A ‘SIR’ , A SURGEON AND AN IRISH REPUBLICAN GUN-RUNNER…….

Tomorrow (Wednesday 1st August 2012) we will post a paragraph or two about an eminent member of Irish ‘High Society’ who is mostly overlooked in our history and whose deed is most definitely over-shadowed by an event which occurred days before his own valiant effort….

Thanks for the visit !

Sharon.

‘THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DAY…..’
By Peadar O’Donnell ; first published in January 1963.

I borrowed a punt and sailed across the bay to the meeting at Jimmy Getins’ house. Black James Duirnin rode over and Big Nial Houston met Widow Biddy Doherty at the village and brought her along - it was the first time that I met that brave woman. “The devil is in you…” , she greeted me , “…why didn’t you get us together long go ?” , and that was the mood of the meeting. I have rarely sat with a group of people who contributed so evenly to the making of a decision. We talked with the townlands in plain view in our minds and we went over them house by house , picking on a man here and a man there who would make a good firm foundation for any movement , and we had names over when we thought we had built a big enough committee.

I suggested that we get the townlands to appoint delegates chosen at small gatherings of neighbours , and that the delegates sit with the committee , from time to time, for consultation : there is more than an echo in this of the relationship between the Army Council of the IRA and its Executive. The committee would grow into the townlands through these talks with the delegates but policy must be made by the committee , meeting by itself.

Later , when the townlands came fully to life , the delegates could elect the committee which, in the meantime , must be hand-picked : the joint meeting of the committee and the delegates came to be known among us as ‘The Dáil’. There seemed no doubt among us that the townlands would make a stand against the bailiff , but once we went among the people on this issue there would be questions we would have to answer. Now that the courts had begun their bombardment , people who could pay their arrears would want to know if it was our wish they should stand out. Were we , in fact, going to preach the doctrine of 1919? This would cut us off from everyone except Irish Republicans , but then the truth was that Free Staters would not attach themselves to a movement built around me……

(MORE LATER).

THE PETER BERRY PAPERS……. The Top Secret Memoirs of Ireland’s Most Powerful Civil Servant : Dirty Tricks, Election ‘69/ Spying on a Unionist Politician/ Keeping the (State) Taoiseach informed/ The Garda Fallon Murder/ Advice to Jack Lynch- ‘Fire the pair of them…’/ Vivion De Valera’s advice to O’Malley/ Rumours of a Coup D’Etat/ The Internment Plot, November 1970/ Secret Meeting with William Craig.
From ‘MAGILL’ magazine , June 1980.

22ND SEPTEMBER 1970 :

” The trial opened on 22nd September and , contrary to the undertaking which had been given to me , Counsel for the prosecution opened the case with a dramatic recapitulation of my account of my conversation with Mr. Haughey on Saturday , 18th April , which he described as of “crucial importance” . It hit the headlines and , in the view of the Garda Authorities, made me a target for IRA extremists who felt that they had been deprived of getting arms.

I protested to the Minister and said that this placed me and my wife and children in acute danger from the psychopaths in Saor Eire and the IRA . Thereupon , he offered to give an undertaking , in writing, that if I were killed or injured because of my part in the Arms Trial my family would be compensated. He mentioned a figure of £20,000. I didn’t ask for his written assurance there and then but having discussed the matter with my Departmental colleagues I returned to the Minister and asked for his assurances in writing , and he gave it to me.”

One of the most bizarre incidents of Mr. Berry’s extraordinary career came at the end of his tenure in the Department of Justice and was in fact to precipitate his retirement. This was the Saor Eire kidnap plot , which was to involve Mr. Berry himself , and the internment plan conceived by Mr. Lynch and Mr. O’ Malley…..

(MORE LATER).

31ST ANNUAL HUNGER STRIKE COMMEMORATION FOR PEACE WITH JUSTICE : SATURDAY 25TH AUGUST 2012 , 3PM , EAST END , BUNDORAN .

