ON THIS DATE (31ST MARCH) 47 YEARS AGO : IRA POW IN ENGLISH JAIL JOINS THE HUNGER-STRIKE.
Michael Gaughan (pictured), the eleventh Irish republican to die on hunger strike, was four months away from celebrating his 25th birthday.
Immortalised in song by Seamus Robinson, Michael Gaughan was an IRA activist in England and, in December 1971, he found himself in front of a British judge in the Old Bailey, where he was sentenced to seven years in Wormwood Scrubs for taking part in a (republican fund-raising) bank raid in north London.
Two years later, he was transferred to Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight and demanded that he be treated as a political prisoner. This was refused and he was placed in solitary confinement before being moved to Parkhurst Prison, also on the Isle of Wight. On the 31st of March, 1974 - 47 years ago, on this date - Michael Gaughan joined an on-going hunger-strike protest and, after 23 days, he was force-fed : the tube that was forced down his throat punctured his lung, killing him, in Parkhurst Prison, on the 3rd of June, 1974.
His body was removed from London and on Friday and Saturday, 7th and 8th June 1974, thousands of mourners lined the streets of Kilburn and marched behind his coffin, which was flanked by an IRA guard of honour, to a requiem mass held in the 'Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus' in Kilburn.
On that Saturday (8th June 1974), his body was transported to Dublin where, again, he was met by mourners and another IRA guard of honour (pictured) who brought him to the Adam and Eve Franciscan church on Merchant's Quay, where thousands filed past as the body lay in state. The following day, his body was removed to Ballina, County Mayo. The funeral mass took place on the 9th June, at St. Muredach's Cathedral, Ballina, and the procession then went to Leigue Cemetery, Ballina.
Michael Gaughan was given a full republican burial and was laid to rest in the republican plot. Mayo republican Jackie Clarke (Seán Ó Clérigh, whose family later had political disagreements with the Provisional Sinn Féin party) presided at the last obsequies, and the oration at his graveside was given by Dáithí Ó Conaill, who stated that Gaughan "..had been tortured in prison by the vampires of a discredited empire who were joined by decrepit politicians who were a disgrace to the name of Irishmen...". His coffin was draped in the same Tricolour that was used for Terence McSwiney's funeral 54 years earlier. He left a final message in which he stated - "I die proudly for my country and in the hope that my death will be sufficient to obtain the demands of my comrades. Let there be no bitterness on my behalf, but a determination to achieve the new Ireland for which I gladly die. My loyalty and confidence is to the IRA and let those of you who are left carry on the work and finish the fight."
And today, 47 years after Michael Gaughan was buried, republicans are still working towards that same objective.
'REFLECTION.'
By Matt Furlong.
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, June, 1955.
'The river winds its way into the deep,
the lark will chant its lay and soar the sky,
if the eagle were in fetters would he keep
the spirit of the free, or would he die?
For thus it is the grievings in our hearts,
the symbol of our freedom it is seen,
oppressed when such oppression smarts
and a longing, deep, to see again the Green.
Unfurled and flowing free upon the wind
as the eagle when he soars above the hills,
glorying in his freedom, and his kind,
subdueing not to any other wills...' (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (31ST MARCH) 162 YEARS AGO : 'IRISH INDEPENDENT PARTY' DISBANDS.
In 1852, 'The Irish Brigade' ( a 'pressure-group' which lobbied Westminster on behalf of the Catholic Church, its members, and its 'flock') and 'The Tenant Right League' joined forces to get the 'Ecclesiastical Titles Bill' revoked and, in July that year (1852) the new grouping came together as 'The Independent Irish Party' (IIP).
The 'IIP' declared that "legislative independence is the clear, eternal and inalienable right of this country, and that no settlement of the affairs of Ireland can be permanent until that right is recognised and established...(we will) take the most prompt and effective measures for the protection of the lives and interests of the Irish people, and the attainment of their natural rights..."
John Sadleir and William Keogh, two of the more prominent MP's in 'The Independent Irish Party' (of which there were about forty, as the new 'IIP' was joined by Irish MP's in Westminster) , like all the other 'IIP' representatives, took a pledge not to accept any Office in a Westminster administration or to co-operate with same until, among other things, the 'Ecclesiastical Titles Bill' was done away with ; however, the British had seen developments like this elsewhere in their 'empire' and were preparing to manoeuvre things in their own favour.
The new 'Independent Irish Party' was flexing its muscle ; as William Keogh (a barrister and MP for Athlone) put it - "I will not support any party which does not make it the first ingredient of their political existence to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. So help me God ..." By this stage, Charles Gavan Duffy had been elected as an 'Independent Irish Party' MP to Westminster, representing the New Ross area of Wexford.
The 'IIP', with forty members elected to Westminster, did actually hold the balance of power in 'Lord' Derby's Tory-led government in Westminster and so pressed their claims with that administration regarding the 'Titles Bill' and other matters pertaining to Ireland - but they got no satisfaction from 'Lord' Derby or any of his Ministers, so the 'IIP' 'pulled the plug' and the British government of the day collapsed.
The main opposition party in Westminster, the 'Whigs', led by 'Lord' Aberdeen (pictured), apparently promised John Sadleir IIP MP and William Keogh IIP MP that the 'Whigs' would be sympathetic to the interests of the 'Independent Irish Party' and the two Irish MP's, in turn, passed this information on to the ruling body of their own party and it was agreed to support the 'Whigs' in their bid for power which, with 'IIP' support, they got.
But no sooner had 'Lord' Aberdeen climbed into the prime ministerial chair when his political promises to Sadleir and Keogh were cast aside ; he was, it seems, prepared to 'honour' part of the agreement he made with the 'Independent Irish Party' representatives and party, but not enough to satisfy them, and certainly not enough when compared with what he said he would do. This led to rows and bickering within the 'IIP', a signal which 'Lord' Aberdeen picked-up on and used to his own advantage, in true British 'divide-and-conquer'-style.
'Lord' Aberdeen offered John Sadleir IIP MP the position of 'Lord of The Treasury' in the new British administration, and also 'threw a bone' to the other dog, William Keogh IIP MP - that of the Office of British Solicitor-General for Ireland and, despite already having their parsnips well buttered, both men took the offer, and the Catholic Church, subservient as ever to the British, when push came to shove, supported them for doing so!
This tore not only the 'Independent Irish Party' asunder (although it did manage to 'hobble' on for another few years, disintegrating along the way) until finally it disbanded on the 31st March 1859 - 162 years ago, on this date - but it also disappointed Charles Gavan Duffy IIP MP, one of the more prominent members of the party, so much so that, in October 1855, he emigrated to Australia in despair.
As 'Lord of The (British) Treasury', John Sadleir aspired to a lifestyle which he no doubt considered to be his of right - he was, after all, a British Minister and he also owned, by now, a community-type bank/financial house, in Ireland - the 'Tipperary Joint Stock Bank' (pictured) : however, such was his taste for the fine life and his desire to 'keep in' with his new 'friends', when his bank was found to be shy by over one million pounds the shame was too much and he killed himself in 1856.
However, his old buddy, the British Solicitor-General for Ireland, William Keogh, somehow managed to 'soldier-on' and was asked to perform another task for his British pay-masters and he became a British Judge, in Ireland, during the infamous Fenian Trials of 1865-1867, where he verbally cracked many an Irish rebel skull, saving his employers from getting their hands even more bloodier. His conscience must have eventually got the better of him because, in 1878, he, too, killed himself. It could only make you wonder that, had he a bank to embezzle, would he have lived longer?
