On the 28th May, 1919, the British Prime Minister, a Mr David Llyod George, opened a letter he had just received from a political colleague of his, a Mr Walter Hume Long (pictured, the '1st Viscount Long').
Mr Long expressed his opinion about on-going discussions in Westminster in relation to the pros and cons of declaring the then Sinn Féin organisation to be an illegal entity, and outlawing it.
Mr Long suggested strengthening the 'police force' (sic), the RIC, first, describing that outfit as "incompetent or worn out", especially, he said, the leadership of that grouping.
He specifically referenced the RIC 'Inspector General' (who was appointed in 1916), a Mr 'Sir' Joseph Aloysius Byrne who, he said, "...had lost his nerve and should be replaced.." (by a hardline RIC member from Belfast, a Mr TJ Smith) - Mr Byrne had initiated a policy of compulsory retirement of RIC members whom he considered "unfit for service", which didn't go down well in political or military circles in Westminster as it was precisely the "unfit for service" (ie 'the loose cannon')-types that they wanted to 'police' Ireland!
This issue was discussed between the politicians for a few months and, in early November (1919), the British 'Lord Lieutenant of Ireland', Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French ('1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, PC...' ETC ETC!) wrote to Mr 'Sir' Joseph Aloysius Byrne ordering him to take one month's leave "to rest himself" (Mr French could not actually sack the man, as that would require input from the British Treasury and there was no guarantee that Treasury management would agree with the move).
Mr Byrne assured all and sundry that he was grand (!) and sure he took the few weeks off anyway but, when he returned to work in early December, he found a Mr TJ Smith sitting behind his desk, the locks on which had been changed, as had Mr Byrne's career trajectory!
==========================
GAS LADS...
The massive finds of oil and gas on our western seaboard could ensure Ireland's financial security for generations.
Wealth approximating that of the Arab countries is within our grasp, but the Irish government seems content to sell off our birthright for a handful of votes and a few dollars.
In a special 'Magill' report, Sandra Mara investigates just what we are giving away, and why.
From 'Magill' magazine, March 2002.
Again, no one can blame the oil companies ; they are in the business of making profits and if a government facilitates them in this, they would be failing in their responsibilities to their shareholders not to take advantage of it.
Mike Cunningham is a former director of 'Statoil Exploration (Ireland) Ltd', and has wide experience in off-shore exploration and production and, in particular, the acreage off the western coast of Ireland.
A former chairman of the IOOA's Environmental Committee and former chair of its Labour Relations Committee, Mike Cunningham, now an independent oil and gas consultant, told 'Magill' magazine that no other country in the world has given such favourable terms as Ireland.
Following the 1992 concessions when royalties were abolished and oil and gas companies were given a 100% write-off against development and recovery costs, the tax rate was reduced from 35% to 25%...
(MORE LATER.)
On the night of Saturday, 3rd April 1920, the IRA attacked the RIC barracks in Carbury, County Kildare but, although unsuccessful in their endeavours to destroy the building on the night, they did succeed in destroying the moral of the enemy forces who were housed there.
Between requested transfers and orders from their bosses in Dublin, the barracks was soon abandoned because, now that it was known to be 'of interest' to the IRA, the enemy forces knew that the rebels would be back.
And back they were - on the night of the 28th May/early morning of the 29th, the IRA returned and destroyed the building, making it uninhabitable, as they had done with British and other pro-British outposts in the Kildare area, in Maynooth, Rathangan, Castledermot and Ballinonlert (between Rathangan and Clonbullogue).
Destroying enemy outposts and enemy moral in the one operation - good tactics!
==========================
THE NUMBER'S UP...
How some famous gambling conspiracies came to light.
By Con Houlihan.
From 'Magill' Magazine Annual 2002.
At about the same time, another assault on the bookmakers hit the headlines - the 'Yellow Sam Affair'.
A horse of that name was backed in the betting shops to win a race in Bellewstown, County Meath, a course with no phoneline to the outside world.
There was a public phone a little distance away but it was manned and womanned so that no message could get through ; 'Yellow Sam' trotted up, and the bookies paid up.
The operation had the virtue of simplicity, it was a plot of a different colour, and the man at its centre had spent several years studying for the priesthood (his training wasn't wasted!).
He was a professional ; he didn't do it for the craic.
(END of 'The Number's Up' : NEXT - 'Cash No Excuse For RTE Putting Documentary To Death', from the same source.)
In January 1916, while taking part in an 'Irish Volunteers' revolver practice class, Volunteer Thomas Wilmot was accidentally severely wounded and was brought to Drogheda Memorial Hospital (near the Curragh Camp) but the incident and the hospital visit were not 'officially' recorded, as the British 'authorities' would have shown an interest.
Volunteer Wilmot was attended to by a Dr. Laurence Rowan, who was a medical officer with the Republican Movement, and the rebel was soon back in action, in defence of his country.
