ON THIS DATE (8TH MARCH) 81 YEARS AGO : DEATH OF AN UNYIELDING OPPONENT OF THE FREE STATE.
On March 27th, 1872, a baby girl was born in London, was moved to County Cork and reared and educated there, at Queens College : that baby was Mary MacSwiney (pictured), who grew up to be an uncompromising republican and one of the most outstanding republican personalities of the 1920's and 1930's.
The young Mary MacSwiney trained as a teacher and returned to London for work until a suitable post was available in Dublin. A supporter of the suffragette movement, she joined the 'Munster Womens Franchise League' (MWFL) in 1908 and, during the following years, campaigned for the franchise to be extended to women.
She left the 'MWFL' in 1914 as a result of that organisations support for Britain in the first 'World War'.
After its formation in April 1914, Mary MacSwiney joined Cumann na mBan and was later appointed to its Executive Committee ; at the same time, she was a member of a number of other nationalist organisations, including the Gaelic League.
After the 1916 Rising, she was arrested and imprisoned, and was dismissed from her teaching post ; after her release some months later, she founded a school, 'St Ita's', modelled on Padraig Pearse's school, St Enda's. Her sister Eithne and her brother Terence were also involved in the setting-up of the school.
In 1917, Mary MacSwiney joined Sinn Féin, following the adoption by the party of a more republican separatist policy.
Following the death of her brother Terence, who died on hunger-strike in October 1920 (at the height of the Tan War) Mary MacSwiney visited America and gave evidence before the 'American Commission on Conditions in Ireland' regarding the campaign of terror being waged against all sections of the nationalist population by the British forces of occupation.
Elections to the Second Dáil were held in May 1921, and Mary MacSwiney was elected a TD for Cork ; in December that year she spoke in opposition to the Treaty of Surrender which she described as "the grossest act of betrayal that Ireland ever endured" and stated that if the Treaty was passed she would use her influence as a teacher to spread rebellion against the proposed Free State.
In the Civil War that followed, Mary MacSwiney was a formidable and unyielding opponent of the Free State and made no secret of her support for the republican side. She was imprisoned for a brief period in July 1922, following the surrender of the Four Courts garrison in Dublin.
Returning to Cork after her release, she virtually ran the republican headquarters in the city, but had to leave Cork in a hurry as the Free Staters were looking for her.
She was arrested in Dublin on November 4th that year (1922) and was imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail - she immediately went on hunger-strike for release and was eventually freed on the 25th day of her fast, due to the huge international publicity her case received.
She was elected to the Executive of Cumann na mBan in 1926 and, in October that same year, was also elected as Vice-President of Sinn Féin, at that organisations Ard Fheis, which was held six months after the split with de Valera.
Along with other prominent republicans, including Brian O'Higgins, she resigned from the party in 1934 over the decision of Sinn Féin to allow members to receive IRA pensions from the new Fianna Fail administration (there can be no doubt of how she would react to the salaries, offices, perks and holiday-homes that the PSF grouping are in receipt of, and not only from the Free State..)
Mary MacSwiney was one of the last surviving loyal members of the Second Dáil who transferred their authority to the Army Council of the IRA in December 1938, an authority which still resides in the Republican Movement.
She supported the IRA bombing campaign in England but poor health prevented her from playing her usual active part in the Movement.
Mary MacSwiney died on the 8th of March, 1942, at seventy years of age - 81 years ago, on this date - thirty-four years of which she devoted to socialism and republicanism.
The MacSwiney name will live on as part of the Irish struggle.
8TH MARCH 2023 - INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY.
'Lá Idirnáisiúnta na mBan (International Women's Day) – the struggle continues ;
We salute all those women of Cumann na mBan who fought and died to end British rule in Ireland, and the establishment of a Socialist Republic based on the Proclamation of 1916.
Many women of Cumann na mBan were involved in the planning and execution of the 1916 Rising, providing support through intelligence gathering, fundraising, and providing safe houses for members of the rebellion. Women also served as couriers, carrying messages and weapons between rebel strongholds and providing medical aid to wounded fighters.
Sinn Féin Poblachtach remembers those women of Cumann na mBan as equal participants in the 1916 Rising, and their contributions are celebrated and commemorated alongside those of their male counterparts.
Cumann na mBan’s contribution to the revolutionary struggle was not confined to the Easter Rising 1916. The organisation played a very significant part in the War of Independence, rejected the Treaty of Surrender and played a heavy price for their activities in the Civil War. They have continued to the present day to be to the fore in the struggle for Irish freedom and in particular we remember those women who paid the supreme price during the war in the Occupied Six Counties in recent years.