Despite success at the polls, and having the 'ear' of the political bosses and the 'respect' of the British 'establishment' and good, favourable media coverage, being well-dressed, well-spoken and well-paid, if you lose your political principles, you're finished - draw your own conclusions....
NO RIGHT OF APPEAL...
Why the media consensus on a broad range of issues is increasingly disturbing. By John Drennan.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
Mary Ellen Synon was one of the 'bad journalists'* ; it was bad enough that she was a conservative, and her a woman, but she was also controversial. She didn't like Tribunals, or Social Partnership, or the Peace Process, or our new liberal junta. Worse still, she was original. A very bad bit of stuff indeed. They had been waiting in the long grass for Mary Ellen Synon for a long time.
Eventually, after she wrote a piece about the evils of moral equivalence which included the infelicitous use of a metaphor involving the Special Olympics ('1169' comment - she wrote about those who take part in the paralympics as being "grotesque...perverse...wobble in a wheelchair...swim by Braille.." ; in other words, she actually jumped out of "the long grass" and quite willingly surrendered herself on the Altar of Decency..), the mob was released. Her chosen epithets were offensive, and indefensible, but only a fool would construe the ensuing media melee as a reaction against those few badly chosen words**
It was a reaction against her entire outlook - an outlook she had been 'getting away with' for too long. When she eventually fell through her own thin ice, there followed a stirring display of journalistic unity ; blowhard radio presenters joined hand-in-glove with a woeful feminist clique to note that explanations and apologises were not enough.
In this particular Salem, as the sisterhood wailed "Where is Mary Ellen's heart..?", only the destruction*** of her career would do. The likes of it not been seen since the time when John McGahern was forced out of his teaching job by a similar mob****...
('1169' Comment -*Mary Ellen Synon uses words, as best she can, to cause outrage and, in so doing, make a name for herself. She isn't a journalist in the proper sense of that word. She is a 'sensationalist' writer, and will put pen to paper over whatever issue she believes will obtain the most publicity for herself and for whichever 'newspaper' it is at the time that has employed her.//** Those words were purposely chosen rather than "badly chosen" // *** Self-destruction, - not a "destruction" of someone else's making. // **** A chalk and cheese comparison, if even that, in our opinion.) (MORE LATER.)
'COMMENTS.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
£14,000 Per Year :
It was announced recently in London that the salary and expenses of the English Governor General in the Six Counties would be a total of £14,000 per year. It was stated that part of this sum would be paid by the British Government and part by Stormont.
If the matter were examined closely it would be discovered that the people of the Six Counties will pay it all ; through the reserved services, income tax, indirect taxation (tobacco, liquor, purchase tax etc) Britain drains off from the Six Counties more than is returned in doles and grants.
At the same time it was announced in Belfast that a vast number of workers would become redundant in the Belfast shipyards. A huge protest demonstration was held by the shipyard workers ; they all marched to a public meeting in the city centre and were addressed by an English trade union official. Hurrah for the demonstration!
But we would urge the Belfast workers to examine closely the causes of their impending unemployment and not pay too much attention to the harangues of English leaders, whether Labour, Conservative or Liberal ; unemployment, the dole, hunger and misery - these are the recurring fruits of English control of Irish economic and political life... (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (31ST MARCH) 150 YEARS AGO : SINN FÉIN FOUNDER/TREATY OF SURRENDER SUPPORTER BORN IN DUBLIN.
One of the leaflets (pictured) distributed by Irish republicans in late 1921 to counteract anti-republican propaganda that the 'Treaty (of Surrender)' was "a stepping stone" to that which they had fought for - indeed, one of those who accepted that Treaty, ex-republican Arthur Griffith, declared, in a press release immediately after signing same - "I have signed a Treaty of peace between Ireland and Great Britain. I believe that treaty will lay foundations of peace and friendship between the two Nations. What I have signed I shall stand by in the belief that the end of the conflict of centuries is at hand."
Yet historian Nicholas Mansergh noted that, at practically the same time as Griffith had penned the above, the British were talking between themselves of "...concessions (from the Irish) wrung by devices..some of which can be described at best as devious..every word used and every nuance was so important..."
Arthur Joseph Griffith (Art Ó Griobhtha, pictured) was born at 61 Upper Dominick Street, Dublin on 31st March 1871 - 150 years ago on this date - into a working-class family. He was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers and earned a living as a skilled printer and typesetter. He joined the Gaelic League during the 1890's and was also a member of the 'Irish Republican Brotherhood' (IRB).
At 34 years of age he founded a new political organisation, 'Sinn Féin' (on the 28th November 1905) to raise support for his own personal political notion that a 'dual government' of Britain and Ireland was the best solution to England's 'Irish Problem' ; he saw no value in Fenian-style armed rebellion and believed that 'passive resistance', including a refusal to pay Crown taxes, creating independent Irish courts and an Irish civil service, taking control of local authorities and boycotting British products, would achieve his required objective ie for this country to become part of a dual monarchy under the British crown and prosper, financially, as a result. His aim was "to make England take one hand from Ireland's throat and the other out of Ireland's pocket..." but the Sinn Féin organisation didn't fully support the objectives and methods as laid down by Griffith.
The Sinn Féin organisation, when established by Arthur Griffith and others, consisted of an amalgamation of Cumann na nGaedheal, the National Council (which was founded in the main to organise protests at the visit of the British King, Edward VII, and included in its ranks Edward Martyn, Séamus McManus and Maud Gonne) and the Dungannon Clubs, a largely IRB-dominated republican campaign group.
Contrary to the perception which has been advanced by some that Sinn Féin in its first years was not republican in character but rather sought a limited form of Home Rule on the dual monarchist model, Brian O'Higgins (pictured), a founding member of Sinn Féin, who took part in the 1916 Rising, and was a member of the First and Second Dáil, remaining a steadfast republican up to his death in 1962, had this to say in his Wolfe Tone Annual of 1949 :
"It is often sought to be shown that the organisation set up in 1905 was not republican in form or spirit, that it only became so in 1917, but this is an erroneous idea, and is not borne out by the truths of history. Anyone who goes to the trouble of reading its brief constitution will see that its object was 'the re-establishment of the independence of Ireland'. The Constitution of Sinn Féin in 1905, and certainly the spirit of it, was at least as clearly separatist as was the constitution of Sinn Féin in and after 1917, no matter what private opinion regarding the British Crown may have been held by Arthur Griffith..."
In 1917, Griffith stood down as President of Sinn Féin (de Valera took the position) because the organisation had become more republican-minded than he felt comfortable with, although he maintained his membership. He also had strong differences of opinion with the trade union leadership in Ireland over strike action, as he felt that such activity was counter-productive as it damaged Irish trade, overall, and that opinion, and other such political naratives, helped to secure his election as a 'Sinn Féin MP' in the East Cavan by-election in June 1918, and he held the seat in the General Election of that same year (and he was also returned for the seat of Tyrone North West).