He witnessed, in early 1921, the British military opening an internment camp (Rath Camp) for Irish republicans at the Curragh and, indeed, was one of the first Volunteers to see that dreadful structure from the inside - on the 28th May that year he was 'arrested' by the Crown Forces and imprisoned there.
Volunteer Wilmot was released (as were all the republican internees) in December (1921) after the 'Treaty of Surrender' was signed by Michael Collins and his people and was approached by the Staters to accept an 'Officer Commission' from them and, like all good Irishmen and women, refused the offer and continued his work on behalf of the Republican Movement.
Incidentally, Volunteer Thomas Wilmot was also a member of the GAA, the Gaelic League and the ITGWU, as were his near-neighbours Mr Matthew Cardiff and Mr John Lee, who were 'arrested' with him by the British on the same date (28th May 1921) and held in Rath Camp.
And on their way to detain the above-mentioned three Irishmen, the Crown Forces would have more than likely took timber planks from Rath Camp and loaded them into their trucks, as that material was required to drive over the trenches that the IRA had dug into roads in the Kildare area, to impede their ability to travel in and around the county.
Also, on the 28th, telegraph poles were knocked down in the Gormanstown and Kilcullen areas, presenting enemy forces as targets as they attempted to remove the blockages ; indeed, according to ascertained British Military records, in the four weeks ending May 28th (1921), 76 of their operatives were killed, and 106 wounded.
Those records were later adjusted to show that, between the beginning of May that year and the middle of July, 114 RIC members and 48 British Army soldiers were shot dead in Ireland.
While the IRA were blocking roads in Kildare on the 28th, eight armed IRA Volunteers in Cork were knocking on the front door of the Fitzgerald house in the Ballysheehan area of Mallow, County Cork.
When the door was opened, two brothers - Thomas and Henry* - were told they had been tasked with 'trenching a road' and were instructed to leave now with the IRA ASU, which they did.
The two brothers didn't know it then, but the IRA Intelligence Department had linked them with the near-capture of Volunteer Thomas Hunter, from Castletownroche, near Fermoy, in County Cork, that same month, after which Henry Fitzgerald had somehow acquired £75 to purchase a horse and a car.
The bodies of both men were found shortly afterwards near the Cork village of Killavullen ; they had been executed as spies.
(* Henry Fitzgerald was an ex-member of the British Army 'Royal Fusiliers' Battalion, Service Number 102762)
On that same date (the 28th May 1921), other Cork Volunteers (attached to the 'Flying Column' of the 3rd Cork Brigade IRA, pictured) maintained the ambush position they had secured on the 27th, which covered about 360 meters (four hundred yards in total) outside the village of Gloundaw (between Dunmanway and Drimoleague) on high ground, all of whom were armed with rifles.
It had been arranged that Volunteers from the Drimoleague Company would ambush the RIC in that village, in order to draw the British Auxiliaries and other military/paramilitary enemy forces out from Dunmanway and into the IRA ambush position, but no reinforcements were sent to aid their RIC colleagues.
The ambush squad withdrew from the area on the evening of the 28th.
The body of "a weak-minded drifter", a Mr Daniel McCarthy, was found near the Post Office in the Cork village of Ovens on the 28th ; he had been shot nine times and a notice was pinned to his body -
'Spies And Informers Beware.
IRA.'
Mr McCarthy had been observed, more than once, conversing with British military figures in the town of Ballincollig and, when 'arrested' by the RIC on a misdemeanour charge, was placed in detention with IRA prisoners in Ballincollig British Army Barracks.
The IRA POW's spent about three weeks in his company, in detention, before sending out word to their comrades that he was not to be trusted and, upon his release, he was arrested near the Lee Cinema in Patrick Street in Cork by Volunteers attached to the 3rd Battalion of the Cork No. 1 Brigade.
He was taken in a horse and cart to the village of Kilumney and handed over to Volunteers Leo Murphy, Dick Murphy and others, held and questioned for a few weeks and then taken from there to the village of Ovens where he was shot dead.
On the same date that Mr McCarthy's body was found in Cork, the IRA in Dublin staged an attack at the corner of Saint Stephens Green and Cuffe Street on two British military Crossely Tender trucks which were transporting enemy troops (attached to 'C Company').
An IRA Volunteer, Leonard Fox, was captured in Saint Stephen's Green and a civilian, a Mr Joseph Miller, was wounded in the ensuing gun battle ; he died from his wounds on the 3rd June.
RIP Joseph Miller.
Back in Cork, on the 28th, Volunteer Diarmuid Hurley (pictured), Officer Commanding of the Active Service Unit attached to the Cork Number 1 Brigade, was shot dead in the townland of Carrigogna by the RIC "while trying to escape".
Volunteer Hurley was buried secretly by his comrades the next day in a tomb at North Churchtown Cemetery, about two miles east of Middleton, on the highway to Youghal, in County Cork.
RIP Volunteer Diarmuid Hurley.
On the same day that enemy forces executed Volunteer Hurley, an elderly Irish woman, a Mrs Mary Foley (aged in her late seventies), was shot dead by a foreign soldier in Waterford, about 80 miles (130km) away.
