ON THIS DATE (7TH DECEMBER) 143 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF AN IRA MAN WHO DARED AND SUFFERED - AUSTIN STACK.
Austin Stack (pictured) was born on the 7th December, 1879 - 143 years ago on this date - in Ballymullen, Tralee, County Kerry and, at 29 years young, joined the 'Irish Republican Brotherhood' (IRB).
At the time of the 1916 Rising, he was 37 years of age and was the commandant of the Kerry Brigade of the Irish Volunteers and was arrested, by the British, with Con Collins, on the 21st April that year while planning an attack on Tralee RIC Barracks in an attempt to rescue Roger Casement.
He was court-martialed on the 14th June and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to twenty years penal servitude and he was released in the general amnesty of June 1917, and became active in the Irish Volunteers again.
He opposed the Treaty of Surrender in 1921 (stating, during the debate on same - "Has any man here the hardihood to stand up and say that it was for this our fathers suffered, that it was for this our comrades have died in the field and in the barrack yard..") and took part, with other Irish republicans, in the subsequent 'Civil War', when Free Staters (armed by the British) usurped the Republic.
He was captured in 1923 and went on hunger strike for forty-one days before being released in July 1924. When Eamon de Valera founded Fianna Fail in 1926, Stack remained with Sinn Féin and was elected Secretary of that organisation, a position he held until his death. His health was shattered due to the number of prison protests and hunger strikes for political status that he undertook.
In the 1918 general election, while a prisoner in Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast, he was elected to represent West Kerry in the First (all-Ireland) Dáil as an abstentionist Sinn Féin Member of Parliament. The British incarcerated him in Strangeways Prison in Manchester, from where he escaped in October 1919 and, during the 'Black and Tan War', as Minister for Home Affairs, he organised the republican courts which replaced the British 'legal' system in this country.
In the general round-up of Irish republican leaders in April 1923 (during which Liam Lynch was shot dead by Free State troops) Stack, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the rebel forces, was arrested in a farmyard in the Knockmealdown Mountains in County Tipperary - this was four days after Lynch's death. Imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin, he took part in the mass hunger-strike by republican prisoners in October 1923, which was his 5th hunger-strike in 6 years.
Shortly after the end of that forty-one day hunger-strike, in November 1923, he was released with hundreds of other political prisoners, and he married his girlfriend, Una Gordon, in 1925. In April 1929, at forty-nine years of age, he entered the Mater Hospital in Dublin for a stomach operation. He never recovered and died two days later, on 27th April 1929. He is buried in the Republican Plot, Glasnevin Cemetery, in Dublin.
A commemorative pamphlet, entitled 'What Exactly is a Republican?' was issued in memory of the man - 'The name republican in Ireland, as used amongst republicans, bears no political meaning. It stands for the devout lover of his country, trying with might and main for his country's freedom. Such a man cannot be a slave. And if not a slave in heart or in act, he cannot be guilty of the slave vices. No coercion can breed these in the freeman.
Fittingly, the question - 'What is a republican?' fails to be answered in our memorial number for Austin Stack, a man who bore and dared and suffered, remaining through it all and at the worst, the captain of his own soul. What then was Austin Stack, republican? A great lover of his country. A man without a crooked twist in him. One who thought straight, acted straight, walked the straight road unflinchingly and expected of others that they should walk it with him, as simply as he did himself. No man could say or write of him "He had to do it". That plea of the slave was not his. His duty, as conscience and love dictated, he did.
The force of England, of the English Slave State, might try coercion, as they tried it many times : it made no difference. He went his way, suffered their will, and stood his ground doggedly, smiling now and again. His determination outstood theirs, because it had a deeper foundation and a higher aim. Compromise, submission, the slave marks, did not and could not exist for him as touching himself, or the Cause for which he worked and fough, lived and died.'
Ireland had lost one of her best soldiers.
'THE LATE PATRICK HENRY, SLIGO.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
It is with deep regret we announce the death of Patrick Henry, Harmony Hill, Sligo, which took place on the 8th March last.
The late Pat Henry was a member of the IRA from 1917 and took a very prominent part both in the IRA and Sinn Féin during the Black and Tan war.
When the 'Treaty' was signed, although with a young family, he again rejoined his unit and up to his death was uncompromising in his republican outlook, and his home was always open to those engaged in the Republican Movement.
His funeral on the 10th March was a striking tribute to the esteem in which he was held. An oration was delivered by Mr T. McEvilly and the 'Last Post' sounded. To his family we wish to tender our deepest sympathy.
