tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44636301208857877002024-02-07T03:56:05.945+00:00The United IrishmanAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-24586589379527360272017-01-01T17:30:00.003+00:002017-01-01T17:30:53.831+00:00We Have MovedNew site with new contributers and (hopefully) more regular updates. The site is in the process of being set up and is not fully up and running yet but you can take a peek here:<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-60610238501339268832015-10-13T22:02:00.001+01:002015-11-28T13:24:10.854+00:00Modular Housing: A temporary solution doomed to be permanent?<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVF4BSbUoAC7BDjNKYI_kdVuoTv2uM__3LTyqlNdmQNgHzRXbT59g8yhAwpYFgKa4X5LaYBe37h7oqHQyPzJrKP1A26MBNBapE91H18UjPUx5lv6SrNzfACDMhqV5tmsgM6_VLw81yFgf_/s1600/man-13-390x285.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVF4BSbUoAC7BDjNKYI_kdVuoTv2uM__3LTyqlNdmQNgHzRXbT59g8yhAwpYFgKa4X5LaYBe37h7oqHQyPzJrKP1A26MBNBapE91H18UjPUx5lv6SrNzfACDMhqV5tmsgM6_VLw81yFgf_/s320/man-13-390x285.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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It is essential to note that it has taken the deaths of multiple homeless people on the streets of Dublin for the government to even consider addressing this urgent issue. For years they have happily ignored it while implementing policies which served to increase the amount of people without a home to call their own. Thousands of people across the country live in hotels and bed and breakfasts as there is inadequate access to affordable housing. Hundreds more live in homeless shelters or on the streets. The solution to this issue is apparently "Modular housing".</div>
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"Modular housing" basically means glorified prefabs. Recently a number of examples were exhibited to the Dublin local authorities. Six companies (including <a href="http://www.roankabin.ie/roankabin-presents-innovative-accommodation-solution-for-irish-homeless/" target="_blank">Ronakabin</a>, a subsidiary company of Denis O'Brien's Siteserv) showed off their wares. The proposal to house homeless families in up to 250 of these two bedroom units seems to be gathering pace with<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/modular-housing-plans-supported-by-councillors-1.2353085" target="_blank"> DCC signing off on the plan and the Peter McVerry trust expressing support.</a> At around €100,000 a go these temporary units are not cheap, there will also be a number of ancillary costs such as sourcing land and ensuring the connection to and provision of basic amenities like water, electricity and sewage. The sites themselves will have to be developed. There are also concerns about the safety of these units, highlighted this week by the <a href="http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/aerial-photograph-shows-how-horror-inferno-obliterated-family-home-31599380.html" target="_blank">tragedy in Carrickmines</a> where ten people died when a fire engulfed their prefabricated housing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSfzhHffprO6BiIFfXrEPxd6MNm3uEjxd4A_jovfiSkDDxmOQ209WgHimE243CGBuSiu1pqWsobZ5l2KbBjvDPNu6vECn6hdZ5rNwstp6n4mQT0kWYI8iOzkCTGIz-0IgHaGQMAfmEARLk/s1600/modular.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSfzhHffprO6BiIFfXrEPxd6MNm3uEjxd4A_jovfiSkDDxmOQ209WgHimE243CGBuSiu1pqWsobZ5l2KbBjvDPNu6vECn6hdZ5rNwstp6n4mQT0kWYI8iOzkCTGIz-0IgHaGQMAfmEARLk/s400/modular.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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On the other hand the average cost of constructing a social housing unit (an actual bricks and mortar house) is <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/kelly-outlines-1-5-billion-plan-for-social-housing-1.2161303" target="_blank">€185,000 according to the Irish Times.</a> In the grand scheme of things €85,000 extra for a permanent, secure house is very little. While the interiors of these modular housing units are undoubtedly impressive we need to ask ourselves if the millions apparently destined for these units would not be better spent on actual houses? There is also the possibility that the government may look at leasing
these units from the private companies rather than outright purchasing
them, enriching private business interests rather than investing in social assets. (which brings us back to Denis O'Brien) If something is worth doing, is it not worth doing right?</div>
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The homelessness crisis undoubtedly needs to be addressed urgently. With rents spiraling out of control and the banks more aggressively pursuing repossessions it will only get worse unless urgent action is taken. The immediate priority needs to be to get people off the streets, out of hotels, hostels and B&B's and into appropriate housing. Modular housing can play a small role in this but the only long term solution is the construction of more social housing and the imposition of strict rent controls on the private market. (Unfortunately there was no sign of any of this in the government's budget for 2016)</div>
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We have been reassured that modular housing units will represent a temporary part of the solution. But how long is temporary? One year? Five? Ten?</div>
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Minster for the Environment <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/modular-housing-plans-supported-by-councillors-1.2353085" target="_blank">Alan Kelly's comments at a recent Labour party think-in in Wicklow give us an idea;</a></div>
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<i>“Obviously we’re only going to put people in here for a certain period
of time. We want more permanent solutions, but the lifespan of some of
these units is 60 to 70 years.” </i></div>
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Sixty to seventy years? That is stretching any definition of "temporary". <i> </i></div>
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<i> </i>It is easy for those of us not huddled in doorways or trying to live out of a hotel room with our families to "turn up our nose" at modular housing. It is absolutely correct to say that in a crisis like this any action is preferable to none and that modular housing would help people and perhaps even save lives in the short term. But even in times of emergency it is necessary to apply some critical thought to any proposals and to ask if the proposed steps will deliver a solution, if the facts and figures stack up and if the idea makes practical sense.<br />
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While any efforts to address the crisis are to be applauded there is a
need to be realistic about things. The past is the greatest indicator we
have as to what form tomorrow will take. There is a great deal to indicate that once the homelessness crisis is out of sight it will once again be out of mind for the government and people will be left to languish in these modular housing units for decades to come.</div>
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<u><b>UPDATE 28/11/15</b></u></div>
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When I initially wrote this blog post I was working with provisional sums when discussing the costs of modular housing units versus that of conventional social housing. It turns out that these figures were grossly incorrect. It has now emerged that the cost of constructing a modular housing unit is in fact far higher than the €100,000 figure I quoted. Almost double in fact, <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/modular-housing-2465529-Nov2015/" target="_blank">each unit will cost €191,000</a>. This is more than it costs to construct an actual house. </div>
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As predicted this enterprise is shaping up to be an ineffectual waste of money. </div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-79058106409432115082015-10-04T21:15:00.001+01:002015-10-04T21:19:02.820+01:00"Recovery"? I hate the word. Give us an alternative!<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thumbs up for Recovery at Davos.</td></tr>
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With the general election seemingly destined to take place in late November of this year the narrative of the campaign will be dominated by one word; "Recovery".</div>
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Labour and Fine Gael will trumpet that they are delivering a recovery, pointing to unemployment figures, increases in GDP and other economic indicators. They will also brandish their bag of goodies in the form of the recently announced €27bn capital investment plan.</div>
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The opposition will maintain that all is not as it seems with the economic figures, that they do not tell the whole story, pointing out that many have not seen any improvement, that the "recovery" has not filtered down to much of the middle and working classes. That many of the new jobs are of poor quality, low paid and insecure with low hour contracts. They will also rightly point out that schemes like jobsbridge as well as continued emigration mask the true reality. It will also be hammered home that the policies of Fine Gael and Labour have favored the wealthy and left behind the majority, that inequality has increased and that the most vulnerable in society, the very young, the sick, the disabled, the old, have been the harshest hit by austerity and that this has been by design. </div>
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They will, as Sinn Féin for instance have stated, argue for a "Fair Recovery" or as Paul Murphy of the SP/AAA puts it; a "Real Recovery".</div>
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All of this is fair, true and laudable enough but we need to ask what is meant by "recovery"? </div>
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To take it at its meaning it suggests a return to normality or to how things were before, to the state of affairs prior to the great calamity of austerity. But do we really want to go back? Do we want a "recovery", or to build something new?</div>
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This is not to suggest that Sinn Féin or any other party on the left are in favour of "going back" but my point is that the "recovery" narrative of the establishment parties needs to be challenged in it's entirety. The Celtic Tiger of boom and bust is not something we should wish to return to. This cycle is something which is systemic in the capitalistic system, so in that sense it is "normal". Do we want to "recover" this normality? A "recovery" in the meaning of the establishment parties is not something which is desirable and this point needs to be made, any "buying in" to the recovery narrative suggests, subliminally at least, that things are heading somewhat in the right direction. </div>
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We need to examine in greater detail the facts and figures behind the Celtic Tiger. The economic growth was almost solely based around the construction/property bubble and the resultant <span data-dobid="hdw">financialization</span> of the economy with ancillary employment in that area. In terms of fundamental growth in the economy there was very little, it was all about the bubble and it was always destined to burst. </div>
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Far from ordinary people getting rich, they got poorer. Wage levels in recent decades have largely stagnated but instead growth has been fueled by more readily available credit. We can see from the table below how debt rocketed thoughout the "good years".</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YPtpPBsTIE48aoS0q9oi42BpgtxDdUiqdrCUGbMXKouFEcpToqhxbWMkQEr-3ophelUsHLKFuT6wvIbhGQTsTk6f8wYlrndtUZsITiJ2qLUdk7QVjBP2xLr1BJ5gMR2Tf_GFAYYpi51J/s1600/c03-household_chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YPtpPBsTIE48aoS0q9oi42BpgtxDdUiqdrCUGbMXKouFEcpToqhxbWMkQEr-3ophelUsHLKFuT6wvIbhGQTsTk6f8wYlrndtUZsITiJ2qLUdk7QVjBP2xLr1BJ5gMR2Tf_GFAYYpi51J/s400/c03-household_chart.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Despite the on-going "recovery" Irish households are the third most indebted in Europe. The Irish government, and its people in general have been lucky that interest rates have remained extremely low, it is this which has facilitated the "recovery" more so than any policy over which the Irish state has direct control or influence over. Given the debt levels and openness of the Irish economy we are extremely vulnerable to any international "shocks" even those as straightforward as small interest rate increases. </div>
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We are at the mercy of the international finance system. Given the small size of the Irish economy perhaps this is inevitable but our over-reliance on FDI to provide jobs and industry is something which is self inflicted. </div>
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To get back to the point of this article, we should not look for a "recovery", we should look for an alternative. To those with original ideas and those who seek to build a sustainable alternative, one which puts as much control as possible in the hands of the Irish people and not that of international bodies, markets or oligarchs. </div>
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We need to get out and support those on the left in arguing for systemic changes, not mere tinkering around the edges, otherwise we will find ourselves going down the same road again.</div>
