Saturday, August 16, 2003

JOSEPH MALONE , HUNGER-STRIKER , 1941 .


" I was in a cell next to Joe Malone . On the second day of feeding there was no sound from his cell for half-an-hour after the screws leaving . When he spoke from his window he told me he had lost consciousness while being fed . He woke up later, lying on the floor, alone, with the door locked . He was wretchedly sick and spitting blood . Looking out on the prison wall he remarked - " It would be a decent thing for them to take us out and put us up against that wall and shoot us . " "

---- the words of Joe Collins , O/C IRA prisoners , Parkhurst Prison , Isle of Wight .

Joseph Malone was born in Cullingtree Road in Belfast in 1918 and , as a young man , worked as a sorter in the GPO , Belfast ; he was an active member of the Irish language group 'Conradh na Gaeilge' , and stayed in the Donegal Gaeltacht for his holidays . (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 .

BERTIE MURPHY OF CASTLEISLAND....


....in September 1922 , IRA Volunteer Bertie Murphy was captured by the Free Staters and used by them as a hostage , to clear barricades etc . He was marched from Castleisland to Killarney and held in the Free State temporary barracks , the 'Great Southern Hotel' ....

" A Free State patrol had been ambushed on the road and there was violent excitement among the garrison in the hotel . A soldier seized Bertie by the throat and struck him ; then an officer called him out to the steps . There is a flight of eight steps in front of the hotel . The officer threw him , head first, down the steps and fired shots into him as he lay below .

Somebody who saw it went for a priest , and Bertie lived until the priest came . He had been killed , the Free State authorities stated , "in the ambush in Brennan's Glen ." "

[END]



OUCH ! ......(in the wallet..) -->

<-- All was rosy for Fine Gael man Eddie Collins and his missus , Mrs Eddie (or Lelia , as her friends called her). But the sky fell in on them and thorns were found on the roses and etc etc on the 24th September 1986 (a Wednesday , I believe..) , when the bould Eddie , then a Free State Minister , was sacked ! The Fine Gael boss at the time , Garret Fitzgerald , placed Austin Deasy in the seat that Eddie had been keeping warm .

Lelia stated - " We were deeply hurt . It was my greatest disappointment . Ed had made Garret Fitzgerald leader and Taoiseach , in my opinion - and on a particularly crucial day for the Taoiseach . I prayed and said Novenas all day for him . I wonder now if that was such good sense . "


Lelia said that her Ed was "shy" and "not a great media man" , but she felt he had better qualifications than the Taoiseach (oh nasty !) - " He was absolutely lost and wasted as a Minister of State " (ie : it was below him) "but he took the job because he felt it was his duty to his constituents and to the people of Waterford . Garret Fitzgerald let us down badly . I am absolutely disgusted with his weakness . I think Garret Fitzgerald does not like people to be intellectually equal to him . He has let us down very badly . "

(From 'The Evening Press' , 25th September , 1986 - a Thursday , if memory serves- page 3).


WELL screw him and his bloody train timetables , right, Missus ?

The bastard .....

Friday, August 15, 2003

AMERICAN FENIANS ; THEIR PLAN TO RAID THE CHESTER CASTLE MILITARY ARSENAL IN ENGLAND , 1867 .....

.....on being told that the Brits were ready for an attack on Chester Castle , the Fenian leadership ordered that all arms be dumped and that the rebels (estimated at over one-thousand strong) disperse - the British police later reported finding large quantities of weapons in Chester Town .....


In Ireland , the British blocked-off the ports in Dublin and Dundalk and quarantined all ships , steamers etc that docked in the port's ; hundreds of Fenians were arrested .

Fenian Captain John McCafferty and John Flood were caught in a small boat off Dublin Bay on 23rd February , 1867 - they were arrested and later sentenced to penal servitude for life . The fact that the informer was John F. Corydon was not discovered until the following September (1867) ; the course of Irish history could well have been changed in that one week in February 1867 but for the actions of that man . But the struggle itself continued ....

[END]


THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :


BERTIE MURPHY OF CASTLEISLAND .....

....in September 1922 , IRA Volunteer Bertie Murphy was captured by the Free Staters and taken out on patrol with them , as a hostage ...


" His mother heard that he was to be taken to Scartaglen , to remove a barricade and went in dread to the Officers of the IRA . They told her the barricade was not dangerous , and Bertie removed it without disaster on Sunday night . On the following Wednesday , September the nineteenth (1922) the troops from Castleisland went to Killarney .