May he rest in peace.
(END of 'The Late Patrick Henry, Sligo' ; NEXT - 'The Child Is Father To The Man', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (7TH DECEMBER) 1,495 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF AN IRISH SAINT AND SOLDIER.
St. Columcille (aka 'St. Columba') is an Irish saint, monk and soldier who was born on the 7th December, 527 AD in Gartan, County Donegal - 1,495 years ago on this date - and is perhaps best known for his 'Book Battle' and for being responsible for a mass hunger strike in Ireland.
Embarking on such a protest is part of a very ancient Irish tradition (although it might appear to be the case that James Connolly was the first to use it in 1913 as tool of political protest in 20th century Ireland) - fasting as a means of asserting one's rights when faced with no other means of obtaining redress is something that has been embedded in Irish culture from ancient times.
Even when the ancient Irish law system, the Laws of the Fénechus, which we popularly called the 'Brehon Laws' from the word breitheamh (a 'judge'), were first codified in AD 438, the law relating to the troscad ('hunger strike'), was ancient.
The hunger striker gave notice of their intent and, according to the law tract Di Chetharslicht Athgabhála, if the person who is being fasted against does not come to arbitration and actually allows the protester to die, then the moral judgement went against them and they endured shame and contempt until they made recompense to the family of the dead person. If they failed to make such amends, they were not only damned by society but damned in the next world. They were held to be without honour and without morality.
The ancient Irish texts are full of examples of people fasting to assert their rights and shame powerful enemies into accepting their moral obligations. St Patrick is recorded to have done so according to the 'Tripartite Life of St Patrick' and, in the 'Life of St Ailbe', we found St Lugid and St Salchin carrying out ritual fasts to protest.
King Conall Dearg of Connacht fasted when he found his rights infringed, and the entire population of Leinster is said to have fasted against St Colmcille when he rode roughshod over their rights. The poet Mairgen mac Amalgado mac Mael Ruain of the Deisi fasted against another poet Finguine over an act of perceived injustice.
The troscad continued in Irish law throughout the centuries until the English conquests proscribed the native law system and foisted English law on Ireland through a series of Acts between 1587 and 1613. Nevertheless, individual fasts against the cruelties of the English colonial administration are recorded several times over the subsequent years.
Saint Columcille ('Columba'), 'credited' (!) with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland, died aged 76, in Iona, Scotland and, much like the 'Holy Men' of today, was not shy in claiming that (his) God was on his side -
'O God, wilt thou not drive off the fog,
which envelopes our number,
the host which has deprived us of our livelihood,
the host which proceeds around the carns!
He is a son of storm who betrays us.
My Druid, he will not refuse me,
is the Son of God, and may he side with me;
How grandly he bears his course,
the steed of Baedan before the host;
Power by Baedan of the yellow hair
will be borne from Ireland on him the steed.'
And, with that - may your God, whoever He or She is, go with you...!
'THE BRITISH STORY...
Roy Foster (pictured) in the British media.
By Barra Ó Séaghdha.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
Terry Eagleton, now as confidently and knowledgeably ensconced in his Irish phase as in his previous four or five, is able to read the Irish scene far more closely than those we have been looking at.
Reviewing him in 'The Guardian' newspaper, Eagleton situates Roy Foster "in the great tradition of Anglo-Irish liberalism", but suggests too that Foster shares some of the prejudices of his class and is naively unaware, as he denounces others' ideologies, of his own ideological baggage.
"Foster's constant nationalist-knocking, far from representing some daring dissidence, is now the purest platitude in these islands," he writes. Like Foster himself and all the writers mentioned above, however, Terry Eagleton remains focused on the story of Ireland only as it unfolds within the borders of the island...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (7TH DECEMBER) 100 YEARS AGO : IRA EXECUTE FREE STATE ARMY BRIGADIER.
Seán Hales (pictured), a brigadier in the Free State Army and a Cumann na nGaedhal member of the Leinster House administration, was shot in Dublin on December 7th, 1922 - 100 years ago on this date - as he left a Dublin hotel, having had lunch.
The IRA had listed as targets all the elected reps who had voted for 'emergency legislation' authorising the executions of republicans. His companion, Pádraic Ó Máille, deputy speaker of the Free State parliament, was seriously injured, but still managed to get Hales into the car and drive to the nearest hospital, where he died.
Anti-republican elements in the immediate area attempted to engage the two IRA shooters but they made good their escape.