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We need an alternative to what went before, not a "recovery".<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-38858088267444949982014-06-03T22:19:00.001+01:002015-10-03T19:39:38.045+01:00Infant Burial Grounds in Ireland<span style="font-family: inherit;">After the<a href="http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/Mass-grave-of-up-to-800-dead-babies-exposed-in-County-Galway-.html" target="_blank"> horrific discovery of the mass grave of 800 infants at the Bon Secours site in Tuam</a> there has been a lot of discussion about how, where and why untold numbers of infant corpses (and others who were not wanted) were so horrifically disposed of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> There are many "Children's Burial Grounds" or Cillíní in Ireland, dotted throughout the country. They are </span>unconsecrated<span style="font-family: inherit;"> sites (distinct from normal graveyards) where </span>unbaptized<span style="font-family: inherit;"> infants were interred. Their age varies. Some are in waste land, many others (most of the "discovered" ones) are on the sites of ancient constructions like raths, cairns and ringforts. Most are unmarked. Some are yet to be uncovered, others have been bulldozed away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I have often wondered if the myths of "faeries" and curses surrounding ancient sites were told by adults to children, not wanting to tell them the truth, in order to scare them away from the graves of the infants and other outcasts who were buried there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> You can find the location of many of these sites by using the <a href="http://webgis.archaeology.ie/NationalMonuments/FlexViewer/" target="_blank">National Monuments Service interactive map.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> If you go onto this map and select "Chidren's Burial Ground" in the search window you will find the location of many, but not all, of these grave-sites. You must search by county as there are too many (thousands) results to show if you search the entire country.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGM2x3hWSQKXs9RrT7KqxXoQmiwMOIOiQj077W4eYHWjY85VaRbjxeGG3lb_7HhYySwq373HZYkgL0W-JNsryiBhjJpd2FAL25bp43E21bDJDiLzAvKvdwt-6aj4L6LmHmNLMIGslhiOkP/s1600/Childrens+Burial+Grounds+Galway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGM2x3hWSQKXs9RrT7KqxXoQmiwMOIOiQj077W4eYHWjY85VaRbjxeGG3lb_7HhYySwq373HZYkgL0W-JNsryiBhjJpd2FAL25bp43E21bDJDiLzAvKvdwt-6aj4L6LmHmNLMIGslhiOkP/s400/Childrens+Burial+Grounds+Galway.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sites marked as "Children's Burial Ground" in County Galway. There is a massive correlation between these grave-sites and ancient historical antiquities. In many cases the excavation of the latter led to the discovery of the former.</td></tr>
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This map, of course, leaves out the grave sites which are not marked on maps. Locals, in rural areas especially, may be able to point out unmarked "Cillín".<br />
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Undoubtedly not all of the grave sites are as particularly horrific as the one in Tuam where infants seem to have died of preventable ailments such malnutrition (in other words sheer bloody murder). No doubt many infants buried in these graves died of entirely natural causes. Others will predate the mass grave in Tuam. Some will have had only a small number of infants buried there.<br />
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Nonetheless, the existence of these hidden grave-sites is very disturbing and further investigation is needed, particularly of ones near former workhouses and "Mother and Baby homes". The site in Tuam is unlikely to be unique.<br />
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Below I have embedded an article entitled "Outside of life: Traditions of Infant Burial in Ireland from Cillín to Cist" by Nyree Finlay. It was published in the World Archaeology journal in 2000. It is a very informing read and explores in considerable detail the practice of infant burial in Ireland, shining a light on a particularly disturbing aspect of Ireland's history.<br />
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<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/227930657/Outside-of-life-traditions-of-infant-burial-in-Ireland-from-cillin-to-cist-Nyree-Finlay" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="View Outside of life: traditions of infant burial in Ireland from cillin to cist - Nyree Finlay on Scribd">Outside of life: traditions of infant burial in Ireland from cillin to cist - Nyree Finlay</a> by <a href="http://www.scribd.com/Saoirse%20Go%20Deo" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="View Saoirse Go Deo's profile on Scribd">Saoirse Go Deo</a></div>
<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="0.6887871853546911" data-auto-height="false" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_55738" scrolling="no" src="//www.scribd.com/embeds/227930657/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-RSaSm3GNSx2ae9BKhrCP&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-27728524823585276232014-02-05T14:55:00.001+00:002014-02-06T12:37:16.791+00:00Save Croppies Acre! The Final Letters and Statements of Matthew Tone and Bartholomew Teeling<div style="text-align: left;">
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<a href="http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/Dublin/TheCroppiesAcre/" target="_blank">"Croppies acre"</a> is situated just in front of Collins Barracks (National Museum of Ireland) in Dublin. Hundreds of "croppies" (United Irishmen) were buried here in a mass grave following their execution during the 1798 rising. Up to 300 United Irishmen and sympathizers (suspected or otherwise) are buried here, however we only know the names of a few. The most prominent of these were <span style="background-color: white;">Bartholomew Teeling and Matthew Tone, (brother of Theobald Wolfe Tone) who were both hanged at Provost Prison on Arbour Hill before their bodies were dumped into the "Croppy Pit".</span></div>
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Their resting place lay unmarked for hundreds of years and this disgrace finally came to a head in the late nineties when plans were drawn up to<a href="http://www.nga.ie/1798-Croppies_Acre.php" target="_blank"> turn the site into a carpark </a>for the nearby museum. Following a lengthy and vocal campaign the government capitulated and designated the site as a 1798 Memorial Park. Significant monies were spent developing the site into one worthy of that designation, and the result was very fine indeed.</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">Some 35,000 Euro was spent rejuvenating the site in 2011 and the displaced </span><i style="text-align: left;">Anna Livia</i><span style="text-align: left;"> statue, formally of O'Connell street, was relocated to Croppies Acre. However since then the site has been disgracefully neglected and has as a result become a haven for anti social activity and drug taking. It is now closed to the public, with the gates permanently padlocked. The Memorial Park has seemingly been given up on and left to rot. </span></div>
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The Seán Heuston 1916 Society recently took steps to raise awareness about this criminal neglect and their members carried out a clean up of the site. The pictures were shocking.</div>
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The OPW and the Dublin government need to take responsibility, clean up the site and reopen it to the public, subject to monitoring - perhaps CCTV would be ideal - with regular checks and maintenance. Memorials and graves of this nature deserve to be cared for, but this neglect typifies the attitude of the Dublin government to National Monuments the length and breadth of the country. Many, such as Moore Street and the surrounding 1916 battlefield site lie in neglect. They are even currently in the process of selling off commercial licenses and interests at historical sites all across the country - see <a href="http://www.opw.ie/en/latestnews/articleheading,26879,en.html#.UvJFYkCME2N" target="_blank">here</a>. This typifies the attitude of the Fine Gael/Labour government, profit is the bottom line and who cares if tourists are ripped off and historical sites are profit generating vehicles for private businesses? Obviously this needs to be opposed. Local and European elections are imminent and I would urge readers to press candidates on the issues raised in this piece. I would also urge people to raise these issues by contacting their local TD's (contact details <a href="http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0&HouseNum=31&disp=mem" target="_blank">here</a>) and the OPW who can be contacted through the following: </div>
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The Office of Public Works.<br />
Head Office, Jonathan Swift Street,<br />
Trim, Co. Meath.<br />
Lo-Call: 1890 213 414<br />
PH: (046) 942 6000<br />
FAX: (046) 948 1793<br />
E-mail: info@opw.ie<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General Jean Humbert</td></tr>
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<i>Reproduced below are the final letters written by Matthew Tone and the final statement of Bartholomew Teeling. They give an insight into the character of these men, and I publish them here in the hope that they will energize readers, motivate them into taking steps to ensure that their sacrifice is not forgotten and their final resting place is given the care and respect it deserves. </i></div>
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<i>Both of these patriots lie buried in Croppies Acre along with hundreds more like them. Teeling and Tone were both part of the French landing in Kilcummin led by General Humbert. Tone's first letter gives some account of events.</i></div>
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Donegal Bay,</div>
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5 Fructidor (August 22nd),</div>
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6 o'clock, morning.</div>
Dear Friends Gagin and Matty,<br />
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The day I embarked at Rochelle, I wrote to you, in the letter, I gave you account of our Force, but, as it might have miscarried, I shall repeat its contents. We are nine hundred Infantry, and about one hundred Chasseurs and Cannoniers, with twenty or thirty officers a la suite. We have, besides, three field pieces, six thousand stand of arms, and a very adequate quantity of ammunition. I should also mention a large quantity of helmets and odd clothing of various colours which the General found in the magazines at Rochelle. Pat will look droll in a helmet without any corresponding article of dress.<br />
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To come to our actual situation. Yesterday morning we arrived at the mouth of the Bay after a passage of thirteen days without seeing anything. We stood up toward .Killybegs harbour with a light breeze, and got within two hours' sail of our landing place when the wind died away. This is dammed unlucky, and has entirely deprived (us) of the advantage of surprise. The wind springing up contrary in the evening, we stood right across the bay to the County Mayo, where Killala, I believe, affords a place proper to debark. Night, and the want of a pilot obliges us to anchor in the middle of the bay. This morning, we are underway again, endeavouring to get into Killala, the wind not very good. I refer you to the map where you will see that we are both in sight of Killybegs and Killala Bays without the power of entering either - Pause here, my friends, and pay a compliment to my Patience, which suffers me to write in such a situation you cannot expect any coherency.<br />
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We are surrounded on all sides by very high mountains. If there is any aristocrat within ten leagues of us with his glass on the top of some hill watching our motions and sending expresses in every direction these are pleasant speculations. I hope the rogues won't have the wit to destroy all the fishing boats round the bay for we are in great need of some to help us to debark. We have not as yet seen a single boat round the bay; on dit that we shall be in Killala in a couple of hours. Our Grenadiers will debark in their own boats, and if there be any fishermen, the rascals shall be made useful. I have no more to add; you shall have a line from me written on the back of my hat, I have seen a print of Bonaparte in that attitude.<br />
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1 o'clock in the afternoon.</div>
My Dear Friends,<br />
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I ask pardon of the Gods for having repined; we are clear in with Killala and have taken a little brig, a thing absolutely necesssary as our Frigates are too large to run close in. We have also some fishing boats. The pilot, who is up* [A United Irishman] gives us the best intelligence in the world. Scarcely any troops to oppose us and Jemmy Plunket is at the head of the insurgents who are up in the County of Roscommon ; we have also taken a Lieutenant in the Prince of Wales' Regiment of Fencibles, going from Sligo to Killala, to take the command, or rather to join a company of Infants there, ditto a gentleman of Sligo, with him, a yeoman. They, I believe, are aristocrats. I offered to lay a guinea that if we please, we will be masters of Sligo tomorrow, without firing a shot at six. God bless you. Postscript shall be dated from Killala ; en attendant I apprize you that we hear nothing of any other squadron having arrived. Burke considers this letter as from himself.<br />
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Killala. 6 Fructidor.</div>
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Yesterday evening we landed, and drove sixty yeomen and regulars like sheep before us, a few of our Grenadiers only were landed and engaged. We killed twenty and made a dozen prisoners. The people will join us in myriads, they throw themselves on their knees as we pass along and extend their arms for our success; we will be masters of Connaught in a few days. Erin go bragh.<br />
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M. TONE.</div>
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<i>Alas this optimism was misplaced and their enterprise was met with disaster when they were defeated at the Battle of Ballinamuck. Matthew Tone and Bartholomew Teeling (a prominent United Irishman and Captain in the French Army, noted for, among other things, his heroism and bravery in the Battle of Collooney where he single-handedly disabled and captured a Britsh gunner post when he broke ranks, galloped towards it on his horse and shot the soldiers manning it.) along with hundreds of French soldiers were captured. The French were treated as prisoners of war but the Irish were tried for treason, in courts-martial, and executed. </i></div>
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<i><i>Here follows Matthew Tone's final letter, written after he found out that he was to be executed the following day, addressed to his legal counsel. Also a statement Teeling intended to read from the scaffold but was ultimately prevented from doing so:</i></i></div>
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28th September, 1798.</div>
Dear Sir,<br />