On Saturday 25th August 2012 , the Bundoran/Ballyshannon H-Block Committee will be holding a rally in Bundoran , Donegal , to commemorate the 31st Anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike and in memory of the 22 Irish Republicans that have died on hunger strike between 1917 and 1981 ; those participating have been asked to form-up at 3pm at the East End. The main oration on the day will be delivered by Diarmuid Mac Dubhglais, Republican Sinn Féin, Dublin , and all are welcome to attend !

Unseen Sorrow. (By Bobby Sands)

Her tears fall in the darkness as the rain falls in the night,
Silvery tears like silvery rain, hidden out of sight,
The stars fall from her eyes like floating petals from the sky,
Is there no one in all this world who hears this woman cry?

A simple little floating dreamy thought has stired this woman’s heart,

The golden sleepy dream of yesterdays before they were apart,

What comfort can there be found for a petal so fair and slim

Alone in a forest dark of sorrow she weeps again for him?

Warm silver rolling tears blemish a once complexion fair,

That once shown in the fairest radiance midst a cloak of golden hair.

And the children whimper and cry for a father’s care

and love they’ve never known,

Who sees their little tears of innocent years

as the winds of time are blown?

What sorrow will you know tonight

when all the worlds asleep,

When through the darkness comes the wind

that cuts the heart so deep,
For there is no one there to dry your tears

or your childrens tears who cling around your frock,

When there has been another bloody slaughter

in the dungeons of H Block.

Some pics from last years Hunger Strike Commemoration can be viewed here……

…..and we look forward to seeing (and meeting) as many of our readers as possible on Saturday , 25th August 2012 , in Bundoran !

NOT A TOTAL ‘BURKE’ ?

For 11 years (from 1937 to 1948) , a Mr.Thomas T. Burke sat in Leinster House representing County Clare as a member of the ‘Independent Farmer’ organisation. He rarely took part in debates and made no secret of the fact that he was in politics purely for the salary , expenses and pension. He traded as a ‘bone-setter’ , a kind of unlicensed chiropractor , who provided his services free providing that the patient vote for him in the next election! From 1948 until 1951 he ‘traded’ bones for seats as an ‘Independent’ , losing his seat that year as his 43-year-old bones gave up and he found a different graveyard to rest in.

bonesetter

some desperate rogue suborned.
garrulous!

[Cinquain definition ; Crapsey , I know…. ]

7th CENTURY AND COUNTING….

In recent posts on this blog we have ’stayed local’ and mentioned St.Brigid’s Well and the ‘Red Cow Three’ : not too far from those two sites lies a round tower , info on which you can read here and , lucky for us in ‘1169 Towers’ , the shortest way , on foot, for us to get from base to the tower is through Corkagh Park , a 120-hectare (almost 300 acres) oasis of tranquility which opened 26 years ago and contains a playground for children , pet farm , two fish lakes , a rose garden , cycle tracks , allotments ,sports and playing pitches and a caravan/camping park.

This pic of the inside of the round tower in Clondalkin was taken by a local man…..

…..whilst this pic was taken by our ‘Junior’ , who recently found himself in the Intercultural Centre in Clondalkin , the back garden of which contains an unusual feature at the end of it - a round tower !

Now that I’ve put this post ‘to bed’ - and before I have to do the same with my youngest daughter - the two of us are off for an hour or two to stroll around Corkagh Park:lucky us !

Thanks for the visit,
Sharon.

‘THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DAY…..’
By Peadar O’Donnell ; first published in January 1963.

I called on Phil McCauley next ; he had seen me go by and was on the lookout for me. He had been in the village , and the Free State people there were blaming themselves for not breaking in on Peadar O’ Donnell’s meeting “when he turned it into politics”. Their talk was that this was Peadar O’ Donnell’s way of tricking the people back into the fight against the Treaty which the IRA had not the resolution to make with any firmness.

A man Phil met at the forge told him he had it from a man who knew what he was talking about , that the Land Commission would sell out anybody who defied them on arrears : they would sell the land for the amount of the arrears and that would be a great temptation , especially now with all this bitterness. I listened to Phil McCauley pile doubt on doubt to make a gloomy picture : ” Jimmy Getins and Big Nial Houston want you and me to go over to them this evening or send them word where to meet us. We have to move quick before this kind of talk makes headway among the people.”

