The Irish peasants were bewitched by the church who were everything O’Connell could wish them to be, middle-class little Englanders. What Ireland needed was brave men to wake the nation up. You forget that the modes of production were still largely in the hands of Unionists, Paddy voted for who he was told or the bossman would have him. Thankfully we still had some men with conviction left on the Island.
Brave men like the fervent Catholics Pearse and Dev.
Lucky we didn’t end up with Rome Rule aren’t we.
Dev is probably the greatest cunt in Irish history… I’ve nothing against Pearse but no major love for him either. You’ll never get it, pal. It’s an Irish thing. You had 800 years there of taking and doing what you want. Stripping us of our land, customs, language- enacting penal laws and then committing mass genocide in 1846-1850. It doesn’t matter how we got you out, youre out now and good riddance. We will see the 32 too- it may take another 800 years but by fuck we will get the lot back. You can quote second rate historians and spout mandates all you want. You reduced this country to eating dirt and a few brave men rose above that and saw what we could do given a push. I’ll drink the fuck out of the next few years to them and their sacrifices. Tiocfaidh ar la.
1 Like
Who were these great anti Church men? Are you a Marxist like that guy from that part of Edinburgh with the Three Sisters pub?
[/quote]
Dev is probably the greatest cunt in Irish history…
[/quote]
A rugby playing, Charleville educated, Bruree cunt.
4 Likes
I find that Coogan is an odd mix. He is virulently and often comically anti De Valera. Some of the stuff he has written over the years is simply farcical. Yet he was well enough in to get the gig of editing/destroying the Irish Press. He was such an awful editor of the newspaper I’ve often wondered was it some Producers type wheeze to get out of the publishing business. And then on the other hand he was painting himself as a friend of the Provos.
Anyway as to your point about the size of the SF vote you choose to ignore the fact that 25 SF strongholds didn’t vote at all. That’s fine, of course, as it is of course only speculation as to which way they would have voted.
Your refusal to acknowledge the dual aspect of voter intimidation is damning though. If you cite the island wide vote but fail to acknowdge that in IPP strongholds in the South - of which there were a number, there was mutual intimidation but far more concerning would be the failure to note that in the North that there was vicious anti nationalist intimidation, most particularly in Belfast.
1 Like
And ??? It’s just as amateur as mens.
TOM CLARKE AND THE FIRST DAY OF THE REPUBLIC
by Constance Markievicz
The first day I met and talked with Tom Clarke I shall never forget. It stands in my memory as the first milestone, on the dark and obliterated path where I was wandering, that told me definitely and surely that somehow or other I had blundered onto the right road. That Freedom for Ireland lay within measurable distance, and that it dependend on our own capacity of endurance, our own faith, our own courage, whether we, in our generation, would march into our inheritance of freedom with flying colours and drums rolling.
Tom Clarke stood behind the counter of his little shop; he was forced to attend to business, for he had to live, and his wife and children must be provided for. Both he and Mrs Clarke found the highest expression of their love for each other in the absolute oneness of their love for Ireland, and their ambition to devote their lives to her cause; their desire, too, to train up their boys in the Fenian faith, and worthy to be the nephews of that great Fenian, John Daly, Mrs Clarke’s uncle, who, boy and man, had worked and suffered and lain half a lifetime in an English jail, and, who, crippled and old before his time, still kept his boyish enthusiasm, still devoting every moment of his life to the work, cheering, urging and encouraging the rising generation to carry on the fight for Ireland’s freedom. It was to his house that Tom Clarke came on his release from prison. Together they suffered and hoped and planned, only to plan and hope and suffer again.
Tom Clarke had been forced to emigrate, for Republicans who had attempted to carry out the Fenian programme were not the men whom the party in power, the Home Rule Party, delighted to honour; they were dangerous men who might incite the young men to again attempt to achieve Ireland’s independence. It was dangerous to challenge an Empire with arms in your hands. The fight “on the floor of the House” was far safer, and also very remunerative. The party had become very respectable, men of position and property were among them, and they did not want these disturbers only creating trouble in Ireland again when it wasn’t necessary, and Home Rule would be got by the efforts that they were making at “no far distant date”.
To a man of Tom Clarke’s ability, America was but an opportunity to get on and make good, and he built up a happy and prosperous life there for himself. But his heart was always across the Atlantic, wondering and hoping and planning, and directly he saw the chance of being able to make a living in Ireland he returned home, happy in being able to sacrifice his prosperity, happiness and success in America for the hope that was in him; the unquenchable hope that his brain and hand might help to guide the people he loved back from all the trickery and demoralisation that had come from the long, foolish years wasted in arguing at Westminster, hat in hand, to the straight and only path that leads to Ireland’s freedom.
As I stood looking at him across the counter, I somehow realised the power and greatness of this man, his “unbreakable strength of soul”, as Pearse put it in speaking of another great Fenian.