A friend of Bertie Murphy's saw him marched through the streets carrying a heavy bag on his back . He was taken to the temporary barracks - the Great Southern Hotel . There were other prisoners in the guard-room , some of whom knew him well . (MORE LATER)>



OUCH ! ...... (below the belt..) ->

<- ...when he was a prospective election candidate for the British Conservative Party in the Scottish Constituency of East Lothian , a Mr Peter Clarke gave an address to the 'Federation of Conservative Students' , in which he stated -

" General Pinochet (of Chile) must be our inspiration . He is always caricatured by the left as merely an expert in electrifying peoples testicles ."

I could say thats a load of b***s , and tell Peter he's only a p***k , but this is a family column . And besides , its not forceful enough ...

TUNE IN TOMORROW for 'OUCH ! ......(in the wallet)' ->

<- ... a heart-breaking , mind-blowing , true-life story/drama of a Waterford woman , 'Lelia' , on her way up the social ladder , thanks to her husbands connection with a notorious Dublin-based organisation known to the authorities as 'Fine Gael' . This gang were not the type to 'take prisoners' , even from within their own ranks ; the womans chap , 'Eddie' , was about to be axed .....

Coming to a computer near you - starts tomorrow : don't miss it , or else ....

Thursday, August 14, 2003

AMERICAN FENIANS ; THEIR PLAN TO RAID THE CHESTER CASTLE MILITARY ARSENAL IN ENGLAND , 1867 .....

..... the Fenians hoped to be sailing into Dublin Bay before midnight on Monday 11th February , 1867 , with the arsenal from Chester Castle ....


However , in the early afternoon of 11th February , a man who worked for the British administration in Dublin Castle but was a Fenian sympathiser , Thomas Breslin , got word to the Fenian leader Captain John McCafferty that the British were aware of the proposed attack on Chester Castle .

Breslin notified the Fenian leadership that there was an informer within the ranks of their leadership and , acting on that informers advice , the British had strengthened the Castle guard , local militia (British armed and trained) were out in force on the streets of Chester and British troop re-inforcements were on the way to the area from London .

The attack had to be called off , and quickly - word was sent out to dump arms and disperse . The British police later reported finding large quantities of arms and ammunition dumped in the grounds of the railway station and in the ponds and canals of the town ..... (More Later)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :

BERTIE MURPHY OF CASTLEISLAND -

" Bertie Murphy was seventeen years old when he was killed in September , nineteen-twenty-two. During the Black-and-Tan time his mother could not persuade him to stay at school ; he would be drilling with the Fianna and carrying despatches for the Volunteers . His officer in the Fianna , Hickey, joined the Free State Army and Bertie Murphy became Captain of the Fianna then .

After the outbreak of civil war , Hickey led many a search for his old comrade , but Bertie eluded his enemies for four months . One day in September(1922) he was walking down a bohereen at Dysart , alone, with his rifle on his shoulder , when he encountered a Free State patrol . His mother was standing at the door of her little shop in Castleisland when she saw Bertie led up the street .

He was pale and disfigured , his face bruised . He signed to her with his hand to go in from the doorway . They had threatened , one of the soldiers told her afterwards, to shoot him at his mother's door. They kept him prisoner that day at the hotel and his mother spoke to him there . Hickey was one of his guards . They took him out as a hostage that night when patrolling in Ballymacelligot and brought him back to the hotel .... (MORE LATER)>



SUITS FOR SALE , CAREER'S TO BE MADE .....

.... when the 'Hillsborough Treaty' was signed by the Dublin and London administrations in 1985 (with the intention of defeating the Movement and stabilising the Six and Twenty-Six Counties in the interests of British imperialism and Free Statism) protests by both sides on the ground took place .

While Joe and Josephine Soap were arguing the pros and cons of the Treaty , or simply tuning-out altogether , a section of the Treaty was quietly working away in the background : the so-called 'International Fund' . That 'Fund' was set up under the 1985 Hillsborough Treaty but was only legally established on Thursday , 18th September , 1986 ; signing ceremonies in Dublin and London took place , all very low-key .

