Saturday, November 22, 2014

Border Campaign Reading List


This is, so far as I have been able to ascertain, a reading list of all the best published sources on Operation Harvest.

(Note: There are several books on the Cumann na mBan, if anyone could recommend the one with the best info on this period I'd be grateful)

----General History----

The IRA by Tim Pat Coogan

The Secret Army by J Bowyer Bell

(These two have very extensive sections on Operation Harvest and are in many ways the primary sources of information on it.)

Resistance by Sean Cronin
(A manifesto and history written during the campaign by the man who started it.)

Irish nationalism: a history of its roots and ideology by Sean Cronin
(Section covering the campaign.)

The Lost Revolution by Brian Hanley and Scott Millar
(The first chapters chronicle the 50's in detail, mostly through the eyes of future Official Republicans, and the reorganization afterwards.)

Soldiers of Folly by Barry Flynn
(The only stand-alone general history of Operation Harvest.)

Milestones in Murder by Hugh Jordan
(Contains two chapters on the campaign focused mostly on incidents that ended in death- Rosslea, Brookeborough, etc. Some valuable original research not covered in the standard texts.)

The Orange State by Michael Farrell
(Classic political history of the period.)

Na Fianna Eireann: A Case Study of a Political Youth Organisation by John Watts
( Contains a detailed description of their activities during 50-62 period)

   The IRA, 1956 - 69: Rethinking the Republic By Matt Treacy
(Analysis focusing on the political and socio-economic forces at work within the Republican movement and the "new direction" of the 60's. "Official Irish Republicanism" by Sean Swan likewise, while not focused on the campaign, has analysis of it by former participants and other interesting bits.)
 
The IRA: A Documentary History by Brian Hanley

  The above stand out for their original research. There are several more that could be listed under "general history" but they usually use other books- Coogan, Bell and Farrell in particular -as their sources or else have little by way of information not contained in the above list.


----Prison Narratives----

Prisoner 1082 by Donal Donnelly
(First hand account of the only successful escape from "the Crum.")

Having it Away by Seamus Murphy
(Vibrant account of Seamus Murphy's time in English prisons, the characters he met inside, and his escape in 1959.)

The Insider: Belfast Prison Diaries of Eamonn Boyce
(Day by day diary written in secret, with comprehensive notes by Anna Bryson.)

The Omagh Prisoner: Writings of Philip Clarke
(Published by Joe Christle on the Omagh raider and SF candidate for 1955.)

A Rebel Spirit: the Life and Times of Seamus O'Lionochainn by Seamus O'Lionochainn
(Autobiography of a Cork volunteer; covers the IRA in Cork and his years in "the Crum." published online.)

IRA Internments and the Irish Government: by John Maguire
(Contains detailed history of the 56-62 period focused on the 26 counties, with many photos.)

Internment by John McGuffin
(Chapters on internment in the north and south.)

 Cypriot and Irish Political Prisoners held in British prisons 1956-1959 by Grigoras Limavadas
(Little known story of Cypriot-Irish solidarity and cooperation. Includes details of the 1959 escape from Wakefield.)

Lawless vs Ireland: the First Case Before the European Court of Human Rights by Brian Dolan
(Overview of Gerry Lawless's legal conflict with the Free State.)

Irish Political Prisoners 1920-1962: Pilgrimage of Desolation by Sean Mcconville
(Mcconville's narrative stands out for having research from the Prison Records of Northern Ireland)

----Volunteers----

From Vinegar Hill to Edentubber: The Story of the Wexford IRA and the Border Campaign by Ruan O'Donnell

 Maraóidh Seán Sabhat Aréir by Mainchín Seoighe
(Irish language book on Sean South)

"They Kept Faith" by Sean Cronin
(On South and O'Hanlon)

Sean South of Garryowen by Des Fogerty

Miscellaneous Notes on Republicanism and Socialism in Cork by Jim Lane
(History of the Cork brigade, independent activities by Cork volunteers, and the breakaway IRF.)

The Blood Dark Track by Joseph O'Neill
(Several pages on Jim and Brendan O'Neill's activities with Jim Lane's group.)

   Ruairi O'Bradaigh: Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary by Robert White
(His detailed recollections of the campaign- joining, Arborfield raid, Derrylin Barracks attack, the Curragh, goings on inside the IRA etc.)

Joe Cahill, A Life in the IRA by Brendan Anderson and Joe Cahill
(Insightful chapter detailing the era in Belfast; the arms raids there, searching for the informer, and other things not covered elsewhere.)

Memiors of a Revolutionary by Sean MacStoifain- Also published as "Revolutionary in Ireland"
(Chapter on the Felstead Raid and his subsequent years in English prisons.)

Tyrone's Struggle for Irish Freedom by Gerard Magee

In Pursuit of Peace in Ireland by Liam O'Comain
(A short section on his joining the Derry IRA in the 50's and political activities like canvassing for Manus Canning)

God and the Gun by Martin Dillon
(Des O'Hagan talks about being in the Belfast IRA in the late 40's and 50's.)

The Irregulars by "The Hungry Brigade Collective."
(Online book about several Dublin volunteers who got started during Operation Harvest and later went into Saor Eire. Written in a novelized form but the facts behind the events are solid.)

Provisional Irish Republicans: An Oral and Interpretive History
(Has interviews with several members - mostly anonymous- who discuss becoming involved in the 50's.)

The IRA in the Twilight Years
(Focused on the 30's-40's period, but in its profiles/bios of volunteers it tells of those who went on to fight in the 50's)

The American Connection by Jack Holland
(Coverage of George Harrison's and Paddy McLogan's smuggling of weapons in the latter half of the 50's and early 60's)

----Pamphlets----

A pamphlet on James Crossan was published by Sinn Fein in 1958.

A booklet was put out for the 45th anniversary of the death of Alo Hand.

  The Pearse Column & the Brookeborough Raid
  Awakening the Spirit of Freedom - Edited by Des Long
(Both published for the 50th anniversary of the death of Sean South and Fergal O'Hanlon)

Patrick McManus, James Crossan and the Border Campaign - Edited by Ruan O'Donnell.
(Published for their 50th anniversaries.)

"Songs of the North"
(Booklet put out by Saor Uladh/Fianna Uladh, contains a life of Connie Green and songs in his honor.)



----For further reading----

 The ongoing section of RSF's monthly "Saoirse" entitled "50 Years Ago Today" has some excellent information, particularly issues from 1999-2012.

An Phoblacht ran several series and interviews with veterans from 2006-2009 or so. They also have obituaries of veterans who died in the past couple of decades.

There's also some nutter with a blog called laochrauladh.....

Prison Memories of Dan Moore

Dan Moore, a young volunteer from Newry, was imprisoned during the latter half of the 50's  for carrying the tricolor during a republican parade. He was imprisoned again for the same reason in the 60's. He afterwards became a local leader in the Wolfe Tone Clubs, NICRA, and Official Republicanism.

  Prison Memories of Dan Moore

(Compiled from a series in the Newry Journal, March 2009.)

(Dan Moore- center with tricolor. Photo from NewreyMemiors.com)

"Newry Journal was delighted recently to have been offered a few reminiscences of veteran Republican Dan Moore from his early days of resistance to British Rule.

In the late 50s and early 60s I was in awe of this man and the Republican family to which he belonged – and my father with me. Any Republican personage or organ such as The United Irishman was considered highly suspicious by the authorities and kept under close watch. The Republican paper was actually banned and my father purchased his copy hidden within the folds of the Belfast Telegraph. That was dad’s little act of defiance. We would worry lest the house be raided and this subversive literature would lead to dad’s arrest! The open sale of this (commendable) newspaper was among the most minor of the ‘transgressions’ of the Moore family.

In addition every Easter Sunday Dan Moore chose to head the Republican Parade to the Republican Cemetery plot, carrying the banned tricolour. It is hard to believe now that just the display of the national flag was considered a crime worthy of the incarceration of the bearer. In punishment for this open defiance Dan was hauled off immediately afterwards and imprisoned for a period of months. I could not believe that a man could have such firm convictions that he would fritter away his freedom like this.

But I should allow Dan – who now is a social worker in Dublin combating the evils of drug and substance addiction – to speak for himself:

----
"Prison Notes"

"There were lighter moments too back in my time in the ‘Juveniles’ in 1957.

The authorities were convinced that a bit of military discipline was enough to correct the misguided views and attitudes of the miscreant youths in their care. Joe Leslie, Moody and the other screws in charge of us were ex-marines.  In good old-fashioned British war-film tradition they interpreted this as the need for regular ‘square-bashing’. It was supposed to frighten us and turn us into ‘good citizens’.

I really enjoyed this square-bashing and threw myself enthusiastically into these exercises. I felt I was learning something every morning. As a young volunteer of just eighteen years who hadn’t yet had any drill training on the outside I was convinced I was doing something useful!

Arms training we had had, but not drill. Priorities, I suppose!

After about two months Joe Leslie approached me and asked why I was so patently enjoying the drill exercises. I was young and lacking in subtlety. I answered immediately and with transparent honesty that if we were to do this on the outside, it would be sufficient reason – if one were needed – to imprison us.