All that I had heard of him came rushing into my head. I saw the impulsive and steadfast lad who had left America at 18 on a Fenian mission to take his place as just one of the rank and file who obeyed orders unquestioningly. Arrested in connection with a dynamite plot, he suffered for 16 years in English convict prisons. Starved on the miserable pittance of bad food that you get doled out to you in such places, and put to work far too severe for a young and fragile boy, he suffered terribly. Working in the prison foundry, he was burnt time after time by the heavy molten bars, too heavy for him to handle, slipping against his legs. With all the cruelty and all the misery that was heaped on him during those16 long years, his character but grew stronger, his love for Ireland deeper, and, on his release, there was no looking for his own welfare, no making capital out of his own sufferings, no exploiting or living on the movement, but quietly and earnestly he took up the work to which, in the enthusiasm of his wonderful youth, he had pledged himself.
The thing that struck you first about him was his eyes, they were so bright and alert. You did not see that they were brown because they seemed so full of light; they were like a searchlight turned on you, and only afterwards you noticed the colour and found out how kindly they were and how they softened the fierce, bushy eyebrows under which they were closely set.
His forehead was high, beginning to get bald where it broadened at the top, with wavy, greying curls about his ears, his nose thin and rather large, his face a ruddy brown with sunburn, his mouth hidden by a heavy dark moustache, the whole set on a thin neck held over a slim, wiry body. His hands were very characteristic: the long, sensitive fingers seemed longer through their thinness, and the deft rapidity of their movements seemed to suggest some strange vital force and an energy of life that could inspire dying men to rise and do the work of heroes.
This man’s personality had in it something strange and wonderful, some heritage from his anecstry of the O’Clearys, who were of those poets and scholars who inspired the Gaels of past generations, and which gave him the power to inspire the Gaels of his own time and unite and hold together those who were striving to find a way to achieve the freedom of Ireland. Contemplating his broken and sacrificed life, out of which his spirit had risen free and girt with immortal strength the unbroken and indomitable courage of him, and the strength of purpose that held him, small and mean men visioned his vision and answered the call of his soul. They rose above their meanness and for a while forgot self, and made sacrifices, standing with him in undivided allegiance to their country’s cause.
Tom Clarke always shrank from the limelight. Publicity and notoreity were most abhorrent to him, consequently he was not much known outside the movement and many who had the privilege of knowing him little realised all that he had gone through. He never talked of himself, and only when you asked him point blank questions about his prison life or the work he had done would he talk of it, his great courtesy making it impossible for him to refuse you.
Interest in your schemes, encouragement for your hopes, support in your hours of despair was what you got from him. Many is the word of help and encouragement I got from him when we first started the Fianna, and the people were more inclined to laugh at than help the Boy Army, organising quite frankly and openly to fight the powerful foe. His advice was always so well thought out and so sound, and the little shop at the corner of Parnell Street so handy, that one could always find a moment to run in and hear what he had to say on any trouble or complication that might arise.
Occasionally he was drawn out of his shell, and took up the position that was his by right in Ireland. I remember him presiding over the great annual memorial concert in honour of Robert Emmet and of the dead generations of Ireland’s heroes, where Irishmen gather together to reverence the dead, to learn off them the gospel of freedom, and to silently pledge themselves to carry on the work.
He stood, too, a prominent figure in the crowd around the grave of O’Donovan Rossa, when, in response to Padraig Pearse, we did “renew our baptismal vows and rededicate our lives to Ireland”; he was the link and the living inspiration between that dead Fenian and the young, true hearts that were preparing to carry on the work.
I recall him, too, as standing by Wolfe Tone’s grave. He gave his message surrounded by the young army of Volunteers that were the fruit of his efforts and the efforts of his comrades. The vision of freedom was in his eyes, and looking in his eyes we got a glimpse of the promised land.
I saw him, too, when despair had hold of us that terrible Easter Sunday when Professor Eoin MacNeill and Mr B Hobson had treacherously acted a coward’s part, secretly through the IRB, and publicly through the daily papers, proclaimed that the hosting of the Volunteers that had been fixed for that day had been postponed. I read the paper and was stunned. I raced down to Liberty Hall heartbroken and found James Connolly and Sean MacDiarmada sitting with him at a table in Connolly’s bedroom.
“What has happened?” said I. “MacNeill has cut the ground from under our feet,” said he. I began to lament and question them, he cut me short with, “It will be all right, we are going on, it will only mean a little delay.” When he said this he must have known that McNeill’s action had taken from us the little chance that we had of winning, or even of holding out for long enough to create that public opinion that might have saved his life and the lives of the other leaders. Postponement of the rising had by now become quite impossible; too many people had begun to smell a rat, therefore, this “call off” had created a situation out of which there were only two ways: the one way was to abandon all thoughts of a rising, the other was to go on with it, though, for the leaders, it was going out to certain death.
The busiest day I ever lived through was that day in Liberty Hall. Messengers came and went, and the Provisional Government of the Republic sat the whole day in Connolly’s little room, sentries on guard at the door. I was in there for one moment on business. Tom Clarke presided in the centre of the table facing the door. Connolly was on his left, Sean MacDiarmada on his right, Pearse was nearer the window on his right. They were all quite cheerful – the cloud had passed.