We will continue to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, and to raise awareness of the ongoing struggle for gender equality and for complete Irish freedom.'
(Borrowed [and slightly edited!] from colleagues of ours in Armagh, Ireland.)
'TRIBUTE TO DEAD REPUBLICAN...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
Oration given by Tomas MacCurtain at the grave of Domhnall Mac Suibhne, Ahane, Cullen, County Cork, who was laid to rest on March 7th 1955 -
"In his name-call on the young men and women of this historic countryside to prove themselves worthy of this man who stood forth all the days of his life ; he was fearless, undaunted, uncompromising.
The day is at hand, and I promise you that it is nearer than any one of you here might think, when you will be called on to serve the Cause which Domhnall Mac Suibhne served so faithfully and so long. His voice is now silent and his pen is still, but from this grave his spirit will call to you to play your part as he played his in the struggle for the freedom of our country. When that day comes let ye not be found wanting.
Domhnall Mac Suibhne is dead, and perhaps it is only now when he is gone that those who lived around him will realise that something is gone which cannot be replaced.
Go dtugaidh Dia Solus na bFlaitheas dá anam uasal calma. Ar dhéis Dé go raibh sé."
(END of 'Tribute To Dead Republican' ; NEXT - 'The Yalta Agreements', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (8TH MARCH) 57 YEARS AGO : PILLAR OF SOCIETY LOOSES HIS STANDING...
In 1808, Trinity College in Dublin donated £100 towards the building of Nelsons Pillar, and Arthur Guinness and Sons gave £25. The total cost of the Pillar was £6856, 8 shillings and 3 pence (including the railings around it..) and it (and the railings!) were 'part-removed' on Tuesday, 8th March, 1966 - 57 years ago on this date - without 'permission' from Trinity College, Guinness, Leinster House or Westminster!
The structure was erected in the then Sackville Street (named after the then British 'Lord' Lieutenant of Ireland, Lionel Cranfield Sackville aka the 'Duke of Dorset') in 1808, in honour of British Admiral 'Lord' Nelson's "victories at sea".
The column was about 120 feet high and Nelson's statue (designed by Cork sculptor Thomas Kirk) stood 13 feet tall on top of it. At about 1.30am on the morning of Tuesday, 8th March 1966, an explosion blew the top part of the column asunder and what was left of Nelson landed on the ground, as did hundreds of tons of (other!) rubble.
The IRA was suspected of involvement, but quickly distanced itself from the job, declaring that they were more interested in removing actual British imperialism from Ireland rather than just the symbols of it - the 'Saor Éire' group let it be known that its activists were responsible, that the codename for the operation was 'Operation Humpty Dumpty' and that, a day or two beforehand, they had left a device on site which failed to detonate and was retrieved, repaired and left back on Monday night, the 7th March 1966.
The front page of 'The Irish Times' newspaper on the 8th March 1966 read : 'The top of Nelson Pillar, in O'Connell street, Dublin, was blown off by a tremendous explosion at 1.32 o'clock this morning and the Nelson statue and tons of rubble poured down into the roadway. By a miracle, nobody was injured, though there were a number of people in the area at the time...', which could be said to be probably the first time that Nelson's arrival in an area didn't hurt anyone...
The two-headed, one-armed and one-eyed Nelson '...understood the need to annihilate the enemy...he led the fleet into harm's way, picking out the enemy flagship as his target, leaving it a crippled hulk and the enemy fleet a leaderless mob...after that his followers could complete the task...no one ever argued that he was a paragon of matchless virtue (but) for 200 years his reputation has been besmirched with accusations of infidelity...yes, Nelson had his faults (his vanity, love of applause and vulnerability to flattery)...' (from here) was given a headache by Irish republican Seán Ó Brádaigh, and others, in the 1950's, when an attempt was made to melt the head of the statue and de Valera is said to have asked 'The Irish Press' newspaper to run with a front-page headline declaring 'British Admiral Leaves Dublin By Air' !
'Grey brick upon brick
Declamatory bronze
On somber pedestals
O'Connell, Grattan, Moore
And the brewery tugs and the swans
On the balustraded stream
And the bare bones of a fanlight
Over a hungry door
And the air soft on the cheek
And porter running from the taps
With a head of yellow cream
And Nelson on his pillar
Watching his world collapse' (from here.)
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON...