Sadly, that was the end of my square-bashing!

In punishment I suppose, for enjoying the drill and owning to it and being dismissed from ‘square-bashing’, I was given the job of sharpening the saws in the wood yard where the prisoners were tasked, for example, with cutting up timber for firewood.

This was another mistake on their part. I just loved the job and though I say it myself I was expert at it.

One day these two prisoners from the other side – out-and-out Loyalists – were sent to me. I saw them approaching and guessed at their mission. Covertly and calmly I drew a file along the recently-sharpened edge of the saw I had been working on. This had the effect of blunting its edge.

They needed a particularly-sharp saw to fell a fairly large tree for timber. In effect they received a blunter saw than the one they returned in exchange!

In response to their vociferous complaints they were both put on ‘report’ for insubordination.

I recovered the blunted saw and replaced it among the ‘to-be-sharpened’ pile!

"Screw in My Pocket"

I was a sentenced prisoner – for the ‘crime’ of carrying the national flag –  but there were also internees over in D Wing. I knew and was known to many of them and had illicit communications with them. As a result I was able to obtain supplies that other Juveniles could not.

 I had sweets, butter and jam and especially cigarettes, the staple exchange-commodity of prison.

I was generous with these supplies and I treated all Juveniles as equal.

This link meant that I could escape the prison’s tobacco barons. These were people who would approach new prisoners with the offer of free cigarettes. The only problem was that they were not free: the debt would have to be paid back double on Sundays, when supplies would come in hopefully via family visits. One could end up forever in the grip of these tobacco barons. Not me.

The screw in charge of our tier was called Dickie Dawe and with my supplies, I formed an exchange relationship with him too. Dickie knew what I was doing of course and participated. Any time I was due for a cell search – and they were frequent – Dickie would come in before it with an empty cardboard box. I placed all my supplies in it and he secreted it in his prison warden’s locker. Then nothing would be found in my cell search. Later my property was returned.

My generosity was paid back in time. A few years later when I was back in prison I was met in the exercise yard by a number of prisoners who had been Juveniles with me. At once a whip-around was organised for my benefit.

Again I had no need to worry about shortage of cigarettes.

"Strange hiding place"
Some years later still I was interned along with my brothers Jack and Eugene (RIP).

One time I had a visit from our mother and father. They got to visit Jack and ‘Gene first. Then I was called. When the visit was over, Dad said to me,

‘By the way Dan, I have here a packet of fags that Mrs McGuigan gave me for you. I forgot to leave them at Reception.I will leave them there for you on the way out.’

I sensed that Dad was up to something. I requested from the screw that he give them to me straight away. He took the pack and examined it carefully. But the cellophane was unbroken. It had all the appearance of never being opened. He handed it to me.

I couldn’t wait to get back to the wing, to get to the toilets and examine the packet for myself.

Inside the cigarette packed, all tightly and neatly folded was a copy of the United Irishman.

How they got it fitted in there so well, I will never know.

How they got the cellophane back in position is still a mystery!

That must have become the most-read copy ever of the newspaper The United Irishman. Having devoured it myself I sent it all around our wing and then to all the internees and finally to all the long-term prisoners in A Wing!


"Loyalist Leader on My Side"
Of course being in prison was anything but a bed of roses!

There were very occasional ‘picture-shows’ but one’s absence from the cells would be taken advantage of by the screws.

One time on my return to my cell I sensed something was up – that perhaps they were lying in wait fore me. And so it proved to be.

I swiftly – as if in one movement – switched off the lights and for protection, grabbed my poe which was by the door.

I can tell you I got in a brave few wallops with it before the screws, whose only intent was to beat me up, could overpower me!

On ‘report’ the next morning I was charged with assaulting two prison warders and two prisoners.

Fortunately for me the Deputy Prison Governor was on duty that morning. Under interrogation I enquired as to where the alleged assault took place. The two screws said that it was ‘on the tier’. When I challenged this I was told to be quiet.

At that point Dickie Dawe spoke out and confirmed that it was in my cell. They were waiting there for me. The discrepancy of evidence was noted and taken into account. Taylor, the Deputy Governor sent me back to the wood yard. The two prisoners who gave false evidence lost their remission and all privileges and the two screws were either sacked or sent elsewhere.

On reflection the Deputy Governor was probably worried that there would be a riot in the prison. But as a side-effect I earned respect from an unusual quarter.

Silver McKee, a noted Loyalist hard-man was on the landing above. On that morning he leaned over the top banister and shouted down a warning that anyone who dared to touch the ‘Newry boy’ would answer to him!

I never actually got the chance to meet him but it was good to know that he was there in the background for me! This was the first across-the-divide cooperation I had known.

Perhaps it’s just that I got into trouble, no matter what job or assignment I was given!
Yet it is strange how the smallest incident takes on greater significance as time goes by.

"Remembering Tom Williams"
You will all have heard of Tom Williams (friend and colleague of Joe Cahill) who was executed and buried within the walls of Crumlin Jail.

We did not know the exact location so all of the area was like hallowed ground to us.

One time I was given the task of mowing the grass around the prison hospital. We believed that Tom’s mortal remains were buried near the wall behind the hospital.

Carefully I used the mower to mark out in cemetery fashion a spot in the near vicinity. In conclusion I marked the grave by placing some daffodils upon it.

Needless to say that was the end of my grass-cutting days there.

A week later I was taken off this duty!

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Noel Kavanagh Oration for Fergal O'Hanlon- 1957

Oration at the Graveside of Fergal O'Hanlon by Noel Kavanagh - 1957 (Printed in the United Irishman) "A chairde, It is a great privilege to pay tribute to Fergal O'Hanlon today on behalf of his fellow volunteeers. Any person here today who does not understand why Fergal fought and died is standing here offering an insult to him. Having educated himself in the history of his country and the present situation, he decided to join his fellow countrymen in remedying the wrongs which have been inflicted upon our country. Fergal, whom we all know, died fighting for the freedom of his country. It is easy to die when one is at peace with God, and Fergal you may be sure was at peace with God. He left home with his mother's blessing and that surely is the greatest of all blessings. As Pearse said of Mothers, "They suffer in our coming and in our going." So on behalf of his fellow-volunteers, I wish to express sympathy to his father, mother, brothers, sisters, and to all those dear to him. If you wish to erect a monument to this volunteer I ask that you erect a monument that can be seen all over the world. I have in mine a monument which Fergal would like and that monument is the Irish Republic. I ask you to erect that monument. Fergal would like it."

Vol. Paddy Doyle- O/c Belfast

     In 1956 Belfast received a new O/c by the name of Paddy Doyle. Doyle was a veteran of the 40's, a former internee, and a close friend of the "3 Macs." He had been on the governing council in 51 such was their trust in him that while almost two dozen organizers were sent across the North to prepare for the Operation Harvest, Belfast was left entirely in Doyle's hands.
   Under Paddy's direction a more vigorous investigation to uncover an informer- whose presence was obvious but whose identity was not- was carried out by Joe Cahill and another volunteer. They conducted a thorough investigation and narrowed it down to one man. They informed Paddy Doyle; "He didn't want to know the name of the suspect at that stage," Cahill said, "but he said he wanted us to begin our investigation all over again and see if we came to the same conclusion."  In such cases, Cahill afterwards noted, one had to be 110% sure of the conclusion.
     A general convention was held that October to which the O/c's and organizers were supposed to report. Doyle was unable to attend so he sent Joe Cahill and the other volunteer in his place. They informed Tony Magan of the situation with the informer. Magan gave the same reply but told Cahill to transfer all the arms dumps under his control out of the city.
     In November Doyle was arrested with a copy of An-tOglach on him and received 3 months in Crumlin Road, which was commuted to internment until the campaign was almost over. His arrest so close to the commencement of the campaign, and the presence of the informer, sealed the lid on Belfast's non-involvement. The informer continued to inflict damage after his arrest and was never uncovered.
     Paddy Doyle was among the first 15 prisoners released in 1961. Like many others of his generation, he retired from active politics and what became of him in later years has not been recorded by the usual Republican historians.



Sources: "Joe Cahill: A life in the IRA" by Brendan Anderson; "The Insider" by Eamonn Boyce and Anna Bryson. If anyone can, for posterity's sake, fill in some details on his life please get in touch.
GRMA in advance.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Liam McMillen and the 1964 Election 50 years on

(above: Liam McMillen, front, and one of his staff,  Bobby McKnight, back)

(McMillen outside a mural with one of his election slogans, taken from the poem "Spirit of the Nation/ Song for July 12th" by Thomas Davis or John de Jean Frazer. *



(above: Election flyer)

Scenes from his Election HQ:



(Thanks to GB, J O'B, PJD, and all who originally posted the above)

 *- The Full poem is worth posting. It becomes all the more poignant when one recalls the chain of events  in the years following the elections.

Come—pledge again thy heart and hand—
 One grasp that ne'er shall sever;
Our watchword be—"Our native land"—
Our motto—"Love for ever."