I was to find, again and again , over the hard years of struggle that lay ahead, that Phil McCauley had this gift of painting a dark picture and then taking a courageous stand…..

(MORE LATER).

THE PETER BERRY PAPERS……. The Top Secret Memoirs of Ireland’s Most Powerful Civil Servant : Dirty Tricks, Election ‘69/ Spying on a Unionist Politician/ Keeping the (State) Taoiseach informed/ The Garda Fallon Murder/ Advice to Jack Lynch- ‘Fire the pair of them…’/ Vivion De Valera’s advice to O’Malley/ Rumours of a Coup D’Etat/ The Internment Plot, November 1970/ Secret Meeting with William Craig.
From ‘MAGILL’ magazine , June 1980.

15TH SEPTEMBER 1970 :

“The trial was due to open on 22nd September : a consulation was held in the Attorney General’s office on 15th September for the purpose , I suppose, of becoming acquainted with Counsel. I had met them briefly in the Attorney’s office , with the Minister, on 14th July and, as my evidence was - to my mnd - straightforward , I did not foresee any difficulties for me.

At my consulation with the Attorney General and in conversation with the Minister , it was agreed that in view of the serious threats to my life , according to the police , my part in the presentation of evidence would not be overplayed - in fact , that it would not be emphasised…..”

(MORE LATER).

IRELAND 1922 : OLD SCORES SETTLED , NEW SCORES STARTED.

THREE NA FIANNA ÉIREANN BOYS ,TWO AGED 17, ONE 16 YEARS : SHOT IN THE HEAD…

On the evening of Friday October 6th 1922, a young Dublin lady , Jennie O’Toole (last entry , this page) - a member of Cumann na mBan - was pasting Republican leaflets on lamp posts on the Clonliffe Road in Drumcondra and, when she got near the Distillery Road junction, she was shouted at repeatedly and verbally abused by a local man when he saw the nature of the material involved. That loudmouth was , according to information distributed in Irish Republican circles at the time , Free State Army Captain Pat Moynihan , who lived on that same road. Moynihan , an Irish Republican ‘poacher-turned-gamekeeper’, could very well have been watching that street as two of his nieces were expected home on that route from a date to a theatre which they had been on with two anti-Republican State operatives , Nicholas Tobin and Charlie Dalton , who both worked for the Free State Army Intelligence Section at Wellington Barracks.
When Charlie Dalton was the same age as one of the NFE youths mentioned in this piece - Joseph Rogers (16) - he was recruited by Michael Collins and joined the squad that Collins was then assembling : this IRA Unit was permanently housed in Abbey St, Dublin, in a ‘front’ premises in which a ‘legitimate’ business operated from - ‘George Moreland, Cabinet Maker’ , and squad members were paid £4 10s a week to carry out assassinations on a full-time basis. Shortly after his 17th birthday , as a member of that Squad , Charlie Dalton took part in the executions of British Army Major C M Dowling and British Army Captain Leonard Price in their bedrooms in Baggot Street.

The distressed young lady, Jennie, encountered three young lads , members of Na Fianna Éireann, who offered to take over the work : Edwin Hughes (17),who lived at 107 Clonliffe Road , Drumcomdra ,Brendan Holohan (17) ,49 St.Patrick’s Road, Drumcondra and Joseph Rogers (16) ,2 Upper St.Patrick’s Road, Drumcondra. It appears to be the case that Free State Captain Moynihan met Nick Tobin and Charlie Dalton and told them that Republicans were in the area , pasting leaflets , and that Tobin and Dalton contacted a near-by Free State Army barracks for a search party and arranged to meet them in the area. Dalton could very well have known who he was hunting , as young Brendan Holohan and Joseph Rogers were near-neighbours of his and the nature of his job would have dictated that he familarise himself with local Republican activists.