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As I know from experience that suspense is the worst of all states, I hasten to relieve my friends from it ; the business is determined on - tomorrow is the day fixt.<br />
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I request that no friend may come near me - sorrow is contagious, and I would not willingly betray any weakness on the occasion.<br />
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Accept a thousand thanks for the interest you have taken in my affairs. Farewell.<br />
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<span style="text-align: right;">MATTHEW TONE.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: right;"><i>Teeling's statement;</i></span><br />
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"Fellow-citizens, I have been condemned by a military tribunal to suffer what they call an ignominious death, but what appears, from the number of its illustrious victims, to be glorious in the highest degree. It is not in the power of men to abase virtue nor the man who dies for it. His death must be glorious in the field of battle or on the scaffold.<br />
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The same Tribunal which has condemned me —Citizens, I do not speak to you here of the constitutional right of such a Tribunal, —has stamped me a traitor. If to have been active in endeavouring to put a stop to the blood-thirsty policy of an oppressive Government has been treason, I am guilty. If to have endeavoured to give my native country a place among the nations of the earth was treason, then I am guilty indeed. If to have been active in endeavouring to remove the fangs of oppression from the head of the devoted Irish peasant was treason, I am guilty.<br />
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Finally, if to have striven to make my fellow-men love each other was guilt, then I am guilty. You, my countrymen, may perhaps one day be able to tell whether these were the acts of a traitor or deserved death. My own heart tells me they were not and, conscious of my innocence, I would not change my present situation for that of the highest of my enemies.<br />
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Fellow-citizens, I leave you with the heartfelt satisfaction of having kept my oath as a United Irishman, and also with the glorious prospect of the success of the cause in which we have been engaged. Persevere, my beloved countrymen. Your cause is the cause of Truth. It must and will ultimately triumph."Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-48422548891155712162013-12-31T00:03:00.000+00:002014-01-10T00:28:44.082+00:00Jack Bennett's introductory essay to "Freedom The Wolfe Tone Way"<div style="display: block; margin: 12px auto 6px;">
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Jack Bennett's introductory essay to the book "Freedom The Wolfe Tone Way", written in 1972 by Seán Cronin and Richard Roche, is generally regarded as a classic example of republican literature. In it, in forceful style, he applies the basic principles of Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen to modern Ireland and convincingly tackles a number of issues such as the "two nations" concept, the "principle of consent", protestant identity, sectarianism and the root causes of Ireland's problems. (See the contents page reproduced below for a better overview of topics discussed).</div>
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Bennett was writing from a very interesting perspective; a protestant from Belfast and the son of a senior RUC officer. A journalist by profession he was also involved in the Wolfe Tone Societies and in setting up the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association. He had a long association with left wing politics and was very critical of much of the Irish left who often sought to hide from the national question or support the status quo by scorning the national issue as being "sectarian" and something below them. Correctly, he viewed this position as adopting - unconsciously or otherwise - a pro-imperialist stance, one incompatible with the fundamentals of socialism. Although written in 1972 his essay is just as relevant today, perhaps even more so given the political developments and the amount of traction many of the concepts he criticizes have gained. </div>
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Jack Bennett passed away in 2000. </div>
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"Freedom The Wolfe Tone Way" is itself an excellent read with an extensive selection of Wolfe Tone's own writings as well as contemporary analysis. It certainly lives up to the claim on it's rear cover; </div>
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<i>"The complete book about Wolfe Tone for the times, This is a book <b>FOR</b> these turbulent times. It brings slap-up-to-date the enduring message of brotherhood which Tone bequeathed us, and relates that message to the problems of Ireland in the seventies.</i></div>
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<i>And it lets Wolfe Tone himself do most of the talking"</i></div>
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Unfortunately the book is long out of print and is hard to come by. However I feel that Bennett's essay is very incisive, thought provoking and worth reading, especially in today's context, so I have scanned it and embedded it below. You can download a searchable PDF file of Bennett's essay from the Scribd website <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/194410906/Jack-Bennett-Introduction-to-Freedom-The-Wolfe-Tone-Way" target="_blank">at this link</a>. If anyone would like it in a different format (EPUB, text etc) just leave a comment below. </div>
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<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" data-aspect-ratio="0.559279950341403" data-auto-height="false" frameborder="0" height="600" id="doc_85763" scrolling="no" src="//www.scribd.com/embeds/194410906/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-2janxa97du9ig27jxbcb&show_recommendations=true" width="100%"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-40066242092146077472013-12-27T08:00:00.000+00:002014-01-10T00:42:04.675+00:00IRA Proclamation of 28th June 1922 and the Battle of Dublin<div class="MsoTitle">
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As resistance and hostility towards the treaty grew among the ranks of the IRA a section of the army, determined to defend the Irish Republic and alarmed by the machinations of the Free State government - actions such as setting up an alternate army and police force - seized the Four Courts and various other buildings in Dublin. The British were worried by this development and began putting pressure on the Free State government to quell this resistance. However, initially there was some cooperation between the pro and anti-treaty forces particularly with regard to a campaign in Ulster. Arms where exchanged and rearranged among units so as to absolve the Free State of responsibility, in the eyes of the British, for renewed hostilities in the north. Both GHQs drew up battle plans and anti-treaty forces even evacuated some of the buildings they held in Dublin to relieve pressure on the Free State government from the British. </div>
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However, the level of hostility and distrust continued to grow, and as J. Bower Bell explains, things eventually came to a head:</div>
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<i>"Then on June 22, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff and a bitter foe of the Irish Republic, was assassinated in London. The British government unjustly blamed the militant IRA leadership in the Four Courts and urged the Free State government to take appropriate steps. The Griffith-Blyth bloc had long been advocating to Collins the need for firm action; and with the IRA split after the June 18 convention, the time seemed ideal. Also on June 22, in retaliation for the arrest of one of their officers, the IRA seized J.J O'Connell and held him in the Four Courts. The provocative action relieved the Free State of the burden of acting solely as a result of British pressure. However the IRA leadership, once more almost united as a result of discussions with Lynch, did not believe that with the joint campaign in Ulster in the wind that the Free State would actually attack. All day June 27, Dublin was filled with rumours. The IRA C/O for Dublin, Oscar Traynor, began to make preperations. Lynch stayed in conference at the Four Courts from ten in the evening until one in the morning of June 28. At 3:40 a.m. the Free State demanded the surrender of the Four Courts by 4.00. The request was refused and the IRA waited for the Free State to fire the first shot. It came at 4.30 from a British artillery piece.</i></div>
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<i>From Wednesday morning until Friday, Free State artillery pounded the Four Courts reducing it to a flaming wreck. The IRA volunteers and most of the executive were forced to surrender. Elsewhere in Dublin Oscar Traynor had alerted IRA positions, largely concentrated in a great triangle from the GPO down Talbot Street to Moran's Hotel and to an apex on Parnell Square. Once the Four Courts had gone up in flames and at the last minute spectacularly exploded, the Free State troops closed in on the IRA. Put on the defensive at once, cut off from reinforcements, without artillery or armored cars, the IRA re-ran the reel of 1916. Cathal Brugha held out at the Hamman Hotel until there was nothing left but a flaming ruin. Twice he refused orders sent in by Traynor to surrender and when he finally came out, he still carried a revolver. He was shot, as he might have expected, and died two days later. Overt IRA resistance in Dublin had ended."</i></div>
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[ pg 34-34, J. Bowyer Bell,<i> 'The Secret Army: The IRA 1916-1979', </i>Poolbeg Press, (1990) ]</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOPR9DEmF0kZS18N0ERNcfgIcDAEHHhitBRaRHMZA5sjyrYBHua77Q-Fjb3TPaRPd_lCzyDnlnLpxa6t9c7TiN3p2jLBCkVgj9tmzWKLduNTgI81o0kyvoSWllTBiuPpgIu6EV3yh6Bc3/s1600/Four+Courts+on+Fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOPR9DEmF0kZS18N0ERNcfgIcDAEHHhitBRaRHMZA5sjyrYBHua77Q-Fjb3TPaRPd_lCzyDnlnLpxa6t9c7TiN3p2jLBCkVgj9tmzWKLduNTgI81o0kyvoSWllTBiuPpgIu6EV3yh6Bc3/s640/Four+Courts+on+Fire.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Four Courts ablaze after shelling from artillery loaned to Free State forces by the British Army. <a href="http://www.theirishstory.com/2012/11/25/british-military-involvement-in-the-irish-civil-war/#.Urg32PRdXno" target="_blank">British soldiers may have manned some of the guns.</a></td></tr>
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As the assault on the Four Courts began the IRA executive issued a proclamation denouncing the assault, calling on citizens to defend the Republic and imploring "former comrades of the Irish Republic to return to that allegiance". A picture of the original document is reproduced below, followed by the text of the proclamation. Many thanks are owed to Mark Cadden who kindly supplied me with these enabling me to share them with you.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFLfi4eeTnrHN-aCvnCqC8wX8MQM5SkFQvgLxTZVNRBiGPIq9998NQ7KY77iXt8WlQSvAGHpsCwm4GRLOTVZtC74N1ps_Jx_RMovlnGxz6jrSHOJ8ti5EEX3wVkX7UYCuT89Va-5UlRzpX/s1600/1922+IRA+Poclamation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFLfi4eeTnrHN-aCvnCqC8wX8MQM5SkFQvgLxTZVNRBiGPIq9998NQ7KY77iXt8WlQSvAGHpsCwm4GRLOTVZtC74N1ps_Jx_RMovlnGxz6jrSHOJ8ti5EEX3wVkX7UYCuT89Va-5UlRzpX/s640/1922+IRA+Poclamation.jpg" height="640" width="478" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-size: xx-large;">Óglaigh na hÉireann</b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">_____________</span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoHeader" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 36.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><b>Proclamation.</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>______________</b></span></div>
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<strong>FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC.</strong><br />
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The fateful hour has come. At the dictation of our hereditary enemy our rightful
cause is being treacherously assailed by recreant <span style="text-align: justify;">Irishmen. The crash of arms
and the boom of artillery reverberate </span>in this supreme test
of the Nation's destiny.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Gallant
soldiers of the Irish Republic stand vigorously firm in its defence and
worthily uphold their noblest traditions. The sacred spirit of the
Illustrious dead are with us in this great struggle, "Death before
Dishonour" being an unchanging principle of our national faith as it
was of theirs, still inspire to emulate theirglorious effort.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
We,
therefore, appeal to all citizens who have withstood unflinchingly the oppression
of the enemy during the past six years to rally to the support of the
Republic and recognise that the resistance now being offered is but
the continuance of the struggle that was suspended by the truce with the
British. We especially appeal to our former comrades of the Irish
Republic to return to that allegiance and thus guard the Nation's
honour from the infamous stigma that her sons aided her
foes in retaining a hateful domination over her.</div>
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Confident
of victory and maintaining Ireland's independence, <span style="text-align: justify;">this appeal is issued by the Army Executive on behalf of the Irish </span>Republican Army.</div>
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(<span style="text-transform: uppercase;">Signed</span>)
<br />
Comdt. Gen. Liam Mellows, Comdt. Gen.
Rory <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt;">
O'Connor, Comdt. -Gen.
Joseph McKelvey,<br />
Comdt. -Gen. Earnan O'Maille, Comdt.
-Gen. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Seamus Robinson, Comdt. -Gen.
Séan Moy-<o:p></o:p></div>
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lan, Comdt. -Gen. Michael Kilroy, Comdt. -<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt;">
Gen. Frank Barrett, Comdt. -Gen. Thomas <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt;">
Derrig, Comdt. T. Barry, Col -<span lang="GA">Comdt</span>.