The reason for the silence ? - the sound of money ! America had already put fifty million dollars into the 'Fund' kitty , with a promise of two-hundred million dollars more over the following four years ; the Canadians gave ten million dollars , while Australia , New Zealand and the E U (then EEC) had been called on for "agreed contributions" .


The then Free State Minister for Foreign Affairs (and up-and-coming 'tea baron') Peter Barry and the then British 'Charge d'Affaires' , Robert Stimson , signed the 'Fund' into existence in Dublin , while British Sir Geoffrey Howe (then British Foreign Secretary) and Noel Dorr (then Free State Ambassador to London) signed the 'Fund'-papers in London .

It is believed that approximately three-hundred-and-fifty million dollars was raised to "stimulate private investment and enterprise , supplement public spending programmes and encourage voluntary effort including self-help schemes " . In other words , fat cats with nice tans to match their suits which , in turn , were colour-coded to go with the briefcase and company car , all with one objective -to purchase those who opposed the British presence .

They failed then , but had better luck in 1998 , with the 'Stormont Treaty' . And they managed to change old comrades of mine into suits like themselves .

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

AMERICAN FENIANS ; THEIR PLAN TO RAID THE CHESTER CASTLE MILITARY ARSENAL IN ENGLAND , 1867 .....

.....a force of over one-thousand rebels was being assembled to assist in the attack on Chester Castle in England , where the British were storing some 20,000 weapons ; hundreds of Fenians were being deployed to seize the trains , capture the Holyhead mail boat and for the attack on the castle itself ......


On Sunday , 10th February 1867 , the Fenian leaders held a meeting to go over the list of events one more time ; it was reckoned , if all went well, that at least one-thousand armed Fenians would be on board a commandeered mail boat with a supply of approximately twenty-thousand firearms , on their way to Dublin, by that Monday night .

The timetable envisaged that the Rising in Ireland would start on the morning of Monday , 11th February, 1867 ; that Chester Castle would be raided at seven (7pm) that evening and that the Fenians would sail into Dublin before midnight that same evening with the (ex) Chester arsenal . However , in the early afternoon of 11th February ....... (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle : first published in 1924 -

SEAN MORIARTY OF TRALEE ....

..... on 27th August , 1922 , Sean Moriarty and James Healy were captured in their homes in Tralee by Free State troops .....

" They marched them through Tralee to Balloonagh Convent , where they took Healy over a ditch into a field . An officer shot him through the body and left him , believing him to be dead . He dragged himself , bleeding and in agony , to a house . While he was crawling away he heard shots .

The people of the house were not Republicans , but they sheltered him and sent for a priest and a doctor , and his life was saved . They sent word to Sean Moriarty's family .

Sean was found in the field , riddled with bullets , dead .

[END]


RUPERT THE BEAR-faced liar and his friends .....

.....(From 'The Evening Press' newspaper , 22nd September , 1986 - a Monday , I believe- page 1)... Loyalist paramilitary paid-perjurer , James Williamson, said he was forced by the RUC into naming innocent people as accomplices .

He was offered immunity from prosecution , a new life in England and a new identity . He stated -

" The whole thing is corrupt . I named innocent people . If it happened to me it must happen with all the others . If I named three people as discussing the murder in a house , they (RUC) would ask me to add a few more names . They would put forward names and suggest that they were there as well . I would argue that the people were'nt there and they would just press the point that they were ."

Ah yeah , well - maybe . But that was the RUC ; you know, "a few bad apples" and all that . Now , of course , the RUC have been replaced by the ' new kids in the orchard' , the PSNI . And we all know that when you put the 'bad apples' in with the 'good apples' the 'bad' ones turn 'good' ....


.... AND ANOTHER BRITISH FAIRYTALE >

< A 13th Century English law decreed that 'time immemorial' began with the reign of Richard 1 in 1189 !

(Whatcha might call '1189 And Counting ' ...)

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

AMERICAN FENIANS ; THEIR PLAN TO RAID THE CHESTER CASTLE MILITARY ARSENAL IN ENGLAND , 1867 .....

.....The Fenian Movement had decided to challenge the English on Irish soil , and the campaign was to begin on Monday , 11th February , 1867 .....


Supporters in England had notified the Fenian leadership (via despatch carrier John F. Corydon) that a castle in the North of England , Chester Castle , was being used by the British military to store an arsenal of some twenty-thousand weapons and ammunition for same . The castle had a jail built on to it and was guarded by about sixty men - one company of the 54th Regiment , led by a British Captain Edwards .