 And let the Orange lily be
  Thy badge, my patriot brother—
 The everlasting Green for me;
And—we for one another.

 Behold how green the gallant stem,
  On which the flower is blowing;
 How in one heav'nly breeze and beam
 Both flower and stem are glowing.

 The same good soil sustaining both,
Makes both united flourish:
But cannot give the Orange growth,
  And cease the Green to nourish.

 Yea, more—the hand that plucks the flower
Will vainly strive to cherish:
The stem blooms on—but in that hour
The flower begins to perish.

 Regard them, then, of equal worth
While lasts their genial weather;
The time's at hand when into earth
The two shall sink together.

 Ev'n thus be, in our country's cause,
Our party feelings blended;
Till lasting peace, from equal laws,
  On both shall have descended.

 Till then the Orange lily be
Thy badge, my patriot brother—
 The everlasting Green for me;
 And—we for one another.


 An account of the riots from Andrew Boyd's "Holy War in Belfast": 1964: THE TRICOLOUR RIOTS

 RIOTING and terror returned to the City of Belfast on Monday 28 September 1964. That evening a detachment of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, acting on the explicit instruction of Brian McConnell, Northern Ireland’s Minister of Home Affairs, attacked the Divis Street headquarters of the Republican Party in West Belfast. Their mission was to remove an Irish tricolour. This took place during a general election for the British House of Commons, an assembly in which Northern Ireland has twelve seats, besides having its own parliament of 52 members. The Republicans had nominated Liam McMillan to contest West Belfast; the other candidates in the constituency were Unionist, Republican Labour and Northern Ireland Labour. When McConnell, himself a Unionist, ordered the police to move against the Republican headquarters he was responding to pressure from Ian K. Paisley, leader of the Free Presbyterians. Paisley had threatened that if the RUC did not remove the tricolour he would lead a march of his followers to Divis Street and take it down himself. For several days before this threat was uttered, the RUC and the Ministry of Home Affairs had been pestered by anonymous telephone callers, all complaining about the tricolour and demanding its removal. Anonymous callers had also warned the Republicans that their headquarters would be burned if they continued to display the Irish flag. James Kilfedder, the. Unionist candidate in West Belfast, complained about the tricolour too, and sent this telegram to McConnell: "Remove tricolour in Divis Street which is aimed to provoke and insult loyalists of Belfast."

 McConnell acted, even though Divis Street is in a part of Belfast where few of those people whom Kilfedder described as "loyalists" are to be seen. He held a conference of his senior police officers on Monday morning and ordered that the flag be removed. His authority to do this was the Flags and Emblems (Display) Act. At the same time, exercising the power given to him by the Public Order Act of 1961, he restricted a Paisleyite protest march to an area within the vicinity of the City Hall. This was a part of Belfast which the minister considered to be a safe distance from Divis Street. Traffic was brought to a standstill on Monday night of 28 September when it became known that the RUC were coming to seize the flag. More than 2,000 Republican supporters blocked the roadway and scores of constables were rushed to the scene in armoured cars.

The constables, though armed with sten-guns, rifles, revolvers, riot-batons and shields, were made to look ridiculous by groups of little boys who ran about with miniature tricolour emblems which they stuck on walls, trolley-buses, police-cars and the windows of the Republican headquarters. Meanwhile, at the City Hall, Paisley had decided not to march; but he held a meeting which he opened with prayers and readings from the Bible. Then he read a telegram from an organisation of people calling themselves the Ulster Loyalist Association. The telegram congratulated him "on his stand against the tricolour."

After that the meeting became the familiar Paisleyite medley of prayers, anti-popery and political invective. By this time the RUC, using pickaxes, had smashed down the doors of the Republican headquarters and taken possession of the flag. They carried it away through a barrage of stones and empty bottles, and to the prolonged jeers of crowds of youngsters.

 Next day Liam McMillan telegraphed Harold Wilson, leader of the British Labour Party: "armed police using crowbars smashed into Republican headquarters, Belfast, without warning. Seized Irish flag. Demand you clarify attitude to this violence against democracy." He also announced that unless the police returned the tricolour by noon on Wednesday another would be put in its place.

The confiscated flag was not brought back so McMillan hoisted a new one, and, as he did so, 300 people cheered and sang "A Soldier’s Song," national anthem of the Irish Republic. The nearest policeman, fifty yards away, was directing traffic. Shortly after two o’clock that afternoon the RUC cleared Divis Street to make way for an armoured car. When the car stopped outside the Republican headquarters eight policemen emerged and began another attack on the place, with crowbars and pickaxes. They failed to break down the door, but one of them smashed the window, reached in and pulled out the second tricolour.

 By Wednesday news of the events in Divis Street had spread throughout the world. Belfast became the hub of the general election campaign, attracting television reporters, camera teams and newspaper men from many countries. That night thousands of Republicans, armed with petrol-bombs, sticks, stones, rotten vegetables, and some with loaded firearms, gathered outside their headquarters to sing Irish patriotic songs. A battle began at eleven o’clock when police tried to disperse them.

The television teams and the commentators were on the spot to record all that happened. For the first time ever, people in many parts of the world were able to watch, on their television screens, the intensity of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. At the first indication that the Republicans would fight, some fifty RUC men, who had been held in readiness in the small streets between Falls Road and Shankill Road, were rushed into Divis Street. But the Republicans, who seemed to be acting in accordance with a pre-arranged strategy, drove them back into the side-streets. They attacked them with stones, bottles, chunks of metal and petrol-bombs.

 In Divis Street a Belfast Corporation trolley-bus was set on fire. Eight RUC men jumped for their lives when a petrol-bomb was thrown into their car. Bottles, stones, sticks and heavy iron gratings were hurled in all directions. Plate-glass from the windows of wrecked shops crashed to the ground. By midnight the police had succeeded in sealing off Divis Street and in clearing it for several hundred yards on both sides of the blazing trolley-bus.

 Order was largely restored, but thirty people, including at least eighteen members of the RUC, had been injured seriously enough to require urgent hospital treatment. Next day it became evident that events in Northern Ireland were being regarded with astonishment throughout the world. In vain did Terence O’Neill, Prime Minister and leader of the Unionist Party, appeal for restraint and a return to law and order. His appeal brought only sneers and insults from the Paisleyites. They looked upon him as a liberal weakling and believed that his policies of reform and reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants were destroying the Protestant Ascendancy. Since 1963, when O’Neill had secured the premiership by outwitting his nearest rivals within the Unionist Party, the Paisleyites had been demanding his removal from office. "O’Neill Must Go" became the policy of their newspaper, The Protestant Telegraph. Their campaign was intensified when he met Sean Lemass, An Taoiseach (Premier) of the Irish Republic, in January 1965.

 On 6 October, five days after the Divis Street riots, Professor Robert Corkey, Unionist senator and former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, indicted Paisley as the man mainly responsible for the disturbances. "His loud protestations of Protestant principles," said Professor Corkey, "have attracted a considerable following of thoughtless people." Next day, in the Northern Ireland Parliament, Harry Diamond, a Republican Labour MP, also blamed Paisley and described him as "a half-demented exhibitionist." Diamond alleged that a caucus of the Unionist Party in Belfast Corporation had urged Paisley to complain about the tricolour and threaten to pull it down. The involvement of members of the Unionist Party might explain why O’Neill refused an official investigation into the events which resulted in the Divis Street disturbances. He pleaded in the House of Commons that there "was no precedent for such an inquiry." The Unionists won West Belfast and the eleven other Northern Ireland constituencies. When the count closed on 15 October, Kilfedder was declared elected with a 6,000 majority. His first words, after the result had been announced, were directed to Ian Paisley without whose help, he said, "it could not have been done." 

Nevertheless, the Republicans had their own victory.
On Sunday 5 October they carried the tricolour, in public and in broad daylight, at the head of a parade of 5,000 people who marched from Beechmount on Falls Road, through Divis Street, to an election rally near Smithfield. Police lined the route but made no attempt to seize the flag. The same day a congregation of 2,000, in Belfast’s Ulster Hall, heard Ian Paisley accuse "many Ulster Protestant leaders of showing weakness in the face of Republican pressure." If they did not stand firm their Protestant faith was in jeopardy, he warned. This alleged threat to Protestantism in Ulster and the weakness of certain Unionist political leaders were the main points on which Paisley was to base his campaigns and rally his followers after the battle for the Divis Street tricolour.

Vol. Paddy McLogan

    This past July marked the 50th anniversary of the death of Paddy McLogan, 1916 veteran and one of the "Three Macs" who led the Republican movement in the 50's.

   I cut the first half of this account little short so as not to take away from a much better detailed biographical booklet that McLogan's nephew, Len, is putting together. Hopefully this will stir up some interest.
    If anyone knew him or has any information, stories, memorabilia, photos, etc etc- get in touch with Len at paddymclogan@outlook.com
    He wrote a short write up on Paddy which was published in Saoirse in July 2014. Its well worth reading if you're interested and can get a hold of it.