Griffith and Michael Collins, and others, were sent to London by de Valera to negotiate the 'Anglo-Irish Treaty' (the 'Treaty of Surrender') and, on the 6th December, 1921, he signed it and declared that "..the end of the conflict of centuries is at hand.." (see our opening paragraph, above). Incidentally, Collins and Griffith (both pro-Treaty) had pressurised at least one of their colleagues, Robert Childers Barton (the Irish Minister for Economic Affairs) to accept the Treaty of Surrender, telling him that if he did not sign then he would be responsible for "Irish homes (being) laid waste and the youth of Ireland (being) butchered.." and, at about 11pm on Monday, 5th December 1921, Barton signed the document.
The stress and strain on Arthur Griffith took its toll and, on the 12th August, 1922, in his 51st year, he died, in Dublin, from heart failure and cerebral haemorrhage, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. The poor man went to his grave being wrong about "the end of the conflict of centuries" being at hand. The only Treaty that will secure that is one which witnesses the withdrawal of the British claim of jurisdictional control over any part of Ireland ; no 'fine words' offering a half-way house will be accepted by Irish republicans.
Thanks for reading,
Sharon.
ON THIS DATE (24TH MARCH) 225 YEARS AGO : 'INSURRECTION ACT' IMPOSED IN IRELAND.
Near the end of the 18th century in Ireland, so much 'discomfort' was being caused to the 'landlord and polite society'-class in London by the rebellious acts of, among other groups, the 'United Irishmen' and 'The Defenders', that a new 'law' was required to deal with the issue.
On the 22nd February, 1796, an 'Insurrection Act'* for Ireland was introduced in Westminster and, on the 24th March, 1796 - 225 years ago, on this date - that piece of paper 'received the royal assent' and became 'law' :
'AN ACT MORE EFFECTUALLY TO SUPPRESS INSURRECTIONS, AND PREVENT THE DISTURBANCE OF THE PUBLIC PEACE :
Whereas traitorous insurrections have for some time past arisen in various parts of this kingdom, principally promoted and supported by persons associating under the pretended obligation of oaths unlawfully administered...be it enacted...that any person or persons who shall administer, or cause to be administered, or be present, aiding and assisting at the administering, or who shall by threats, promises, persuasions, or other undue means, cause, procure, or induce to be taken by any person or persons, upon a book, or otherwise any oath or engagement, importing to bind the person taking the same, to be of any association, brotherhood, society, or confederacy formed for seditious purposes, or to disturb the public peace, or to obey the orders or rules, or commands of any committee, or other body of men, not lawfully constituted, or the commands of any captain, leader, or commander (not appointed by his majesty, his heirs and successors) or to assemble at the desire or command of any such captain, leader, commander or committee, or of any person or persons not having lawful authority, or not to inform or given evidence against any brother, associate, confederate, or other person, or not to reveal or discover his having taken any illegal oath, or done any illegal act, or not to discover any illegal oath or engagement which may be tendered to him, or the import thereof, whether he shall take such oath, or enter into such engagement, or not, being by due course of law convicted thereof, shall be adjudged guilty of felony, and suffer death without benefit of clergy, and every person who shall take any such oath or engagement, not being thereto compelled by inevitable necessity, and being by due course of law thereof convicted, shall be adjudged guilty of felony and be transported for life...' (from here.)
In short, the 'authorities' empowered themselves to impose the death penalty (some of the other such 'Acts' replaced that penalty with 'transportation for life/penal transportation') and allowed for the political representatives of 'polite society' to declare specific districts in Ireland as "disturbed", thereby permitting curfews to be announced.
Also, trial by jury (as 'honest' as that was) was suspended and local 'law enforcers' were given full permission to search and detain any individual they wanted to.
*Overall (so far, that is) at least half-a-dozen such 'Insurrection Acts' have been imposed in Ireland by the British ; all eventually failed to obtain the objective that Westminster sought - a passive Ireland. And the British (or their proxies in Leinster House) can, if they so desire, impose another half-a-dozen similar 'Acts' in Ireland and they, too, will fail.
A passive Ireland will never exist as long as the the British continue to claim political and military jurisdiction over any part of this country.
'THE TWO-NATIONS THEORY...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, June, 1955.
Act of 1920 :
The Act of 1920, which set up the Stormont Parliament, was a purely British Act passed in a British Parliament - Westminster - by British votes, with not a single Irish representative having voted for it.
A separate parliament for the Six Counties was never demanded by the people of those counties, their press or their political leaders. When it became clear to British politicians that the Irish national demand could not much longer be resisted, the Act of 1920 was passed with the object of giving the minority a privileged position.
Pressure From Without :
From this brief summary of the origin of the Stormont Parliament it is clear that the parliament is not a national parliament in any real sense. National parliaments in all countries and at all times have come into being in response to dynamic forces acting from within. The Belfast Parliament is probably the only assembly in the world which owes its existence to an attitude of negation and to pressure from without.
Such a parliament may express a mood, a temper, a prejudice, a fear or a denial, but it certainly is not the expression of a national will.(END of 'The Two-Nations Theory' ; NEXT - 'Reflection', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (24TH MARCH) 101 YEARS AGO : BRITISH SPY EXECUTED BY 'THE SQUAD'.
"One of the most successful British agents in the War of Independence was a man called Bryan Fergus Molloy who was shot by Collins Squad in Dublin in 1920...he was a man with no past, no birth, no census records, no war record, and the assumption is that this was not his real name..." (from here.)
From 'Hansard' : 'Mr. IRVING asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the man who was shot in Exchequer Street, Dublin, on the 24th instant, was identified by the police as bearing the name of Molloy ; whether, in fact, this name was correct ; whether there was any deliberate concealment of the real name ; if so, can he state the reason ; and whether the man had at one time been in the Dublin Metropolitan Police?'
Mr. MACPHERSON (replied) - 'This man was identified by the military authorities as Bryan Fergus Molloy, under which name he enlisted, and, as far as is known, this was his correct name. He was at no time a member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police...' (from here.)
Bryan Fergus Molloy aka Frederick McNulty was a British intelligence operative in Dublin who was placed there by Westminster to locate Collins or other IRA operatives ; he attempted to integrate himself with the Republican Movement by offering to procure weapons for use against the British but his cover was blown when the IRA's people in Dublin Castle warned them about Molly/McNulty's true intentions.
On the 24th March, 1920, he was located by the IRA and was executed - he was followed by at least three IRA members and was shot to death, in broad daylight, on South William Street in Dublin, by members of 'The Squad'.
'The shooting of the mysterious Bryan Fergus Molloy, a suspected spy who had been trying to make contact with the rebels, took place on the 24th of March, 1920. The operation didn't go smoothly. Passersby tried to detain the assassins and a cyclist blocked one gunman's getaway outside St. Andrew’s Church...the identity of the young spy may be that of Frederick Vernon Maximilian McNulty, a Manchester-born son of Irish parents with a chequered career in the British Army. Having been discharged from the Army Service Corps in 1914 for being underage, McNulty joined the RAF in 1917 before apparently deserting the following year to re-join the ASC under the assumed name, B.F. Molloy...' (from here.)
'Oh I am the man, the slimey man, that listens at yer door,
For I belong to the Special Branch and that's what I'm paid for.
If you're singing songs of protest or against repressive law,
I'll put yer name in me little black book,
And I'll see that yer done for...'
NO RIGHT OF APPEAL...
Why the media consensus on a broad range of issues is increasingly disturbing. By John Drennan.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
But things began to change again after the arrival of the 'Appeasement Process' ; our restoration to the status of being members of the 'Fourth Estate' - such notions, begob! - brought new responsibilities.