"A woman named Mrs Foley, aged nearly 80, was shot at Carriglea, near Dungarvan, by a man in a military or police lorry while she was gathering sticks by the riverside ; whether an inquiry has been held; and what reason is given for the killing of this woman...whether he is aware that a woman named Mrs. Foley, aged nearly 80, was shot at Carriglea, near Dungarvan, by a man in a military or police lorry while she was gathering sticks by the riverside ; whether an inquiry has been held ; and what reason is given for the killing of this inoffensive woman...?"
(From here.)
Mrs Mary Foley and two of her grandchildren were gathering firewood by the side of a river on the 28th May 1921 when a passing British military patrol opened fire on them.
The poor woman died shortly afterwards from her wounds but, thankfully, the children were not injured.
The inscription on Mrs Foley's memorial stone reads -
"Saighdúirí Sasana do lámaidh í agus í ag bailiúghadh brosna."
("English soldiers murdered her while she was gathering firewood.")
"The deceased was arrested while on Volunteer duty in May, 1921, and was ill treated, was sentenced to six months hard labour by Courtmartial while in Prison in Spike Island, health was neglected..."
The deceased mentioned above is Volunteer/Scout William Creedon, from Sleaveen West, Macroom, in County Cork.
Volunteer/Scout Creedon had been tasked by 'A Company' of the Macroom Battalion of the Cork Number 1 Brigade to monitor a bridge near the farm where he worked as a labourer, as the IRA were aware that at least two British soldiers would regularly meet-up with their girlfriends on the bridge, and the IRA also wanted to meet-up with the two armed thugs.
The British soldiers, however - living on their nerves, as usual - noticed William Creedon's presence and they 'arrested' him on the 28th May (1921) and forced him back to their base in Macroom Castle, where they battered him to the extent that his abdomen started swelling.
It might have been awkward for them had Volunteer/Scout Creedon died in their custody, so they transferred him to Spike Island Internment Camp, where his condition further deteriorated, prompting his removal to Cork Military Hospital in Victoria Barracks, where he died on the 2nd July 1921.
RIP Volunteer/Scout William Creedon.
"The Frocks are, I verily believe, going to allow me to send over all the troops that I have got in England to Ireland..."
- a note gleefully written by 'Sir' Henry Wilson (pictured), the British Army military commander in Ireland (and political advisor to Westminster), to the British military attaché in Paris, on the 28th May, 1921.
It took him about six weeks to organise it, but between the 14th June and the 7th July, 17 battalions of British troops were sent to Ireland bringing the number of British troops in this country to 60,000.
And today, 28th May 2025, there are at least 1,500 (acknowledged) British Army soldiers in our six north-eastern counties, assisting pro-British 'police forces' the RUC/PSNI and the Free State AGS, State army, politicians and judiciary to enforce and uphold the British claim of political and military jurisdictional control over those six Irish counties.
Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.
==========================
DEATH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN...
Desmond Boomer, a Belfast engineer working in the Libyan oil-fields, disappeared seven years ago.
Officially, the plane on which he was a passenger crashed as a result of mechanical failure and pilot error.
But is that the real story?
Or were the Irishman and his fellow passengers unwitting victims of the shady war between Islamic fundamentalism and Mossad, Israel's intelligence network?
A special 'Magill' investigation by Don Mullan, author of 'Eyewitness Bloody Sunday'.
From 'Magill' magazine, January 2003.
Desmond Boomer was en route home to Belfast for his Christmas holidays when he disappeared.
There are three possible explanations -
Firstly, that the light aircraft, which had experienced serious mechanical difficulties on its outbound flight from Malta, was irresponsibly flown into a raging Mediterranean storm by its experienced pilot and crashed off the coast of Tunisia, that Desmond Boomer and his travelling companions were abducted by Islamic fundamentalists and may still be alive or - and this possible explanation cannot be easily dismissed - all five passengers were in the wrong place at the wrong time when Islamic fundamentalists arrived to exact revenge on a marked man, the pilot, Carmelo Bartolo...
(MORE LATER.)
In late May 1922 - after the Treaty of Surrender had been signed, and with the approval of Michael Collins, the chief signatory of that foul document - 55 Free State Army troops and 31 IRA Volunteer soldiers joined forces and 'put it up' to Westminster (and to the politicians in Leinster House) by 'occupying', as the British claimed to see it, two towns which straddled the border between the Free State and the Occupied Six Counties.
The 'incident' became know as 'The Battle of Pettigo And Belleek', which are the two towns referenced, and it's notable as the last time that both the Free State Army and IRA forces fought alongside each other against the invasive British military and political presence in Ireland.
The rebels held out for about two weeks against a better armed and supported enemy force, comprising military might and a vichy-type 'local civilian committee', and marked the first occasion since the signing of the Treaty Of Surrender when part of the so-called 'Free State' was occupied - without the consent of Leinster House - by an external power.