Ó Máille was an elected representative for Sinn Féin from 1918 to 1921 and was active in the IRA in the Galway region, but supported the 'Treaty of Surrender' in 1921 (he later left Cumann na nGaedhal, attempted to form his own party but then joined Fianna Fáil). Both were, at the time of the shooting, members of the Cumann na nGaedhal party which, in 1933, merged with smaller groups to form the 'Fine Gael' party (pictured here, in that same year).
'The actual killer, the playwright Ulick O'Connor was told in 1985, by Sean Caffrey, an ex-IRA Intelligence officer, was Owen Donnelly, from Glasnevin, "a rather girlish-looking, fair-haired fellow who had been a very good scholar in O'Connell Schools." "Who ordered him to do it?" I asked. "No one gave him an order," he said. "At that time the general orders issued by Liam Lynch were for anybody to shoot TDs or Senators if they could."
He was in the main room of the Intelligence Centre when Donnelly came in shortly after the killing, on the afternoon of December 7, 1922. I asked Caffrey what was his reaction when he heard Sean Hales had been killed - "I was delighted," he said, and then gave a little chuckle, as if reminiscing over something which he particularly enjoyed. "Donnelly was carrying on the fight," he said. "There are no rules in war. The winner dictates the rules..." ' (from here.)
The reaction of the Free State administration was swift and ruthless : they announced their intention to execute four of the republican prisoners being held without charge or trial in Mountjoy jail and, the following morning (December 8th, 1922, at dawn) Dick Barrett, Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey ('The Four Martyrs', pictured) were summarily executed by firing squad in the yard of Mountjoy jail.
The executioneers declared that the four men were executed "...as a reprisal for the assassination of Brigadier Seán Hales and as a solemn warning to those who are associated with them who are engaged in a conspiracy of assassination against the representatives of the Irish people.. (sic)"
The four men were the first of the Free State administration's executions of it's former comrades and drew condemnation from, among others, Thomas Johnson, the then leader of the State Labour Party : "Murder most foul as in the best it is - but this (is) most foul, bloody and unnatural. The four men in Mountjoy have been in your charge for five months..the Government of this country (sic) — the Government of Saorstát Eireann, announces apparently with pride that they have taken out four men, who were in their charge as prisoners, and as a reprisal for that assassination, murdered them. I wonder whether any member of the Government who has any regard for the honour of Ireland, or has any regard for the good name of the State, or has any regard for the safety of the State, will stand over an act of this kind..."
One of those who had 'regard for the honour of Ireland', at that time, anyway, was Tom Hales, one of Seán's brothers - Tom was in command of the IRA 'Flying Column' which attacked a Free State Army convoy at Béal na Bláth in West Cork on the 22nd August 1922, in which Michael Collins was killed, but he later dishonoured himself by becoming an active and vocal (elected) member of the Fianna Fáil party.
If you have a half hour to spare, you could use it wisely by watching this 'YouTube' video concerning the Hales brothers and that particular period in our history.
And, in relation to the above-mentioned 'Four Martyrs', a seminar will be held in Dublin on Sunday, 11th December 2022 -
- if you can't make that, you might get to the wreath-laying ceremony on Friday, 9th December 2022, at 10am, at the Liam Mellows Memorial in Eyre Square, in Galway City and/or to the wreath-laying ceremony at 12 Noon that same day at the Monument in Athenry, County Galway.
'You have murdered our brave Liam and Rory,
you have butchered young Richard and Joe,
and your hands with our blood are still gory,
fulfilling the work of the foe.
So take it down from the mast, Irish traitor!
It's the flag we republicans claim,
it can never belong to free staters,
for you've brought on it nothing but shame..'
(From here.)
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.
Former Fine Gael junior minister Michael Keating, who earlier this year paid the 'Criminal Assets Bureau' €250,000 in a tax settlement, was also present.
A spokesperson for Enda Kenny declined to comment in detail on the fundraiser, saying he had insufficient information to do so. A brief statement was, however, issued on Kenny's behalf, which acknowledged that the purpose of the event was to raise funds for his re-election campaign. The statement went on -
'The main organiser was Ivan Doherty. Mr Doherty is currently in the United States and Enda Kenny has asked that he be contacted to establish the details to the extent that they can be, at this remove.'
Further questions raised by 'Magill' magazine about the appropriateness of seeking donations from businesses who were themselves seeking major government contracts went unanswered, as did queries about the state of the party's finances and Enda Kenny's attitude to corporate donations...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (7TH DECEMBER) 81 YEARS AGO : 'BATBOMB'-IDEA FROM A DENTIST RECEIVED WITH A SMILE!
