO...'
Jer O'Leary (pictured) has become bannermaker to the radical and labour movement. Brian Trench reports on the growing recognition of his art.
From 'Magill' magazine, May 1987.
It was in John Arden's and Margaretta D'Arcy's 'Non-Stop Connolly Show' in Liberty Hall in 1974 that Jer O'Leary first took up his imposing Jim Larkin stance. Since 1977, he has done it in half-a-dozen productions of James Plunkett's 'The Risen People'.
Jer O'Leary had also been painting as well as acting, winning two art competitions organised by the ITGWU. Encouraged by the union's late general secretary, Michael Mullen, O'Leary applied his skills to posters and then to banners. Union banners which usually spend very long periods in storage had been much in evidence in the tax marches of the late 1970's.
Jer O'Leary approached his banners with the demands of the street in mind - "I always felt that the old union banners were too intricate for the street ; I purposely used stark black and white images on a colour background to make more impact..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (19TH OCTOBER) 33 YEARS AGO : BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT AGREE THAT 'THE CONVICTIONS ARE UNSAFE AND UNSATISFACTORY...OUR POLICE OFFICERS MUST HAVE LIED...' (Page 22, here.)
On the 19th October 1989 - 33 years ago on this date (after serving 15 years in prison)- the 'Guildford Four' - Gerard Conlon, Patrick Armstrong, Carole Richardson and Paul Hill - are released from prison in what is considered to be one of the biggest-ever miscarriages of justice in Britain.
Their convictions in 1974 for the Guildford pub bombings of that year were quashed at the Old Bailey in London on the 19th October 1989. All four had been falsely accused of the attacks on two pubs in which five people died and more than sixty people were injured. 'Confessions' were obtained by the use of torture and attempts to appeal the convictions were unsuccessful - the British establishment and its police force wanted 'those responsible' (and/or those whom it could somewhat plausibly present as being responsible) caught and for 'justice' to be done.
'After the incredulity and then the euphoria of release from jail, the four people who had served 15 years for the Guildford pub bombings in 1974 had to find a life. Three are now married with families but the years of adjustment have been painful...the only thing that mattered was when Lord Lane, the lord chief justice, pronounced those magic words: the convictions of Gerry Conlon, Carole Richardson, Paul Hill and Paddy Armstrong were unsafe and unsatisfactory..."
Gerry Conlon punched the air in defiance and ran the wrong way down the street. Just like a confused animal, his lawyer thought. Conlon was then 35...Richardson, 17 at the time of her arrest, was shocked and weak at the knees. She and her former boyfriend, Armstrong, disappeared separately out the back. She just wanted to hide. Hill was taken to Crumlin Road prison in Belfast and bailed two days later...theirs was the first of the momentous Irish miscarriage of justice cases which convulsed the criminal justice system and led to a rare royal commission.
The crisis of confidence was encapsulated in one of Lord Lane's concluding remarks: "The officers must have lied..." (from here.)
"Officers" of that same calibre (albeit in a different uniform), answerable to a similar political establishment as mentioned above, are still in a powerful position in the north-east of this country (and, indeed, are not confined to that area) and are still willing and able to frame innocent people for their objective of securing the British military and political presence in Ireland.
As we stated on this blog on the 5th October last - 'Westminster didn't care who was found 'guilty' once they satisfied the gutter press and it's readership that 'justice had been served', and they continue with that policy to this day - 'The Craigavon Two', Brendan McConville and John-Paul Wootton, are the 'Guildford/Birmingham' etc examples of 'British justice' in Ireland today.' The only long term solution is to end that presence and flush out the contaminants left behind.
ON THIS DATE (19TH OCTOBER) IN...
...1610 :
One of our English 'rulers' who was somewhat less cruel to us than others in his social circle was born on the 19th October 1610, in Clerkenwell, in London.
James Fitzthomas Butler was 51 years of age when he was announced as the '1st Duke of Ormond, KG, PC' and 'Lord High Steward' of England ; he was by then already a Lieutenant-General in the English Army and was a 'land owner' in Ireland.
He had spent a small fortune over the previous decades 'in royal service' and, now as a 'Duke' and 'High Steward', he was awarded large grants and a one-off payment of £30,000, all of which, apparently, kept him and 'his' estates in Ireland ticking-over but, overall, his losses still exceeded his gains!