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
Secondly, with his faded good looks, financial problems, and uncertainty about the future, the man from Little Rock personifies the current post-Tiger Zeitgeist like no other could.
As Beckett once said - 'When you're up to your neck in shit, all you can do is sing', and what better blustering tenor to hear emanating from the Park in a few years than that of Wild Bill? Harangued by unresolved court cases, heavily in debt, at the mercy of continually prying journalists and still smiling, his essential indomitable insouciance could be a lesson to us all in these times of coming hardship.
True, Bill's side of the deal would bring him about the same level of real power as wielded by the average president of an American high school class, but a man of his wiles could easily use the country to establish a world-wide power base opposed to George Bush's America, and few would be opposed to renaming the Presidential abode something a bit more fiesty, such as 'Kandahar'.
In terms of our next President, 'Wigmore' suggests William Jefferson Clinton ; if he has taught us anything, it is that anything is possible if you can manage to bend the rules and just keep smiling.
(END of 'William Jefferson Clinton' ; NEXT - 'Rough Justice', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (8TH MARCH) 50 YEARS AGO : IRA ATTACK OLD BAILEY, LONDON.
On Thursday, 8th March 1973 - 50 years ago on this date - at about 3pm, a 300lb IRA car bomb exploded outside the 'Central Criminal Court of England and Wales' (the 'Old Bailey', situated on a site once occupied by the old Newgate Prison). One man, Fred Milton, 60, who worked as a caretaker in a near-by office block, Hillgate House, had suffered a heart attack before the explosion, and the poor man died about two hours after same - and at least 215 people were injured.
Two other car bombs, which were apparently timed to explode at the same time, were defused, and it later emerged that New Scotland Yard, a British Army recruiting office in Westminster and a British government building in Whitehall were all targeted by that IRA ASU, for the same reason as the Old Bailey was - the common link was that all were representative of the British state, reminiscent of earlier such actions in England by Irish republicans - for instance, in the late 1930's, installations such as electricity, water and transport infrastructure were targeted in London, Manchester and Birmingham, not to mention the Fenian dynamite campaign in Victorian Britain.
However ; back to the 1973 attack - the following is taken from 'Iris Magazine', August 1984 : 'In March 1973, seven men and three women, including Marion and Dolours Price, had been charged in London with the Old Bailey and Whitehall bombings. After being sentenced to life imprisonment, the Price sisters embarked on a hunger-strike for repatriation. Their hunger-strike was to last 206 days, during which they were force-fed in horrific conditions.
In support of the Price sisters the women in Armagh Jail started having a token 24-hour hunger-strike every Friday. Those prisoners on remand would also use the opportunity of court appearances to make speeches from the dock about their comrades on hunger-strike.
The Price sisters were finally transferred to Armagh Jail on March 18th 1975 - their transfer had been announced much sooner and the Armagh women prisoners didn't expect them on that day. As Teresa Holland put it - "We had been practising for weeks, with flags, uniforms, the lot, and they hadn't come. And then suddenly there they were! So we got out the flags and the uniforms and had another parade just for them. They were lost, they couldn't believe their eyes. Everybody felt brilliant and, for a full week, every time they went into someone's cell, the girl in that cell would make them a big feed. It actually took them a long time to settle in, with all the fuss!"
And, unfortunately, that whole scenario could yet be repeated due to the fact that Westminster continues to claim political and military jurisdictional control over six Irish counties, and enforces that 'claim' regardless of the consequences involved.
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.
A number of bookmakers were also present at the Conrad fundraiser - Stewart Kenny represented Paddy Power, while the head of Ladbrokes gaming operations, Mike Smith, was also in attendance.
Ladbrokes owned the Hilton chain of hotels outside the US and was at that time searching for a site for the Dublin Hilton. "The size of the site depended on whether the group secured a casino licence for the hotel. We wanted to know the deal," said a company source.
Enda Kenny told the Dail (sic) in January of that year that he had an open mind on whether legislation should be introduced to allow gaming in the country (sic), but there was widespread public opposition to such licences being granted and, in June 1996, the government decided not to introduce the necessary legislation.
The late Paddy Fitzpatrick, head of the Fitzpatrick chain of hotels, was also at the fundraiser. It is not known how many fundraisers were held by either the party or individual ministers during the two-and-a-half years in which Fine Gael was in power...
(MORE LATER.)
Thanks for the visit, and for reading,
Sharon and the team.
ON THIS DATE (1ST MARCH) 42 YEARS AGO : BOBBY SANDS BEGAN HIS HUNGER STRIKE IN LONG KESH PRISON.