F. <o:p></o:p></div>
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O Faolain, Brig. -Gen J. O'Connor, Comdt. <o:p></o:p></div>
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P. O Rutiless, Gen. Liam Lynch, Comdt. –<o:p></o:p></div>
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Gen. Liam Deasy, Col -<span lang="GA">Comdt</span>. Peadar <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 108.0pt;">
O'Donnell. <br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
28<sup>th</sup>
June 1922. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-90600597061940274972013-11-29T09:00:00.000+00:002015-10-03T23:21:36.834+01:00Thomas Davis: Means and Aids to Self-Education<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Educate that you may be Free!</td></tr>
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[The below is taken <span class="bAbout">from <i>Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry"--II. Literary and Historical Essays</i>]</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"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."<br />
<br />
"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.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
We pray our humbler friends to think long and often on this.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
In these, and a thousand ways besides, study and science produce the best effects upon the practical parts of life.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-13822453430399315892013-11-17T09:00:00.000+00:002013-11-21T23:35:19.611+00:00Wolfe Tone's Speech From The DockThis week (19th November) marks the 215th anniversary of Theobald Wolfe Tone's death. To mark this occasion here is the speech he made from the dock during his trial by court martial in which he defends his actions and explains his motives.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The Death of Wolfe Tone</td></tr>
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<br />
Wolfe Tone was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by the court. He requested that the execution be by firing squad, that his death be "that of a soldier", but this request was denied. He was to be hung on 12th November. However before the sentence was carried out he attempted to commit suicide by slitting his throat with a small knife. He was initially saved when the wound was bandaged up. Legend has it he was told that if he spoke the wound would reopen and he would bleed to death, to this he replied; "so be it".<br />
<br />
Theobald Wolfe Tone expired on 19th November 1798 at the age of 35.<br />
<br />
Tone's attitude to suicide is worth examining, a well educated man he was familiar with ancient Roman statesmen and thinkers like Cato, who committed "honorable suicide" rather than face defeat. He also wrote that he regarded the suicide of Reverend William Jackson as "heroic". An Irish radical and a spy for France, Reverend Jackson came to Ireland in 1794 to assess the strength of the English garrison and to meet with Wolfe Tone and other United Irishmen. He was betrayed by a confidant, John Cockayne, an English spy, and arrested. His arrest and trial directly led to Wolfe Tone having to go to America as the authorities seized a seditious letter in which Tone declared that any invasion of Ireland by the French would be supported by the Irish. Jackson committed suicide by ingesting poison his wife smuggled to him while on his way to court to be sentenced. Tone also wrote that Jackson's "fortitude in a voluntary death must command the respect of the most virulent persecutor".<br />
<br />
Based on this and the reaction of the public, during a time where suicide was the ultimate taboo and those who died by their own hand were supposed to have their body mutilated and could not be buried in consecrated ground (Tone's body was unmolested and was buried in consecrated ground) we can conclude that Tone's suicide was intended by him to be a heroic death. Indeed the public, and subsequent generations, largely viewed it as such. A newspaper at the time, "<i>The Morning Chronicle</i>" surmised that Tone "<i>thought it better to die the old Roman way</i>". Despite the taboo surrounding suicide Tone became the foremost figure in the Irish republican pantheon.<br />
<br />
<i>(for more on Tone's suicide and the attitude toward it see 'History Ireland', Volume 21 No. 6)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Theobald Wolfe Tone in French uniform, which he wore at his trial</td></tr>
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<br />
The members of the Court having been sworn, the Judge Advocate called on the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty to the charge of having acted traitorously and hostilely against the King.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>TONE REPLIED: </b><i>"I mean not to give the court any useless trouble, and wish to spare them the idle task of examining witnesses. I admit all the facts alleged, and only request leave to read an address which I have prepared for this occasion."</i><br />
<br />
<b>COLONEL DALY: </b><i>"I must warn the prisoner that, in acknowledging those facts, he admits, to his prejudice, that he has acted traitorously against his Majesty. Is such his intention?"</i></div>
<div>
<br />
<b>TONE: </b><i>"Stripping this charge of the technicality of its terms, it means, I presume, by the word traitorously, that I have been found in arms against the soldiers of the King in my native country. I admit this accusation in its most extended sense, and request again to explain to the court the reasons and motives of my conduct."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
The court then observed they would hear his address, provided he kept himself within the bounds of moderation.<br />
<br />
Tone rose, and began in these words:</div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court-Martial, I mean not to give you the trouble of bringing judicial proof to convict me legally of having acted in hostility to the government of his Britannic Majesty in Ireland. I admit the fact. From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced that, whilst it lasted, this country could never be free nor happy. My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year, and the conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes. In consequence, I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move, in order to separate the two countries. That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke, I knew; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found. In honourable poverty I rejected offers which, to a man in my circumstances, might be considered highly advantageous. I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country, and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen from—"</i><br />
<br />
The President here interrupted the prisoner, observing that this language was neither relevant to the charge, nor such as ought to be delivered in a public court.<br />
<br />
A Member said it seemed calculated only to inflame the minds of a certain description of people (the United Irishmen), many of whom might be present, and that the court could not suffer it.<br />
<br />
<b>THE JUDGE ADVOCATE SAID: </b><i>"If Mr. Tone meant this paper to be laid before his Excellency in way of extenuation, it must have quite a contrary effect, if the foregoing part was suffered to remain."</i> </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The President wound up by calling on the prisoner to hesitate before proceeding further in the same strain.<br />
<br />
<b>TONE THEN CONTINUED: </b><i>"I believe there is nothing in what remains for me to say which can give any offence; I mean to express my feelings and gratitude towards the Catholic body, in whose cause I was engaged."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
<b>PRESIDENT: </b><i>"That seems to have nothing to say to the charge against you, to which you are only to speak. If you have anything to offer in defence or extenuation of the charge, the court will hear you, but they beg you will confine yourself to that subject."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
<b>TONE: </b><i>"I shall, then, confine myself to some points relative to my connection with the French army. Attached to no party in the French Republic—without interest, without money, without intrigue—the openness and integrity of my views raised me to a high and confidential rank in its armies. I obtained the confidence of the Executive Directory, the approbation of my generals, and I will venture to add, the esteem and affection of my brave comrades. When I review these circumstances, I feel a secret and internal consolation which no reverse of fortune, no sentence in the power of this court to inflict, can deprive me of, or weaken in any degree. Under the flag of the French Republic I originally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own country. For that purpose I have encountered the chances of war amongst strangers; for that purpose I repeatedly braved the terrors of the ocean, covered, as I knew it to be, with the triumphant fleets of that power which it was my glory and my duty to oppose. I have sacrificed all my views in life; I have courted poverty; I have left a beloved wife unprotected, and children whom I adored fatherless. After such a sacrifice, in a cause which I have always considered—conscientiously considered—as the cause of justice and freedom, it is no great effort, at this day, to add the sacrifice of my life. But I hear it said that this unfortunate country has been a prey to all sorts of horrors. I sincerely lament it. I beg, however, it may be remembered that I have been absent four years from Ireland. To me these sufferings can never be attributed. I designed by fair and open war to procure the separation of the two countries. For open war I was prepared, but instead of that a system of private assassination has taken place. I repeat, whilst I deplore it, that it is not chargeable on me. Atrocities, it seems, have been committed on both sides. I do not less deplore them. I detest them from my heart; and to those who know my character and sentiments I may safely appeal for the truth of this assertion; with them I need no justification. In a case like this success is everything. Success, in the eyes of the vulgar, fixes its merits. Washington succeeded, and Kosciusko failed. After a combat nobly sustained—combat which would have excited the respect and sympathy of a generous enemy—my fate has been to become a prisoner, to the eternal disgrace of those who gave the orders. I was brought here in irons like a felon. I mention this for the sake of others; for me, I am indifferent to it. I am aware of the fate which awaits me, and scorn equally the tone of complaint and that of supplication. As to the connection between this country and Great Britain, I repeat it—all that has been imputed to me (words, writings, and actions), I here deliberately avow. I have spoken and acted with reflection and on principle, and am ready to meet the consequences. Whatever be the sentence of the court, I am prepared for it. Its members will surely discharge their duty—I shall take care not to be wanting in mine."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
The court having asked if he wished to make any further observation,<br />
<br />
<b>TONE: </b><i>"I wish to offer a few words relative to one single point—the mode of punishment. In France our emigrees, who stand nearly in the same situation in which I now stand before you, are condemned to be shot. I ask that the court shall adjudge me the death of a soldier, and let me be shot by a platoon of grenadiers. I request this indulgence rather in consideration of the uniform I wear—the uniform of a Chef de Brigade in the French army—than from any personal regard to myself. In order to evince my claim to this favour, I beg that the court may take the trouble to peruse my commission and letters of service in the French army. It will appear from these papers that I have not received them as a mask to cover me, but that I have been long and bona fide an officer in the French service."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
<b>JUDGE ADVOCATE: </b><i>"You must feel that the papers you allude to will serve as undeniable proof against you."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
<b>TONE: </b><i>"Oh, I know they will. I have already admitted the facts, and I now admit the papers as full proof of conviction."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
[The papers were then examined; they consisted of a brevet of Chef de Brigade from the Directory, signed by the Minister of War, of a letter of service granting to him the rank of Adjutant-General, and of a passport.]<br />
<br />
<b>GENERAL LOFTUS: </b><i>"In these papers you are designated as serving in the army of England."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
<b>TONE: </b><i>"I did serve in that army, when it was commanded by Buonaparte, by Dessaix, and by Kilmaine, who is, as I am, an Irishman; but I have also served elsewhere."</i></div>
<div>
<br />
The Court requested if he had anything further to observe.<br />
<br />
He said that nothing more occurred to him, except that the sooner his Excellency's approbation of the sentence was obtained the better.<br />
<br />
<i>(For a long time a section of the speech was suppressed, the court having forbade it's reading at the trial. It was not until the publication of the<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; text-align: justify;"> </span>"Correspondence" of Lord Cornwallis (Lord Lieutenant in Ireland at the time) decades later that the suppressed passage came to light, in which he thanks the Catholics of Ireland. I have included it below)</i><br />
<br />
<i>"I have laboured to abolish the infernal spirit of religious persecution, by uniting the Catholics and Dissenters. To the former I owe more than ever can be repaid. The service I was so fortunate as to render them they rewarded munificently; but they did more: when the public cry was raised against me—when the friends of my youth swarmed off and left me alone—the Catholics did not desert me; they had the virtue even to sacrifice their own interests to a rigid principle of honour; they refused, though strongly urged, to disgrace a man who, whatever his conduct towards the Government might have been, had faithfully and conscientiously discharged his duty towards them; and in so doing, though it was in my own case, I will say they showed an instance of public virtue of which I know not whether there exists another example."</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-75193713244759237702013-11-15T10:00:00.000+00:002013-11-15T15:02:23.306+00:001803 Proclamation of the Provisional Government<i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">"We therefore solemnly declare that our object is to establish a free and independent Republic in Ireland; that the pursuit of this object we will relinquish only with our lives"</i><br />
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></i>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXpYo3kvDYdWyQ8rc6Vrk2UlMG7FX2ltN3crEvEQMxuCbrNRusuvFjdvC4UcjjuQcR6T5FGz67Ym1oJ7C9VmhJh4foXO83vW9Wl-6jzG5T3VwjuYvsgZRCbQBTqzgl4LJeMFUD1AbvZpFK/s1600/Robert+Emmet.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXpYo3kvDYdWyQ8rc6Vrk2UlMG7FX2ltN3crEvEQMxuCbrNRusuvFjdvC4UcjjuQcR6T5FGz67Ym1oJ7C9VmhJh4foXO83vW9Wl-6jzG5T3VwjuYvsgZRCbQBTqzgl4LJeMFUD1AbvZpFK/s400/Robert+Emmet.png" width="323" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a name='more'></a>Robert Emmet, who is believed to have written the bulk of the proclamation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Around 10,000 copies of Emmet's proclamation were printed in 62 Abbey Street by John Stockdale on 23rd July 1803, mere hours before the ill fated rising. Some copies were handed out and Emmet himself read excerpts from it in Thomas Street (where he was later hung and beheaded) at the beginning of the rebellion but the majority did not end up in the hands of the public, they were seized by the authorities.<br />
<br />
The proclamation is noteworthy in a number of regards. Firstly there is it's length and content. In comparison to the proclamations of 1916 and 1867 it is not a short, concise declaration and call to arms, it is a very detailed document - an interim constitution - which covers a range of issues, from declaring Church land the property of the nation to stating how enemy prisoners are to be treated. (Quite advanced for its day, predating the Geneva convention)<br />
<br />