During his political 'career' in Ireland he was in Office as 'Lord Lieutenant of Ireland' three times and, by the (anti-Irish) standards of the day, he was said to be somewhat less cruel than other 'Irish masters'.
He died in the Kingston Lacy mansion in Dorset, England, on the 21st July, 1688, and was buried on the 4th August in Westminster Abbey. Incidentally, his wife, Elizabeth, died four years earlier (in 1684) on the same date as her husband, the 21st July.
If this short piece wasn't about British imperialism in Ireland, that would almost be romantic!
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...1751 :
A boy born in Dublin on the 19th October 1751 - Charles Edward Saul Jennings (pictured) - took a leaf from his Da's book and took a title from his Da's heritage. Sort of!
His Da, Theobald, from Polaniran, in Tuam, County Galway, was a doctor, and his Ma, Eleonore (Jennings, née Saul, aka 'Lady Eleonore') was the daughter of a rich Dublin distiller and, indeed, that may have given her husband, Theobald, the notion that he, too, should be 'titled'.
So when the family moved to Tonnay-Charente in the south of France in the mid-to-late 1700's, the Da continued to practice as a doctor and, in order to improve his customer base (!) declared himself to all and sundry to be the 'Baron of Kilmaine', and was accepted in posh French society as such!
Charles Edward had a rebellious streak about him and soon found an outlet for it in the French Army, where he rose to the rank of General - he supported the revolutionaries in France and Ireland (he was a devoted friend to Theobald Wolfe Tone and a close confidant of Napoleon I, and was described as the only officer Bonaparte ever trusted completely) and had, by then, already accepted his Da's 'title' and was known among his military comrades as the 'Baron of Kilmaine' and/or 'Brave Kilmaine'.
He helped to secure the financial well-being of Matilda Tone and her children after her husband was killed by the British and, such was his standing in France, he was appointed military governor of Switzerland in 1799, when he was only 48 years of age, but had to resign from the position because of health issues.
He died in Paris on the 11th of December, 1799, and was buried with full military honours, leaving behind his wife, Susanne (née Kirchmeyer) - the couple had no children, so the 'title' died with him.
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...1919 :
At about 2am on Sunday morning, 19th October 1919, 23-year-old 'Dublin Metropolitan Police Constable' Michael Downing (pictured), a farmer's son from Adrigole on the Beara Peninsula in County Cork, was 'on patrol' and crossing a road near High Street in the Liberties area of Dublin, walking towards a group of men on that side of the street.
As he got nearer to the men, one of them pulled out a revolver and shot him dead.
The men were IRA Volunteers and were tending to an arms dump that the 'Constable' was (inadvertently) walking towards. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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...1920 :
On the 19th October, 1920, British Crown Forces stormed into a pub in Turloughmore, in County Galway and dragged a number of men out of the premises and flogged them by the side of the road, and in the nearby villages of Corofin and Cummer, on consecutive nights, men were taken from their beds, stripped and flogged by the roadside.
This issue was raised in Westminster on the 21st October but, as expected, British politicians attempted to cover-up for the offenders, their military colleagues in Ireland, by claiming that republicans in stolen British Army uniforms were responsible! -
'Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR (by Private Notice) asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the statements in several newspapers that on Saturday night last two lorries of uniformed men seized Thomas and Martin Feeney at the village of Corbally and flogged them with a rope, and assaulted one of them in addition with a rifle; whether on the same night at the town of Corofin Patrick Raferty was also flogged; whether on Sunday evening a number of young men were stripped and were whipped and otherwise assaulted on the road; whether a young man named Michael Welby and a young woman named Miss Glynn were shot and wounded at the village of Cummer by the police on the same occasion; and whether an inquiry will be immediately instituted and the persons guilty of these floggings and other assaults will be brought to justice...?'
The pathetic 'they-flogged-themselves-Sir!!' absurdity can re read here, if you can stomach it.
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...1921 :
In the run-up/ prep work for the signing of the 'Treaty of Surrender' (which was signed by the Free Staters and the British on the 6th December 1921) a number of meetings were held between the Staters and Westminster political and military representatives.
One such meeting was held on the 19th October, 1921, to discuss financial issues regarding 'repatriable financial assets' ie 'because of your actions we spent this amount and you have to pay us back'. The British reps stated that the fledging Free State entity 'owed' Westminster £153 million sterling for "debt and pension charges" incurred during the British visit to the State (!!) but the Staters - masters at fumbling in greasy tills - replied that, on the basis of past over-taxation "since the Union" (!!) and retardation of the Free State's industrial and commercial development, the charge to Westminster should be about £3 billion sterling!