Once again it was a case of 'forget about the facts, Ma'am, the age of moral equivalence has arrived' and, in this brave new world, the duty of the 'good journalist' was to always keep the sunny side up. If the IRA had to be coaxed into the political process, so be it. And if the right stick was needed to keep those hard-line democrats of the UUP on the right road, then flay away - and give 'em plenty of it.
The problem with the journalism of consensus, whether it concerns the North of Ireland, striking teachers, or the Church, is that it wears the mask of rebelliousness whilst hiding the frozen grimace of intolerance underneath.
It is seen as 'responsible' of the good bourgeois liberal hack to root out and punish the non-house-trained journalist who defecates on the carpet of consensus. All the dissidents have to go. Only then would the field be open for the liberal bourgeois 'sociology in UCD' autocracy to reform the greatest problem of all - Fianna Fáil... (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (24TH MARCH) 98 YEARS AGO : DUBLIN IRA MEMBER SHOT DEAD BY STATERS.
As part of the IRA 'Entertainment Fixtures' order (which we wrote about last week), two IRA members were tasked with an operation to destroy or disrupt the Carlton Cinema in O'Connell Street, in Dublin.
On the 24th March, 1923 - 98 years ago on this date - the two republican operatives placed a bomb at the front door of the cinema. As they were leaving the premises, the device detonated, setting the doors on fire. The flames and smoke were noticed almost immediately by a Free State Army patrol which attempted to intervene ; the two IRA men opened fire on the Staters in an attempt to make good their escape but, as they reached near-by North Earl Street, one of the men, Patrick O'Brien, IRA First Dublin Battalion, was shot dead.
The other Volunteer, Martin Hogan (pictured), 28 years of age, was wounded in the exchange of gunfire but managed to escape his pursuers.
However, less than one month later, he was 'arrested' in Dublin by the Staters and had eleven bullets fired into him, in the Drumcondra/Whitehall part of the capital.
His girlfriend, who first tried to find him in one of the prisons, was told to enquire at Oriel House (CID headquarters), where she was told to "try the morgue".
His body was eventually found in a ditch in Drumcondra. He is buried in the family grave in Killodiernan Graveyard, Puckane, in his native County of Tipperary.
Also, a brief mention here, for the record, of an IRA man, William Walsh, from the Coombe, in Dublin who, on the 24th March in 1923, was badly wounded during an ambush at Whitehall, Dublin of a Free State troop lorry. He presented himself to the Mater Hospital but died that night. Unfortunately, we are unable to furnish more information about that brave individual as, it seems, history has forgotten him. As we said, just a name-check here of the man, for the record.
'OUR STEWARDSHIP...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
'The United Irishman' newspaper became, therefore, a considerable menace to British rule in Ireland and had to be put down. Last month, and the preceeding month, however, the steady and consistent increase in the sales of the paper has been maintained, and in the Six Counties a spark has been kindled that is not likely to be extinguished even if there is not another copy of 'The United Irishman' seen there and, if I know our Northerners, an edict of Mr. Hanna will not prevent them from reading the newspaper.
To the pioneers who set out 'to blot out the handwriting that was against us' we raise our hats ; to the disinterested and generous who answered that ininial appeal - "funds are ungently needed" - we give our heartfelt thanks ; to the people of the North we say "hold on!", it isn't a forlorn hope or a lost cause, for the men and women of the South respond, they do not say with the politicians 'we can see no solution' ; they organise and work so that together we can, in the name of God, re-enthrone the Irish Republic.
(END of 'Our Stewardship' ; NEXT - 'Comments', from the same source.)
ON THIS DATE (24TH MARCH) 99 YEARS AGO : McMAHON FAMILY WIPED-OUT BY BRITISH MURDER GANG.
'...the murder of the family and their lodger was committed on 24th March 1922. The dead consisted of Owen McMahon and his sons Thomas, Frank, Bernard and Patrick. Their lodger Edward McKinney was also murdered.
On 23rd March 1922, USC officers Thomas Cunningham, aged 22, and William Cairnside, aged 21, were patrolling along Great Victoria Street when they were approached by IRA gunmen on foot who shot them both dead at close range. This event would provoke a ferocious response which would be carried out in a cool, calm and exceptionally cold manner. Initially, two innocent Catholics were shot dead in the Short Strand. However, much worse was to come for the Nationalist community.
At 1am on the morning of 24th March a worksite at Carlisle Circus was approached by two men in Police uniform. A City council volunteer was guarding it, and he was persuaded by these Policemen to hand over his sledgehammer. These two men met up with three others at the grounds of a large local residence known as Bruce’s Demesne and proceeded towards the large Victorian home where the McMahon family were resident. The assailants hammered at the front door, then smashed the glass panel enabling them to open the locks and break through a secondary door which led to the hallway. Owen and his wife Eliza were awakened by this commotion and attempted to run downstairs when both were confronted by a man in Police uniform.
The male members of the McMahon family and their lodger were taken into the downstairs living room whilst the females, who included Owens wife Eliza, daughter Lily and niece Mary, were ushered into the first-floor drawing-room. The male members of the family were told abruptly by the gang to say their prayers before firing was commenced. Frank McMahon aged 24; Patrick McMahon aged 25 and Thomas McMahon aged just 15 were killed almost instantaneously. Edward McKinney, their lodger, aged 25, was also killed.
Owen McMahon would die in hospital a few hours later. His son Bernard would die on 2nd April meaning only John aged 30 and Michael aged 12 survived. Michael in fact had a lucky escape hiding under the dining table and then the sofa before being found by neighbours in a "most frightful state".
The female members of the family tried to raise the alarm by screaming murder but by the time help arrived the massacre was over. Indeed an RIC patrol was close by and quickly on the scene. The scene they encountered was indescribable. The gang responsible had made a quick getaway into the darkness from whence they came...' (from here.)
The father, Owen McMahon, was shot in the abdomen and the head, Patrick was shot in the head, chest and abdomen, Frank was shot in the chest and the face, Bernard was shot in the spinal cord and lung, Thomas was shot in the head and chest and the family lodger, Edward McKinney, was shot in the lungs and abdomen.
The political administration that was responsible, in the first instance, for that outrage - Westminster - is still 'calling the shots', literally, in that part of Ireland, and the foot soldiers in their 'police force' - albeit it with a new name and uniform - are still on the ground there. And both entities remain capable of the atrocities that they inflicted, between them, on the McMahon family.
The only way to remove their ability to do something like that again is to remove them, politically and militarily, from Ireland.
Thanks for reading,
Sharon.
ST. PATRICKS DAY 1858 AND THE IRISH STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM.
Joseph Denieffe (pictured), one of the founders of the 'Irish Republican Brotherhood'. Born in Kilkenny City in 1833, Joseph Denieffe grew up to become a tailor by trade ; still in his early teens, he witnessed Daniel O'Connell's campaign for the 'Repeal of the Act of Union' and would have been just ten years young when approximately one million people assembled at what was known in its day as a "Monster Meeting" at the Royal Hill of Tara in County Meath on 15th August 1843.