The 1981 hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during this on-going struggle by Irish republican prisoners.
A 'blanket protest' began in 1976 when the British government withdrew 'Special Category Status' for political prisoners and, in 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to 'slop out', the protest escalated into the 'dirty protest', where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement.
In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days then, on Sunday, 1st March 1981 - 42 years ago on this date - (P)IRA POW Bobby Sands began his hunger strike.
He received widespread media attention for his protest and more so when, on the 9th April 1981, he was elected as an abstentionist member in a Leinster House (Free State 'parliament') election, after being nominated to contest the seat by Dáithí Ó Conaill, the then vice president of the then Sinn Féin organisation.
Bobby Sands was, as far as Irish republicans are concerned, a 'Teachta Dála' (TD) who was elected to take a seat in a 32-county Irish parliament, unlike the Free State representatives who sit in an institution in Kildare Street in Dublin today and claim to be 'TD's in the Irish parliament' and, indeed, Bobby's motives and those of Dáithí and the other then Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle members who nominated him to contest the election were pure, unlike the motives of the self-serving time-keepers who sit in that Kildare Street premises today : the motives of the former involved a principled unwillingness to allow themselves and the struggle they were part of to be criminalised and to highlight to the world that they were fighting a political struggle against Westminster and its allies in this country.
Bobby Sands was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for his alleged part in a fire-bombing campaign which, as part of an economic war against the British presence in Ireland, targeted business premises (in this instance, the Balmoral Furniture Company) with the intention of making it financially unviable for Britain to maintain its grip on that part of Ireland, a fact which present-day Provisional Sinn Féin and other Leinster House members seek to ignore or gloss over when referencing what they call 'the ineffectual/grubby deeds' of those who continue that struggle today.
On the 9th April, 1981, Bobby Sands was elected by 30,492 of those that voted in the Fermanagh/South Tyrone district, prompting, years later, this thesis from a republican leader -
"Contrary to allegations made in the news media, there was not a straight line from the election of Bobby Sands in 1981 to the Stormont Agreement of 1998. Rather was the line from March, April and May 1981 to the same months in 1998 disfigured and distorted by an internal power-struggle for the leadership of Sinn Féin accompanied and followed by deceit and artifice as the ideals of Bobby Sands were steadily perverted and a section of the then powerful revolutionary Republican Movement turned into a constitutional party.." (from here). Bobby Sands, 9th March 1954 – 5th May 1981. RIP.
'TRIBUTE TO DEAD REPUBLICAN...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
Oration given by Tomas MacCurtain at the grave of Domhnall Mac Suibhne, Ahane, Cullen, County Cork, who was laid to rest on March 7th 1955 -
"Never in the thirty-odd years that have passed has the voice or pen of Domhnall Mac Suibhne been still when a wrong was to be condemned or a right to be upheld.
All through those bitter years when he saw old friends and comrades turning away from him because he was too honourable to bow the knee to political expediency he remained true to the old cause and preached the old doctrine.
It is sad to think that, having endured the long years of political cynicism, he should die when the tide is about to turn and that he should not be here to witness in the near future the miracle of which Pearse spoke over the grave of another courageous and noble soul -
"That miracle which ripens in the heart of young men the seeds sown by the young men of a former generation."
I do not think it unfitting that, standing at his grave, I should say the words which he would say if he were alive..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (1ST MARCH) 175 YEARS AGO : 'STARVATION FEVER' ARTICLE PUBLISHED.
An article entitled 'Starvation Fever of 1847' was published in the 'Dublin Medical Press' periodical on this date - 1st March - 175 years ago (1848). The author was a Dr. Daniel Donovan, Skibbereen, Cork, and that article helped to focus world attention on the attempted genocide ('An Gorta Mór/The Great Hunger') that was obliterating the Irish people at that time -
'Dr. Donovan...emerges as one of the most heroic figures of An Gorta Mór...a bold and successful surgeon, an oculist and a general practitioner, a talented and prolific author and a champion of the oppressed and destitute Irish people..(he) was unambitious and unselfish and chose to remain in Skibbereen where patients came to consult him not only from other parts of Ireland but from England and Scotland, some even taking
the long Atlantic crossing from America..'