Paddy McLogan

Padraig McLogan was born in Armagh in 1899 and emigrated to England at an early age. While there he joined the IRB (in 1913) under the influence of his uncle, who swore him in.
    During 1916 he fought in the GPO under James Connolly, and after the surrender was interned in Frongoch like the rest. He served as Contess Markceives' chauffeur during the internees' return to Dublin.
    In 1917 he went to Belfast to work with the IRB and volunteers there. "He was appointed captain of a new company of volunteers, D company 1st Battalion and he worked hard to bring it up to strength. They trained on Saturday nights, and returned to Belfast in time for 7am Mass." He helped acquire and redistribute arms, and form new companies. For one reason or another he headed south later that year and ended up fighting in Bray under Desmond Fitzgerald whilst working as a milkman to support himself. He was captured and imprisoned in Mountjoy during which time he went on hungerstrike with Thomas Ashe. Ashe died from force-feeding and while McLogan survived it, he was plagued by ill health for the rest of his life. He was released on medical grounds.
    During the 1918 elections he protected speakers and supporters in South Armagh from attacks by soldiers and rose to be O/c of the brigade there. The subsequent years during the Tan War were full ones for Paddy, filled with clever arms raids and brushes with death, the police, and prison. He would be in leadership positions most of the time, and throughout his life. That he rose to do so quickly, in diverse places, and from early on is testament to his qualities as a leader of men. He was asked to help lead the North Antrim/ East Derry Brigade upon its formation, which he did until he was arrested once more in 21. Though as he was arrested under an assumed name the police continued to hunt for him on the outside.
     Paddy was appointed one of the IRA's "Evacution Officers" but resigned after it was clear the 6 Counties- including his native Armagh- were to remain under British rule. He was imprisoned by the Free State at the outset of the Civil War. While inside he became O/c of his wing and under his watch a daring escape plan was hatched in which the guards were overpowered, their keys taken, and dozens of cells were opened. The escape was ultimately unsuccessful.
      He was released in 1923. He married and in '26 he moved to Portlaoise and bought a pub on a corner of 34 Main Street which he was to run for over 30 years. "Time keeping was meticulous," writes Tim Pat Coogan, "no drunkenness or swearing was allowed." He was deeply religious and kept a personal altar in his home- behind which he stored republican documents.
    He remained on the Republican scene, both under and above ground. From 1933-38 he was a nationalist MP for South Armagh, and in 1936 chairman of Cumann Na Phblachta Eireann, whilst simultaneously still at work within the IRA. In 1924, the dark years of postwar rebuilding, he was chosen as one of the IRA's principle organizers and from then on remained a quiet but prominent and consistent figure on the army council. He was an opponent of Sean Russell and the S Plan, and stepped back, like many others did, as a result. That did not stop the Free State from interning him on account of selling Easter Lillies, and he remained in the Curragh for most of the 40's.
     Whilst inside the Curragh he met Tony Magan and Thomas og MacCurtain, and a friendship was formed that would both preserve the movement and at the same time change it. They stood out from the others for their discipline and serious commitment. For this reason, after a string of meetings and conventions in the latter half of the decade, Tony Magan was elected as Chief of Staff as it was felt he could restore the crumbling movement. McLogan and MacCurtain would help him do so.
     McLogan's first task to this end was to bring Sinn Fein under the control of the IRA, making it their much-needed political arm (links had been severed in the 20's). McLogan served as president with other volunteers in positions under him, and headed a committee that coordinated the workings of the two organizations. He was president from 50-52, and from 54-60.
    He also brought "The United Irishman" under the IRA's control. It had been set up as an independent newspaper run by republicans, mostly ex-prisoners from the 40's. It quickly gained in readership and in '48 McLogan went on their editorial board. A split ensued when he advocated blowing up customs posts and the others did not. They subsequently resigned and as a result the "United Irishman" became the IRA's press arm ("The official organ of irish Republicanism" its subhead read) up to and beyond the split in 69/70. McLogan contributed many articles and editorials to the paper. These two coups made the IRA politically stronger and in many ways defined their existence for decades to come, up to the present day.
    McLogan refused to be on the army council of the 50's and, for the most part, focused his attention on politics. He was nonetheless an important military advisor during the Border Campaign and his experience in the North during the Tan War was valuable. "He knew his people and his situation," recalls Ruairi O'Bradaigh. At one meeting he had suggested discontinuing the practice of drilling in favor of "battle schools" and in 57 McLogan felt the traditional "flying columns" were too cumbersome and should be broken down into smaller units of 5 men or so. Both of these were eventually adopted. He was also an early proponent of the idea that no action should be taken in the Free State. "He was a very resourceful person who believed he always had options. He faced difficult situations, examined his options, and then acted." Joe Cahill recalled that he believed in staging "spectaculars"- high profile operations- as a way of drumming up support and the reaction to events like the Armagh barracks raid would seem to prove his view correct.
    In 1957 he was arrested at a Sinn Fein Ard Feis. With a single exception, the entire Sinn Fein leadership was now in the Curragh, and most of the Army Council as well. McLogan was re-elected president by an Ard Feis held inside the camp. Dispatches typed on toilet paper became his primary means of communication with the outside world.
     He was released in early 1958 on account of his health (he had almost died while in the Curragh a decade earlier). In April that year he went to America to raise support, and laid groundwork for an arms smuggling network with George Harrison and a "30's man," Liam Cotter.
   In 1960 he was replaced as president of Sinn fein by Thomas Mac Goilla. The same year he was allegedly behind a campaign against Sean Cronin for, it was claimed, being a communist. Cronin was found not guilty by the Army investigation but he resigned to keep peace within the movement. An unfortunate incident but hardly unusual given the very conservative political atmosphere McLogan's generation hailed from.
   He was against the stand down in 62 and resigned from the Sinn Fein leadership as a result. He did not let this dampen his involvement though: he still remained a member of Sinn Fein and in his own capacity continued to arrange arms shipments from America in expectation of the next campaign. Though he sold his pub and retired to Blanchardstown, he did not show any signs of retiring from the struggle.
    In 1964 he was found dead in his back garden (others say his hallway) with a revolver beside him. The coroner listed his death as accidental, and indeed the revolver in question- a Walther 9mm- is prone to misfiring. However Paddy had dealt with weapons all his life and was a bit of an expert. Suicide was out of the question as he was both a devout Catholic and in high spirits. On the other hand some Republicans claimed, and still claim, he was murdered by the new leadership. An anonymous republican quoted in Sean Swan's book says people said the deed was done by him and Cathal Goulding "but it wasn't." Others suspected MI5 was involved. 50 years later his death continues to intrigue.
   He was buried in Mulhuddart, Dublin and within a year his friends had a fitting memorial erected over his grave.
   It is said McLogan did not want his arms to "fall into the hands of his ideological enemies," and what plans he did have for them he took to his grave. However under the direction of Harrison and Cotter (himself murdered in 76) the American network operated well into the 70's and 80's and was very successful in its purpose.
    Paddy Mclogan led what his former commander James Connolly would have called "a great, full life." (A friend from the 40's, Jack McCabe, was working on a biography of Paddy but it was cut short by McCabe's death.) Comrades recall him as a stern man, the result of decades of war, hardship, and loss. J Bowyer Bell describes him as "the traditional Irish conspirator...quietly weaving involved nets, placid in temperament, ice cold in contention, but easy to trust." A fellow internee recalled, "If Paddy ever went to heaven he would cause trouble there; it was in his nature to cause trouble." Paddy would have taken that as a compliment if done in the service of the Republic, to which his life was devoted.


Notes:
http://irishvolunteers.org/2013/10/paddy-mclogan-irish-volunteer/
www​.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie
"They drilled" and info on his Tan War activities from Saoirse, July 2014.
"The IRA" by Tim Pat Coogan
"The Secret Army" by J Bowyer Bell
http://www.iol.ie/~saoirse/1998/nov98/50yrsago.htm
http://homepage.eircom.net/~eirenua/may98/50yrsago.htm
"Resourceful person..." Quote from "Ruairi O'Bradaigh: Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary" by Robert White.
"He knew..." From http://www.freewebs.com/saoirse/record/record08.htm
"Spectaculars" Joe Cahill, A Life in the IRA
"But it wasn't, etc" Sean Swan, "Official Irish Republicanism"
"He didn't want his weapons...." And info on arms ring from "The American Connection by Jack Holland.
"If paddy ever went..." Quote from "The IRA in the Twilight Years." Also has a several-page tribute to him from Ruairi O'Bradaigh.



Meanwhile in Scotland: Ian Hamilton and the Stone of Scone (1950)

 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_the_Stone_of_Scone_in_1950
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3743946/Ian-Hamilton-on-Stone-of-Destiny-I-felt-I-was-holding-Scotlands-soul.html

"Scotland is a Nation
Interview with Ian Hamilton
http://www.booksfromscotland.com/Authors/Ian-Hamilton
It was the heist to end all heists. Four twentysomethings, two cars and the most unusual booty of all time. Backed with only their burning passion, a ramshackle group of idealists ventured into the heart of the British Empire to reclaim Scotland's Stone of Destiny, and settle a seven-hundred year old row. BooksfromScotland.com sent Tony Black to talk to ringleader Ian Hamilton about the 'crime' that rocked the world.