The young Joseph Denieffe would have heard, on that day, the speech delivered to that vast crowd by Daniel O'Connell, who stated - "We are at Tara of the Kings - the spot from which emanated the social power, the legal authority, the right to dominion over the furthest extremes of the land. The strength and majority of the national movement was never exhibited so imposingly as at this great meeting. The numbers exceed any that ever before congregated in Ireland in peace or war. It is a sight not grand alone but appalling - not exciting merely pride but fear. Step by step we are approaching the great goal of Repeal of the Union, but it is at length with the strides of a giant."
Imagine the scene as a ten-years-young child must have seen it : shoulder-to-shoulder with people packed together as far as a child could see ; one-million people, defiantly cheering and clapping at a lone figure on a wooden platform as he shook his fist and shouted rebelliously in the direction of Westminster.
It was a day that was to have a life-long effect on young Joseph Denieffe, and thousands of other young boys and girls, and men and women. When he was twelve years young, Joseph Denieffe would have witnessed the attempted genocide of his people (1845 - 1849) when an estimated one million people died on the land and another one million people emigrated in 'coffin ships'. He would have noticed how Daniel O'Connell and the other career politicians did not suffer, how the Church leaders would bless the dead and pray for the dying before retiring to their big house for a meal, after which they would sleep contently in a warm bed. And a million people died around them.
Others noticed that injustice, too. William Smith O'Brien, a follower of Daniel O'Connell's, was one of the many who had grown impatient ; he helped to establish the 'Young Ireland' group, with the intention of organising an armed rising against the British. Joseph Denieffe joined the 'Young Ireland' group in 1847 (the year of its formation) - he was fourteen years young. He worked with William Smith O'Brien (who, as an 'English Gentleman', was an unusual Irish rebel - he had been educated at Harrow, had a fine English accent and actually sat in Westminster Parliament for a good few years!) and others for the following four years when, at eighteen years of age (in 1851), the economics of the day dictated emigration.
He ended up in New York, and contacted a number of Irish Fenians in that city, including John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny. When he was twenty-two years young in 1855, he assisted in the establishment of an Irish Republican group in America - the 'Emmet Monument Association' - which sought to raise an army to force England out of Ireland. The 'Emmet Monument Association' decided to send Joseph Denieffe back to Ireland to organise a branch of the 'Emmet Monument Association' there ; by 1856, a small, active branch of the Association was up and running in County Kilkenny.
Its membership included such well-known Irish rebels as Thomas Clark Luby, Peter Langan and Philip Grey. On hearing of the establishment of the 'Emmet Monument Association' in Ireland and America, another Irish rebel, James Stephens, returned to Ireland.
James Stephens had taken part in military action against the British in 1848, with William Smith O'Brien, in the town of Ballingarry in Tipperary, and had fled to Paris to escape an English jail sentence, or worse. He returned to Ireland and, by 1857, had set-up a branch of the Emmet Monument Association in Dublin. The leadership of the Emmet Monument Association in America, John O'Mahony and Michael Doheny, then sent one of their most trusted men - Owen Considine - to Ireland to assist in organising a fighting-force in the country.
In December 1857 , Joseph Denieffe returned to America on a fund-raising mission ; he stayed there until about March in 1858 and , having raised eighty pounds - a good sum of money in those days - he came back to Ireland. On St Patricks Day that year (17th March, 1858 - 163 years ago, on this date) , Joseph Denieffe made his next move.
Joseph Denieffe, Thomas Clark Luby (pictured) and James Stephens met, as arranged, on St. Patricks Day in 1858 ; the three Irish rebels then founded the 'Irish Republican Brotherhood', a military organisation whose aim was to overthrow British mis-rule in Ireland. The oath taken by members stated - 'I...do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will do my utmost, at every risk, while life lasts, to make Ireland an independent Democratic Republic ; that I will yield implicit obedience, in all things not contrary to the law of God, to the commands of my superior officers ; and that I shall preserve inviolable secrecy regarding all the transactions of this secret society that may be confided in me. So help me God! Amen.'
The following day, Joseph Denieffe returned to America to continue his fund-raising activities - but political trouble was brewing in America, too. Talk, and fear, of a civil war was everywhere. To make matters worse for Joseph Denieffe's fund-raising efforts, James Stephens and John O'Mahony had fallen-out over the direction that armed resistence to the English was going. America was now home to literally millions of Irish men and women who had been forced to leave Ireland because of British interference and the so-called 'Great Hunger' yet, as far as James Stephens was concerned, John O'Mahony and the American leadership had failed to harness the support amongst the Irish for an armed campaign against the British.
James Stephens accused John O'Mahony and his people in America of being "..Irish tinsel patriots (who make) speeches of bayonets, gala days and jolly nights, banners and sashes, bunkum and filibustering, responding in glowing language to glowing toasts on Irish National Independence over beakers of fizzling champagne..." . It was in the middle of the above turmoil that Joseph Denieffe found himself in America in the early 1860's .
Fund-raising in those circumstances was not possible, but he stayed in that country, perhaps hoping that, when things settled down, he could organise his business.
Joseph Denieffe never 'lost the faith'; he was now living in Chicago and was in his early thirtys. He continued his work for Irish freedom, even though the immediate momentum had been lost. He stayed in America, spreading the word and building contacts for the Irish Republican cause. In 1904, at seventy-one years of age, he wrote a number of articles for the New York newspaper, 'The Gael' ; those articles were later published as a book, entitled 'A Personal Narrative of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood' (link
here)
, and is a fantastic read for those interested in the history of the on-going struggle for full Irish freedom.
At 77 years of age, Joseph Denieffe died in Chicago, on 20th April, 1910. He gave sixty-three years of his life to the Irish cause, working for the most part either in the background or underground, never seeking the limelight. He is not as well-known as he should be but, like all true Irish republicans, his objective was to promote and further the Irish cause, not himself.
"This land of mine, the old man said,
will be alive when we are dead.
My fathers words still ring divine -
"God Bless this lovely land of mine."
'THE TWO-NATIONS THEORY...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, June, 1955.
The Belfast Parliament is held to be at once the result and the evidence of the separate national consciousness of the Six Counties.
The differences of race, religion and character inevitably led to a separate parliament ; the separate parliament is in itself conclusive proof of a distinct national consciousness. So the argument runs, resting on nothing more substantial than mere exparte assertions unsupported by any real evidence.
Those who use the argument rely on the ignorance of outsiders for its acceptance but, in their own innermost hearts, they know it to be unsound. The Belfast Parliament did not come into existence, as 'National Parliaments' have always done, in response to forces persistently demanding expression in that parliament.
In fact, it came into existence at a time when the 'right' of Great Britain to legislate for Ireland was being contested by the vast majority of the Irish people, including 450,000 now unwillingly held within the jurisdiction of the Belfast Parliament... (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (17TH MARCH) 98 YEARS AGO - DUBLIN, 1923 : IRA INSTRUCTION RE ENTERTAINMENT EVENTS.
An international boxing match between two well known pugilists, Louis Mbarick Fall (...aka 'The Battling Siki') and Clare man Mike McTigue went ahead in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, 1923, in the La Scala Theatre, despite the fact that the IRA had instructed that all such entertainment features be postponed, as a mark of respect for those butchered in County Kerry by the Free Staters during what became known as 'the terror month'-
'With the political situation still white-hot, the Republicans became determined to ensure that the bout never took place. On the morning of the fight, McTigue received a death threat at his Spa Hotel in Lucan stating he would be hung if he entered the ring. In response to the threat, the government (Dublin administration) sent a fleet of armoured cars to Lucan, putting McTigue under armed guard until he was in the ring. Battling Siki, who had been very curious about the damage caused by the civil war was also afforded an armed escort from the Claremont Hotel.