Today, 103 years later, Free State politicians are again occupied - financially, morally and spiritually - this time by a 'Woke' mindset favouring the EU, the WHO and the WEF, but with their own consent.
However, we digress : you can read more about this 'Irish military invasion of Ireland' here...
Meanwhile, about 100 miles (160 km) down the road in Dublin, on the 28th May (1922), the IRA caught up with an RIC member, a Mr William Leech, whose name had being brought to their attention in relation to the killings in Limerick of nationalist/republican political figures.
The RIC man's routine showed that he walked, with his girlfriend, down what was then Great Brunswick Street (now Pearse Street) in Dublin, towards Westland Row Railway Station, between 10pm and 10.30pm, on a Sunday and, on the last Sunday in May, 1922, he took his last walk along that route ; the IRA shot him dead.
On the 28th May, 1922, sixty-four members of the pro-British 'Special Constabulary' organisation found themselves under military siege by the IRA in their base at Magheramenagh Castle (pictured) near Belleek, in County Fermanagh.
Reinforcements were begged for by the trapped Crown Forces and a convoy of five Crossley Tender trucks, carrying 'A Specials', from the town of Garrison, in County Tyrone, was dispatched to their location.
As the convoy was passing through the town of Belleek, on the Donegal-Tyrone border, it was ambushed by the IRA and at least one 'A Special' paramilitary, a Mr Albert Thomas Rickerby, was shot dead during the gun battle, which lasted several hours.
The 'A Special' reinforcements then withdrew from the area, skedaddling back to their base, and their 'house arrested' (!) comrades in the castle loaded themselves on to a few boats and legged it (!) to Boa Island in Lough Erne.
While sheltering from the nasty rebels on Boa Island, about 100 'Special' reinforcements arrived to keep them company, least they should feel lonely and dejected...
On the same date that pro-British forces were comforting each other on Boa Island, a Mr James Kelly and his wife, Honoria, were standing outside their house in the village of Sonnagh, near Charlestown, in County Mayo, having a heated discussion about politics with their neighbour, a Mr Michael McIntyre, the son of an anti-Treaty County Councillor, a Mr John McIntyre.
Mr McIntyre aimed his shotgun at the couple and fired, hitting Mrs Kelly in the face, neck and chest.
The poor woman died within fifteen minutes.
RIP Mrs Honoria Kelly.
==========================
"The dumping of arms does not mean that the usefulness of the IRA is past, or release any member of it from his duty to his country.
On the contrary, it is clearly our duty to maintain the Army Organisation intact.
Discipline must be maintained, reports returned, and officers must do their utmost to safeguard their men and get them back to their civilian work.
No man must leave Ireland unless ordered by GHQ to do so..."
-Mr Francis Thomas Aiken (pictured), the new IRA Chief of Staff (and a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher) in a memo he released to IRA Officers on the 28th May, 1923.
Three years after he wrote those words, he assisted in the foundation of the anti-republican 'Fianna Fáil' grouping ; so much for his 'duty to Irish republicanism...'
==========================
Thanks for reading - and have ya noticed that we're heading for 2 million hits?!
Sure you knew us when we had nuthin'...!
Sharon and the team.
...and 'Bye 'Bye Morocco and Spain.
We landed in a Dublin that was suffering under a cloud burst and a cool-in-the-shade breeze blowing.
Four of our menfolk were waiting for us in 4x4's, which was just as well - we each of us had a 20kg, a carry-on, a backpack and oversize handbags, so we needed all the space we could get!
And I think we'll be doing it all over again, in September or October next ; we'd do it sooner, but the villa's booked out for June, July and August.
Anyway - back to basics : I'm back to work late in the coming week and back to blogging on Wednesday, 28th May, with a twenty-piece (or thereabouts) script which the two lads have been working on over the past week - I've just to edit it here and there and add a bit of a verbal sting wherever I feel it's needed, if I don't come down with the bleedin' flu first!
I've seen a digital copy of the post and, among the other bits and pieces we'll be writing about is a piece from the early 1900's when a discussion in Westminster in relation to the then Sinn Féin organisation turned into a verbal autopsy (or post-mortem examination!) on the RIC, the pro-British 'police force' in Ireland, and how that discussion was acted on in Dublin and the repercussions it had on the already-low moral of that grouping...
From the 1920's -
"Between requested transfers and orders from their bosses in Dublin and Westminster, the (British) barracks was soon abandoned because, now that it was known to be 'of interest' to the IRA, the enemy forces knew that the rebels would be back.
And back they were..."
Also from the 1920's - hundreds of yards of road were covered by the IRA ambush team, all armed with rifles.
A smaller operation had been carried out in a nearby village, in the expectation that the enemy forces would call-in reinforcements who would drive into the trap that had been set for them on the way to assist their colleagues.
But...
...you'll just havta wait until Wednesday, 28th May 2025, to find out what happened!
Thanks for reading ; see ya back here on the 28th!