An unusual 'On This Date' piece for us to post, but worthy of a mention, nonetheless - two months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, which occurred on 7th December 1941 - 81 years ago on this date - a dentist named Lytle S. Adams from the town of Irwin, Pennsylvania, wrote to the President of the United States stating that he should be made aware that the Japanese were simply terrified of bats.
On the 9th February 1942, Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed the letter on to William Donovan with a cover note saying "This man is NOT a nut.."
No one checked out the 'bat theory' but, as it transpired, it was untrue.
William Donovan, who made a name for himself as 'Mr. U S Intelligence', headed the 'Office of Strategic Services' (OSS), forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency and, for the next several years, he organised the dropping of bats on Japan - sometimes the bats were just slung out of bombers, other times they were dropped by parachute!
When you throw bats out of a plane at high altitude they freeze to death. We can find no record of what the Japanese thought of this carry-on, but wonder if they considered it to be 'manna from heaven...'!
'Developed by the United States during World War II, four biological factors gave promise to this plan. First, bats occur in large numbers (four caves in Texas are each occupied by several million bats). Second, bats can carry more than their own weight in flight (females carry their young—sometimes twins).
Third, bats hibernate, and while dormant they do not require food or maintenance. Fourth, bats fly in darkness, then find secluded places (often in buildings) to hide during daylight. The plan was to release bat bombs over Japanese cities...'
(from here.)
So this 'Adam' was not actually the first 'Batman', then..
...I'll get me coat!
We won't be here on Wednesday, 14th December 2022, as we're taking at least two gangs of little 'uns to see Santa over a three-day period (that's the trouble with big families!) and sure we'll probably fit-in an outing somewhere else, in between both visits, for us bigger Elves!
But we'll be back 'on air' on Wednesday, 21st December 2022 with, among other bits and pieces, a few paragraphs on what happened in a County Council office in one of the six occupied counties in the immediate aftermath of the partition of this country...
Thanks for the visit, and for reading!
Sharon and the team.
ON THIS DATE (30TH MARCH) 142 YEARS AGO : IRA 'GAMEKEEPER-TURNED-FREE STATE POACHER' BORN.
Seán Hales (pictured),a brigadier in the Free State Army and a Cumann na nGaedhal member of the Leinster House administration, was shot in Dublin on December 7th, 1922, as he left a Dublin hotel, having had lunch.
The IRA had listed as targets all the elected reps who had voted for 'emergency legislation' authorising the executions of republicans.
His companion, Pádraic Ó Máille, deputy speaker of the Free State parliament, was seriously injured, but still managed to get Hales into the car and drive to the nearest hospital, where he died. British soldiers in the immediate area attempted to engage the two IRA shooters but they made good their escape.
Ó Máille was an elected representative for Sinn Féin from 1918 to 1921 and was active in the IRA (as was Seán Hales) in the Galway region, but supported the 'Treaty of Surrender' in 1921 (he later left Cumann na nGaedhal, attempted to form his own party but then joined Fianna Fáil). Both were, at the time of the shooting, members of the Cumann na nGaedhal party which, in 1933, merged with smaller groups to form the 'Fine Gael' party (pictured here, in that same year).
'The actual killer, the playwright Ulick O'Connor was told in 1985, by Sean Caffrey, an ex-IRA Intelligence officer, was Owen Donnelly, from Glasnevin, "a rather girlish-looking, fair-haired fellow who had been a very good scholar in O’Connell Schools." "Who ordered him to do it?" I asked. "No one gave him an order," he said. "At that time the general orders issued by Liam Lynch were for anybody to shoot TDs or Senators if they could." He was in the main room of the Intelligence Centre when Donnelly came in shortly after the killing, on the afternoon of December 7, 1922. I asked Caffrey what was his reaction when he heard Seán Hales had been killed - "I was delighted," he said, and then gave a little chuckle, as if reminiscing over something which he particularly enjoyed. "Donnelly was carrying on the fight," he said. "There are no rules in war. The winner dictates the rules..." ' (from here.)
The reaction of the Free State administration was swift and ruthless : they announced their intention to execute four of the republican prisoners being held without charge or trial in Mountjoy jail and, the following morning (December 8th, 1922, at dawn) Dick Barrett, Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey were summarily executed by firing squad in the yard of Mountjoy jail.