TONY BLACK: Firstly, for our readers who aren't up on their Scottish history, perhaps you could explain what the Stone of Destiny is?
IAN HAMILTON: The Stone has a long tradition. It is supposed to have been brought by the migrating Gaels from the east via the hands of Pharaoh’s daughter Scota... but that's just tradition. It was for hundreds of years kept at Scone, hence its alternative name of Stone of Scone. This was to keep it from Viking pirates in the 800s to the 1200s. As Stone of Destiny it was used by the Scottish Kings as their Coronation seat. The English call it the Coronation Stone. In 1296, when Edward of England invaded Scotland he took it away as he attempted to erase any sign of Scottish nationality. There followed the Scottish/English wars... Wallace (Braveheart) and Bruce... in which the Scots were victorious. Peace was finally made by the Treaty of Northampton in 1328. There was a clause in this by which the English undertook to return the Stone but they never did. It traditionally belongs to the Scottish people themselves not to their rulers hence the popular feeling for it. I think this latter is most important.
Edward had a special Coronation Chair made for it with a shelf underneath it to take the Stone; at present it is agreeably empty and forlorn.


TB:And you reclaimed it at a time (1950) when public feeling in Scotland, and I take this from reading your book, wasn't exactly filled with pride... you wanted to change that didn't you?

IH:1950 was still the very height of the British Empire. The Scots benefited financially from it but very nearly lost their identity to it. Ever since I was a child I had wanted to do something to try to waken the Scots to ensure that they hadn't lost their identity. The sudden and overwhelming response to the return of the Stone astonished everyone including me.


TB:One of the hallmarks of the book is the sense you convey of a young bloke caught up in momentous events -- it was one hell of an adventure wasn't it?

IH:It was a great adventure. I was a young man who had just missed action in the War by a hairsbreadth. I was a volunteer, not a conscript. I was nearly a pilot but I was just too young. Looking back we rode our luck and were carried along by the whole breathless adventure of the thing. I was caught by a night watchman and had to talk my way out, and twice we had to talk our way free of the police. We would never have used violence but four resolute youngsters, pressing on regardless, can achieve quite a lot. That's what we did. We pressed on regardless.


TB: You were a university student, and risking your entire future on this weren't you.

IH: Yes. We were risking our futures, and jail too. We were banking on the ordinary people of Scotland supporting on us. We thought it might be a forlorn hope but as always they supported their own.


TB: What did it feel like being in Westminster Abbey, in the wee hours of Christmas Day 1950, to finally get your hands on the Stone for the first time?

IH: I was too full of adrenaline to remember much. When I went back into the Abbey on my own for the fourth or so time that night, looking for the car keys which had been torn from my coat pocket as we used the coat as a sledge to drag the Stone, I stopped for a moment. I remember the utter black darkness of the place and sensed its vaulted ceiling 100ft above me, then I noticed a light at the far end, stationary, far away and tiny. Someone, an ex-serviceman from the First World War, later told me what I was looking at was the light, never extinguished, at the tomb of the Unknown warrior. This was told me by Professor Dewar Gibb my Scots Law Professor, who had been Churchill's adjutant in the trenches.


TB: And then the Stone spilt... your heat must have sank.

IH: Breaking Stone. No panic. It just made it easier to carry. I have never treated the Stone as something holy... merely as a symbol.


TB: There were a number of occasions when the wheels just about fell off your plans, when it looked like the attempt to reclaim the Stone would simply collapse; I'm thinking of the times you literally ran into police.

IH: Police. Gypsies... Yes, it was all strange, but I do underline the "press on" quality. One professional screenplay writer left out the gypsy scene saying it was too incredible for the cinema... I nearly went mad. 'The whole bloody story's incredible,' I shouted at him. The screenplay writer was Charles Martin Smith who did a great job.


TB: It's safe to say that there was a massive groundswell of support for your actions when you got back to Scotland, but how did it feel to be in the thick of it?

IH: We just played a part. I was enormously amused to hear one student 'friend' say, 'The only person who would suspect Ian Hamilton is Ian Hamilton' so we hid ourselves pretty well in our own identities.


TB: Interestingly, the powers that be never charged you and your partners in 'crime': Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson, and Alan Stuart; what do you put that down to?

TB: To this day the authorities say that they couldn't prosecute us because they couldn't prove who owned the Stone. This is nonsense. Just think if your car is stolen the police don't have to make enquiries about its true ownership. It may be your employer, or an HP company. All they have to prove is whose possession it was in at the time. It was in possession of the Dean of Westminster. All they needed was evidence of an official to say that.
It was the people of Scotland who saved us. They made it abundantly clear that there would be riots if they attempted to prosecute us.


TB: You say you never really saw Gavin, Kay and Alan after the event.

IH: Never saw them again. We weren't close friends. People have tried to couple my name with Kay Matheson's. I had addressed envelopes with her in a political office and taken her to one dance/ball. That was all. I haven't seen her for 55yrs. The others? Can't see why we should. We joined together. We did what we set out to do. We were young. We had our different ways to make in life. We went our ways. I was glad to see Alan Stuart back for the film. He was always pleased with my book. Said it was very accurate. He has always lain low... not ashamed... just a very private person.


TB: We have the Stone back in Edinburgh Castle now, returned by Tory Government in 1996, but what few people realise is, it's on loan. They've a cheek have they not?

IH: I was invited to the Stone's return on loan. I refused to go. When the woman next door returns the washing she's stolen from your line you don't drink her champagne.


TB: What do you think the Scottish people will say when they try to take it back for the next coronation?

IH: I don't know. That's one for your generation, Tony.


TB: There's a movie of your exploits now - starring Robert Carlisle - did you like it?

IH: I loved the movie. Typically the Scottish critics did everything they could to kill it. However it got standing ovations at Cannes (where it wasn't even entered in the official Festival) and likewise at Toronto Film Festival, the biggest English-speaking Festival in the world. It opens in England on December 19 and in Canada early next year. I've forgotten all the places it has been chosen for distribution. It has been extremely well received by the audiences here in Scotland.

TB: In the fifty-plus years since you reclaimed the Stone, Scotland has changed immensely. We have a devolved government, a sitting government seeking independence and a renewed sense of national pride... I think the country has much to thank Ian Hamilton for, do you think independence is on the cards?

IH: At most we spoke for our generation but we hand on a better Scotland to you than we got from our parents, but there is still much to do. We are the only nation who struck oil and became poorer as a result. We are a wealthy country yet a third of us live in poverty. Over to your generation, Tony.
Independence is inevitable. Scotland is a nation.






"The Spectator"- 28 MAY 1959, Page 29

SOUTH OF SCOTLAND

By IAN HAMILTON

The longer I live out of Scotland, the more vivid is my awareness of its own individual 't self. Or so I imagine. Even in my lyrically nation- alist adolescence, when I had never been across the border, and no farther over the sea than to Ireland, even then I never held the country so clearly in mind and imagination as I do now. As I write these words I can hear the incredulous guffaws with Which a few professional zealots, very properly laking a virtue of whatever necessity has kept them pure and undefiled by Sassenach ways, feel obliged to greet any statement by someone less virtuous than they. But no matter : if there is amething despicable in pursuing a vocation impossible of realisation at home, at least I shoulder my guilt in the company of some scores of millions of fellow-countrymen, Irishmen, Sicilians, and others of small nationalities provid- ing much ambition but little room.

No doubt this clarity is partially illusory, in some degree the product of the exile's sentimen- tality; but not very much so; otherwise I must be curiously adept at deceiving myself, for I never feel cheated when I return. On the contrary, on each successive visit I find the country even more attractive than I had remembered it, more various, more stimulating; more saddening. I know of no other country which holds in such small compass such rich and subtle variety of landscape, accent, manner, attitude, atmosphere. In Glasgow, magnificent monster of the west, one can sense more energy to the acre than to the square mile else- where. Glasgow, in this, is closer to some of its sister-cities in America than to any in Britain, but this is no mere superficial resemblance : the people of greater Glasgow—that is, the majority of the population of the entire country—are far closer in feeling to America than is generally realised. No one could say anything so alarming of Edinburgh, scarcely fifty miles to the east across the smudged midland plain. Edinburgh still retains a Victorian, North British sort of charm, stiff with a slightly dowdy, Trollopian snobbishness and froideur, and its nineteenth-century stays creak touchingly whenever it unbends. The modern Scottishness' of Edinburgh is always slightly suspect to me : a rather genteel baakward-looking, the carefully correct kilt in Princes Street, a dally- ing with old forms emptied of their wild content. Yet I love it, westerner though I am, the handsome old North British frump, and its dogged provincialism saddens me (far more than the 'Americanisation' of the west alarms me), its envy of London so mawkishly expressed in so many ways.