In the article, Dr. Donovan wrote - "Although the fever which committed such frightful ravages during the entire of 1847 has in a great degree subsided, yet we cannot, I fear, hope that the enemy is altogether subdued, more particularly as want and misery (to an extreme degree) are likely to be the lot of the majority of our population for the ensuing spring and summer ; and the privations of the poor, as regards food (and) clothes seemed last year to generate that epidemic which, like the rod of Aaron, has swallowed up the memory of its predecessors, and compared with which the pestilence of 1741 (proverbially known as the 'year of slaughter') scarcely deserves notice.
Golden corn for the stranger.
What sow ye?
Human corpses that wait for the avenger.
Fainting forms, hunger-stricken, what see you in the offing?
Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffing.
They guard our masters' granaries from the thin hands of the poor.
Pale mothers, wherefore weeping?
Would to God that we were dead.
Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread ...we are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,
But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.
Now is your hour of pleasure
bask ye in the world's caress;
But our whitening bones against ye will rise as witnesses,
From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffin'd masses,
For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.
A ghastly, spectral army, before the great God we'll stand,
And arraign ye as our murderers, the spoilers of our land.
That good woman sums-up the despair and anger felt then, and still felt to this day.
As it should be.
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON...
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
The solution?
Why, elect him President of Ireland.
'Wigmore' senses your reaction and begs you to persist as the argument unfolds.
Firstly, niggling constitutional issues regarding our favourite President's right to a nomination could be swept aside by a referendum of the type we as a nation (sic) seem somewhat addicted to ; in the clause which demands that the President be a citizen of the republic of Ireland (sic) we need only insert the caveat 'unless the President's name is William Jefferson Clinton'. That motion would be passed with record approval.
We could, while we are at it, make him exempt from any other Irish laws which he might deem unsavoury or unwarranted so that he might enjoy a smoother presidential ride on this side of the Atlantic than he has done heretofore...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (1ST MARCH) 26 YEARS AGO : A NON-SLEEPING EGG CURRIE SPEAKS...
"We didn't sleep.." - the reply given by Tory politician Edwina Currie to a 'Twitter' user who stated she had slept with John Major. In the same year that she had put all her eggs in one basket, she was named as runner-up to Margaret Thatcher in BBC Radio 4's 'Women of the Year' poll but it is for her snide remark about the Irish that she is best remembered for here : she was quoted in 'The Sun' newspaper on the 1st March 1997 - 26 years ago on this date - giving her views on Irish people - "They're so intelligent, the Irish. Give them an education and they can do anything. I remember the first time I met an Irish accountant. I laughed because I couldn't believe it : an Irish accountant...!"
Oh but we're good with figures, Edwina : 1+1+6+9 = 854 and 26+6 = 1.
And you can count on that.
ON THIS DATE (1ST MARCH) 58 YEARS AGO : IRISH PATRIOT RE-INTERRED IN GLASNEVIN CEMETERY, DUBLIN.
Pictured - Roger Casement's body being re-interred (on Monday, 1st March 1965 - 58 years ago on this date) in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, having been released by the British from Pentonville Prison in Islington, North London.
He was born on the 1st September, 1864, in Sandycove, County Dublin, the son of Captain Roger Casement of the 3rd Dragoon Guards of the British Army and Anne Jephson from Mallow, County Cork. His mother had him secretly baptised in her own religion, Roman Catholic, but he was raised in the Protestant faith of his father. As both his parents died young, Roger was taken in by an uncle, near Ballycastle, County Antrim, and educated as a boarder at the diocesan school in Ballymena.
From 1895 onwards he held consular appointments at various locations in Africa, including Boma in the Congo (1904) where, for the British Foreign Office, he investigated Belgian human rights abuses of the indigenous people. Later, in Peru, he was commissioned to undertake a report on the reported abuse of workers in the rubber industry in the Putumayo basin, which earned him a knighthood after his findings were published as a parliamentary paper (1911). He had been a member of the Gaelic League and became increasingly radicalised by the opposition of the Ulster unionists to Home Rule from 1912 onwards and wrote nationalist articles under the pseudonym 'Seán Bhean Bhocht'.
He rarely receives a mention when it comes to the writers and poets of 1916 ("Of unmatched skill to lead by pathways rife/With danger and dark doubt, where slander's knife/Gleamed ever bare to wound, yet over all/He pressed triumphant on-lo, thus to fall" - 'Parnell', by Roger Casement) yet his reports from the Putumayo and from the Congo show a writer of great talent.
His descriptions of the horrendous brutality inflicted on innocent and perfectly peaceful native inhabitants was enough to force a change of policy with regard to the treatment of workers and slaves on the rubber plantations. Casement wrote in 1911 that "..the robbery of Ireland since the Union has been so colossal, carried out on such a scale, that if the true account current between the two countries were ever submitted to any impartial tribunal, England would be clapped in jail..".