The plan involved Fenian Captain John McCafferty and a company of Fenians attacking the castle after other rebel leaders John Flood and Thomas J. Kelly and their men had seized the trains between Chester Town and Holyhead and had captured the mail-boat in Holyhead . Also , all telegraph communications in the Chester district would by then have been cut .

A force of over one-thousand rebels would be put in place for the operation ...... (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 .

SEAN MORIARTY OF TRALEE -

" Free State troops landed at Fenit on August 2nd , 1922 . They had the work before them which the English forces had abandoned - of destroying the people's allegiance to the Republic and making Ireland a dominion of the British Crown . They knew that they must use more vigorous methods than their predecessors were they to succeed where these had failed .

They had fear as an added incentive - the fear that if they did not do these things to the Republicans these things would be done by the English to themselves . They captured Sean Moriarty and James Healy on August 27th (1922) in their homes ...... " (MORE LATER)>



GURKHA GURRIERS .....

.... five British soldiers , all members of the 'King Edward VII Gurkha Rifles' were given light sentences by Isleworth Crown Court , Middlesex , England , in August 1986 , for smuggling almost £200,000 worth of drugs into Britain , from Nepal .

Purnabahadur Gurung got six years for possession of £153,500 worth of heroin , Haure Rai and Madan Kumar Shrestha got eighteen months (for £19,000 worth of cannabis) and Premparsad Gurung and Debendra Gurung each got twelve months for possession of £17,600 worth of cannabis .

...... and here was I thinkin' that King Edwards men only smoked cigars !

(info from 'The Evening Press' , 25th August 1986 - a Monday , if memory serves - page 5).


...... AND MORE RESPECTABLE GURRIERS >

< Speaking in Newtownards in County Down in September 1986 , ultra-Loyalist and the true original 'MAD DOG' . George Seawright , stated -

" Before the end of the year we'll burn the Tricolour over the GPO in Dublin and then we'll fire their city centre . Ulster has buried its dead and its widiws and orphans have wept , and Ulster has proved its commitment to the cause .

Now is the time for the Dublin people's commitment to their cause to be put to the test and it will have its fill of Irish widiws and orphans to mourn their dead by the time we're finished . All Loyalist efforts should be channeled against the Irish Republic because that is the weakest point in the British-Irish Agreement .

If bombs go off and fires consume Dublin the ordinary people whose relatives are burnt or blown to bits will soon put pressure on their Irish Government to abort the Anglo-Irish Agreement ."

(info from 'The Sunday World' newspaper , 14th September 1986 , page 8).

Obviously , some of the above-mentioned 'cigars' got through .....

Monday, August 11, 2003

AMERICAN FENIANS ; THEIR PLAN TO RAID THE CHESTER CASTLE MILITARY ARSENAL IN ENGLAND , 1867 .


MONDAY , 11th February , 1867 :
John F.Corydon , an American Fenian , had been responsible for carrying despatches between Ireland and America since 1865 , for the Fenians , in preparation for the planned Rising set to take place on Monday , 11th February , 1867 . Now the day had come . If the operation had gone ahead as intended , Corydon would have been one of the few possible survivors .....


In late 1866 , the Fenian leader James Stephens was replaced as Chief of the organisation and , under the new leadership of Colonel Thomas J.Kelly and Captain John McCafferty , about fifty American Fenians made their way to England ; some of their number then travelled to Ireland .

A decision had already been made to militarily challenge the English on Irish soil and a date agreed - Monday , 11th February , 1867 . (MORE LATER)>



THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :


DANIEL MURPHY OF KNOCKNAGOSHEL -

" When Daniel Murphy was taken at his forge in Knocknagoshel on the twenty-fourth of April , no arms were found in the place . He was known , however, to have been an active Volunteer since 1916 .

Other prisoners taken on the round-up saw Daniel Murphy led away to a certain field . It was the field where Lieutenant O'Connor of the Free State Army had been killed by a trigger-mine .

When he was out of sight they heard shots fired . Daniel Murphy's body was found in the evening by the people of Knocknagoshel and carried home . "

[END]



CHEQUE THIS OUT ....

In July 1986 , U. S. Senator Zorinsky of Nebraska stated that he had been informed by "some members of the (British) House of Commons" that if the U S approved of the British request for $50 million dollars of 'aid' to the occupied six north-eastern counties of Ireland , the British Government was going to reduce , by the same amount, the 'aid' which they gave to the Six Counties .