There is a sense of incompleteness in the air there, a feeling of loss which is easily identified and which can indeed be recognised in one form or another throughout the entire country. No amount of festivalising will lessen it; Holyrood- house could be occupied all the year round by the entire Royal Family, and it would be nowise diminished; the bureaucracy under the direct control of Scottish Ministers could be doubled, St. Andrew's House made four times more impres- sive, and it would not matter a tinker's damn. No doubt about it : Edinburgh is an empty shell so long as it does not house a national legislature.

There was a time when I would have said as much a good deal more vigorously. There was also a later time when I should have denied it with almost equal vigour. But minds are for changing; and now, without being any the wiser, I am at least aware that in such matters there is neither black nor white but only the infinite gradations of grey between. Dilemmas and contradictions abound in all directions, and since (happily) there is a lack of blessed martyrs to sweep them into insignificance by forcing the issue on purely and fanatically nationalist grounds, we must take them into account.


The present arrangements are bound to go on provincialising Scotland, body and spirit. This is the inevitable outcome of a situation in which a nation has submerged its political identity in that of a more powerful neighbour and yet maintains with a passionate stubbornness a number of forms which clearly distinguish its nationhood and which make a continuing reality of the border.

There is no doubt at all about Scottish national sentiment. The Covenant campaign proved, not very scientifically perhaps but well enough, what most people must have already known: that a great majority of Scots would 'like to see' a parliament in Edinburgh, a sufficient political expression of their strong sense of national identity. It is unlikely, though, that many seriously think in terms of separation from England. All this is extremely vague and unformed, and there is often a strong element about it of mere play with words. Liberals, for example, are Home Rulers, but they can safely promise the moon for all the likelihood of their being called on to deliver. In the General Election of 1945 most of the Labour candidates in Scotland had Home Rule as a plank in their platforms, but they shut up smartly when they were told, once they had been sent to Westminster. The Covenant campaign petered out, but not before Westminster had taken some note of the state of mind which it represented. National senti- ment has certainly not been anywhere near the point of crystallising into effective political terms, but that is not to say that it never will. The temper of opinion is often shown more obliquely, as when the use of agents provocateurs to break up small 'republican' organisations caused a certain revul- sion of feeling. Then there was the complete reversal of public opinion during the weeks when Scotland Yard searched in vain for the Stone of Destiny and failed to get their hands finally on the undergraduates who had taken it. As time passed the initial feeling of pious outrage (as expressed in the newspapers) was replaced by something very different, and repeated assurances of alarm and despondency among the very highest in the south did nothing to arrest the trend : on the contrary, when the truth was out at laSt it was politically impossible for the police to take any action at alL.

    I know very little, God knows, but that little is quite enough now to prevent me from saying that this or that is the line to take, and all others be damned. I know that I have a loyalty to that co plex which I call my country, and that it is not in my nature to think of it either as a recreation ground bright with Ye Olde Tartanne or as an industrial area into which North American capital can increasingly pour. If somebody at this point in time were to get me into a corner and force me to express myself positively I should say : (1) Nationalism is an abhorrent force; (2) London's preponderance is far too great and is draining the spirit out of Scotland, and not only Scotland; (3) The rational solution in the end will be a federation which will restore to Scotland its national dignity, allow Wales to be itself, and make possible (when the last representa- tives of the old intransigent generations have gone to better things) a breaking of the Irish deadlock; (4) In that happy event we should make some attempt to be 'Scottish' with as little conscious effort as the English are 'English,' for there are few things more painful than the two basic attitudes—on the one hand, 'Him; I kcnnt his faither!' and, on the other, 'Wha's like us?'

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Cork Volunteers Pipe Band- Part 2

 Here is Part Two of Jim Lane's history on the Cork Volunteers Pipe band, covering from the War of Independence to the 1930's:

http://rebelcorksfightingstory.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/cork-volunteers-pipe-band-no-2-in-series/

Part One was posted about here:
http://laochrauladh.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-cork-volunteer-pipe-band.html

Thanks to Jim Lane and Johnny at the RebelCork'sFightingStory blog

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Bodenstown Color Party- 1958


Meanwhile in Cornwall: Mebyon Kernow founded, 1951

   While the IRA was reorganizing itself, a short distance across the water the small nation of Cornwall was slowly reawakening. The Cornish are an ancient people, with their own culture and language (of the Brythonic Celtic language). The formation of Mebyon Kernow in 1951 led to a political and cultural revival in the region after decades of poverty and socio-political neglect.
The group does great work in the Cornish community today and you can read more about them here: https://www.mebyonkernow.org/

Chris Dunkerley: Mebyon Kernow – 60 Years on – and still looking good!
December 3, 2010

As Mebyon Kernow – The Party for Cornwall, held its National Conference last month, and now looks to build for the future of the Duchy, it also looks back over the past 60 years that have been significant for Kernow.

The early years
The inaugural meeting of what was called just Mebyon Kernow (meaning Sons of Cornwall in Kernewek) took place almost 60 years ago, on Saturday 6th January 1951, at Oates Hotel in Redruth.

There were thirteen people present and a further seven sent their apologies. Among that score of founder members were four future Grand Bards and a future university professor, and  more.

Helena Charles was elected Chairman, with Lambert Truran as Secretary and George Pawley White as Treasurer. (Although Helena and Pawley have now passed on, Lambert lives  in Western Australia still supporting the Cornish cause).

This initial meeting also adopted the seven original aims of the new organisation:-

1. To study local conditions and attempt to remedy any that may be prejudicial to the best interests of Cornwall by the creation of public opinion or other means.
2. To foster the Cornish Language and Literature.
3. To encourage the study of Cornish history from a Cornish point of view.
4. By self knowledge to further the acceptance of the idea of the Celtic character of Cornwall, one of the six Celtic Nations.
5. To publish pamphlets, broadsheets, articles and letters in the Press whenever possible, putting forward the foregoing aims.
6. To arrange concerts and entertainments with a Cornish-Celtic flavour through which these aims can be further advanced.
7. To cooperate with all societies concerned with preserving the character of Cornwall.

From its earliest days, Mebyon Kernow was openly political and by September 1951, the organisation had officially committed itself to Cornish self-government. The fourth  aim was modified: ‘ to further the acceptance of the Celtic character of Cornwall and its right to self-government in domestic affairs in a Federated United Kingdom. ‘

Helena Charles led the party for the first four years and was also the first person to put MK policies to the electorate, winning a seat on Redruth-Camborne Urban District Council in 1953, fighting under the slogan ‘A Square Deal for the Cornish.’  A member of Gorsedh Kernow under the Bardic name of Maghteth Boudycca (‘Daughter of Boudicca’), she was succeeded as Chairman of MK by Major Cecil Beer in the late 1950s.

Its first two decades saw MK grow from a small band of committed enthusiasts, into  a movement supported by thousands.

Robert Dunstone (Truro) led the party throughout much of the 1960s, before Len Truran (Redruth) took the helm later in the decade. Any list of initiatives taken by Mebyon Kernow in these early years would be very long indeed. Well known political campaigns include those for a Cornish University, a Cornish Industrial Board or Development Agency, opposition to London Overspill, support for traditional Cornish industries, opposition to railway closures and help for Heligoland Freisans who wished to return to their land which was being used as a bombing range by the British government in the mid 1950s.

Mebyon Kernow prepared numerous reports on important policy areas, including Cornish University (30 years before the Lib Dem equivalent), integrated transport system, economic development, education, fishing, mining, broadcasting and local government reform.

The party was also instrumental in promoting Cornwall’s distinctive identity, with many party members also to the forefront of the Cornish Language revival. MK members worked to promote the use of the Cornish Flag of St Piran, to support Cornish sports like wrestling and to commemorate Cornish figures of the past. In 1966 MK erected the plaque memorial to An Gof and Flamank at St Keverne Church where annual commemorations have been held ever since.
http://www.cornwall24.net/2010/12/chris-dunkerley-mebyon-kernow-60-years-on-and-still-looking-good/

“Until the Government of Britain is decentralised and local government made really responsible, we shall continue to endure the present state of affairs, in which an anonymous clerk, in Bristol or London, can make decisions vitally affecting rates in this Unban District.  The devolution of power can only come about if voters in Cornwall, and elsewhere, accept their responsibilities as electors.”
Helena Charles, election leaflet 1952


Thomas Davis

(Oil on canvas painting by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin- see more of his work here:  http://gaelart.net/)

Decent Intro:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Davis_(Young_Irelander)

  Various online versions of his autobiography, "Memoirs of an Irish Patriot"
https://archive.org/details/thomasdavismemoi00duff


The full text of a fair few of his essays and poems:
http://www.readbookonline.net/books/Davis/1296/



"Ways and means of Self Education"

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/58609/

"What good were it for me to manufacture perfect iron while my own breast is full of dross? What would it stead me to put properties of land in order, while I am at variance with myself? To speak it in a word: the cultivation of my individual self, here as I am, has from my youth upwards been constantly though dimly my wish and my purpose."
"Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect; that every one should study to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things by every method in his power. For no man can bear to be entirely deprived of such enjoyments; it is only because they are not used to taste of what is excellent, that the generality of people take delight in silly and insipid things, provided they be new. For this reason, he would add, 'one ought at least every day to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.'"--Goethe.