For his part in trying to stop that robbery he was convicted of treason by the British and sentenced to death after a three-day 'trial' (held at the Old Bailey in London between the 26th and the 29th of June 1916, where he was prosecuted by 'Sir' Edward Carson, the Orange Order bigot).
His speech from the dock is not as appreciated as it should be - "With all respect I assert this Court is to me, an Irishman, not a jury of my peers to try me in this vital issue for it is patent to every man of conscience that I have a right, an indefeasible right, if tried at all, under this Statute of high treason, to be tried in Ireland, before an Irish Court and by an Irish jury. This Court, this jury, the public opinion of this country, England, cannot but be prejudiced in varying degree against me, most of all in time of war.
I did not land in England ; I landed in Ireland. It was to Ireland I came; to Ireland I wanted to come; and the last place I desired to land in was England. But for the Attorney General of England there is only "England"— there is no Ireland, there is only the law of England — no right of Ireland; the liberty of Ireland and of the Irish is to be judged by the power of England. Yet for me, the Irish outlaw, there is a land of Ireland, a right of Ireland, and a charter for all Irishmen to appeal to, in the last resort, a charter that even the very statutes of England itself cannot deprive us of — nay, more, a charter that Englishmen themselves assert as the fundamental bond of law that connects the two kingdoms.." (...more here).
I say that Roger Casement
did what he had to do.
He died upon the gallows,
but that is nothing new.
Afraid they might be beaten
before the bench of Time,
they turned a trick by forgery
and blackened his good name.
A perjurer stood ready
to prove their forgery true ;
they gave it out to all the world,
and that is something new.
For Spring Rice had to whisper it,
being their Ambassador,
and then the speakers got it
and writers by the score.
Come Tom and Dick, come all the troop
that cried it far and wide,
come from the forger and his desk,
desert the perjurer's side.
Come speak your bit in public
that some amends be made
to this most gallant gentleman
that is in quicklime laid. (From here.)
Roger Casement was sentenced to "death by rope" on the 29th June 1916 and was executed by the British on the 3rd of August that year in London, England. On the 1st March 1965 - 58 years ago on this date - his remains were re-interred in the Republican Plot of Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
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.
"Obviously, the people going to such an event aren't going for the meal..." Michael Keating added, "..there would have been no promises made, but at least they feel afterwards that they have a nodding acquaintance with the guy."
A few days before he was to announce the winners of the 'National Conference Centre' bid, Enda Kenny controversially aborted the competition and entered negotiations with the 'Royal Dublin Society' (RDS) to build the centre - even though the RDS had been one of the competitors!
The 'Carlton Consortium' complained to the European Commission about his handling of the affair, and when Fianna Fáil returned to power, (State) Tourism Minister Jim McDaid set up another competition which was eventually won by 'Treasury Holdings'.
But that version of the project also floundered and to this day the centre has not been built...
(MORE LATER.)
PLANNING FOR A BREAK TO RECOVER FROM THE BREAK...!
...and we're back from our holliers, as you probably already noticed!
All 34 of us - actually, 38 of us left Dublin on the 13th February but a couple and their two children decided to stay on for another few days, during which time they'll (probably!) drive around offering apologises and begging for forgiveness on our behalf...!
We didn't completely wreck any of the places we visited but, as we tried to explain to the cops and the various judges we encountered (!), we were a group of Dubs free from the normal constraints of work, house, children, grandchildren and all other responsibilities and...well...eh....Sergeant/Yer Honour, we maybe occasionally lost the run of ourselves...!
Ah no. Only jokin'...
Mostly...!
And myself and the rest of the Girl Gang will be losing the run of ourselves again later on this month 'cause we're going back ; in between our childminding duties and the feeding times (!) we had the craic and have made arrangements to do it again, especially so considering that we won't be getting to New York this year, mostly because of 'Covid Passports', which we haven't got, but also due to the crappy exchange rate. So, yeah, readers - we'll be taking another short break later on, but don't fret, pet - sure we'll give ya at least a week's notice!
Thanks for the visit, and for reading,
Sharon and the team.
See yis all next Wednesday, 8th March, 2023.
...Well - back in Dublin from our escapades in Galway (...more about that later!), but not back posting the blog just yet.