The three young boys were still pasting leaflets on poles on that route which took them in the vicinity of Free State Captain Pat Moynihan’s house when , shortly after 10.30pm on that Friday night, a Free State Army truck screeched to a halt beside them and they were violently thrown in to the back of it and taken to Wellington Barracks , where they were interrogated and released. Their Free State captors included Charlie Dalton and Nick Tobin. The next day - Saturday 7th October 1922 - the three young lads were lifted again by the Free Staters and soon found themselves standing in waste ground just off the Naas Road in an area known then as ‘The Quarries’ , in Clondalkin (near to the Naas Road/Monastery Road junction) : each of them was riddled with bullets and had a coup de grâce delivered to ‘finish the job’ - a shot to the head.

In November 1922 , an inquest was held at which the prosecution demanded that a verdict of murder be brought against Charlie Dalton but , apparently, the Jury were ‘reminded’ by the State that they were living in ‘exceptional times’ and,following that and possibly other ‘reminders’ , the Jury declined to entertain the prosecution.
In an effort to suggest that ‘justice will be done’ , Dalton was then ‘arrested’ by his colleagues in the CID but was never charged with an offence related to the ‘Quarrie Killings’.

The youngest of the three lads , 16-years-old Joseph Rogers, was the son of well know Dublin Bookmaker Mr. Thomas Rodgers and had served two years of his apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer.

But this crime did not go unnoticed - Dermot MacGiolla Phadraig, a Na Fianna Éireann training officer, was passing by the area at the time on Saturday 7th October 1922 and witnessed the executions and a Charles Byrne, an undercover man for the IRA in Oriel House, was also passing by and actually spoke to one of the Free State gunmen, Charlie Dalton.

The remains of Edwin Hughes (17) was identified by his older brother, Gerald, 17-year-old Brendan Holohan’s body was identified by his father Michael and
Joseph Rogers (16) was identified by his older brother, Michael.
Incidentally , Nick Tobin , one of the Free State ‘Quarrie Gunmen’ , was in charge of a Free State raiding party later on that same month (October 1922) when they went to kill more Republicans who , they were told, were operating an IRA bomb-making factory from house number 8 in Gardiner Place , in Dublin city centre: Nick never made it back to his Free State base that day , having been shot dead by ‘accident’.

The Na Fianna Éireann organisation is still active to this day and , as in 1922, continues to support the Republican position : Na Fianna Eireann (literally “Warriors of Ireland”) has had several subtitles in its history; Irish National Youth Movement, Irish Republican Youth Movement, Irish Republican Scouts etc but its central ethos has never changed. It has always had the object of educating the youth of Ireland in national ideas and re-establishing the independence of the nation. The goal of the organisation on its foundation in 1909 was “…to re-establish the independence of Ireland by means of training the youth of Ireland to fight Ireland’s fight when they are older and the day comes…” Members are trained in scouting skills and parade drill and receive education regarding Republicanism and Irish history and heritage. In short , the NFE organisation instills a sense of pride , worth and value into those who join - worthy character traits which they carry with them into adulthood.

Thanks for reading,
Sharon.

ST. BRIGID’S WELL IN CLONDALKIN , DUBLIN -

Whilst doing a wee bit of research for a piece we hope to publish here this coming Wednesday - concerning three young lads from the Northside of Dublin who were viciously dealth with by Free State forces in 1922 - our ‘Junior’ got diverted (as young lads do!) when he came across mention of a local landmark which he and his friends know well - a supposed ‘magic well’ that is situated within walking distance of ‘1169 Towers (!)’ and is sometimes used as a meeting-up place , as it’s only a stones throw from a better-known landmark - Newlands Cross.

The ‘Well’ in question - St. Brigid’s - was, at one time, situated on what was known as ‘Brideswell Common’ , an abandoned piece of land which travellers passed on their way to Kildare. The ‘Well’ and surrounding land was ‘owned’ by William Caldbeck Esq., who rented it a Mr. Ormsby. The ‘Commons’ area at that time consisted of just two fields with a rough lane dividing them , and a natural spring which the locals named ‘St.Brigid’s Well’ , in honour of St.Brigid who, according to folklore, would baptise so-called ‘pagans’ in the waters of the Well - and, in return, the locals payed particular homage to her on the 1st February each year : ‘the Feast Day of St. Brigid’.