We have been often asked by certain of the Temperance Societies to give them some advice on Self-Education. Lately we promised one of these bodies to write some hints as to how the members of it could use their association for their mental improvement.

We said, and say again, that the Temperance Societies can be made use of by the people for their instruction as well as pleasure. Assemblies of any kind are not the best places either for study or invention. Home or solitude are better--home is the great teacher. In domestic business we learn mechanical skill, the nature of those material bodies with which we have most to deal in life--we learn labour by example and by kindly precepts--we learn (in a prudent home) decorum, cleanliness, order--in a virtuous home we learn more than these: we learn reverence for the old, affection without passion, truth, piety, and justice. These are the greatest things man can know. Having these he is well; without them attainments of wealth or talent are of little worth. Home is the great teacher; and its teaching passes down in honest homes from generation to generation, and neither the generation that gives, nor the generation that takes it, lays down plans for bringing it to pass.

Again, to come to designed learning. We learn arts and professions by apprenticeships, that is, much after the fashion we learned walking, or stitching, or fire-making, or love-making at home--by example, precept, and practice combined. Apprentices at anything, from ditching, basket-work, or watch-making, to merchant-trading, legislation, or surgery, submit either to a nominal or an actual apprenticeship. They see other men do these things, they desire to do the same, and they learn to do so by watching how, and when, and asking, or guessing why each part of the business is done; and as fast as they know, or are supposed to know, any one part, whether it be sloping the ditch, or totting the accounts, or dressing the limb, they begin to do that, and, being directed when they fail, they learn at last to do it well, and are thereby prepared to attempt some other or harder part of the business.

Thus it is by experience--or trying to do, and often doing a thing--combined with teaching or seeing, and being told how and why other people more experienced do that thing, that most of the practical business of life is learned.

In some trades, formal apprenticeship and planned teaching exist as little as in ordinary home-teaching. Few men are of set purpose taught to dig; and just as few are taught to legislate.

Where formal teaching is usual, as in what are called learned professions, and in delicate trades, fewer men know anything of these businesses. Those who learn them at all do so exactly and fully, but commonly practise them in a formal and technical way, and invent and improve them little. In those occupations which most men take up casually--as book-writing, digging, singing, and legislation, and the like--there is much less exact knowledge, less form, more originality and progress, and more of the public know something about them in an unprofessional way.

The Caste system of India, Egypt, and Ancient Ireland carried out the formal apprenticeship plan to its full extent. The United States of America have very little of it. Modern Europe is between the two, as she has in most things abolished caste or hereditary professions (kings and nobles excepted), but has, in many things, retained exact apprenticeships.

Marriage, and the bringing up of children, the employment of dependants, travel, and daily sights and society, are our chief teachers of morals, sentiment, taste, prudence and manners. Mechanical and literary skill of all sorts, and most accomplishments, are usually picked up in this same way.

We have said all this lest our less-instructed readers should fall into a mistake common to all beginners in study, that books, and schooling, and lectures, are the chief teachers in life; whereas most of the things we learn here are learned from the experience of home, and of the practical parts of our trades and amusements.

We pray our humbler friends to think long and often on this.

But let them not suppose we undervalue or wish them to neglect other kinds of teaching; on the contrary, they should mark how much the influences of home, and business, and society, are affected by the quantity and sort of their scholarship.

Home life is obviously enough affected by education. Where the parents read and write, the children learn to do so too, early in life and with little trouble; where they know something of their religious creed they give its rites a higher meaning than mere forms; where they know the history of the country well, every field, every old tower or arch is a subject of amusement, of fine old stories, and fine young hopes; where they know the nature of other people and countries, their own country and people become texts to be commented on, and likewise supply a living comment on those peculiarities of which they have read.

Again, where the members of a family can read aloud, or play, or sing, they have a well of pleasant thoughts and good feelings which can hardly be dried or frozen up; and so of other things.

And in the trades and professions of life, to study in books the objects, customs, and rules of that trade or profession to which you are going saves time, enables you to improve your practice of it, and makes you less dependent on the teaching of other practitioners, who are often interested in delaying you.

In these, and a thousand ways besides, study and science produce the best effects upon the practical parts of life.

Besides, the first business of life is the improvement of one's own heart and mind. The study of the thoughts and deeds of great men, the laws of human, and animal, and vegetable, and lifeless nature, the principles of fine and mechanical arts, and of morals, society, and religion--all directly give us nobler and greater desires, more wide and generous judgments, and more refined pleasures.

Learning in this latter sense may be got either at home or at school, by solitary study, or in associations. Home learning depends, of course, on the knowledge, good sense, and leisure of the parents. The German Jean Paul, the American Emerson, and others of an inferior sort, have written deep and fruitful truths on bringing up and teaching at home. Yet, considering its importance, it has not been sufficiently studied. Upon schools much has been written. Almost all the private schools in this country are bad. They merely cram the memories of pupils with facts or words, without developing their judgment, taste, or invention, or teaching them the application of any knowledge. Besides, the things taught are commonly those least worth learning. This is especially true of the middle and richer classes. Instead of being taught the nature, products, and history, first of their own, and then of other countries, they are buried in classical frivolities, languages which they never master, and manners and races which they cannot appreciate. Instead of being disciplined to think exactly, to speak and write accurately, they are crammed with rules and taught to repeat forms by rote.

The National Schools are a vast improvement on anything hitherto in this country, but still they have great faults. From the miserably small grant the teachers are badly paid, and, therefore, hastily and meagrely educated.

The maps, drawing, and musical instruments, museums and scientific apparatus, which should be in every school, are mostly wanting altogether. The books, also, are defective.

The information has the worst fault of the French system: it is too exclusively on physical science and natural history. Fancy a National School which teaches the children no more of the state and history of Ireland than of Belgium or Japan! We have spoken to pupils, nay, to masters of the National Schools, who were ignorant of the physical character of every part of Ireland except their native villages--who knew not how the people lived, or died, or sported, or fought--who had never heard of Tara, Clontarf, Limerick, or Dungannon--to whom the O'Neills and Sarsfields, the Swifts and Sternes, the Grattans and Barrys, our generals, statesmen, authors, orators, and artists, were alike and utterly unknown! Even the hedge schools kept up something of the romance, history, and music of the country.

Until the National Schools fall under national control, the people must take diligent care to procure books on the history, men, language, music, and manners of Ireland for their children. These schools are very good so far as they go, and the children should be sent to them; but they are not national, they do not use the Irish language, nor teach anything peculiarly Irish.

As to solitary study, lists of books, pictures, and maps can alone be given; and to do this usefully would exceed our space at present.

As it is, we find that we have no more room and have not said a word on what we proposed to write--namely, Self-Education through the Temperance Societies.

We do not regret having wandered from our professed subject, as, if treated exclusively, it might lead men into errors which no afterthought could cure.

What we chiefly desire is to set the people on making out plans for their own and their children's education. Thinking cannot be done by deputy--they must think for themselves.






"Influences Of Education"
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/58634/


"Educate, that you may be free." We are most anxious to get the quiet, strong-minded People who are scattered through the country to see the force of this great truth; and we therefore ask them to listen soberly to us for a few minutes, and when they have done to think and talk again and again over what we say.

If Ireland had all the elements of a nation, she might, and surely would, at once assume the forms of one, and proclaim her independence. Wherein does she now differ from Prussia? She has a strong and compact territory, girt by the sea; Prussia's lands are open and flat, and flung loosely through Europe, without mountain or river, breed or tongue, to bound them. Ireland has a military population equal to the recruitment of, and a produce able to pay, a first-rate army. Her harbours, her soil, and her fisheries are not surpassed in Europe.

Wherein, we ask again, does Ireland now differ from Prussia? Why can Prussia wave her flag among the proudest in Europe, while Ireland is a farm?

It is not in the name of a kingdom, nor in the formalities of independence. We could assume them to-morrow--we could assume them with better warrants from history and nature than Prussia holds; but the result of such assumption would perchance be a miserable defeat.

The difference is in Knowledge. Were the offices of Prussia abolished to-morrow--her colleges and schools levelled--her troops disarmed and disbanded, she would within six months regain her whole civil and military institutions. Ireland has been struggling for years, and may have to struggle many more, to acquire liberty to form institutions.

Whence is the difference? Knowledge!

The Prussians could, at a week's notice, have their central offices at full work in any village in the kingdom, so exactly known are their statistics, and so general is official skill. Minds make administration--all the desks, and ledgers, and powers of Downing Street or the Castle would be handed in vain to the ignorants of ---- any untaught district in Ireland. The Prussians could open their collegiate classes and their professional and elementary schools as fast as the order therefor, from any authority recognised by the People, reached town after town--we can hardly in ten years get a few schools open for our people, craving for knowledge as they are. The Prussians could re-arm their glorious militia in a month, and re-organise it in three days; for the mechanical arts are very generally known, military science is familiar to most of the wealthier men, discipline and a soldier's skill are universal. If we had been offered arms to defend Ireland by Lord Heytesbury, as the Volunteers were by Lord Buckinghamshire, we would have had to seek for officers and drill-sergeants--though probably we could more rapidly advance in arms than anything else, from the military taste and aptness for war of the Irish People.