Sharon and the team.
That's us, waving across the Atlantic Ocean, saying "slán anois" to Ireland, getting ready to go for a swim, then something to eat, and a few drinks in one of the music bars!
And, on the way back to our villa, we'll peruse the shops and the evening outdoor markets - not that we're looking for anything in particular, because we have it all here : sun, sand, sea, shopping and free time, with no husbands, no children, grandchildren, family (love yis all to bits!) other friends, or neighbours - just five Dublin young wans with a few bob in our purses, time to spare, and no time-sheets.
Yes, readers, we're on holiday in the Canary Islands, based in a villa belonging to one of the Girl Gang, but not confined to it - we sometimes take a ferry to Morocco and maybe stay there for the day, perhaps an over-nighter, and/or then continue our ferry journey to Spain ; footloose and fancy free!
And, thanks to our girlfriends in the flight booking office and elsewhere in the airline industry, our tickets are (unofficially!) more-or-less 'open-ended', and our baggage allowance is pretty much 'elastic', so practically no restraints then, except perhaps work-related (...although the five of us are not nine-to-fivers and have earned a certain leeway from the firms we work for, and with).
We intend to return sometime (!) in May (YES - 2025!) but will not be confining ourselves to a certain date and our families at home know to maybe expect a call from us for a Revolut injection and/or bail money!
I'll still be posting on 'Twitter/X' and on 'Facebook' (...and I might throw in a few holiday pics as well!) but the '1169' blog will be 'unblogged' for the next few weeks.
Thanks for reading - ¡estamos de vuelta en Mayo!
Sharon and the team.
"The RIC and DMP should be treated as persons who, having been adjudged guilty of treason to their country, are regarded as unworthy to enjoy any of the privileges or comforts which arise from cordial relations with the public.
They must receive no social recognition from the people.
No intercourse is permitted with them, they should not be saluted or spoken to in the streets, not their salutes returned.
They should not be invited to, nor received in, private houses, as friends or guests and they should be debarred from participation in games, sports, dances and all social functions conducted by the people.
In a word, the RIC and DMP should be treated as persons who have been adjudged guilty of treason to the country..."
- the reply given by the Secretary to the Dáil, a Mr Diarmuid O'Hegarty (pictured) on the 23rd April, 1919, when asked for a more explicit definition of what was meant by the ostracism of the RIC and DMP, which had been approved by the Dáil.
It was during the Third Session of the First Dáil (10th April 1919 - 12th April 1919) that the issue of ostracising the RIC and the DMP was raised, and historians later recorded that.. "...the message disseminated slowly and the shunning grew sporadically.."
We could do with a bit of that now...
==========================
GAS LADS...
The massive finds of oil and gas on our western seaboard could ensure Ireland's financial security for generations.
Wealth approximating that of the Arab countries is within our grasp, but the Irish government seems content to sell off our birthright for a handful of votes and a few dollars.
In a special 'Magill' report, Sandra Mara investigates just what we are giving away, and why.
From 'Magill' magazine, March 2002.
On this subject, trade union leader Des Geraghty remarked recently -
"I believe that from the start the concessions that were given were unbelievable.
There were no jobs in it.
There was very little for the Irish economy and we are now suffering the consequences of a very bad policy which former minister Ray Burke has to answer for."
In 1992, in a further unusual move, Bobby Molloy, following intense lobbying by the oil companies, reduced the tax rate levied on oil and gas to 25 per cent, the lowest anywhere in the world.
Industry sources believe this was "naive" on the part of Bobby Molloy, but they accept that at the time he needed to boost exploration ventures in Ireland.
'Frontier Licences' were introduced, allowing the oil companies to hold a licence for up to 20 years on a drilling location option and this, together with 100 per cent write-offs, left the door wide open for Ireland, already plundered, to be raped of its resources...
(MORE LATER.)
"God speed, son..."
-the words of encouragement from a Mr and Mrs McCarthy, Droumbeg, Glandore, County Cork, to their 27-year-old son, Michael, who told them he was joining the Crown Forces and intended to "volunteer for the front", which he did, in January 1915.
He was wounded in that 'adventure', came home and, in December that same year, joined the pro-British 'Dublin Metropolitan Police' ('Service Number 65668') in late 1915, and was placed in various districts (Galway, Down, Belfast).
Mr McCarthy became very friendly with his 'betters' (!) in 'G Division' and was proud of his association with them.
He resigned from the Crown Forces in March, 1920, as he was needed on the family farm and, on the 23rd April, word filtered out to the local community that he had been working in a potato field on a farm owned by his brother Daniel and his sister Margaret at Lackenalooha, near Clonakilty, in County Cork, on the 22nd (he had been there for about a week), when he was approached by two armed men, who shot at him.
He was wounded, but still managed to try and make a run for it, but the men caught up with him.
When his brother and sister went to investigate the gunshots, they found their brother lying in the field and managed to get him to Cork Military Hospital, where he died on the 24th.
He had been shot six times.