Later in the day, a bomb was placed in a trash can on O’Connell Street (the scene for most of the fighting during the Easter Rising) in Dublin city centre just adjacent to the La Scala Theatre, where the fight would take place. The bomb did not detonate, and it is believed the would-be bomber may have taken the detonation cord out of the device...the Republicans, knowing that they couldn’t get close enough, decided to lay a mine over the electric cables that they thought fed the La Scala.
The bomb went off at the back of the Pillar Picture House a few hundred yards from the La Scala (and) the explosion caused two large doors into the theatre to cave in while the lights remained on — the bombers had located the wrong cables...' (from here.)
The Irish boxer eventually won, on points, after a staggering 20 rounds (!) and Siki returned to America, feeling disgraced and angry with himself. He hit the bottle and made a name for himself in Hell's Kitchen, in New York, where he lived for a few years, but it wasn't a good name - the drink led to him being stabbed in a pub fight and being repeatedly jailed for his drunken behaviour.
Two years after his Irish fight he used a knife on a cop and proceedings were enacted to deport him back to his home country of Senegal but, before that case was settled he was shot to death on a New York street.
From street violence in Dublin to street violence in New York ; a troubled man who was his own worse enemy.
NO RIGHT OF APPEAL...
Why the media consensus on a broad range of issues is increasingly disturbing. By John Drennan.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
Not to worry ; the 'Irish Locomotive Drivers Association' (ILDA) were starved back to work. 'Social Partnership' and the State-sponsored wing of Irish trade-unionism had been preserved.
It was time to return to writing about the key issues of the day, such as how the young gentleman around town was now wealthy enough to be able to afford a Burberry jacket. On one level there was nothing unique about the ILDA furore ; Irish journalism has always been susceptible to the vice of consensus. It may well have been the Freudian version of the 'disunited State' of the territory, a way to recover from the psychic wound of the Six Counties, but in times of crisis we could depend on our patriotic commentators to fully support cuts in housing, hospitals and education, and to rubbish any foolish notions about huge levels of tax evasion -
"Ansbacher, Ma'am? Never heard of it. And sorry to hear about your husband's cancer. Those hospital closures are terrible of course. Must look into it sometime..."
It is true that Irish journalism was not always so tame. In the time of the last real economic depression, the 'national unity' school of journalism was in well-deserved decline as a few outstanding vocational journalists went about the tasks of mocking the powerful and digging out the odd grubby fact about house extensions... (MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (17TH MARCH) 46 YEARS AGO : IRA PRISONER SHOT DEAD BY FREE STATE ARMY GUNMAN.
IRA prisoner Tom Smith (pictured), a Dublin man, was shot dead by a Free State Army gunman during an escape attempt by IRA prisoners in Portlaoise Prison, County Laois, on St Patrick's Day, 1975.
Tom was active with the IRA's Dublin Brigade and was one of about 20 republican prisoners who attempted to escape from their State jailers on that St Patrick's Day in 1975.
A door in the recreation/'cinema' hall was blown off its hinges and a selected group of prisoners sprinted into the prison yard, at a time which had been pre-arranged with their comrades on the outside ; the Staters opened fire, hitting him in the head.
'DUBLIN, March 17 — The I.R.A. Provisionals chose St. Patrick's day for an attempted mass breakout from Portlaoise jail, where more than 100 Irish Republican Army prisoners are held. The bid failed. One prisoner was shot dead, two were seriously wounded and several policemen were injured. Gunmen outside the jail engaged soldiers and policemen for several hours in what was probably the largest operation the Provisionals have attempted in the republic since the present troubles began in 1969.
The escape attempt started at nightfall when a chain was thrown over power lines carrying electricity into the jail. This blacked out the town of Portlaoise and much of the prison, but emergency power kept the perimeter lights on. A truck said to be loaded with explosives was driven into the fence beside the prison gates. An explosion inside the jail followed. Several prisoner's were then shot, apparently while trying to escape...' (from here.)
Some other such escape attempts can be read here and, indeed, the lesson that should be learned, by Westminster and Leinster House is that - as long as there are republican prisoners - more stories of escapes and escape attempts will hopefully be read about in the future.
'OUR STEWARDSHIP...'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
A beginning had been made, if only it could be a success! They needed it, this way of getting to the people of Ireland, this way of giving to a growing generation of youth who had no way of knowing the gospel of Tone and Pearse, a knowledge that they hoped - that they knew - would kindle in them pride in their country and race.
At the end of 1954, the Stormont Government banned 'The United Irishman' newspaper ; so great was its success that the Government of Queen Elizabeth in Ireland considered it too dangerous a diet for the people under its jurisdiction. As the Irish Republican Army grew strong and proceeded to carry out operations against the enemy in this country the people bought 'The United Irishman' for the honest and truthful reports.
When Sinn Féin wanted to state its case to the Irish people without having its statements twisted out of recognition by an editor with a printing axe to grind, it was only in 'The United Irishman' they could state it... (MORE LATER.)
LÁ FHÉILE PÁDRAIG SONA DAOIBH! ('Happy St. Patricks Day!')
Enjoy your day - ye are all Irish for this day, but some of us are blessed and will still be Irish tomorrow!
Happy Wednesday, readers - if we get home in one piece tonight, or tomorrow (or whenever..!) then we won't be contacting ya for bail money!
'Cause, Covid Level 5 restrictions or not, myself and the Girl Gang have arrangements made for a get-together and, among other things, we're gonna test the theory that alcohol makes ya immune from the virus and from that other social destroyer - common sense! Incidentally - for the day that's in it - St Patrick's Day was celebrated in New York City for the first time, in 1762, at the 'Crown and Thistle Tavern'. Next time we're in that glorious city, we'll pop in and see if the party is still going on. If not, we'll re-start it!
Thanks for dropping in, have a ball. We intend to!
Sharon.
ON THIS DATE (10TH MARCH) 243 YEARS AGO : 'DARLING OF ERIN' BAPTISED IN DUBLIN.
Robert Emmet was born on the 4th March, 1778, a son of Dr Robert Emmet and Elizabeth Mason. His father served as state physician to the vice-regal household but was a social reformer who believed that in order to achieve the emancipation of the Irish people it was first necessary to break the link with England.
He was baptised on March 10th (1778 - 243 years ago on this date) in St Peter's Church of Ireland in Aungier Street, Dublin and
attended Oswald's School in Dropping Court, off Golden Lane, Dublin. From there he went to Samuel Whytes School in Grafton Street, quite near his home, and later to the school of the Reverend Mr Lewis in Camden Street. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in October 1793 at the age of fifteen and a half where he practiced his oratorical skills in the Historical and Debating Societies. One of his friends at TCD was the poet Thomas Moore.
There were four branches of the 'United Irishmen' in TCD and Robert Emmet was secretary of one of them but, after an inquisition, presided over by Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon, Emmet became one of nineteen students who were expelled for United Irishmen activity. Although not active in the 1798 Rising, Robert Emmet was well known to the British authorities and by April 1799, when Habeas Corpus had been suspended, there was a warrant issued for his arrest, which he managed to evade and, early in 1801, accompanied by a Mr Malachy Delany of Cork, he travelled throughout Europe, and made Paris his headquarters - it was there that he replaced Edward Lewis as the liaison officer between Irish and French Republicans.