As promised before our break, we'll be back here on Wednesday, the 1st March 2023, with a seven-part post (eight, actually, if you include our holiday report!) in which we'll be writing a few details on an Irish political hunger-striker, an ex-American President running for the position of State President here (!), a few paragraphs about a Leinster House-initiated 'raffle' for a 'government contract' that was pulled (fixed?) at practically the last minute and a heart-breaking Irish story from 1848.
We'll be writing about a few other topics as well, but yis will have to check back with us on the 1st March to see what they are.
But for now, I've bags and baggages to unpack, the younger children have to be rounded-up, counted, and searched (!) and there's loads of apologises to email to Galwegians, who are still recovering from the mad crowd of Dubs that "gave us nothin' but grief, boy.."!
You can catch me on 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' between this and then, if yer gonna miss me that much. But I'm sure your aim will get better...!
Thanks for dropping by - see ya on the 1st March 2023.
Sharon (and the team!).
ON THIS DATE (8TH FEBRUARY) 37 YEARS AGO : ONE EPISODE IN THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH...
'A Jury in Abbeville, Louisiana, in the United States, yesterday (ie Friday, 7th February 1986) awarded one million dollars in damages to an eleven-year old boy, who was molested by a priest, Father Gilbert Gauthe (pictured) now in jail for sexually abusing three dozen alter boys.
The boy's parents, Glenn and Faye Gastal, refused 'out of court' settlements and sought twelve million dollars in their lawsuit against the Catholic Church because, they said, it harboured the priest even after learning that he was a child molester. The predominantly Catholic jury also awarded the boy's parents 250,000 dollars. The abuse started when the boy was seven years of age.
Father Gilbert Gauthe was sentenced to twenty years in prison last October (ie October 1985) after admitting he molested the children at Saint John Parish Church in the community of Esther. The Lafayette Diocese has settled lawsuits with thirteen families against Father Gilbert Gauthe for a reported five-and-a-half million dollars, with not one of those thirteen cases going to trial...' (from 'The Evening Press' newspaper, 8th February 1986 ; thirty-seven years ago on this date.)
These are the same self-righteous hypocrites that, at the drop of a Bishop's hat, will - and have - condemned Irish men and women for challenging and seeking to change the political and social system in Ireland. A corrupt system which nurtures a corrupt Church.
'TRIBUTE TO DEAD REPUBLICAN.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, April 1955.
Oration given by Tomas MacCurtain at the grave of Domhnall Mac Suibhne, Ahane, Cullen, County Cork, who was laid to rest on March 7th 1955 -
"Therefore it fell to my lot, one of the younger generation who did not know him so intimately, to say what has to be said before we leave him to rest with his people.
Domhnall Mac Suibhne saw many changes in his life. In his youth he saw his country overshadowed and his people cowed by foreign domination and must have remembered when Irishmen scarcely dared to walk upright in their own land and had to touch the cap of submission to the foreign so-called 'gentry'.
He saw the beginning of the re-awakening and took part in the work of the Gaelic revival that gave our people once more a pride in their ancestry and in their heritage.
He took part in the revival of the movement for national independence and saw that movement coming to the glorious peak of resurgence when the whole might of the greatest Empire of the world could not cow the spirit of one small nation, and then he saw the peak and the decline from the height of resurgence to the grovelling depth of place-hunting and political jobbery..."
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (8TH FEBRUARY) 176 YEARS AGO : 'THE LIBERATOR' PLEADS - "ONE IN FOUR WILL DIE UNLESS YOU HELP..."
On the 8th February 1847, the then 72-year-old 'Liberator', Daniel O'Connell (pictured) delivered his last speech in the British 'House of Commons' : his words were in connection with the so-called 'Irish famine' ('An Gorta Mór') and, in it, he stated -
"Ireland is in your hands and in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. And I solemnly call on you to bear in mind what I am telling you now in advance, something of which I am absolutely certain, that one out of every four of her people will soon die unless you come to her aid..."
The use of the term 'famine', in this instance, is a misnomer if ever there was one - 'In the early summer of 1845, on the 11th September of that year, a disease referred to as blight was noted to have attacked the crop in some areas. In that year, one third of the entire crop was destroyed. In 1846, the crop was a total failure. This report came from a Galway priest - "As to the potatoes, they are gone – clean gone. If travelling by night, you would know when a potato field was near by the smell. The fields present a space of withered black stalks..."
Though 1847 was free from blight, few seed potatoes had been planted...yet the country was producing plenty of food. As the Irish politician, Charles Duffy wrote: "Ships continue to leave the country, loaded with grain and meat." As food was scarce people would eat anything such as nettles, berries, roots, wildlife, animals, dogs and cats in order to survive...' (from here.)