That was of course a bluff by the Staters, and it was called by the British (who knew the 'strength' of their new allies) - a 'compromise' arrived at was that 'Article 5' of that Treaty would contain an agreement that '...the Free State was required to pay a fair and equitable share of the UK public debt and war pensions..' and that 'settlement' was worked through by both entities involved.
Incidentally, the Staters continue to believe that they owe various British 'Lords' and 'Dukes' money, and they continue to pay them!
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...1921 :
While the Staters were capitulating, politically and militarily, to Westminster - see above - on the 19th October, 1921, religious capitulation was also taking place.
It was on that same date that Pope Benedict XV sent a telegram to the English 'king' George V rejoicing at the resumption of the 'Treaty of Surrender' discussions, instead of telling him that he and his ilk should get the hell out of Ireland, politically and militarily.
The English 'king', delighted to have received such a 'thumbs-up' from that Pope, wrote back saying that he hoped that "...a settlement may initiate a new era of peace and happiness for my people..". That "new era", your kingship, won't materialise in Ireland until the British military and political presence has left the country for good.
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...1922 :
Two Free State soldiers died on the 19th October 1922 ; Private Michael M Bailey, 20 years of age, was born in Wales and was stationed in Portobello Barracks in Dublin, in the Transport Division of the FSA.
He was in a convoy which was travelling to Naas in County Kildare when a sniper shot him dead.
Two State troopers, a Sergeant Clarke and a Sergeant-Major Sean O'Suillivan (who was only 17 years of age) came across a crowd of people outside a shop on Corporation Street, in Dublin city centre.
They wanted to disperse the crowd but they wouldn't move anywhere so Sergeant Clarke fired a warning shot into the air, but the bullet rebounded off a wall and hit the young Sergeant-Major, killing him. We presume the crowd then left the scene.
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...1922 :
On Thursday, 19th October 1922, Aghadoe House (pictured) in Killarney, County Kerry, was burned down by the IRA, to ensure that it would not be used as a base by the Free Staters. It was rebuilt three years later.
In 1870, 97% of the 32 Counties of Ireland was 'owned' by English 'landlords' and the 'big house on the hill' (the 'landlords' residence)was availed of by English troops and militia as a base from which to secure their presence, and those vermin were welcomed in by the owners. When he was the IRA Chief of Staff, Liam Lynch issued a directive that "all Free State supporters are traitors and deserve the latter's stark fate, therefore their houses must be destroyed at once...", and that order was followed with gusto by the rebels, as the 'landlords' were hated in their community by the majority.
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...1923 :
On the 19th October, 1923, a State 'Criminal Investigation Department' (CID) operative named Thomas Fitzgerald was killed, following an armed robbery in a factory in Castleknock, Dublin. A Free State soldier, William Downes, was later hanged for killing Fitzgerald -
'At 8am on Monday, 29 November 1923, William Downes climbed the scaffold in Mountjoy and became the first man executed by the Irish Free State...
it is ironic then that the first man to climb the scaffold would not be an 'irregular' or opponent of the new State. Downes was in fact a pro-Treaty soldier.
At 5pm on 19 October 1923, Superintendent F O'Driscoll of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) received a phone call from the Castleknock Candle Factory. The CID was an armed police force which dealt with crime during the Civil War period and the panicked caller told him that his premises had just been robbed by armed raiders...' -More here.
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Only back after our absence last week [...bet ya never even noticed..] and we have to excuse ourselves again for next Wednesday, 26th October 2022 ; we have a christening and a funeral to attend over the weekend and early next week and, although one event is obviously more sombre than the other, both will end up in a pub, where we'll reacquaint ourselves with old friends, colleagues and comrades, and make new ones, as ya do!
We'll be back 'on air' on Wednesday, 2nd November 2022 and, if ya want, you can catch-me-if-you-can on 'Facebook' and 'Twitter'.
Oh, and by the way - we sourced three cabins in Waterford for the now-37 of us that are heading off on a ten-day break in November. The six of us that'll be sleeping in the vans and cars at night are the lucky ones...!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading!
See y'all on the 2nd November next.
Sharon and the team.