While in Paris, Emmet learned about rockets and weapons, and studied a two-volume treatise by a Colonel Tempelhoff which can be examined in the Royal Irish Academy, with the marginal notes given the reader some insight into Emmet's thinking. Following the signing of the 'Peace of Amiens' by France and England in March 1802 the United Irishmen that were being held as prisoners in Fort George were released and many such as Thomas Russell and Thomas Addis Emmet made there way to Paris. Emmet returned to Ireland in October 1802 and began to plan for a rising and in March 1803, at a meeting in Corbet's Hotel, 105 Capel Street, Dublin, Emmet briefed his key organisers.
In April 1803 Emmet rented an isolated house in Butterfield Lane in Rathfarnham as a new base of operations and Michael Dwyer, a 1798 veteran, suggested his young niece as a suitable candidate to play the role of the 'housekeeper'. Born in or around the year 1778, Ann Devlin soon became Robert Emmet's trusted helper and served him loyally in the months ahead. Shortly afterwards he leased a premises at Marshalsea Lane, off Thomas Street, Dublin, and set up an arms depot there.
Arms depots were established in Dublin for the manufacture and storage of weapons for the incipient rising. Former soldiers mixed their practical skills with the scientific knowledge that Robert Emmet had acquired on the continent, and an innovative rocket device was produced. Elaborate plans were drawn up to take the city and in particular Dublin Castle : supporters from the surrounding counties of Kildare, Wicklow and even Wexford were pledged to assist. Emmet bided his time, waiting for an opportune moment when English troops would be withdrawn to serve in the renewed war in France, but his hand was forced when a premature explosion on the evening of July 16, 1803, at the Patrick Street depot, caused the death of John Keenan. Though there was no obvious wide scale search or arrest operation by the British following the explosion, the leadership of the movement decided to set July 23, 1803 (the following Saturday) as the date for the rising. Emmet hoped that success in Dublin would inspire other counties to follow suit.
Patrick M. Geoghegan, in a recent publication, says that "..the plan for taking Dublin was breathtaking in its precision and audacity. It was nothing less that a blueprint for a dramatic coup d'état. Indeed, over a century later, Pearse and Clarke would also refer to the plan for their own rising.."
Emmet's plan depended on two factors - arms and men and, as Geoghegan states, when the time came, Robert Emmet had not enough of either - events went dramatically wrong for him. On the appointed day his plans began to unravel ; Michael Dwyer and his promised 300 men did not get the word until Sunday July 24th and, the previous day, an excess of men had moved in to Dublin from Kildare and could not be concealed in the existing depots so they spread out around the city pubs and some started drinking. Others, after inspecting the existing arsenal and finding many pikes but few muskets or blunderbusses, went home unimpressed.
Because he had alerted other countries and still had the element of surprise, Emmet decided not to postpone the Rising thus, shortly after seven o' clock on Saturday July 23rd, 1803, Robert Emmet in his green and gold uniform stood in the Thomas Street, Dublin, depot and, to the assembled rebels, read out his proclamation, declaring that the Irish nation was about to assert itself in arms against foreign rule. But again events conspired to thwart the rebels - coaches commissioned for the attack on Dublin Castle were lost and erroneous information supplied that encouraged pre-emptive strikes, meant that confusion reigned. Also, the novel rocket signals failed to detonate.
Emmet's own forces, who were to have taken the Castle, dwindled away and, throughout the remainder of that evening, there were skirmishes at Thomas Street and the Coombe Barracks but he decided to terminate operations and leave the city. For the English Army, which included Daniel O' Connell, it was then merely a mopping-up operation : in the aftermath, the English arrested and tortured Anne Devlin, even offering her the enormous sum of £500 to betray Robert Emmet - she refused.
Emmet himself took refuge in the Harold's Cross area of Dublin, during which he met with his mother and Sarah Curran but, on Thursday August 25th, 1803, he was finally arrested. It has been stated by others that a £1000 reward was paid by Dublin Castle to an informer, for supplying the information which led to his capture. Robert Emmet's misfortunes did not stop on his arrest : he had the misfortune to be defended by one Leonard McNally who was trusted by the United Irishmen.
However, after McNally's death in 1820 it transpired that he was a highly paid government agent and, in his role as an informer, that he had encouraged young men to join the rebels, betrayed them to Dublin Castle and would then collect fees from the United Irishmen to 'defend' those same rebels in court!
Emmet was tried before a 'Special Commission' in Green Street Court House in Dublin on September 19th, 1803. The 'trial' lasted all day and by 9.30pm he was pronounced guilty ; asked for his reaction, he delivered a speech which still inspires today. He closed by saying that he cared not for the opinion of the court but for the opinion of the future - "..when other times and other men can do justice to my character.." Robert Emmet was publicly executed on Tuesday September 20th outside St Catherine's Church in Dublin's Thomas Street.
The final comment on the value of Robert Emmet's Rising must go to Séan Ó Brádaigh, who states that to speak of Emmet in terms of failure alone is to do him a grave injustice. He and the men and women of 1798 and 1803 and, indeed, those that went before them, set a course for the Irish nation, with their appeal to Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter under the common name of 'Irishman', which profoundly affected Irish life for more than two centuries and which will, we trust, eventually bear abundant fruit.
Finally, it was not only college-educated men and women like Robert Emmet (ie those who might be perceived as being 'upper class') who decided to challenge Westminster's interference in Irish affairs in 1803 : so-called 'working class' men and women also acknowledged the need for such resistance - Edward Kearney, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St / Owen Kirwin, tailor, hanged, Thomas St, September 1st 1803 / Maxwell Roche, slator, hanged, Thomas St, September 2nd 1803 / Denis Lambert Redmond, coal facer, hanged, Coalquay (Woodquay) Dublin, / John Killeen, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 10th 1803 / John McCann, shoemaker, hanged at his own doorstep, Thomas St, September 10th 1803 / Felix Rourke, farm labourer, hanged, Rathcoole, Dublin, September 10th 1803 / Thomas Keenan, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 11th 1803 / John Hayes, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 17th 1803 / Michael Kelly, carpenter, hanged, Thomas St, September 17th 1803 / James Byrne, baker, hanged, Townsend St, Dublin, September 17th 1803 / John Begg, tailor, hanged, Palmerstown, Dublin, September 17th 1803 / Nicholas Tyrrell, factory worker, hanged, Palmerstown, Dublin, September 17th 1803 / Henry Howley, carpenter, hanged, Kilmainham Jail, Dublin, September 20th 1803 / John McIntoch, carpenter, hanged, Patrick St, Dublin, October 3rd 1803 - there are dozens more we could list here, but suffice to say that 'class' alone was not then, nor is it now, a deciding factor in challenging British military and political interference in this country. 'Justice' is the deciding factor in that equation.
'THE TWO-NATIONS THEORY.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, June, 1955.
A Favourite Weapon -
When a strong nation is engaged in holding a weaker one in subjection, two arguments are always advanced to obscure the true facts of the situation. One argument is that the subject country cannot rightly be regarded as a nation at all. The other argument, closely related to the first, is that the subject country is not one but two or more nations which would fly at one another's throats were it not for the impartial and unifying influence of outside government.