It is also the last communication from the Society of United Irishmen. It's influence was far reaching and can clearly be seen in later proclamations such as the aforementioned ones in 1867 and 1916.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAa1TxtWCABAHZ_P_JW7diwdP2NFsCcFsHWAcOQTFDGkFENIX42exNyEtFgjA1A8HBxu4B1K8YgzJ4XhCuEFc0_Oj5wwSE4XAHe6UXp_EDI4umx7PjgOmQirGkhAiIPJ4nv8niGiEcayh1/s1600/Emmet+Proclamation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAa1TxtWCABAHZ_P_JW7diwdP2NFsCcFsHWAcOQTFDGkFENIX42exNyEtFgjA1A8HBxu4B1K8YgzJ4XhCuEFc0_Oj5wwSE4XAHe6UXp_EDI4umx7PjgOmQirGkhAiIPJ4nv8niGiEcayh1/s400/Emmet+Proclamation.jpg" width="360" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 1803 Proclamation</td></tr>
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<br />
<b>The Provisional Government </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>To </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b> THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND </b><br />
<br />
You are now called on to shew to the world that you are competent to take your place among nations, that you have a right to claim their recognizance of you, as an independent country, by the only satisfactory proof you can furnish of your capability of maintaining your independence, your wresting it from England with your own hands.<br />
<br />
In the development of this system, which has been organized within the last eight months, at the close of internal defeat and without the hope of foreign assistance; which has been conducted with a tranquility, mistaken for obedience; which neither the failure of a similar attempt in England has retarded, nor the renewal of hostilities has accelerated; in the development of this system you will show to the people of England, that there is a spirit of perseverance in this country, beyond their power to calculate or to repress; you will show to them that as long as they think to hold unjust dominion over Ireland, under no change of circumstances can they count on its obedience; under no aspect of affairs can they judge of its intentions; you will show to them that the question which it now behoves them to take into serious and instant consideration, is not, whether they will resist a separation, which it is our fixed determination to effect, but whether or not, they will drive us beyond separation; whether they will by a sanguinary resistance create a deadly national antipathy between the two countries, or whether they will take the only means still left, of driving such a sentiment from our minds, a prompt, manly, and sagacious acquiescence, in our just and unalterable determination.<br />
<br />
If the secrecy with which the present effort has been conducted, shall have led our enemies to suppose that its extent must have been partial, a few days will undeceive them. That confidence, which was once lost, by trusting to external support, and suffering our own means to be gradually undermined, has been again restored. We have been mutually pledged to each other, to look only to our own strength, and that the first introduction of a system of terror, the first attempt to execute an individual in one county, should be the signal of insurrection in all. We have now, without the loss of a man, with our means of communication untouched, brought our plans to the moment when they are ripe for execution, and in the promptitude with which nineteen counties will come forward at once to execute them, it will be found that neither confidence nor communication are wanting to the people of Ireland.<br />
<br />
In calling on our countrymen to come forward, we feel ourselves bound, at the same time, to justify our claim to their confidence by a precise declaration of our views. We therefore solemnly declare, that our object is to establish a free and independent republic in Ireland: that the pursuit of this object we will relinquish only with our lives: that we will never, unless at the express call of our country, abandon our post, until the acknowledgment of its independence is obtained from England; and that we will enter into no negotiation (but for exchange of prisoners) with the government of that country while a British army remains in Ireland. Such is the declaration which we call on the people of Ireland to support – And we call first on that part of Ireland which was once paralysed by the want of intelligence, to shew that to that cause only was its inaction to be attributed; on that part of Ireland which was once foremost, by its fortitude in suffering; on that part of Ireland which once offered to take the salvation of the country on itself; on that part of Ireland where the flame of liberty first glowed; we call upon the NORTH to stand up and shake off their Slumber and their oppression.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> MEN OF LEINSTER, STAND TO YOUR ARMS. </b><br />
<br />
<br />
To the courage which you have already displayed, is your country indebted for the confidence which it now feels in its own strength, and for the dismay with which our enemies will be overwhelmed when they shall find this effort to be universal. But men of Leinster, you owe more to your country than the having animated it by your past example; you owe more to your own courage, than the having obtained, by it a protection. If six years ago, when you rose without arms, without plan, without co-operation, with more troops against you alone, than are now in the country at large; you were able to remain for six weeks in open defiance of the government, and within a few miles of the capital what will you not now effect, with that capital, and every other part of Ireland ready to support you? But it is not on this head that we have need to address you. No we now speak to you, and through you, to the rest of Ireland, on a subject, dear to us even as the success of our country, - its honour. You are accused by your enemies of having violated that honour; excesses which they themselves had in their fullest extent provoked, but which they have grossly exaggerated, have been attributed to you. The opportunity of vindicating yourselves by actions, is now for the first time before you; and we call upon you to give the lie to such assertions, by carefully avoiding every appearance of plunder, intoxication, or revenge; recollecting that you lost Ireland before, not from want of courage, but from not having that courage rightly directed by discipline. But we trust that your past sufferings, have taught you experience, and that you will respect the declaration which we now make and which we are determined by every means in our power to enforce.<br />
<br />
The nation alone possesses the right of punishing individuals, and whosoever shall put another person to death, except in battle, without a fair trial by his country, is guilty of murder. The intention of the provisional government of Ireland, is to claim from the English government, such Irishmen as have been sold or transported, by it for their attachment to freedom; and for this purpose, it will retain as hostages for their safe return, such adherents of that government as shall fall into its hands. It therefore calls upon the people to respect those hostages, and to recollect that in spilling their blood, they would leave their own countrymen in the hands of their enemies.<br />
<br />
The intention of the provisional government, is to resign its functions, as soon as the nation shall have chosen its delegates, but in the mean time, it is determined to enforce the regulations hereunto subjoined; - It in consequence takes the property of the country under its protection, and will punish with the utmost rigour any person who shall violate that property, and thereby injure the present resources and the future prosperity of Ireland.<br />
<br />
Whoever refuses to march to whatever part of the country he is ordered, is guilty of disobedience to the government, which alone is competent to decide in what place his services are necessary, and which desires him to recollect, that in whatever part of Ireland he is fighting, he is still fighting for its freedom.<br />
<br />
Whoever presumes by acts or otherwise to give countenance to the calumny propagated by our enemies, that this is a religious contest, is guilty of the grievous crime of belying the motives of his country. Religious disqualification is but one of the many grievances of which Ireland has to complain. Our intention is to remove not that only, but every other oppression under which we labour. We fight, that all of us may have our country, and that done – each of us shall have his religion.<br />
<br />
We are aware of the apprehensions which you have expressed, that in quitting your own counties, you leave your wives and children, in the hands of your enemies; but on this head have no uneasiness. If there are still men base enough to persecute those, who are unable to resist, shew them by your victories that we have the power to punish, and by your obedience, that we have the power to protect, and we pledge ourselves to you, that these men shall be made to feel, that the safety of every thing they hold dear, depends on the conduct they observe to you. Go forth then with confidence, conquer the foreign enemies of your country, and leave to us the care of preserving its internal tranquillity; recollect that not only the victory, but also the honour of your country, is placed in your hands; give up your private resentments, and shew to the world, that the Irish, are not only a brave, but also a generous and forgiving people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b> MEN OF MUNSTER AND CONNAUGHT </b><br />
<br />
You have your instructions, we trust that you will execute them. The example of the rest of your countrymen is now before you; your own strength is unbroken;-five months ago you were eager to act without any other assistance. We now call upon you to shew, what you then declared you only wanted the opportunity of proving, that you possess the same love of liberty and the same courage with which the rest of your countrymen are animated.<br />
<br />
We now turn to that portion of our countrymen whose prejudices we had rather overcome by a frank declaration of our intentions, than conquer their persons in the field; and in making this declaration, we do not wish to dwell on events, which, however, they may bring tenfold odium on their authors, must still tend to keep alive in the minds both of the instruments and victims of them, a spirit of animosity which it is our wish to destroy. We will therefore enter into no detail of the atrocities and oppression which Ireland has laboured under during its connexion with England; but we justify our determination to separate from that country on the broad historical statement, that during six hundred years she has been unable to conciliate the affections of the people of Ireland; that during that time, five rebellions were entered into, to shake off the yoke; that she has been obliged to resort to a system of unprecedented torture in her defence; that she has broken every tie of voluntary connexion by taking even the name of independence from Ireland, through the intervention of a parliament noto<span style="font-family: inherit;">riously bribed, and not representing the will of the people; that in her vindication of this measure she has herself given the justification of the views of the United Irishmen, by declaring in the words of her ministers, </span><br />
<br />
<i> " That Ireland never had, and never could enjoy under the then circumstances the benefit of British connexion; that it necessarily must happen when one country is connected with another, that the interests of the lesser will be borne down by those of the greater. That England has supported and encouraged the English colonists in their oppression towards the natives of Ireland; that Ireland had been left in a state of ignorance, rudeness and barbarism, worse in its effects, and more degrading in its nature, than that in which it was found six centuries before." </i><br />
<br />
Now to what cause are these things to be attributed? Did the cause of the almighty keep alive a spirit of obstinacy in the minds of the Irish people for six hundred years?<br />
<br />
Did the doctrines of the French revolution produce five rebellions? Could the misrepresentations of ambitious and designing men drive from the mind of a whole people, the recollection of defeat, and raise the infant from the cradle, with the same feelings with which his father sunk into the grave? Will this gross avowal which our enemies have made of their own views, remove none of the calumny that has been thrown upon ours? Will none of the credit [which] has been lavished on them, be transferred to the solemn declaration which we now make in the face of god and our country. We war not against property – We war against no religious sect – We war not against past opinions or prejudices – We war against English dominion. We will not however deny, that there are some men, who, not because they have supported the government of our oppressors, but because they have violated the common laws of morality, which exist alike under all or under no government; have put it beyond our power to give to them the protection of a government. We will not hazard the influence we may have with the people, and the power it may give us of preventing the excesses of revolution, by undertaking to place in tranquillity the man who has been guilty of torture, free quarters, rape and murder, by the side of the sufferer or their relations; but in the frankness with which we warn these men of their danger, let those who do not feel that they have passed this boundary of mediation, count on their safety.<br />
<br />
We had hoped for the sake of our enemies to have taken them by surprize, and to have committed the cause of our country before they could have time to commit themselves against it, but though we have not altogether been able to succeed, we are yet rejoiced to find that they have not come forward with promptitude on the side of those who have deceived them, and we now call on them before it is yet too late, not to commit themselves further against a people they are unable to resist, and in support of a government, which, by their own declaration has forfeited its claim to their allegiance.<br />
<br />
To that government in whose hands, though not the issue, at least the features with which the present contest is to be marked, and placed, we now turn. How is it to be decided? is open and honourable force alone to be resorted to, or is it your intention to employ those laws which custom has placed in your hands, and to force us to employ the law of retaliation in our defence?<br />
<br />
Of the inefficacy of a system of terror, in preventing the people of Ireland from coming forward to assert their freedom, you have already had experience. Of the effect which such a system will have on our minds in case of success, we have already forewarned you – We now address to you another consideration – If in the question which is now to receive a solemn and we trust final decision, if we have been deceived reflection would point out that conduct should be resorted to, which was the best calculated to produce conviction on our minds. What would that conduct be? It would be to shew to us that the difference of strength between the two countries [is such], as to render it unnecessary for you to bring out all your force; to shew to us that you have something in reserve wherewith to crush hereafter, not only a greater exertion on the part of the people, but a greater exertion, rendered still greater by foreign assistance: It would be to shew to us that what we have vainly supported to be a prosperity growing beyond your grasp, is only a partial exuberance requiring but the pressure of your hand to reduce it into form. But for your own sake do not resort to a system, which while it increased the acrimony of our minds would leave us under the melancholy delusion that we had been forced to yield, not to the sound and temperate exertions of superior strength, but to the frantick struggles of weakness, concealing itself under desperation. Consider also that the distinction of rebel and enemy is of a very fluctuating nature; that during the course of your own experience you have already been obliged to lay it aside; that should you be forced to abandon it towards Ireland you cannot hope to do so as tranquilly as you have done towards America, for in the exasperated state to which you have raised the minds of the Irish people; a people whom you profess to have left in a state of barbarism and ignorance, with what confidence can you say to that people " while the advantage of cruelty lay upon our side, we slaughtered you without mercy, but the measure of our own blood is beginning to preponderate, it is no longer our interest that this bloody system should continue, shew us then, that forbearance which we never taught you by precept or example, lay aside your resentments, give quarter to us, and let us mutually forget, that we never gave quarter to you." Cease then we entreat you uselessly to violate humanity by resorting to a system inefficacious as an instrument of terror, inefficacious as a mode of defence, inefficacious as a mode of conviction, ruinous to the future relations of the two countries in case of our success, and destructive of those instruments of defence which you will then find it doubly necessary to have preserved unimpaired. But if your determination be otherwise, hear ours. We will not imitate you in cruelty; we will put no man to death in cold blood, the prisoners which firstfall into our hands shall be treated with the respect due to the unfortunate; but if the life of a single Irish solder is taken after the battle is over, the orders thence forth to be issued to the Irish army are neither to give or take quarter. Countrymen if a cruel necessity forces us to retaliate, we will bury our resentments in the field of battle, if we are to fall, we will fall where we fight for our country – Fully impressed with this determination, of the necessity of adhering to which past experience has but too fatally convinced us; fully impressed with the justice of our cause which we now put to issue. We make our last and solemn appeal to the sword and to Heaven; and as the cause of Ireland deserves to prosper, may God give it Victory.<br />