Infants that died before they could be baptised were said to be buried in this immediate area as a lease signed by Caldbeck Esq., allowed for burials in a ‘ground [area] of 4 Perches…’ and this and the fact that St. Brigid made regular ‘pit stops’ there soon ensured that the Well became a ’special place’ , the waters of which were said to improve the eyesight of young girls , once their eyes were washed with a wet cloth which was then hung on the nearest tree to dry - as the cloth dried , the eyesight of the girl who had been washed with it improved.

Anyway :enough diversion - a forty minute walk from St. Brigid’s Well , heading towards the Inchicore area, would take you to a spot where, on October 7th 1922, the bodies of three teenage boys were found : each had been shot in the head…

(MORE ON WEDNESDAY , 18TH JULY 2012…)

‘THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DAY…..’
By Peadar O’Donnell ; first published in January 1963.

Jack Boyle was a man of this townland and I had sat by every fireside in it. It was not a meeting I wanted just then but a chat with James Duirnin , and I addressed myself to him and the people stood around and listened.

I knew James was not at the chapel gate and I asked him if the neighbours were in with him to tell him what I said , and they were. “The dangerous hour will be the early morning….” he said, in his serious way, “…always the dangerous raid, whether the British made it or the Free Staters , was the early morning raid. We will guard against that by making a place for Jack Boyle’s cattle in our byres at night. And we thought the best way would be to draw carts across the one road into the glen by day so that a motorcar won’t be able to bring trouble on us without warning. People will be on the watch and someone will give a shout.”

He looked round at his neighbours. ” This is the neighbourliest townland in the whole world and the Republicanist townland in Ireland.” Just like that. I felt strangely inadequate - even a little scared - and more than a little moved. I told them this was my first place of call and that I would be on my way now to see a man here and there in other townlands , that I would not keep them from their work on a good harvest day , but I would be back. That scene in Black James Duirnin’s field of oats is one of my great ’stills’.

(MORE LATER).

THE PETER BERRY PAPERS……. The Top Secret Memoirs of Ireland’s Most Powerful Civil Servant : Dirty Tricks, Election ‘69/ Spying on a Unionist Politician/ Keeping the (State) Taoiseach informed/ The Garda Fallon Murder/ Advice to Jack Lynch- ‘Fire the pair of them…’/ Vivion De Valera’s advice to O’Malley/ Rumours of a Coup D’Etat/ The Internment Plot, November 1970/ Secret Meeting with William Craig.
From ‘MAGILL’ magazine , June 1980.

” I said that I felt like resigning forthwith , in protest, but that to do so in advance of the arms trial would look like trying to run away from my obligation to give testimony and I said that I contemplated retiring on that account in the following January when I would have completed another full year’s service which would have pensionable value. My relations with the Minister were not on as cordial a plane after that.

When, later , I was to institute an action against the ‘Irish Press’ newspaper for a defamatory article published on 25th September , just before I was due to give evidence in the arms trial , I showed Senior Counsel my notes in relation to Deputy de Valera’s character assassination of July 1970 which I did not propose to use , on the Minister’s account, and he said that while it did me much credit it was an unanswerable course of action. “

31ST AUGUST 1970 :

” I resumed work on Monday 31st August. While I had booked an apartment in Torremuella , Spain , for the month of August, I returned to Dublin on 16th August , leaving my wife and daughter behind. The fact that I was to give testimony at the trial of Mr. Haughey in September destroyed my peace of mind and I felt that I would be happier in my home surroundings with books etc to occupy me.

I resumed communication with my office and the Garda Authorities who maintained an armed guard on my house throughout the twenty-four hours. The Commissioner prevailed on me to carry a gun for safety and I was given police instructions in the use of it. A firearms certificate was issued by the local District Officer of the Garda and was repeated in 1971…..”

(MORE LATER).

BRITAIN WAIVES THE RULES…..