The executioneers declared that the four men were executed "...as a reprisal for the assassination of Brigadier Seán Hales and as a solemn warning to those who are associated with them who are engaged in a conspiracy of assassination against the representatives of the Irish people.. (sic)"
The four men were the first of the Free State administration's executions of it's former comrades and drew condemnation from, among others, Thomas Johnson, the then leader of the State Labour Party : "Murder most foul as in the best it is - but this (is) most foul, bloody and unnatural. The four men in Mountjoy have been in your charge for five months...the Government of this country (sic) — the Government of Saorstát Eireann, announces apparently with pride that they have taken out four men, who were in their charge as prisoners, and as a reprisal for that assassination, murdered them. I wonder whether any member of the Government who has any regard for the honour of Ireland, or has any regard for the good name of the State, or has any regard for the safety of the State, will stand over an act of this kind..."
One of those who had 'regard for the honour of Ireland', at that time, anyway, was Tom Hales, one of Seán's brothers - Tom was in command of the IRA 'Flying Column' which attacked a Free State Army convoy at Béal na Bláth in West Cork on the 22nd August 1922, in which Michael Collins was killed, but he later dishonoured himself by becoming an active and vocal (elected) member of the Fianna Fáil party.
If you have a half hour to spare, you could use it wisely by watching this 'YouTube' video concerning the Hales brothers and that particular period in our history.
'LONDON CEREMONY...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, July, 1954.
Tomás O Dubhghaill stated - "What part does Sinn Féin play in this struggle? The purpose of Sinn Féin is to organise the whole Irish people, North and South, at home and overseas, into one broad mass organisation to secure the restoration of the Republican Government of All-Ireland. Young and old, male and female, all are needed, each can help in their own way to forward the task and the help of all is urgently required now.
*We have lost too much time and the danger is that the generation which has grown up since the division of our country in 1922 may come to accept that division as natural since they had known no other position*. The thirty-two years which the division conquest has lasted has been far too long. But Irish history has been a sequence of ebb and flow - we have had the ebb tide now but the flow is starting again.
Come in and help it to gather force so that it will sweep all obstacles from its path and carry us at long last to final victory ; the enthronment of the Irish Republic of all thirty-two counties, united and free."
(*'1169' comment - And that's the position that Irish republicanism is in now - an 'ebb'. People have been led astray by 'Leinster House republicanism' - FF and PSF - both of which are vichy-like in their support and/or actual implementation of the British political and military writ in this country, as is the Kildare Street administration they happily sit in. As things stand now, politically, traditional Irish republicanism in this country is reflected in the raison d'être of one organisation and its affiliated groups.)
(END of 'London Ceremony' ; NEXT -'Stirring Bodenstown Commemoration', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (30TH MARCH) 198 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF A 'SOCIAL SYSTEM CAMPAIGNER'.
"We are not Communists. Communism destroys the independence and dignity of labour, makes the workingman a State pauper and takes his manhood from him. But, communism or no communism, these *70,000 workmen had a clear right to existence – they had the best right to existence of any men in France, and if they could have asserted their right by force of arms they would have been fully justified.
The social system in which a man willing to work is compelled to starve, is a blasphemy, an anarchy, and no system. For the present these victims of monarchic rule, disowned by the republic, are conquered; 10,000 are slain, 20,000 perhaps doomed to the Marquesas. But for all that the rights of labour are not conquered, and will not and cannot be conquered. Again and again the labourer will rise up against the idler – the workingmen will meet this bourgeoisie, and grapple and war with them till their equality is established, not in word, but in fact..."
(*The "70,000 workmen.." is an extract from an article he wrote for 'The Irish Felon' newspaper, and was in relation to the June 1848 Uprising in France, when the workers rebelled against the poor working and living conditions they were forced to endure.)
Thomas Devin Reilly (pictured) was born in County Monaghan (in relatively privileged circumstances) on Sunday, the 30th March 1824 - 198 years ago on this date - and became a journalist with a social conscience ; his mindset would have been shaped by the times he was born and grew-up in ; 'While better-off landowners were thriving from the mid-18th century to the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1813, inflation was slowly crippling the poor. While the landed elite were building their Georgian townhouses and Palladian mansions, the landless and land poor were falling behind...' (from here.)
He was an active member of the 'Irish Confederation' Movement (founded by John Martin, John Mitchel and William Smith O'Brien in January 1847) which agitated, campaigned and worked for and with small land workers, who needed to keep some or most of their produce for their own families and for their local community, but Westminster said 'No!'.