As word was filtering out to the local community about Mr McCarthy (on the 23rd April 1920), a British Army General, a Mr ('Sir') Cecil Frederick Nevil Macready (the then recently-appointed 'General Officer Commanding-in-Chief [GOC-in-C] of British forces in Ireland') sent a letter to a Mr Walter Long (a friend of his, '1st Viscount Long', a pro-British Unionist politician) in which he stated -
"Before I was here for three hours (in his new position in Ireland) , I was honestly flabbergasted at the administrative chaos that seems to reign here.
I'm a little nervous, owing to the disorganisation of the RIC, not so much on account of their morale, as in that crass stupidity which is so often found among police officers (sic) who have not been carefully selected.
As regards the RIC, we are sitting on a volcano. If they were turned into an ordinary unarmed police force (sic), they would fulfil their functions in time of peace a good deal better than at present..."
The best "functions" they could have preformed would have been to apologise and then disband.
==========================
THE NUMBER'S UP...
How some famous gambling conspiracies came to light.
By Con Houlihan.
From 'Magill' Magazine Annual 2002.
It made a great story, and the tabloids especially revelled in it.
Some of the alleged conspirators were named in the front pages, including a leading trainer, a member of the aristocracy, and an inspector in the Gardai.
Several people were arrested, and the owner and trainer were charged ; the judge at Preston Crown Court delivered a self-righteous oration on the morality of racing but didn't impose a custodial sentence.
Tony Murphy spoke to the media circus after the case, and his words became a part of folklore -
"We did it only for the craic..."
Life went on.
Nobody thought any worse of the conspirators or those alleged to be conspirators ; I said that I wouldn't trust them to organise a picnic - they might forget the salt or the olive oil or both...
(MORE LATER.)
On the 23rd April, 1921, Volunteer Michael Smyth (pictured), the Officer Commanding of the Kildare 2nd Battalion IRA, opened a letter which had been sent to him the day before, from Volunteer Richard James Mulcahy (a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher) who, at that time, was the IRA Chief of Staff.
In his letter, Mr Mulcahy praised Volunteer Smyth and his fighters for 'the offensive action by Kildare IRA which had virtually paralysed enemy transport and communications in the county...'
Mr Mulcahy was later to organise military activities which would, he hoped, 'paralyse IRA transport and communications' in the country.
As Mr Mulcahy's words on paper were being read by Volunteer Smyth, Volunteers Seamus Woods and Roger McCorley (ASU Belfast Brigade) had 'read' the situation in Belfast and had established an ambush site for enemy troops at the corner of Donegall Place and Fountain Street.
A patrol of the Auxiliary Division of the RIC (ADRIC forces, pictured) were walking past, on their guard as ever, when they were fired on, and two of their number - a Mr John Bales and a Mr Ernst Bolam - were shot dead.
An RIC detective who just happened to be passing at the time shot at the Volunteers, who shot back, and two civilians were wounded in the cross-fire.
An RIC 'District Inspector', a Mr John William Nixon, assembled his 'Assassination Squad', including three of his RIC colleagues, a Mr John Patrick Ferris, Mr Christopher Clarke and Mr Richard Dale Winnet Harrison and, that night, burst into the Duffin family home in Belfast (64 Clonard Gardens) and shot dead two brothers, Patrick and Daniel Duffin (Daniel was an IRA Volunteer, Patrick wasn't).
And, actually, an 'RIC Service Dog' (a 'Station Dog', kenneled/housed in Springfield Road RIC Barracks) was left behind at the murder scene, having become trapped in the Duffin house ; an RIC member actually called to the house later that night to collect the dog!
Both brothers were given IRA funerals, coffins draped with Irish Tricolours, and IRA Volunteers marched in rank formation in the funeral cortège.
Incidentally, Catholic Bishop MacRory gave a graveside oration, and quite a number of other clerics were proud to accompany the family and the other mourners on the last earthly journey of Patrick and Daniel Duffin.
On the same date that an RIC assassination squad was doing its work, a 14-member RIC cycle patrol was out and throwing its weight around about 380km (235 miles) down the road, in Galway.
When they got to Kilmilkin, near the town of Maam, they rode straight into an IRA Flying Column ambush by the West Galway Brigade (under the command of Volunteer Peter Joe McDonnell, pictured) and, in the gunfight, an RIC member, a Mr John Boylan ('Service Number 60741' 40 years of age, from County Leitrim, with 19 years 'service to the Crown'), was shot dead and two of his colleagues were wounded.
That night, the RIC attacked two houses in the area, one of which was the family home of a Mr Padraig Ó Máille (a republican-gamekeeper-turned-Free State-poacher).
While those cyclists were licking their wounds in Galway, their colleagues in the 'Special Constabulary' 250km up the road (about 155 miles) in Drumshanbo, in the townland of Drumlegagh, in County Tyrone, came under fire from an IRA Unit and, although no casualities were reported by either side, on their return to their Cookstown Barracks the 'Specials' opened fire on a brother and sister who were causing them no trouble, a Mr Michael Langan and his sister, Kate.