MARTIN COREY ‘GUILTY , INNOCENT , GUILTY….’

It’s not very often that the mighty British political establishment shows its fangs in public , as it prefers to present itself on the world stage as ‘toothless’ , if not ‘neutral’ , when it comes to issues pertaining ‘colonial issues’ ie ‘….we introduced democracy to the natives , taught them social etiquette showed them how to trade and then left them to it..’.

Occasionally , however , the drool spills and , in the case of Martin Corey , it flows : “Irish Republican Martin Corey From Lurgan, Co. Armagh was sentenced to Life Imprisonment in December 1973. He was 19 years old. He spent the next 19 years in jail and was finally released without signing anything, in June 1992.Without warning on April 16th 2010 he was taken back into custody. No Reason for same was given to Martin at the time or since his return to jail……”

There have been ‘developments’ in the last few days in relation to Martin’s position which have been aptly commented on by Irish Republicans but , if there is a ’silver lining’ to be found in this political ‘cloud’ , it is to be had in the fact that Westminster’s claim to be ‘neutral’ re its on-going role in this country has publicly been exposed as lie.The judiciary in the Occupied Six Counties will be ‘obliged’ to play second-fiddle to its paymaster in Westminster (monkey , organ-grinder springs to mind!) when the latter decides that doing so protects its interests better : nothing new to be learned there for Irish Republicans, of course , as we experience smaller instances of that nature whenever we are stopped by HM ‘Security Forces’ whilst crossing Britain’s illegal border and/or when on the streets of the O6C , by which we mean that we know to expect harassment and to have our toes stood on , literally, by these uniformed thugs, but Martin’s case has brought things to a level not experienced in a good few years : internment for no reason other than your political viewpoint having marked you out as a target for the State.

The only guaranteed way to exit this ‘level’ is to obtain a complete British military and political withdrawal from this country and , regardless of how many of us fall victim to the ‘monkey’ , that will remain the objective. The latest news on this travesty of justice - and opinion on same - can be viewed here.

UP FOR THE MATCH AND IN FOR THE DRAW…..!

We had a wilder than usual time on Sunday last (8th July 2012) at the monthly Irish Republican raffle , as we found ourselves in the middle of four sets of competing fans : Galway , Kilkenny , Dublin and Wexford were playing against each other (in some or other combination!) in GAA fixtures which yours truly hadn’t a clue about. Two members of the raffle team apparently knew about the matches as they purposely wore ‘neutral colour’ clothes but the other three of us were picked-on/slagged/supported/encouraged (include and/or between all of those descriptive terms!) because of the colour of some or other item of clothing and because of our Dub accents !

But , as usual with all the sporting fans we’ve met at previous raffles, it was all in good craic , and we gave as good as we got and didn’t care whether they were Dubs or culchies! Anyway - down to business : one of usual customers , Anto the coach driver, went nuclear when a ticket (202) he sold to his pal , Tony Burke, was the first one out of the raffle drum , winning a tidy €200 for Tony but then it dawned on Anto that he couldn’t share in the spoils ‘cause he was the ‘designated driver’ and so we done the only thing we could do : we slagged Anto !

When Anto and Tony calmed down a wee bit , we got Tony to pull the second prize (€100) and that was when Tony’s celebrations paled into nothingness as a young Dublin lady , Sonya F , whooped and danced her way to our table to verify that ticket number 044 was the winner - and it sure was! Amidst the chaos that ensued , we managed to get one of Sonya’s friends to pull out the third prize - €40 - and a young Miss from Arklow , in the county of Wicklow - Trisha K - made her way to the front of house to claim her prize with ticket number 461. The Arklow lass pulled the fourth prize for us - ticket number 253 - and a young Waterford lad , Tommy D , calmly approached the table , handed over his ticket stub and , with a wink, quietly collected his twenty spot. That ‘TD’(!) then gave an oul fella from Ballyer in Dublin - Paddy T - fifth prize of €20 on ticket number 650 and Paddy extended the good karma by picking ticket 295 , which Brandan from Carlow had bought and he, in turn, passed-on a similar sum to Tomás , from Waterford , on ticket number 257. And it was that latter winner we blamed for no-one else winning except Colm Farrelly , who had bought ticket 120 from one of our regulars , Owen , and won our last prize with it.