Would it not be better for us to be like the Prussians than as we are--better to have religious squabbles unknown, education universal, the People fed, and clad, and housed, and independent as becomes men; the army patriotic and strong; the public offices ably administered; the nation honoured and powerful? Are not these to be desired and sought by Protestant and Catholic? Are not these things to be done, if we are good and brave men? And is it not plain, from what we have said, that the reason for our not being all that Prussia is, and something more, is ignorance--want of civil and military and general knowledge amongst all classes?

This ignorance has not been our fault, but our misfortune. It was the interest of our ruler to keep us ignorant, that we might be weak; and she did so--first by laws, prohibiting education; then by refusing any provision for it; next, by perverting it into an engine of bigotry; and now, by giving it in a stunted, partial, anti-national way. Practice is the great teacher, and the possession of independence is the natural and best way for a People to learn all that pertains to freedom and happiness. Our greatest voluntary efforts, aided by the amplest provincial institutions, would teach us less in a century than we would learn in five years of Liberty.

In insisting on education we do not argue against the value of immediate independence. That would be our best teacher. An Irish Government and a national ambition would be to our minds as soft rains and rich sun to a growing crop. But we insist on education for the People, whether we get it from the Government or give it to themselves as a round-about, and yet the only, means of getting strength enough to gain freedom.

Do our readers understand this? Is what we have said clear to you, reader!--whether you are a shopkeeper or a lawyer, a farmer or a doctor? If not, read it over again, for it is your own fault if it be not clear. If you now know our meaning, you must feel that it is your duty to your family and to yourself, to your country and to God, to act upon it, to go and remove some of that ignorance which makes you and your neighbours weak, and therefore makes Ireland a poor province.

All of us have much to learn, but some of us have much to teach.

To those who, from superior energy and ability, can teach the People, we now address ourselves.

We have often before and shall often again repeat, that the majority of our population can neither read nor write, and therefore that from the small minority must come those fitted to be of any civil or military use beyond the lowest rank. The People may be and are honest, brave, and intelligent; but a man could as well dig with his hands as govern, or teach, or lead without the elements of Knowledge.

This however, is a defect which time and the National Schools must cure; and the duty of the class to which we speak is to urge the establishment of such Schools, the attendance of the children at them, and occasionally to observe and report, either directly or through the Press, whether the admirable rules of the Board are attended to. In most cases, too, the expenditure of a pound-note and a little time and advice would give the children of a school that instruction in national history and in statistics so shamefully omitted by the Board. Reader! will you do this?

Then of the three hundred Repeal Reading-rooms we know that some, and fear that many, are ill-managed, have few or no books, and are mere gossiping-rooms. Such a room is useless; such a room is a disgrace to its members and their educated neighbours. The expense having been gone to of getting a room, it only remains for the members to establish fixed rules, and they will be supplied with the Association Reports (political reading enough for them), and it will be the plain duty of the Repeal Wardens to bring to such a room the newspapers supplied by the Association. If such a body continue and give proofs of being in earnest, the Repeal Association will aid it by gifts of books, maps, etc., and thus a library, the centre of knowledge and nursery of useful and strong minds, will be made in that district. So miserably off is the country for books, that we have it before us on some authority that there are ten counties in Ireland without a single book-seller in them. We blush for the fact; it is a disgrace to us; but we must have no lying or flinching. There is the hard fact; let us face it like men who are able for a difficulty--not as children putting their heads under the clothes when there is danger. Reader! cannot you do something to remedy this great, this disabling misery of Ireland? Will not you now try to get up a Repeal Reading-room, and when one is established get for it good rules, books from the Association, and make it a centre of thought and power?

These are but some of the ways in which such service can be done by the more for the less educated. They have other duties often pointed out by us. They can sustain and advance the different societies for promoting agriculture, manufactures, art, and literature in Dublin and the country. They can set on foot and guide the establishment of Temperance Bands, and Mechanics' Institutes, and Mutual Instruction Societies. They can give advice and facilities for improvement to young men of promise; and they can make their circles studious, refined, and ambitious, instead of being, like too many in Ireland, ignorant, coarse, and lazy. The cheapness of books is now such that even Irish poverty is no excuse for Irish ignorance--that ignorance which prostrates us before England. We must help ourselves, and therefore we must educate ourselves.



[The end]
Thomas Davis's essay: Influences Of Education




(Some of his best-known songs:)

The Wests Awake

I.

When all beside a vigil keep,
The West's asleep, the West's asleep--
Alas! and well may Erin weep,
When Connaught lies in slumber deep.
There lake and plain smile fair and free,
'Mid rocks--their guardian chivalry--
Sing oh! let man learn liberty
From crashing wind and lashing sea.


II.

That chainless wave and lovely land
Freedom and Nationhood demand--
Be sure, the great God never planned,
For slumbering slaves, a home so grand.
And, long, a brave and haughty race
Honoured and sentinelled the place--
Sing oh! not even their sons' disgrace
Can quite destroy their glory's trace.


III.

For often, in O'Connor's van,
To triumph dashed each Connaught clan--
And fleet as deer the Normans ran
Through Corlieu's Pass and Ardrahan.
And later times saw deeds as brave;
And glory guards Clanricarde's grave--
Sing oh! they died their land to save,
At Aughrim's slopes and Shannon's wave.


IV.

And if, when all a vigil keep,
The West's asleep, the West's asleep--
Alas! and well may Erin weep,
That Connaught lies in slumber deep.
But, hark! some voice like thunder spake:
"The West's awake! the West's awake!"--
"Sing oh! hurra! let England quake,
We'll watch till death for Erin's sake!"


Bodenstown Churchyard/ Tone's Grave

In Bodenstown Churchyard there is a green grave
And wildly around it the wintry winds rave
Small shelter I ween are the ruined walls there
As the storm sweeps down over the plains of Kildare

Once I lay on that sod, it lies o'er Wolfetone
And thought how he perished in prison alone
His friends unavenged and his country unfreed
"Oh bitter" I said "is the patriots meed"

For in him the heart of a woman combined
With a heroic life and a governing mind
A martyr for Ireland, his grave has no stone
His name seldom named and his virtues unknown

I was woke from my dream by the voices and tread
Of a band that came into the home of the dead
They carried no corpse and they carried no stone
And they stopped when they came to the grave of Wolfetone

There were students and peasants, the wise and the brave
And an old man who knew him from cradle to grave
And children who thought me hard-hearted for they
On that sanctified sod were forbidden to play

But the old man who saw I was mourning there said
"We come sir to weep where young Wolfetone is laid
And we're going to raise him a monument too
A plain one yet fit for the simple and true"

My heart overflowed and I clasped his old hand
I blessed him and blessed everyone in his band
Sweet sweet is to find that such faith can remain
To a man and a cause so long vanquished and slain

In Bodenstown Churchyard there is a green grave
And freely around it let wintry winds rave
For better they suit him, the ruin and the gloom
'Till Ireland a nation can build him a tomb


A Nation Once Again


When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen,
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
Three hundred men and three men;
And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be.
A Nation once again!

A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And lreland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!

And from that time, through wildest woe,
That hope has shone a far light,
Nor could love's brightest summer glow
Outshine that solemn starlight;
It seemed to watch above my head
In forum, field and fane,
Its angel voice sang round my bed,
A Nation once again!

It whisper'd too, that freedom's ark
And service high and holy,
Would be profaned by feelings dark
And passions vain or lowly;
For, Freedom comes from God's right hand,
And needs a Godly train;
And righteous men must make our land
A Nation once again!

So, as I grew from boy to man,
I bent me to that bidding
My spirit of each selfish plan
And cruel passion ridding;
For, thus I hoped some day to aid,
Oh, can such hope be vain ?
When my dear country shall be made
A Nation once again!


Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Kevin Neville- 50th Anniversary


 An article on the life of Kevin Keville from the "Rebel Cork's Fighting Story" blog, along with some wonderful pictures:
http://rebelcorksfightingstory.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/kevin-neville-irish-freedom-fighter/

Some of his prison crafts:

http://rebelcorksfightingstory.wordpress.com/kevin-neville/celtic-cross-from-the-curragh/

http://rebelcorksfightingstory.wordpress.com/kevin-neville/1916-handkerchief/

A poem written about him:
http://rebelcorksfightingstory.wordpress.com/kevin-neville/a-tribute-kevin-neville/


Some photos from a small 50th Anniversary Commemoration at his grave. (Jim Lane in suit with sunglasses.)






(Thanks to the "Rebel Cork's Fighting Story" blog and FB page for ll 
the articles and pictures, excellent work. if anyone reading this
has known Kevin or can contribute, please do get in touch with them.