O'Connell pleaded with Westminster to save the people of Ireland who were being decimated by sickness and disease, caused by a lack of nourishment, and requested that, instead of building roads and other such infrastructure, the money available for same should be used to encourage the Irish to cultivate the soil to plant oats and barley etc, and a 'compromise' (of sorts) was arrived at - cheap Indian corn was brought into Ireland, for the people, sometimes on the same ships that, when unloaded, would then be loaded again with Irish-produced oats and barley - 'cash crops', according to the landlords, for export, not for home consumption!
The imported 'corn' was considered by the Irish to be a type of animal feed, the grain of which was so tough as to cause great pain and, even at that, the amount of it imported was inadequate for the number of people in need.
Daniel O'Connell died, age 72, in Genoa, Italy, 13 weeks after his 8th February speech and, as he requested, his heart was buried in Rome and the remainder of his body was buried in Glasnevin, Dublin. Father Ventura of the Theatine Order delivered the oration, during which he stated -
"My body to Ireland – my heart to Rome – my soul to heaven : what bequests, what legacies, are these! What can be imagined at the same time more sublime and more pious than such a testament as this! Ireland is his country – Rome is the church – heaven is God. God, the Church and his country – or, in other words, the glory of God, the liberty of the Church, the happiness of his country are the great ends of all his actions – such the noble objects, the only objects of his charity! He loves his country and therefore he leaves to it his body; he loves still more the Church and hence he bequeaths to it his heart ; and still more he loves God, and therefore confides to Him his soul! Let us profit then, of this great lesson afforded by a man so great – a man who has done such good service to the Church, to his country, and to humanity..."
It was on this date - 8th February - 176 years ago, that Daniel O'Connell delivered his last speech in the British 'House of Commons'.
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
Had the electoral rules entitled him to run again for the White House in 2000, few are in any doubt that Bill Clinton would be at this present moment in time relaxing in the Oval Office, toying with a fat Cuban and possibly smoking a cigar (!).
Alas, things have been on a slide for the teflon president ever since he swapped the White House for a modest office in Harlem (the rent being prohibitive in downtown Manhattan) where he hopes to eke out a career as a lawyer, public speaker and an international nuisance to the Bush administration.
Whereas the only decent thing for a US President to do upon leaving office is die, thus saving the taxpayer money on Secret Service wages and Presidential pensions, Clinton would appear to have a few hand-shaking, wistful decades in him yet ; not an alluring prospect for an operator weaned on the lust for power...
(MORE LATER.)
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.
In August 2000, Michael Keating was named as a 'partner in crime' in Britain's largest ever tax scam and now faces arrest if he crosses the Irish Sea ; earlier this year, this former Lord Mayor of Dublin paid €250,000 to the 'Criminal Assets Bureau' who had been investigating him for five years.
Michael Keating says he cannot recall the fundraiser for Enda Kenny's re-election bid. He told 'Magill' that he attended hundreds of Fine Gael functions at that time and found them "a pain", but he does recall the consortium bidding for the 'National Conference Centre' contract - "Over the years I would have assisted anyone who asked me to obtain legitimate access to any politician, provided the request was proper," he told 'Magill'.
"Fundraising has been the stock-in-trade of political parties since the beginning of time. The culture of politics in this country (sic) is that funds are raised voluntarily and that leaves people open to suspicion and innuendo..."
(MORE LATER.)
Thanks for the visit, and for reading,
Sharon and the team.
We won't be here on Wednesday, 15th February 2023, or on Wednesday 22nd February, as we're off to Galway for a ten-day excursion - not a break, or a holiday, as there's two mini-busses full of us (!), adults and children and grandchildren - and we'll be leaving Dublin on Monday, 13th. We have family in the West and it's a big birthday for two of them, one on the 15th and one on the 20th, so instead of going for the first gig and then coming back to Dublin and then heading to Galway again a few days later, we decided to stay and give 'Cathair na dTreabh' (the 'City of Tribes') a taste of what about thirty mad Dubs get up to when they're being irresponsible!
We'll be back on Wednesday, 1st March 2023 with, among other pieces, a few paragraphs about a currie and an accountant (!) and a visit to these shores which helped focus world attention on an attempted genocide of the Irish people.
Thanks again -
See ye all on the 1st March ; we should have escaped from Galway by then and, in the meantime - if I can get my phone out of the evidence locker (!) - you can catch me on 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' between this and then, if yer gonna miss me that much!