So the 'Confederation' set about using waylaying tactics to make it impossible or at least extremely difficult for the 'landlord' class to physically move the harvests that the small land workers were producing - they destroyed railway tracks and bridges etc to prevent wheat crops being exported from the land from which they had been harvested, where the communities were suffering starvation due to a series of failed potato crops.
And, like hundreds of others, Thomas Devin Reilly recognised the benefits of 'direct action' and he joined 'The Young Irelanders' group ; he took part in the 1848 Rising and, although a 'marked man' before then, he was hunted practically day and night now. He was caught and 'arrested' by the British and, althought he was facing either execution or deportation to Australia, he was given bail. He left Dublin and made it to the north of the country and from there to New York, in America, before moving to Boston.
He worked in journalism and politics (for the administration of U.S. President Franklin Pierce) but his time in Ireland had taken a toll on him - he now suffered from severe headaches and his nerves acted up on him. He was victim to strokes and, as he neared his thirtieth birthday, he claimed that he sensed the approach of death. Feeling unwell, he gathered his household around him, toasted the freedom of Ireland with a broad smile and, tears streaming down his cheeks, retired to his bed. He died that night, 5th March, 1854.
He was initially buried at St. Matthew's cemetery in Washington and, when that cemetery closed, another cemetery - Mount Olivet - opened, in 1862, and his remains were re-interred there, with his infant child, Mollie, and his wife, Jennie Miller, from Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.
"If the landlords of Ireland make their existence incompatible with the lives of the people, every one of us must choose either to fall with the landlords or live with the people. When it comes to that you can take no medium course. You cannot continue silent and inactive. You cannot stand between parties. They will crush you in the collision."
THE NOT SO IRISH NEWS...
Rita Smyth examines the editorials of the Northern newspaper, 'The Irish News', for the first six months of 1987.
Her analysis shows how the paper reflects the political attitudes of the Stormont Castle Catholics (who dominate the SDLP*) and the conservative values of the Catholic Hierarchy, especially Bishop Cahal Daly.
(From 'Iris' magazine, October 1987.) ('1169' comment - *...and who now fill the ranks of other Stoop-like political parties in Stormont and Leinster House.)
Having decided that discrimination has been overcome and chosen to ignore the structural relationship of the Irish economy, North and South, to British imperialism, it is necessary to find another explanation for the fact that there are so few jobs.
The decline in employment is the result of the war of liberation "...scaring off investment, disrupting production and, ironically, creating a situation where half those in employment are dependent for their jobs on British government money.." (February 9th). Sinn Féin's manifesto on discrimination and unemployment is dismissed because "..it originates from an attitude that in the past 18 years has done its utmost to destroy the economic fabric of society...it has thrown thousands of workers on the dole scrap heap.." (May 13th).
The Irish establishment's solution to our economic ills is to throw open both the Six and 26 Counties to the multinationals, trusting that in the process of such capitalist 'development' there will be pay-offs for themselves. Nothing must be allowed to interfere with such investment and in this regard the McBride Principles, peaceful political sanctions that they are, also come under fire. Supporters of the Principles are "..in grave danger of destroying what is central to their argument. Pressure cannot be put on employers if they are reluctant to set up in the first place" (April 21st).
The Politics Of Appeasement :
For the people on behalf of whom 'The Irish News' speaks, the first and last priority is an end to "conflict." Endless appeals are made for "dialogue" and "reconciliation". The evils of 'violence' are denounced at every opportunity, and overwhelmingly the bulk of the denunciations are directed against those engaged in armed struggle against British imperialism. But it is not just armed struggle to which these people are opposed.
What they really require to cease is the politics of popular struggle in which ordinary people take responsibility for and fight for control over the decisions which affect their lives at every level... (MORE LATER.)
'IRA NOT OATH-BOUND.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
One of the misconceptions regarding the Irish Republican Army is that its members are obliged to bind themselves to the Army by oath. It is even thought by some that once having joined the Army one cannot leave it except under pain of death or dire penalty.
When one reflects that most of the present-day political party leaders were at one time members of the Army, it will be seen how ridiculous are these misconceptions. There is no oath in the IRA. This is made quite clear to all recruits seeking membership. Volunteers on entering the Army are required to make the following declaration :
'I (name here) promise that I will promote the objects of Óglaigh na hÉireann to the best of my knowledge and ability and that I will obey all orders and regulations issued to me by the Army authority and by my superior officers."
Any person purporting to administer an oath as a condition of membership of the Army would be acting in contravention of the Army Constitution and against Army Orders and Regulations.
(END of 'IRA Not Oath-Bound' ; NEXT - 'Take Your Choice', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (30TH MARCH) IN...