It was thus that Russia justified her subjection of Finland and the Baltic nations, that Germany justified her subjection of the Poles, Austria her subjection of Bohemia, and Great Britain her subjection of Ireland.
When the subject people were quiescent it suited the conqueror to stress the first argument ; the second argument was always available when national forces became too explosive to be denied.
Specious Argument -
Both arguments have been used from time to time against the national claims of Ireland, but the first is not presently in vogue. The opponents of Irish nationalism now fall back on the second argument, that Ireland is not one but two nations, and that the Six Counties, at present within the jurisdiction of the Belfast Parliament, are a homogeneous community differing in race, religion, temperament and outlook from the people of the Twenty-Six Counties...
(MORE LATER.)
ON THIS DATE (10TH MARCH) 368 YEARS AGO : IRISH 'LAND OWNER' BUTCHERED BY THE BRITISH.
On the 10th March, 1653 (368 years ago on this date) an Irish 'landowner', Phelim O'Neill, was butchered in Dublin as per Cromwell's orders : he was hung, disembowelled and quartered, after being accused of being a traitor.
He had previously voiced his discontent at the high number of British settlers on Irish land, despite the fact that he was a 'settler' himself - due to his service to the British crown, he was told he could 'maintain his Estates' in the County Tyrone area of Ireland but, after the 'Flight of the Earls', British-'owned' land in Ireland was re-distributed and even harsher 'laws' were forced on the remaining Catholic population. O'Neill and other 'landowners' objected, to no avail, and in 1641 they organised themselves as best they could to militarily challenge the new scenario -
'Events came to a head in 1641 when the Scottish Covenanters and English Long Parliament threatened to subdue Catholism in Ireland by invasion. Phelim O'Neill and several Catholic leaders in Ulster decided to seize Dublin and other important towns in Ireland, after which they planned to demand full rights for Catholics and Irish self government. O'Neill was to capture English forts and towns in Ulster, Dublin was to be taken by the Maguire's and the MacMahons in which they were unsuccessful...O'Neill's army was largely drawn from the peasantry, the large majority of whom had recently been disposed.
Phelim O'Neill assisted by Rory O'Moore made their way towards Dublin, defeating the government forces at Julianstown, but failed to capture Droheda. By early 1642 the rebellion had spread to all of Ireland, with the British holding Dublin, Cork and Derry, Charles I dispatched a large army to Ireland which was followed by the outbreak of The English Civil War, in which Oliver Cromwell emerged victorious.
In 1648...Phelim favoured a deal with Charles I and the Royalists seeing it as a means of defeating The Scottish Covenanters and The English Parliamentary forces... Cromwell emerged victorious in The English Civil War, his New Model Army was well trained and equipped...they landed at Dublin and proceeded to ruthlessly crush opposition wherever it was found. The Ulster Army was routed at the battle of Scarrifholis in 1650, Phelim O'Neill escaped the battle but was destined to be a fugitive the rest of his life. Anxious to prevent another rebellion in Ireland Cromwell announced that anyone implicated in The 1641 rebellion...was to be executed. Phelim O'Neill was cited as a ringleader in the Cromwellian Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652, he was captured on 4th February 1653 and executed on the 10th March, 1653...' (...more here.)
He 'inherited' large estates after his father and grandfather were killed "fighting in the King's service" (he was only five years young when his father was killed) and was raised as a 'royal ward' and, as an adult, purchased a knighthood. A 'poacher-turned-gamekeeper' in reverse, if you like...
NO RIGHT OF APPEAL.
Why the media consensus on a broad range of issues is increasingly disturbing. By John Drennan.
From 'Magill' Annual, 2002.
A strange thing happened eighteen months ago when a small group of railway workers did what trade unionists have been at since the age of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and went on strike.
The demands were appalling ; they were looking for more pay, increased safety reviews and better safety training but, by the time the media furore had ceased, the man on the street would be excused for thinking the Irish Locomotive Drivers Association (ILDA) was an acronym of 'RIRA'. The roars of some of the FF/PD government's useful idiots was understandable. However, as Fintan O'Toole belaboured the misfortunate train drivers on the grounds that they were ruining little boys' dreams of becoming train drivers, it was evident that something odd was at play.
Essentially, the Irish media's knickers were showing ; iconoclast, socialist and radical conservative were revealed as being one and the same. All were exposed as being subscribers to that bland petit bourgeois school of conservatism which has forever dogged the history of our country. That philosophy runs something like this - where anything which affected their lives, such as the non-running of the Dart or the danger to their tax cuts/share portfolios posed by inconvenient pay demands, was an attack upon the State itself...
(MORE LATER.)
'OUR STEWARDSHIP.'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, March, 1955.
Just seven years ago, a little collecting card headed 'An t-Éireannach Aontuighthe' was issued bearing this appeal -
'Funds are urgently needed to launch the newspaper, the policy of which shall be ;
1) To expound republicanism, separatism, self-reliance and unity among all Irishmen (sic).
2) To dispel the clouds of apathy which engulf the traditional love and enthusiasm for freedom and justice.
3) To comment honestly and report truthfully on all important events at home and abroad.
4) To foster the Gaelic Language and all branches of Gaelic culture.'
Funds were indeed urgently needed, and to that appeal there came the response of 'the few men (sic) faithful' to the cause of separatism and the belief in the right and ability of the people of Ireland to manage the affairs of Ireland. It was a lean time for the Irish men and women who had a mind to be Gaelic and free, many of them all over the country had not long been released from the various jails.
In fact, there were some in Crumlin Road in Belfast still, and others were bent and crushed by the continuous campaign against them by three governments 'in the interests of law and order', during the second world war. The newspaper was launched by this few gathered together ; there was little money, little support, little encouragement, but a great lot of spirit and will...
(MORE LATER.)
UNDER THE BRITISH JACKBOOT IN VAN DIEMEN'S LAND.
'The horrors of colonialism are sung without mercy in 'The Nightingale' :
'The Nightingale' is set in Tasmania in the 1820s, at the peak of the conflict between British colonizers and Aboriginal Australians. But there’s a third group alongside them: European convicts who have been deported to Australia for their crimes. This is where we meet Clare Carroll, an Irish convict living in a forest shed with her husband and a newborn baby.
Clare is eager to receive the papers that would finally grant her family official pardon, but the papers are being held by Lieutenant Hawkins, a British officer who views Clare as his property and sex slave. From the first shot of Clare walking through the woods with the infant on one arm and a homemade blade in hand, we understand we are going to be witnessing something violent and unsettling...' (from here.)
As I said recently on 'Facebook' and 'Twitter' - 'Last week, myself and the Girl Gang had a film recommended to us, so we (temporarily!) farmed-out the kids and the grandkids and banished the menfolk (again, only temporarily!). We found the film on 'Netflix' and we'd recommend that anyone with a social conscience and an interest in politics to watch it : it's not for young eyes, as it contains (political) violence. It's about the Irish and the Aborigines in Tasmania, under British occupation. Recommended viewing, 10 out of 10...'
Do whatever you have to do to give yourself two hours and fifteen minutes to watch this film ; it's violent, it's bloody, it's heartbreaking. As is British occupation and imperialism. But, if you want to know where Irish republicanism comes from, this film will help in that regard.
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