Michael was shot through the lung, and his sister was also wounded by them.
As those 'Specials' were dodging bullets, one of their political bosses, a 'Sir' NF Warren Fisher, was showing his boss, Llyod George, a letter he had received from his colleague, a Mr John Anderson, the '1st Viscount Waverley' and 'Under-Secretary for Ireland'.
In his letter, Mr Anderson had suggested that Westminster should go easy on the Irish, because, he opined, to do so might not lead to a settlement but "it would put us right in the eyes of the world..."!
While Mr Anderson and his political colleagues were discussing optics in Westminster, the body of a Mr Timothy Cranley (45), a butcher from Saint Michael Street in Tipperary, was found on the roadside at the village of Rosanna, on the outskirts of Tipperary Town.
He had been shot dead, after ignoring advice from the IRA to have no dealings, business or otherwise, with the RIC.
At the same time as Mr Cranley's body was discovered, about 85km (50 miles) up the road, by arrangement, the IRA Active Service Unit of the 7th Battalion of the Kilkenny Brigade, under the command of Volunteer Ned Aylward (pictured) had temporarily relocated to cover an area between the villages of Piltown and Fiddown, in Kilkenny, which was usually patrolled by the IRA's 8th Battalion.
The ASU were in position to ambush an RIC patrol which was due to pass their location when, unexpectedly, a lone Black and Tan, a Mr Carrigan, cycled into their trap, and was captured.
Soon after, however, the ambush party were being closed-in on by the RIC and British Army and retreated, bringing their prisoner with them.
As they had enough to worry about in securing their own safety, Volunteer Aylward had to decide whether to shoot the Tan or let him go - he was released.
The Volunteers returned safely to base.
As the RIC/British Army were unsuccessfully looking for the escaping IRA ASU in Kilkenny, the body of ex-British Army soldier, jobbing as best he could as a handyman, a Mr John McCabe, from Crossmaglen in County Armagh, was found in a barn by a farmer near the village of Tullyvaragh, in County Monaghan, about 180km (110 miles) up the road from them.
Mr McCabe had been shot four times, and a sign placed around his neck, which read 'Convicted Spy - IRA'.
As Mr McCabe's body was being investigated, three armed and masked IRA Volunteers were entering the home of a M/s Kate Carroll in Grattanstown, in County Louth, about 55km (35 miles) down the road from where the investigators were.
M/s Carroll was dating an RIC member from Dunleer, in County Louth, and had been advised to stop doing so ; she ignored the advice, and the three men shaved her hair off.
At the same time as M/s Carroll was getting her hair done, the IRA hijacked a goods train at Falkland's Cross near Glaslough, in County Monaghan, about 65km (40 miles) up the road, and set fire to it and, while the blaze was catching, a Mr Mark Sturgis (pictured), a 'Civil Servant' (!) in the British political administration in Dublin Castle, wrote a note to himself in his diary about the Irish-English situation -
"The Prime Minister (Llyod George) will not make them a definite offer so long as they ask for a Republic. They will not cease to ask for a Republic till the Prime Minister makes them an offer..."
Mr Sturgis was discovering that he himself, his Prime Minister and, indeed, his political and military apparatus had hoisted themselves with their own petard in regards to the 'Empire's' interference in Ireland...
As his bosses in Dublin Castle were busy hoisting themselves, an RIC member, a Mr John McFadden (30, 'Service Number 65056'), was 'On Duty' in Market Square in Kilrush, in County Clare, with a colleague, on their way back to their barracks, when they were ambushed by the IRA ; Mr McFadden was shot dead.
On that same date (23rd April 1921), twelve RIC members in County Sligo were assigned 'escort duty' and travelled to Belfast.
At about 9pm that night, two of them - a Mr John Beets Bales (23, 'Service Number RIC 82706/ADRIC 1876') and a Mr Ernest Baran Bolam (34, a 'Temporary Cadet') - were walking at the junction of Donegall Place and Fountain Lane, in Belfast, when two IRA Volunteers approached them and opened fire.
Mr Bolam died at the scene, and Mr Bales died in the Royal Victoria Hospital the following day.
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DEATH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
Desmond Boomer, a Belfast engineer working in the Libyan oil-fields, disappeared seven years ago.
Officially, the plane on which he was a passenger crashed as a result of mechanical failure and pilot error.
But is that the real story?
Or were the Irishman and his fellow passengers unwitting victims of the shady war between Islamic fundamentalism and Mossad, Israel's intelligence network?
A special 'Magill' investigation by Don Mullan, author of 'Eyewitness Bloody Sunday'.
From 'Magill' magazine, January 2003.
In the early hours of 3rd December 1995, a light single-engine Piper Lance aircraft disappeared from Djerba Airport, Tunisia.
Five passengers were on board, along with the pilot and, seven years later, mystery and controversy continue to surround the events of that night.