...1798 :
'His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executive power in conjunction with the chief governor of Ireland, who was viceroy of the British monarch.
The council evolved in the Lordship of Ireland on the model of the Privy Council of England ; as the English council advised the king in person, so the Irish council advised the viceroy, who in medieval times was a powerful Lord Deputy. In the early modern period the council gained more influence at the expense of the viceroy, but in the 18th century lost influence to the Parliament of Ireland.
In the post-1800 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Irish Privy Council and viceroy Lord Lieutenant had formal and ceremonial power, while policy formulation rested with a Chief Secretary directly answerable to the British cabinet. The council comprised senior public servants, judges, and parliamentarians, and eminent men appointed for knowledge of public affairs or as a civic honour...' (From here.)
On the 30th March, 1798, this 'council of eminent men' got a rude awakening when they realised that less 'eminent' (!) people weren't willing to take their advice and put the pike in the thatch. So they proclaimed that Ireland was in a state of rebellion and declared martial law. And those 'eminent men' were right - the people weren't listening to them, and the rebellion went ahead.
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...1880 :
"You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea...you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build.." - the words of Séan O'Casey (pictured), in relation to the murder of Thomas Ashe.
Séan O'Casey - Irish playwright, socialist, and member of 'The Irish Citizen Army' - was born in Dublin on the 30th March, 1880.
His work was mainly about the plight of the working classes, which encompassed his own background as he was born into and grew up surrounded by poverty and, indeed, wrote his earlier scripts in tenement rooms. He is perhaps best known for 'The Shadow of a Gunman', 'Juno and the Paycock' and 'The Plough and the Stars'.
He died in Torquay, in Devon, England, on the 18th September 1964, at 84 years of age.
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...1920 :
IRA Volunteer James McCarthy, Thurles, County Tipperary, was shot dead in his house on the 30th March 1920 by the RIC after they had sent him a death threat on Dáil Éireann notepaper in an effort to incriminate the Republican Movement in his death. His brother, Billy, who was an IRA Lieutenant in that county, was also shot dead by the same British force around that time.
The coroner's inquest into the death of James McCarthy stated that "...he was shot by some person or persons unknown wearing long black coats and caps similar to those worn by the police (sic)..."
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...1920 :
On the 30th March, 1920, two Donegal Sinn Féin TD's - Joe Sweeney and PJ Ward - were 'arrested' by the RIC and taken to Derry Jail then moved to Crumlin Road jail in Belfast, and then to Wormwood Scrubs prison in London.
They were served with internment orders, went on hunger strike and were eventually taken to hospital for medical attention. They discharged themselves with assistance from the 'Irish Self-Determination League'.
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...1920 :
On the 30th March, 1920, the IRA, led by Tadgh Brosnan, ambushed a three-man RIC patrol at Killiney Cross near Castlegregory, in County Kerry, and relieved them of their weapons. You can read more about that brave Irish soldier here.
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...1920 :
On the 30th March, 1920, the following Proclamation was made public by the IRA -
'Whereas the spies and traitors known as the Royal Irish Constabulary are holding this country for the enemy, and whereas said spies and bloodhounds are conspiring with the enemy to bomb and bayonet and otherwise outrage a peaceful, law-abiding and liberty loving people, we do hereby solemnly warn prospective recruits that they join the RIC at their own peril. All nations are agreed as to the fate of traitors."
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...1921 :
On the 30th March, 1921, the RIC 'District Headquarters' at Lucan Barracks, County Dublin, received word that a military lorry had been stolen and found burnt out not far from them, in the Bluebell area.
Four RIC members, on pushbikes, were sent to the area to check it out - 'Head Constable' Edward J. Mulroony, Sergeant Michael Hallisey, and two 'Constables', Neill and Keary. As they were cycling back over the railway bridge in Ballyfermot, on their return journey, they were ambushed by the IRA.
A gunfight ensued and Padraig O'Connor, a Volunteer with the Dublin Active Service Unit IRA, shot and wounded H/C Mulroony, Sergeant Hallisey died at the scene and 'Constable' Neill was seriously wounded. By the time British reinforcements got there, the IRA were gone. H/C Mulroony died from his injuries on the 4th April.
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...1921 :
"One of our first governmental acts was to take control of the voluntary armed forces of the nation. From the Irish Volunteers we fashioned the Irish Republican Army to be the military arm of the government. This army is, therefore, a regular State (sic) force, under the civil control of the elected representatives...and under officers who hold their commissions under warrant from these representatives. The Government is, therefore, responsible for the actions of this army."