<br />
<br />
Conformably to the above proclamation, the Provisional Government of Ireland, decree that as follows.<br />
<br />
<b> 1.</b> From the date and promulgation hereof, tithes are for ever abolished, and church lands are the property of the nation.<br />
<br />
<b> 2.</b> From the same date, all transfers of landed property are prohibited, each person, holding what he now possesses, on paying his rent until the national government is established, the national will declared, and the courts of justice organized.<br />
<br />
<b> 3.</b> From the same date, all transfer of Bonds, debentures, and all public securities, are in like manner and form forbidden, and declared void, for the same time, and for the same reasons.<br />
<br />
<b> 4.</b> The Irish generals commanding districts shall seize such of the partizans of England as may serve for hostages, and shall apprize the English commander opposed to them, that a strict retaliation shall take place if any outrages contrary to the laws of war shall be committed by the troops under his command, or by the partizans of England in the district which he occupies.<br />
<br />
<b> 5.</b> That the Irish generals are to treat (except where retaliation makes it necessary) the English troops who may fall into their hands, or such Irish as serve in the regular forces of England, and who shall have acted conformably to the laws of war, as prisoners of war; but all Irish militia, yeoman, or volunteer corps, or bodies of Irish, or individuals, who fourteen days from the promulgation and date hereof, shall be found in arms, shall be considered as rebels, committed for trial, and their properties confiscated.<br />
<br />
<b> 6.</b> The generals are to assemble court-martials, who are to be sworn to administer justice; who are not to condemn without sufficient evidence, and before whom all military offenders are to be sent instantly for trial.<br />
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<b> 7.</b> No man is to suffer death by their sentence, except for mutiny; the sentences of such others as are judged worthy of death, shall not be put in execution until the provisional government declares its will, nor are court-martials on any pretext to sentence, nor is any officer to suffer the punishment of flogging, or any species of torture, to be inflicted.<br />
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<b> 8.</b> The generals are to enforce the strictest discipline, and to send offenders immediately before court-martials, and are enjoined to chase away from the Irish armies all such as shall disgrace themselves by being drunk in presence of the enemy.<br />
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<b> 9.</b> The generals are to apprize their respective armies, that all military stores, arms, or ammunition, belonging to the English government, be the property of the captors and the value is to divided equally without respect of rank between them, except that the widows, orphans, parents, or other heirs of such as gloriously fall in the attack, shall be entitled to a double share.<br />
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<b> 10.</b> As the English nation has made war on Ireland, all English property in ships or otherwise, is subject to the same rule, and all transfer of them is forbidden and declared void, in like manner as is expressed in No.2 and 3.<br />
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<b> 11.</b> The generals of the different districts are hereby empowered to confer rank up to colonels inclusive, on such as they conceive to merit it from the nation, but are not to make more colonels than one for fifteen hundred men, nor more Lieutenant-Colonels than one for every thousand men.<br />
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<b> 12. </b>The generals shall seize on all sums of public money in the custom-houses in their districts, orin the hands of the different collectors, county treasurers, or other revenue officers, whom they shall render responsible for the sums in their hands. The generals shall pass receipts for the amount, and account to the provisional government for the expenditure.<br />
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<b>13. </b>When the people elect their officers up to the colonels, the general is bound to confirm it – no officer can be broke but by sentence of a court-martial.<br />
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<b>14. </b>The generals shall correspond with the provisional government, to whom they shall give details of all their operations, they are to correspond with the neighbouring generals to whom they are to transmit all necessary intelligence, and to co-operate with them.<br />
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<b>15.</b> The generals commanding in each county shall as soon as it is cleared of the enemy, assemble the county committee, who shall be elected conformably to the constitution of United Irishmen, all the requisitions necessary for the army shall be made in writing by the generals to the committee, who are hereby empowered and enjoined to pass their receipts for each article to the owners, to the end that they may receive their full value from the nation.<br />
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<b>16.</b> The county committee is charged with the civil direction of the county, the care of the national property, and the preservation of order and justice in the county; for which purpose the county committees are to appoint a high-sheriff, and one or more sub-sheriffs to execute their orders, a sufficient number of justices of the peace for the county, a high and a sufficient number of petty constables in each barony, who are respectively charged with the duties now performed by these magistrates.<br />
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<b> 17. </b>The county of Cork on account of its extent, is to be divided conformably to the boundaries for raising the militia into the counties of north and south Cork, for each of which a county constable, high-sheriff and all magistrates above directed are to be appointed.<br />
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<b>18.</b> The county committee are hereby empowered and enjoined to issue warrants to apprehend such persons as it shall appear, on sufficient evidence perpetrated murder, torture, or other breaches of the acknowledged laws of war and morality on the people, to the end that they may be tried for those offences, so soon as the competent courts of justice are established by the nation.<br />
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<b>19.</b> The county committee shall cause the sheriff or his officers to seize on all the personal and real property of such persons, to put seals on their effects, to appoint proper persons to preserve all such property until the national courts of justice shall have decided on the fate of the proprietors.<br />
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<b>20.</b> The county committee shall act in like manner, with all state and church lands, parochial estates, and all public lands and edifices.<br />
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<b>21.</b> The county committee shall in the interim receive all the rents and debts of such persons and estates, and shall give receipts for the same, shall transmit to the provisional government an exact account of their value, extent and amount, and receive the directions of the provisional government thereon.<br />
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<b>22.</b> They shall appoint some proper house in the counties where the sheriff is permanently to reside, and where the county committee shall assemble, they shall cause all the records and papers of the county to be there transferred, arranged, and kept, and the orders of government are there to be transmitted and received.<br />
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<b>23.</b> The county committee is hereby empowered to pay out of these effects, or by assessment, reasonable salaries for themselves, the sheriff, justices and other magistrates whom they shall appoint.<br />
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<b>24.</b> They shall keep a written journal of all their proceedings signed each day by the members of the committee, or a sufficient number of them for the inspection of government.<br />
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<b>25.</b> The county committee shall correspond with government on all the subjects with which they are charged, and transmit to the general of the district such information as they may conceive useful to the public.<br />
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<b>26.</b> The county committee shall take care that the state prisoners, however great their offences, shall be treated with humanity, and allow them a sufficient support to the end that all the world may know, that the Irish nation is not actuated by the spirit of revenge, but of justice.<br />
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<b>27. </b>The provisional government wishing to commit as soon as possible the sovereign authority to the people, direct that each county and city shall elect agreeably to the constitution of United Irishmen, representatives to meet in Dublin, to whom the moment they assemble the provisional government will resign its functions; and without presuming to dictate to the people, they beg to suggest, that for the important purpose to which these electors are called, integrity of character should be the first object.<br />
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<b>28.</b> The number of representatives being arbitrary, the provisional government have adopted that of the late house of commons, three hundred, and according to the best return of the population of the cities and counties the following numbers are to be returned from each:-Antrim 13 - Armagh 9 -Belfast town 1 - Carlow 3 -Cavan 7 -Clare 8 Cork county, north 14 -Cork co. south 14 -Cork city 6 -Donegal 10 -Down 6 -Drogheda 1 -Dublin county 4 -Dublin city 14 -Fermanagh 5 -Galway 10 -Kerry 9 -Kildare 4 -Kilkenny 7 -Kings county 6 -Leitrim 5 -Limerick county 10 -Limerick city 3 -Londonderry 9 -Longford 4 -Louth 4 -Mayo 12 -Meath 9 -Monaghan 9 -Queen’s county 6 -Roscommon 8 -Sligo 6 -Tipperary 13 -Tyrone 14 -Waterford county 6 -Waterford city 2 -Westmeath 5 -Wexford 9 -Wicklow 5<br />
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<b>29.</b> In the cities the same sort of regulations as in the counties shall be adopted; the city committee shall appoint one or more sheriffs as they think proper, and shall take possession of all the public and corporation properties in their jurisdiction in like manner as is directed for counties.<br />
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<b>30.</b> The provisional government strictly exhort and enjoin all magistrates, officers, civil and military, and the whole of the nation, to cause the laws of Morality to be enforced and respected, and to execute as far as in them lies justice with mercy, by whcih [sic] alone liberty can be established, and the blessings of divine providence secured.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-29019736812037498292013-11-12T10:00:00.000+00:002013-11-12T10:00:08.827+00:00 The Ralahine Commune<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The Ralahine Commune was a co-operative society founded in 1831 on the estate of John Vandeleur at Ralahine, Co. Clare, with the assistance of a socialist from England called Thomas Craig. </i><i>Here follows James Connolly's account of the Ralahine Commune as published in his book "Labour in Irish History", the entirety of which you can read or download <a href="https://archive.org/details/labourinirishhis00connuoft">here</a>.</i></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdpV7B4ZpQ7_I3Ts3GLrzLNlY6IcfLXV6FL7EWPZwUfsyIVo-pr4Rw5BstG8UmyOFscatOZ0aNiCTcdfsSdHqaxQgUZZ9YSs_P3Fdp6BgjdkRbVd-lqPv6usxPPx02dcju98S2LO3PUsvM/s1600/James+Connolly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdpV7B4ZpQ7_I3Ts3GLrzLNlY6IcfLXV6FL7EWPZwUfsyIVo-pr4Rw5BstG8UmyOFscatOZ0aNiCTcdfsSdHqaxQgUZZ9YSs_P3Fdp6BgjdkRbVd-lqPv6usxPPx02dcju98S2LO3PUsvM/s400/James+Connolly.jpg" width="315" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">James Connolly</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1832 the great English socialist, Robert Owen, visited Ireland and held a number of meetings in the Rotunda, Dublin, for the purpose of explaining the principles of Socialism to the people of that city. His audiences were mainly composed of the well-to-do inhabitants, as was, indeed, the case universally at that period when Socialism was the fad of the rich instead of the faith of the poor. The Duke of Leinster, the Catholic Archbishop Murray, Lord Meath, Lord Cloncurry, and others occupied the platform, and as a result of the picture drawn by Owen of the misery then existing, and the attendant insecurity of life and property amongst all classes, and his outline of the possibilities which a system of Socialist co-operation could produce, an association styling itself the Hibernian Philanthropic Society was formed to carry out his ideas. A sum of money was subscribed to aid the prospects of the society, a General Brown giving £1,000, Lord Cloncurry £500, Mr. Owen himself subscribing £1,000, and £100 being raised from other sources. The society was short-lived and ineffectual, but one of the members, Mr. Arthur Vandeleur, an Irish landlord, was so deeply impressed with all he had seen and heard of the possibilities of Owenite Socialism, that in 1831, when crime and outrage in the country had reached its zenith, and the insecurity of life in his own class had been brought home to him by the assassination of the steward of his estate for unfeeling conduct towards the labourers, he resolved to make an effort to establish a Socialist colony upon his property at Ralahine, County Clare. For that purpose he invited to Ireland a Mr. Craig, of Manchester, a follower of Owen, and entrusted him with the task of carrying the project into execution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Though Mr. Craig knew no Irish, and the people of Ralahine, as a rule, knew no English – a state of matters which greatly complicated the work of explanation – an understanding was finally arrived at, and the estate was turned over to an association of the people organised under the title of "The Ralahine Agricultural and Manufacturing Co-operative Association."</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />In the preamble to the Laws of the Association, its objects were defined as follows: –</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>1. </b>The acquisition of a common capital.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>2. </b>The mutual assurance of its members against the evils of poverty, sickness, infirmity, and old age.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>3. </b>The attainment of a greater share of the comforts of life than the working classes now possess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>4. </b>The mental and moral improvement of its adult members.