The day dragged through somehow, the night passed with little rest for anyone, and next morning we were all at our posts at cockcrow, everybody in the highest spirits. The hour so anxiously awaited, so eagerly expected, had come at last. Our heart’s desire was granted to us, and we counted ourselves lucky. Happy, proud and gay was Tom Clarke on that day. His life’s work had borne fruit at last; Ireland was reborn, and brave sons and daughters were rallied to win her rights. We met for a few minutes just before the time fixed to march out. It seems queer, looking back on it, how no-one spoke of death or fear or defeat.
I remember saying goodbye to Tom Clarke, just at the door of Dr Kathleen Lynn’s little surgery, which we had all been having a look at before we started. We then went downstairs, and each man joined up with his little band. I stood on the steps and watched the little troop destined to make history in the GPO wheel away to the left down Abbey Street, marching proudly, confident that they were doing right, sure at last that they had made the subjection of Ireland impossible for years to come.
So Tom Clarke’s life passed, even as passed the lives of his spiritual kinsmen, Tone and Emmet. He lies in a quicklime grave, unconquered and unconquerable. We do not mourn him, rather do we rejoice that he has been spared the bitterness that is worse than a thousand deaths, the bitterness of living to know treason, surrender and shame. The bitterness of seeing men who had been at one with him in 1916, today desecrate the graves in which lie the martyred comrades whose cause they have surrendered. Men who shared the dreams and hopes of the holy dead, now using the graves in Arbour Hill to parade their treachery, and to try and delude the people into believing that they have accomplished the task that the dead men were pledged to serve. Apostates, whose lips are soiled with false oath, whose hands are red with patriots’ blood.
Oh! dead men, our leaders, pray for Ireland today, pray that strength may be given to the faithful to keep the vows they renewed yet once more this tragic Eastertide
Eire, May 26, 1923
2 Likes
@ChocolateMice reduced to copy & paste scutter. O’Dowd has you by the balls for all your spoofology. Reamed…
My grandmother was a second cousin of Thomas Clarke.
1 Like
She was in her hole.
1 Like
What are you on about, mate? I merely posted a piece I came across… I think that’s what the thread is for, pal. I’ll introduce it the next time so you can keep up… I know there’s no real flow between posts here and it can be hard to follow…
Clarke is one of the greatest Irishmen of all time. Married into the greatest Limerick family of all time.
I’m watching the rugby football now Fagan, I’ll come back to this later.
Today in Irish History: 23 September 1920 – Sinn Féin County Councilor John Lynch of Kilmallock, Limerick was assassinated by British agents at the Exchange Hotel Dublin.
At 1.15 am Captain Geoffrey Thomas Baggallay, a “one-legged” courts-martial officer had phoned Dublin Castle telling of John Lynch’s presence at the Exchange Hotel. A group of 12 soldiers entered the Exchange Hotel, wearing military caps and long black Burberry coats. They held the hotel porter, William Barrett, at gunpoint. After consulting the register they went to the bedroom of John Lynch. It was number 6 on the third floor, where John Lynch had been staying since 12 Sept.
They shot him and the soldiers left; the soldiers claimed Lynch had fired a shot at them when they attempted to arrest him. The military reported a death at the hotel at 2.15 am. The RIC arrived after the military reported the death to them. The coroners verdict was that Lynch was shot by a soldier in self-defence. No evidence was given by any soldiers at the inquiry. The IRA believed that the actual murder was carried out by Henry James Angliss and Charles Ratsch Peel working undercover. The group of khaki-clad men who shot Lynch numbered about 12, and the IRA certainly believed that Angliss and Peel were among them from the inside information that they received from “Lt G” at Dublin castle. Lt G is believed to be Lily Mernin who worked as a typist at army headquarters.
Michael Collins believed that many of the British officers that were later killed on ‘Bloody Sunday’ shot John Lynch in the Exchange Hotel. Lynch was the local Sinn Féin organiser of a loan and was in Dublin to hand over £23,000 in subscriptions to Collins. Altogether £370,163 was raised in the loan effort in Ireland by September 1920 when it closed down.
It is not possible to know who the 12 men on the raiding party were who shot Lynch, however, apparently Lt. Angliss, under the influence of drink, divulged his participation in the shooting to a girl who passed this information on to an IIS informant. Peel escaped death on ‘Bloody Sunday’ by barracading himself in his room. George Osbert Smyth (on attachment to avenge his brother (Gerald’s death, shot by the IRA after a speech he gave in Listowel, Co Kerry) is understood to have been part of the raiding party, from information given to his family on a visit home. Osbert Smyth was shot dead in October 1920 while trying to arrest IRA suspects Dan Breen and Sean Treacy at a house in Drumcondra.
Photo: Cairo Gang
Thanks. John Lynch is buried in the graveyard in Kilmallock around the back against the ruined church wall. There is a plaque there for him. I think he was a legal clerk in Powers solicitors in Kilmallock. That was serious money he was handling.