- the words of Eamon de Valera, as delivered by him during an interview he gave to an American news agency on Wednesday, 30th March, 1921. The government he referenced was the Irish republican administration, Dáil Éireann (not the present-day political institution which operates from Kildare Street in Dublin) and he maintained that position, at least verbally, until May 1926 when he abandoned the Republican Movement and founded the Fianna Fáil grouping.
In August 1927, that man and his new State party entered the Leinster House institution, which was then - and remains - a puppet parliament, spawned out of the 'Treaty of Surrender' and operated 'by the leave' of Westminster. He and his ilk then turned on, and against, "the voluntary armed forces of the nation".
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...1921 :
On the 30th March, 1921, an IRA Flying Column was attacked by the British Army at Ballyhahill, Athea, near Foynes in County Limerick. The IRA Officer Commanding of the West Limerick Brigade, Seán Finn (21) (pictured), was killed. He was born in 1898 in Rathkeals, in County Limerick, and was a member of Fianna Eireann in his youth, and served as a Captain in the 'Irish Volunteers'.
Seán Finn and some other men were in a house when they heard firing nearby. Some members of the ASU were in a firefight with a British military patrol and Seán and the others went to help ; he was hit and killed, but the rest of the IRA Unit escaped when a fog rolled in from the Shannon estuary.
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...1921 :
James McLoughlin (19), Company Officer of an IRA Active Service Unit attached to the 2nd Tipperary Brigade, was shot dead on the 30th March 1921 by British Forces at Cormackstown, Thurles, County Tipperary.
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...1921 :
The British army discovered an IRA Lewis gun in Harcourt Street in Dublin along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition.
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...1921 :
On the 30th March, 1921, an IRA party, led by Dan Hogan, rescued one of their comrades, Matt Fitzpatrick (pictured), from County Hospital in Monaghan Town -
.....'during the raid on Roslea, Matt Fitzpatrick, a leading member of the Monaghan IRA Brigade, was wounded. For a time he was moved from safe house to safe house, before eventually being captured near Newbliss on 27th/28th of March 1921.
He was taken to Monaghan infirmary where a military party of six men and a sergeant were placed on guard. The infirmary was formerly a gaol. It was surrounded by a ten-foot high wall. The only access was through the main gate, located off a side street but close to the police barracks and courthouse.
Dan Hogan lead the rescue party...' (more here...)
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...1921 :
On the 30th March, 1921, the Flying Column of the Cork (West) No. 3 Brigade IRA ('fresh' from action at Crossbarry), under Tom Barry, moved into position to attack Rosscarberry RIC barracks and, at about 1am on the 31st, placed a 400 lb bomb at the front door of the barracks - the upper floors of the buildings opposite were occupied by the IRA and the rear of the barracks was also covered by IRA men.
The IRA bomb had been made by a man named McCarthy, who received his training with the British Army 'Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers' Unit.
An RIC Sergeant, Ambrose Shea (a Wicklow man, 46 years of age) ('Service Number 57356'), who was asleep in the dayroom in the front of the building, and a Black and Tan member, Charles H. Bowles (22 years of age, from Kent, in England, who was only 8 months 'on the job') ('Service Number 72058'), who was in an upstairs room, directly over the door, died in the explosion, and a third British operative, an RIC member named Kinsella, died later. Nine of their colleagues were injured in that IRA operation.
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...1977 :
On the 30th March, 1977, a (Catholic) civilian, Francis Cassidy (43), was found shot with his throat cut on a grass verge in the Highfield area of Belfast. Members of the 'Ulster Volunteer Force' (UVF) gang known as the 'Shankill Butchers' were responsible for the killing.
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...1979 :
As Airey Neave was driving out of the British 'House of Commons' in his blue Vauxhall Cavalier car on the 30th March, 1979, a bomb exploded under the vehicle, killing him instantly. He was the spokesperson on the Occupied Six Counties of Ireland for the Conservative Party and was allegedly readying himself for the position of 'British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland' in the new Conservative government, as he had made a reputation for himself as being 'tough' on Irish republican dissidents.
He had close links to the British Secret Intelligence Service throughout his adult life and, during the Second World War, he worked for 'MI9', a subsidiary of 'MI6', and was also known to hold the rank of commanding officer of the 'Intelligence School 9' of the British 'Territorial Army'. His political intention was to 'wage war' on Irish republicanism, a war he lost.
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Thanks for the visit, and for reading.Sharon and the team.