When things returned to normal (or as normal as possible with all the GAA supporters present!) we left two of the Committee members to tidy-up the books and the rest of us went off in search of Tony Burke , to take him up on his earlier offer of a pint or two to celebrate his win. Which is how we ended up in Kilkenny (or was it Galway?) for the remainder of that day and some of the next one and also explains why it is that I’m so late in posting this report….. !

Thanks for reading,
Sharon.

….TRIPS UP ?

So you’re a dotor with a nice house in County Offaly which sits in a 150-acre ‘garden’ , you own a building in Lusk , County Dublin, which houses a supermarker and a doctors surgery and a smaller building in another Dublin building , in Donabate, in which another doctor operates a practice from.

You get into politics and eventually become Free State Minister for Health , a position which allows you to close down almost 300 public nursing home beds this year alone and an Office from which you would be aware that there are almost 600 elderly people in public hospitals throughout the State who desperately need a bed in a public nursing home ; beds which aren’t there. But what of it - you yourself are not yet of an age where you need to be in a nursing home and when that time does come , you (and your wife/partner)will go ‘Private’ , not public.

You have bags of cash to spare and more arriving each week and , given your ‘insider knowledge’ of the state of nursing home ‘care’ , you decide to have a flutter , but it doesn’t quite go according to plan….

Ooops…..!

Thanks for reading : see you here tomorrow night (Wednesday 11th July 2012)for our usual offering!

Sharon.

‘THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DAY…..’
By Peadar O’Donnell ; first published in January 1963.

I let on I mentioned these things to them for fear any among them might have in mind other ways of stopping the bailiff. By now we were neighbours together with the listening guards as outsiders. They would have to talk all this over among themselves , I told them : I would go round through the townlands later and they could tell me what they had in mind to do , and maybe I could help them. And then abruptly I stepped down from the chapel wall.

If the townlands were to be moved on to a road of struggle , meetings alone would not do it - there must be a foundation of firm men , with a name for sturdy good sense. This I learned the hard way , from mistakes made organising new trade union branches in small towns - you held a good meeting , enrolled members and went on your way but you came back to find the branch had fallen apart. Eventually you met one man at lunch hour , called on another man at his home , sat with a group of two or three - you rested your branch on firm men and that branch grew.

I sifted the men of the townlands now , face by face , and I picked on Black James Duirnin of Croveigh as the best test for what I had in mind : I cycled to his place on the afternoon of the next day and I came on him sharpening his scythe in a field of oats. His son Willie spoke to him as I crossed the stubble and he looked up - a big-boned , spare man, stubble-faced , awkward in movement and slow in speech , seventyish. He laid down his scythe and came to meet me and he spoke over his shoulder to his daughter to call the neighbours , but there was no need for that - people saw me coming into the glen and they came hurrying across the fields shouting at one another…….

(MORE LATER).

THE PETER BERRY PAPERS……. The Top Secret Memoirs of Ireland’s Most Powerful Civil Servant : Dirty Tricks, Election ‘69/ Spying on a Unionist Politician/ Keeping the (State) Taoiseach informed/ The Garda Fallon Murder/ Advice to Jack Lynch- ‘Fire the pair of them…’/ Vivion De Valera’s advice to O’Malley/ Rumours of a Coup D’Etat/ The Internment Plot, November 1970/ Secret Meeting with William Craig.
From ‘MAGILL’ magazine , June 1980.

15TH JULY 1970 :

” On the morning of the 15th I informed the Deputy Secretary , Mr. Ward , and the Assistant Secretary , Mr. Hayes, of the Minister’s words and each felt , with me, that character assassination of this kind was of an extremely grave kind and struck at the very roots of civil service honour in administration. I considered that I could not hold the Minister’s confidence if I were to let a defamatory statement of that serious kind go unchallenged.”