Among the disappeared is 38-year-old Belfast engineer, Desmond Boomer ; his travelling companions were English engineer Michael Williams (49), Polish national Tadeus Gorny (48), and Maltese nationals Philip Farrugia (43) and Matthew Aquilina (22).
The pilot, Captain Carmelo Bartolo (47), was also Maltese.
Desmond Boomer's elderly parents live in Andersonstown, Belfast, the home he shared with his wife and five children is in County Down, and he worked in the Libyan oil-fields for a UK-based company, 'Mapel Engineering'.
Because of UN sanctions against Colonel Gaddafi's government following the Lockerbie bombing, foreign workers could not fly directly to Libya.
Small planes usually ferried MAPEL employees along a (possibly illegal) route between the Mediterranean island of Malta and Djerba Airport in Tunisia...
(MORE LATER.)
A blind 68-year-old man, a Mr Robert Miller, was shot dead in his house in Beechfield Street in Belfast on the 23rd April, 1922, in a shooting which was apparently linked to the shooting of a local woman, a Mrs McCabe...*? - note : the death of Mr Millar has been on occasion confused/dismissed over the decades as an anomaly due to the death of another Robert Miller, a 22-year-old British Army soldier who, in August 1978, was part of a foot patrol which was passing a parked car when it exploded, killing the soldier. Some of our sources confuse/dismiss the earlier event.
When the incident on Beechfield Street was taking place, people were mixing in the carpark and surrounds of Saint Mathew's Church in Ballymacarret in Belfast (about 5.5 miles/3.5km distance) when a hand grenade was thrown into the crowd, the explosion from which killed a local woman, a M/s Elizabeth McCabe* and seriously injured an RIC member, a Mr John Moriarty.
At the same time, some of the Volunteers from the 2nd Northern Division IRA were leaving and/or preparing to leave their homes in Derry and Tyrone and go 'on the run', as they were aware that Crown Force members were looking for them - they laid low in Donegal, having reported for duty to the leadership of the 1st Northern Division IRA (in McCarry's Hotel in Letterkenny, County Donegal) represented by Volunteer Charles Daly.
Where, hopefully, they caused just as much trouble for enemy troops...!
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"The various sources of information at our disposal not only in this office but also in the War Office, have yielded no single indication of bad faith on the part of the Free State government.
The members of the government have risked their lives and suffered loss in their property and families in order to make good their obligations under the Treaty to establish a constitutional government in Ireland.
The most conclusive proof of all this is that they have not hesitated to execute some of their former comrades..."
- part of a British Government internal memo written by the 'British Secretary of State for the Colonies' on the 23rd April, 1923, a Mr Victor Christian William Cavendish (pictured), the '9th Duke of Devonshire'.
On the same date that Mr 9th Duke praised the Staters in Leinster House, a Mr Richard Mulcahy, the 'Commander-in-Chief' of the Free State, wrote his own memo to his 'Defence Council' in which he opined that the Officer Commanding of the Free State Army in Claremorris, County Mayo, a Mr Dan Hogan, needed more men and resources.
And, as Mr Mulcahy was putting pen to paper, so, too, were business people in the County of Kildare - they wrote to the Free State Minister for Local Government, a Mr Ernest Blyth, complaining about a recent rise in taxes and insisting that more tax money be spent on road networks and health care in Kildare.
They requested that Mr Blyth "appoint administrators to run the county or to manage the budget..." ; we don't know if Mr Blyth wrote to Mr Cavendish asking if he had any ideas on how to keep those Staters in check...
As Mr Blyth was no doubt pondering the request for administrators, the 'Kerry Command of the Free State Army' issued a report to him stating that the units controlled by one of the local rebel leaders, a Mr John Joe Rice (Officer Commanding of Kerry No. 2 IRA Brigade) "have not up to the present suffered any serious depletion".
Maybe they should have issued their report to London as well...
Finally, a Free State Army Sergeant, a Mr James Montgomery ('Service Number VR3097'), who was attached to the 'Motor Transport Corps, Curragh Division', from 104 Old Park Road in Belfast, County Antrim, was 'on patrol' in Moorabby, Monasterevin in County Kildare when, on the 23rd April, 1923, "he was accidentally shot dead by a fellow soldier".
Volunteer John Joe Rice died on the 24th July, 1970, in Kenmare, County Kerry, at the age of 77.
RIP to that brave man.
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Thanks for reading - sure we love ya for it!
Sharon and the team.
Hope ye have geared yerselves up for the temporary absence of this blog for 3 or 4 weeks soon, as meself and the Girl Gang are heading off to the Canary Islands in May, as one of the Gang owns a villa there.
The two lads that work on the blog with me will be taking a break, too (in dirty aul Dublin!) and sure we know fine well that everyone is gonna miss us, especially the Gang's husbands, childer and grandchilder etc.
But their aim'll get better...and our aim is to have the craic in the sun on the beach, in the shops, bars and restaurants : and there ain't nothin' wrong with our aim...!