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>5. </b>The education of their children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />The following paragraphs selected from the Rules of the Association will give a pretty clear idea of its most important features: –</span><div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b><u>BASIS OF THE SOCIETY</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br />1. </b>That all the stock, implements of husbandry, and other property belong to and are the property of Mr. Vandeleur, until the Society accumulates sufficient to pay for them; they then become the joint property of the Society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b><u>PRODUCTION</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br />1. </b>We engage that whatever talents we may individually possess, whether mental or muscular, agricultural, manufacturing, or scientific, shall be directed to the benefit of all, as well by their immediate exercise in all necessary occupations as by communicating our knowledge to each other, and particularly to the young.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>2. </b>That, as far as can be reduced to practice, each individual shall assist in agricultural operations, particularly in harvest, it being fully understood that no individual is to act as steward, but all are to work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>3. </b>That all the youth, male or female, do engage to learn some useful trade, together with agriculture and gardening, between the ages of nine and seventeen years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>4. </b>That the committee meet every evening to arrange the business for the following day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>5. </b>That the hours of labour be from six in the morning till six in the evening in summer, and from daybreak till dusk in winter, with the intermission of one hour for dinner.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>6. </b>That each agricultural labouring man shall receive eightpence, and every woman fivepence per day for their labour (these were the ordinary wages of the country, the secretary, storekeeper, smiths, joiners, and a few others received something more; the excess being borne by the proprietor) which it is expected will be paid out at the store in provisions, or any other article the society may produce or keep there; any other articles may be purchased elsewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>7. </b>That no member be expected to perform any service or work but such as is agreeable to his or her feelings, or they are able to perform; but if any member thinks that any other member is not usefully employing his or her time, it is his or her duty to report it to the committee, whose duty it will be to bring that member’s conduct before a general meeting, who shall have power, if necessary, to expel that useless member.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b><u>DISTRIBUTION AND DOMESTIC ECONOMY</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br />1. </b>That all the services usually performed by servants be performed by the youth of both sexes under the age of seventeen years, either by rotation or choice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>2. </b>That the expenses of the children’s food, clothing, washing, lodging, and education be paid out of the common funds of the society, from the time they are weaned till they arrive at the age of seventeen, when they shall be eligible to become members.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>3. </b>That a charge be made for the food and clothing, &c., of those children trained by their parents, and residing in their dwelling houses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>4. </b>That each person occupying a house, or cooking and consuming their victuals therein, must pay for the fuel used.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>5. </b>That no charge be made for fuel used in the public room.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>6. </b>That it shall be a special object for the sub-committee of domestic economy, or the superintendent of that department, to ascertain and put in practice the best and most economical methods of preparing and cooking the food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>7. </b>That all the washing be done together in the public washhouse; the expenses of soap, labour, fuel, &c., to be equally borne by all the adult members.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>8. </b>That each member pay the sum of one half-penny out of every shilling received as wages to form a fund to be placed in the hands of the committee, who shall pay the wages out of this fund of any member who may fall sick or meet with an accident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>9. </b>Any damage done by a member to the stock, implements, or any other property belonging to the society to be made good out of the wages of the individual, unless the damage is satisfactorily accounted for to the committee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b><u>EDUCATION AND FORMATION OF CHARACTER</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br />1. </b>We guarantee each other that the young children of any person dying whilst a member of this society, shall be equally protected, educated, and cherished with the children of the living members, and entitled, when they arrive at the age of seventeen, to all the privileges of members.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>2. </b>That each individual shall enjoy perfect liberty of conscience, and freedom of expression of opinion, and in religious worship.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>3. </b>That no spirituous liquors of any kind, tobacco, or snuff be kept in the store, or on the premises.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>4. </b>That if any of us should unfortunately have a dispute with any other person, we agree to abide by a decision of the majority of the members, or any person to whom the matter in question may be by them referred.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>5. </b>That any person wishing to marry another do sign a declaration to that effect one week previous to the marriage taking place, and that immediate preparations be made for the erection, or fitting-up of a suitable dwelling house for their reception.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>6. </b>That any person wishing to marry another person, not a member, shall sign a declaration according to the last rule; the person not a member shall then be balloted for, and, if rejected, both must leave the society.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>7. </b>That if the conduct of any member be found injurious to the well-being of the society, the committee shall explain to him or her in what respect his or her conduct shall continue to transgress the rules, such member shall be brought before a general meeting, called for the purpose, and if the complaint be substantiated, three-fourths of the members present shall have power to expel, by ballot, such refractory member.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b><u>GOVERNMENT</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br />1. </b>The society to be governed, and its business transacted, by a committee of nine members, to be chosen half-yearly, by ballot, by all the adult male and female members, the ballot list to contain at least four of the last committee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>2. </b>The committee to meet every evening and their transactions to be regularly entered into a minute book, the recapitulation of which is to be given at the society’s general meeting by the secretary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><b>3. </b>That there be a general weekly meeting of the society; that the treasurer’s accounts be audited by the committee, and read over to the society; that the Suggestion Book be also read at this meeting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The colony did not use the ordinary currency of the country, but instead adopted a ‘Labour Note’ system of payment, all workers being paid in notes according to the number of hours worked, and being able to exchange the notes in the store for all the necessities of life. The notes were printed on stiff cardboard about the size of a visiting card, and represented the equivalent of a whole, a half, a quarter, an eighth, and a sixteenth of a day’s labour. There were also special notes printed in red ink representing respectively the labours of a day and a half, and two days. In his account of the colony published under the title of History of Ralahine, by Heywood & Sons, Manchester (a book we earnestly recommend to all our readers), Mr. Craig says: – </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“The labour was recorded daily on a ‘Labour Sheet’, which was exposed to view during the following week. The members could work or not at their own discretion. If no work, no record, and, therefore, no pay. Practically the arrangement was of great use. There were no idlers”</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Further on he comments: –</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><i>“The advantages of the labour notes were soon evident in the saving of members. They had no anxiety as to employment, wages, or the price of provisions. Each could partake of as much vegetable food as he or she could desire. The expenses of the children from infancy, for food or education, were provided for out of the common fund.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The object should be to obtain a rule of justice, if we seek the law of righteousness. This can only be fully realised in that equality arising out of a community of property where the labour of one member is valued at the same rate as that of another member, and labour is exchanged for labour. It was not possible to attain to this condition of equality at Ralahine, but we made such arrangements as would impart a feeling of security, fairness and justice to all. The prices of provisions were fixed and uniform. A labourer was charged one shilling a week for as many vegetables and as much fruit as he chose to consume; milk was a penny per quart; beef and mutton fourpence, and pork two and one-half pence per pound. The married members occupying separate quarters were charged sixpence per week for rent, and twopence for fuel.”</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i>In dealing with Ireland no one can afford to ignore the question of the attitude of the clergy; it is therefore interesting to quote the words of an English visitor to Ralahine, a Mr. Finch, who afterwards wrote a series of fourteen letters describing the community, and offered to lay a special report before a Select Committee of the House of Commons upon the subject. He says: –</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><i>“The only religion taught by the society was the unceasing practice of promoting the happiness of every man, woman, and child to the utmost extent in their power. Hence the Bible was not used as a school-book; no sectarian opinions were taught in the schools; no public dispute about religious dogmas or party political questions took place; nor were members allowed to ridicule each other’s religion; nor were there any attempts at proselytism. Perfect freedom in the performance of religious duties and religious exercises was guaranteed to all. The teaching of religion was left to ministers of religion and to the parents; but no priest or minister received anything from the funds of the society. Nevertheless, both Protestant and Catholic priests were friendly to the system as soon as they understood it, and one reason was that they found these sober, industrious persons had now a little to give them out of their earnings, whereas formerly they had been beggars.”</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br /></i>Mr. Craig also states that the members of the community, after it had been in operation for some time, were better Catholics than before they began. He had at first considerable difficulty in warding off the attacks of zealous Protestant proselytisers, and his firmness in doing so was one of the chief factors in winning the confidence of the people as well as their support in insisting upon the absolutely non-sectarian character of the teaching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />All disputes between the members were settled by appeals to a general meeting in which all adults of both sexes participated, and from which all judges, lawyers, and other members of the legal fraternity were rigorously excluded.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To those who fear that the institution of common property will be inimical to progress and invention, it must be reassuring to learn that this community of ‘ignorant’ Irish peasants introduced into Ralahine the first reaping machine used in Ireland, and hailed it as a blessing at a time when the gentleman farmers of England were still gravely debating the practicability of the invention. From an address to the agricultural labourers of the County Clare, issued by the community on the introduction of this machine, we take the following passages, illustrative of the difference of effect between invention under common ownership and capitalist ownership: –<br /><br /><i>“This machine of ours is one of the first machines ever given to the working classes to lighten their labour, and at the same time increase their comforts. It does not benefit any one person among us exclusively, nor throw any individual out of employment. Any kind of machinery used for shortening labour – except used in a co-operative society like ours – must tend to lessen wages, and to deprive working men of employment, and finally either to starve them, force them into some other employment (and then reduce wages in that also) or compel them to emigrate. Now, if the working classes would cordially and peacefully unite to adopt our system, no power or party could prevent their success.”</i><br /><br />This was published by order of the committee, 21st August, 1833, and when we observe the date we cannot but wonder at the number of things Clare – and the rest of Ireland – has forgotten since.<br /><br />It must not be supposed that the landlord of the estate on which Ralahine was situated had allowed his enthusiasm for Socialism to run away with his self-interest. On the contrary, when turning over his farms to the community he stipulated for the payment to himself of a very heavy rental in kind. We extract from Brotherhood, a Christian Socialist Journal published in the north of Ireland in 1891, a statement of the rental, and a very luminous summing-up of the lesson of Ralahine, by the editor, Mr. Bruce Wallace, long a hard and unselfish worker for the cause of Socialism in Ireland: –<br /><br /><i>“The Association was bound to deliver annually, either at Ralahine, Bunratty, Clare, or Limerick, as the landlord might require, free of expense –<br /><br /><br />Wheat 320 brls.<br /><br />Barley 240 brls.<br /><br />Oats 50 brls.<br /><br />Butter 10 cwt.<br /><br />Pork 30 cwt.<br /><br />Beef 70 cwt.<br /><br />“At the prices then prevailing, this amount of produce would be equivalent to about, £900, £700 of rent for the use of natural forces and opportunities, and £200 of interest upon capital. It was thus a pretty stiff tribute that these poor Irish toilers had to pay for the privilege of making a little bit of their native soil fruitful. This tribute was, of course, so much to be deducted from the means of improving their sunken condition. In any future efforts that may be made to profit by the example of Ralahine and to apply again the principles of co-operation in farming, there ought to be the utmost care taken to reduce to a minin um the tribute payable to non-workers, and if possible to get rid of it altogether. If, despite this heavy burden of having to produce a luxurious maintenance for loungers, the condition of the toilers at Ralahine, as we shall see, was marvellously raised by the introduction of the co-operative principle amongst them, how much more satisfactorily would it have been raised had they been free of that depressing dead weight?”</i><br /><br />Such is the lesson of Ralahine. Had all the land and buildings belonged to the people, had all other estates in Ireland been conducted on the same principles, and the industries of the country also so organised, had each of them appointed delegates to confer on the business of the country at some common centre as Dublin, the framework and basis of a free Ireland would have been realised. And when Ireland does emerge into complete control of her own destinies she must seek the happiness of her people in the extension on a national basis of the social arrangements of Ralahine, or else be but another social purgatory for her poor – a purgatory where the pangs of the sufferers will be heightened by remembering the delusive promises of political reformers.