20TH JULY 1970 :

” I spoke to the Minister on this date and demanded that he should pursue the matter with Deputy de Valera and require him to substantiate or withdraw the calumny , about which I felt deeply. The Minister tried to put me off , saying that nobody paid attention to anything that Vivion de Valera said and that if he had thought that I would take the remarks seriously he would never have mentioned them. I persisted , however , and the Minister promised to speak to Deputy de Valera and , when reminded again some days later , he again promised.

The Minister appealed to me not to ‘put him on the spot’ , that in telling me of what his Parliamentary Colleague had said he was breaching confidence and that , if known, he would have to resign from the Parliamentary Party……”

(MORE LATER).

COME INTO MY PARLOUR…..

“…… . the Adams visa will advance the peace.(Provisional) Sinn Féin will pay a price for going to Capitol Hill. A lot of powerful people went out on a limb for Adams. If he doesn’t deliver, they’ll have him back in the house with the steel shutters ([Provisional] Sinn Féin headquarters, Falls Road, Belfast) so fast his feet won’t touch the ground. We’re slowly putting the squeeze on them, pulling them in, boxing them in, cutting off their lines of retreat…”

- the words of Albert Reynolds (see #32 , here) , in relation to encouraging* the Adams/McGuinness PSF leadership to convince their followers to go constitutional (*…not that they needed to be encouraged) . Mr Reynolds and, indeed , the State elite that now pay him €3119.58 cents a week in a pension payment, continue to get their money’s worth.
In a sense , Reynolds , Bill Clinton , John Hume etc are to be congratulated for being politically astute in that they recognised ‘weak links’ in the Irish Republican chain at the time and exploited the fault : those that were exploited for such a cheap price and those that watched from ‘inside the house’ and went along with it deserve to be held accountable more so than those that carried out the ‘job’ - after all , the latter were simply doing what was natural to them ; fooling those that really wanted to be fooled.

LOST VALUE(S) ?

VALUE-LESS….

On Sunday 1st July last , Provisional Sinn Féin representatives laid a wreath in Belfast in honour of British soldiers that died in war , fighting to ‘maintain the Empire’. Those PSF reps were instructed by their leadership in Stormont - and by Adams and McGuinness (!) - not to attend the main commemoration , as it is believed that that ‘honour’ is being kept in reserve until Minister McGuinness is allowed to shake his queen’s other hand…..

WE’RE GONNA FIX IT……

…..TO GET EIGHT WINNERS ON SUNDAY !

Myself and the usual team will be off this coming Sunday (8th July 2012) , once again , to one of our favourite meeting places to hold the monthly 650-ticket Irish Republican raffle : apart from raising much-needed finance (we’re not State funded , don’t-ya-know….!) we’ll be meeting our friends and supporters from that vicinity of the Dublin-Kildare border , meeting and making new friends and supporters and handing-out a total of €440 in prize money : as always , I’ll post the results of the raffle on this page and I’ll try and do that on Sunday evening - but no guarantee that I will , as time can run away on you , when you’re having the craic….!

So that’s Sunday , Irish time !

Thanks for reading,
Sharon.

1976 : 2.15pm , 17TH JULY…..

…..- two IRA Volunteers on active service - Patrick Cannon from Dublin and Peter McElchar from Donegal- set out in a car in which they were transporting an explosive device. They crossed the border from Donegal into Tyrone and were approaching the town of Castlederg when the device exploded prematurely. Peter McElchar was killed instantly. Patrick Cannon was gravely injured and was taken to Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh. He was being transferred to hospital in Belfast when he died….

Born in Dublin on November 28th 1955 -one of a family of seven (three girls and four boys)- Pat Cannon and his family lived in Edenmore, on the northside of the city. He was a fitter/welder by trade , and was only 20 years of age when he died.
The Annual Pat Cannon Commemoration (36th Anniversary) will be held on Tuesday 17th July 2012 at 6.00pm in Old Balgriffin Cemetery , organised by Republican Sinn Féin Poblachtach : ALL WELCOME !

Thanks for reading,
Sharon.