" We might as well make the cheque out directly to the United Kingdom " , said Zorinsky . That's the Brits for ya , Senator - get your 'friends' to bankroll your 'colony' ....

( Sure have'nt the gombeens in Leinster House being doin' that for years !)


.....THIS CHEQUE OUT >

<...... When he was Free State Minister for Finance (and before he met British Prince Charles and gave him one on the chin - a kiss , that is ...) John Bruton (Fine Gael) gave a speech in Trim , County Meath (on 3rd August , 1986 - a Sunday , I believe..) in which he urged Irish holiday-makers to take the trouble to find out what's on offer in Irish holidays before deciding to go foreign -

- " People will discover that Irish holidays are a good bargain . What Irish tourism needs right now is a buoyant home holiday market . " So far , so good ...

.... however , John's Boss , Garret Fitzgerald , and Mrs Garret, decided to spend two weeks of his holidays in West Cork before jetting off to Cyprus for the rest of his holidays ! And their partner in Leinster House , Dick Spring , and his wife Kristi were in Dublin Airport around the same time as the Prince-Kisser was doing his bit for Irish tourism . The Springs had just arrived home from a holiday in Spain ....

You'll have to pay attention to your buddies' where-abouts in future , John , before you open your mouth ; you don't need their help to make a fool of yourself ....

(From 'The Evening Press' , Monday 4th August , 1986 , page 3).

Sunday, August 10, 2003

PETER O'NEILL CROWLEY , CORK FENIAN , KILLED BY THE BRITISH IN TIPPERARY , 1867 ......


.....the 'Kilclooney Wood Engagement' is considered to be the last action of the 1867 Fenian Rising .....


The 1867 Fenian Rising received world-wide attention , but not all of those that died in that attempt to remove the British presence from Ireland , like 35-year's young Peter O'Neill Crowley , are remembered for the part they played in it .

Today , some of those that purport to follow in the Fenian tradition would only recognise the value of Kilclooney Wood as being a 'nice wee spot for the holiday-home' , somewhere to discuss how best to sell-out while making it look like "progress" (reference the infamous 'TUAS' document : 'Totally Un-Armed Strategy' and/or 'Tactical Use of Armed Struggle').

The ghosts of men and women like Peter O'Neill Crowley will hopefully haunt 'patriots' like that .....

[END]


THE TRAGEDIES OF KERRY , by Dorothy Macardle - first published in 1924 :


.....John Linnane and Dick Bunyan and John Mullaney had a dug-out in a hayshed in Trineragh ....


" It was a fine dug-out , raised about five feet from the ground , and they slept there with a sense of great security and peace . Dick Bunyan woke up suddenly ; Linnane had touched his elbow - someone was pulling down the hay .

The bundle that stopped their exit hole was pulled out and a ( Free State) soldier looked in , shouting "Come out of that!" "We are coming," the three cried out instantly , in reply , but the soldier fired full in Linnane's face , and when his comrades lifted him up he was dead .

Men learned to thank God for a death like that in Kerry in nineteen-twenty-three.

[END]



A SLAP ON THE WRIST ......

..... from 'The Evening Press' newspaper , 28th July 1986 (a Monday, I'm sure..), page 7 -

What was then known as 'The World Court' (formally known as the 'International Court of Justice') found that the United States had broken international law and violated Nicaraguan sovereignty by aiding anti-government rebels . It ordered Washington to stop "arming and training" insurgents and to compensate Nicaragua for damage caused by military attacks , although it did not set an amount .

The United States argued that the Court had no jurisdiction in the case , and rejected the verdict . It said the Court "was not equipped" to judge complex international military issues !

( "COMPLEX" ? -
U S General : "Mr President, SIR ! There's oil in that there country ! "

U S President : " Move in , Private . And take the Army with you " .)


....AND A LIMP WRIST -

- In July 1986 , the then Chief Medical Officer of what was then known as 'WINDSCALE' (now 'Sellafield') , a Dr. Jack Strain [ I kid you not !] stated --

" If Sellafield was to inform general practitioners every time a worker was contaminated we would be writing 100 letters a day ."

WHAT ! only one-hundred .....?

(and sure is'nt it grand writin' a hundred letters a day when ya have five hands .....)