<br /><br />In the most crime-ridden county in Ireland this partial experiment in Socialism abolished crime; where the fiercest fight for religious domination had been fought it brought the mildest tolerance; where drunkenness had fed fuel to the darkest passions it established sobriety and gentleness; where poverty and destitution had engendered brutality, midnight marauding, and a contempt for all social bonds, it enthroned security, peace and reverence for justice, and it did this solely by virtue of the influence of the new social conception attendant upon the institution of common property bringing a common interest to all. Where such changes came in the bud, what might we not expect from the flower? If a partial experiment in Socialism, with all the drawbacks of an experiment, will achieve such magnificent results what could we not rightfully look for were all Ireland, all the world, so organised on the basis of common property, and exploitation and mastership forever abolished?<br /><br />The downfall of the Association came as a result of the iniquitous land laws of Great Britain refusing to recognise the right of such a community to hold a lease or to act as tenants. The landlord, Mr. Vandeleur, lost his fortune in a gambling transaction in Dublin, and fled in disgrace, unable to pay his debts. The persons who took over the estate under bankruptcy proceedings refused to recognise the community, insisted upon treating its members as common labourers on the estate, seized upon the buildings and grounds and broke up the Association.<br /><br />So Ralahine ended. But in the rejuvenated Ireland of the future the achievement of those simple peasants will be dwelt upon with admiration as a great and important landmark in the march of the human race towards its complete social emancipation. Ralahine was an Irish point of interrogation erected amidst the wildernesses of capitalist thought and feudal practice, challenging both in vain for an answer. Other smaller communities were also established in Ireland during the same period. A Lord Wallscourt established a somewhat similar community on his estate in County Galway; The Quarterly Review of November, 1819, states that there was then a small community existent nine miles outside Dublin, which held thirty acres, supported a priest and a school of 300 children, had erected buildings, made and sold jaunting cars, and comprised butchers, carpenters and wheelwrights; the Quakers of Dublin established a Co-operative Woollen Factory, which flourished until it was destroyed by litigation set on foot by dissatisfied members who had been won over to the side of rival capitalists, and a communal home was established and long maintained in Dublin by members of the same religious sect, but without any other motive than that of helping forward the march of social amelioration. We understand that the extensive store of Messrs. Ganly & Sons on Usher’s Quay in Dublin was the home of this community, who lived, worked and enjoyed themselves in the spacious halls, and slept in the smaller rooms of what is now the property of a capitalist auctioneer.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10337931328051377910noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-78133787054438311822013-11-10T18:02:00.004+00:002013-11-11T15:17:14.377+00:00The Suppression of Nationalist / Republican Councils in the North of Ireland<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<i>I wrote this a while back and it was originally published on <a href="http://www.politicalworld.org/" target="_blank">Politicalworld.org's</a> excellent group blog <a href="http://itsapoliticalworld.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">'It's a Political World</a>'. It's an interesting topic and it got a decent response so I decided to post it here also.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhfTym_hsiCrSejrNk-97vMk-k6t6OcL-2NFR8Wb1Hzjo-O1JZhAjVtbzKh-t5Kad4BG3YSu29zbs5MP47DJN2XbGdUp0ObnF6u5RguZ-nIfuLqqusc0ei1-Hinnzqj8ysiZA3TdDJ1uxE/s1600/Carson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhfTym_hsiCrSejrNk-97vMk-k6t6OcL-2NFR8Wb1Hzjo-O1JZhAjVtbzKh-t5Kad4BG3YSu29zbs5MP47DJN2XbGdUp0ObnF6u5RguZ-nIfuLqqusc0ei1-Hinnzqj8ysiZA3TdDJ1uxE/s320/Carson.jpg" width="257" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Edward Carson<br />
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In 1920 25 councils in the six counties were controlled by nationalists, some of which had voted allegiance to the Dáil. Needless to say the unionists were not pleased, especially with the prospect of the boundary commission, so they set about fixing things. Control over the councils was due to be passed to Stormont on 21st December 1921. When Tyrone CC informed Stormont that they would not recognise Stormont and that their allegiance was to the Dáil the RIC seized their offices and their documents.<br />
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Stormont then passed an act (Local Govt, Emergency Powers Bill) which permitted:<br />
<br />
<i>“the Ministry, in the event of any of the local authorities refusing to function or refusing to carry out the duties imposed on them under the Local Government Acts, can dissolve such authority and in its place appoint a Commission to carry on the duties of such authority”</i> – Dawson Bates<br />
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Fermanagh CC passed the following motion on 21st December 1921;<br />
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<i>“We, the County Council of Fermanagh, in view of the expressed desire of a large majority of people in this country, do not recognize the partition parliament in Belfast and do hereby direct our secretary to hold no further communications with either Belfast or British local governments, and we pledge our allegiance to Dáil Eireann”</i><br />
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The RIC seized their offices, sacked officials and the County Council was dissolved and replaced by Commissioners. Armagh, Keady and Newry Urban Councils, Downpatrick Town Commissioners, Cookstown, Downpatrick, Kilkeel, Lisnaskea, Strabane, Magherafelt, and Newry 1 & 2 Rural Councils as well as some Boards of Poor Law Guardians were all similarly dissolved and replaced by commissioners by April 1922. Derry remained.<br />
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To permanently deal with the problem, for the following local elections, PR was abolished, and all councilors were obliged to swear an oath to the crown. Our friend Dawson Bates then appointed Sir John Leech as the man to redraw boundaries, which he did at a rapid pace often giving locals only one week to make submissions – nationalists tended to boycott this absurdity. The plan worked excellently – after the 1924 local elections only 2 of the eighty councils were nationalist. Gerrymandering went on, Armagh Urban Council (Nationalist) was dissolved in 1934 and was only set back up again in 1946 with new wards and a unionist majority. Over these years Derry was re-jigged on a number of occasions.<br />
<br />
Votes were also limited to rate payers, which was worse on catholics. However in 1945 the new Labour government in Britain abolished this restricted franchise and granted universal suffrage – Stormont managed to be excluded from this and they actually went further with their own Representation of the People Bill 1946 and disenfranchised more people by taking votes away from lodgers, who again were disproportionately catholic given the shortage of housing and Unionist control of how houses were allocated. Companies were also given multiple votes, depending on their value – up to six votes to be cast by the company’s directors. The Unionist government were not even subtle about it, their Chief Whip Major L.E Curran stated it was ;<br />
<br />
<i>“to prevent Nationalists getting control of the three border counties and Derry City… The best way to prevent the overthrow of the government by the people who have no stake in the country and had not the welfare of the people of Ulster at heart was to disenfranchise them”</i><br />
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Gerrymandering continued right up until 1967 when the local councils in Fermanagh were all amalgamated into one which despite being a majority nationalist county, was dominated by Unionists to the tune of 36 seats to 17.<br />
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Councils were very powerful, as well as allocating houses they were major employers. Unionist control ensured jobs for the boys, school bus drivers, manual laborers etc.<br />
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Most of what I know is from Michael Farrell’s “Northern Ireland, The Orange State” but I would like to know more, in particular about what councils did in an attempt to prevent this and what they did during the war of independence and before they were all dissolved. A good topic for a thesis I reckon.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-81159008463239120292013-03-21T15:39:00.000+00:002013-03-21T16:13:49.448+00:00Proclamation of the Irish Republic, 1867<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fenian Flag, 1867. Note the American influence.</td></tr>
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<i>The Irish People of the World;</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i></i>
<i> We have suffered centuries of outrage, enforced poverty, and bitter misery. Our rights and liberties have been trampled on by an alien aristocracy, who treating us as foes, usurped our lands, and drew away from our unfortunate country all material riches. The real owners of the soil were removed to make room for cattle, and driven across the ocean to seek the means of living, and the political rights denied to them at home, while our men of thought and action were condemned to loss of life and liberty. But we never lost the memory and hope of a national existence. We appealed in vain to the reason and sense of justice of the dominant powers.</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i></i>
<i> Our mildest remonstrance's were met with sneers and contempt. Our appeals to arms were always unsuccessful.</i><br />
<i></i><br />
<i></i>
<i> Today, having no honourable alternative left, we again appeal to force as our last resource. We accept the conditions of appeal, manfully deeming it better to die in the struggle for freedom than to continue an existence of utter serfdom.</i><br />
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<i></i><br />
<i></i>
<i> All men are born with equal rights, and in associating to protect one another and share public burdens, justice demands that such associations should rest upon a basis which maintains equality instead of destroying it.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i> We therefore declare that, unable longer to endure the curse of Monarchical Government, we aim at founding a Republic based on universal suffrage, which shall secure to all the intrinsic value of their labour.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i> The soil of Ireland, at present in the possession of an oligarchy, belongs to us, the Irish people, and to us it must be restored.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i> We declare, also, in favour of absolute liberty of conscience, and complete separation of Church and State.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i> We appeal to the Highest Tribunal for evidence of the justness of our cause. History bears testimony to the integrity of our sufferings, and we declare, in the face of our brethren, that we intend no war against the people of England – our war is against the aristocratic locusts, whether English or Irish, who have eaten the verdure of our fields – against the aristocratic leeches who drain alike our fields and theirs.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i> Republicans of the entire world, our cause is your cause. Our enemy is your enemy. Let your hearts be with us. As for you, workmen of England, it is not only your hearts we wish, but your arms. Remember the starvation and degradation brought to your firesides by the oppression of labour. Remember the past, look well to the future, and avenge yourselves by giving liberty to your children in the coming struggle for human liberty.</i><br />
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<i> Herewith we proclaim the Irish Republic.</i><br />
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<i> The Provisional Government.</i><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; line-height: 13.991477012634277px;">Above: Fenian bond issued in America to fund the Fenian Rising of 1867; "redeemable six months after the ackowledgement of the Independence of the Irish Nation". The rising </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="line-height: 13.991477012634277px;">ultimately</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana; line-height: 13.991477012634277px;"> failed but an Irish Republic was declared.</span><br />
<i><br /></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-71678383383287681552013-02-25T16:15:00.000+00:002013-02-25T16:33:32.935+00:00'Memoirs of Myles Byrne' - Introduction by Stephen Gwynn with link to full text<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Myles Byrne</td></tr>
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<b>INTRODUCTION </b><br />
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I OWE my acquaintance with these Memoirs to Mr. John Dillon, who spoke of them as the best of all books dealing with Ireland ; and a reading of the volumes left me inclined to agree with him. The intrinsic interest of Byrne's narrative, its easy unaffected flow, and above all the high and chivalrous temper which pervades the whole, give it an excellence, rare anywhere, but which in all the bitter records of Irish warfare is without parallel. No man could have subjects more painful than the Wexford Rebellion and Emmet's rising ; no man could have handled them more frankly, whether in stating facts or in judgments upon conduct. Yet of all books dealing with modern Irish history this is the least painful to read that is known to me.<br />
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But Byrne's Memoirs were not only concerned with Irish rebellion ; he wrote as a veteran who had seen war in half the countries of Europe. The title of the original edition is;<br />
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<i>" Memoirs of Miles Byrne. Chef de Bataillon in the Service of France :Officer of the Legion of Honour, Knight of St. Louis, etc. Edited by his Widow. Paris : Bossange et Cie. 1863." </i><br />
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A brief sketch of his career will best explain the nature of the Memoirs.<br />
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In 1798 Miles Byrne was a young and well-to-do farmer at Monaseed on the northern border of county Wexford. He was a sworn United Irishman, and, before the rebellion actually broke out, was in hiding. From the first raising of the standard he was active, but his narrative leaves us in doubt by what deeds of bravery he attained to the position of leader; no soldier was ever more modest. After fighting through the whole series of actions, he led a body into the Wicklow hills, where he and his held out along with Holt and Dwyer till the general dispersal which took place on the news of Humbert's surrender. Byrne made his way to Dublin, and found means to conceal himself and gradually to find occupation in supervising a builder's workmen. Four years passed by and he had nothing to apprehend ; yet when Robert Emmet came to Dublin in the winter of 1802-3, Byrne promptly associated himself in the new peril. The story of that unhappy enterprise is nowhere so clearly and consistently told as in these Memoirs ; and whoever else may slight the memory of Emmet, Byrne, the soldier of Napoleon, looking back from a long life's experience, offers more heartfelt homage to this ill-starred leader than to any of the great men whose names figure in his record.<br />
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When the rising had failed, Emmet made his way back to Dublin and asked Byrne to carry news to the United Irishmen in Paris. This service of danger was faithfully performed, and the exile found himself among a group of Irishmen, all in the same unhappy situation, yet all hoping for another French invasion in which they should take part. Their hopes ran high when they were formed into the cadre or skeleton of a regiment which should be filled up with men when they landed in Ireland, and were sent to be trained on the Breton coast. But months and years passed, and when the Irish Legion was called into service and its ranks filled up, the service was on the Continent. In the Low Countries, in the Spanish Peninsula, on the Elbe, and on the Rhine, Byrne and his comrades fought for Napoleon, till the great general's star set finally in disaster. Then they or what was left of them were dismissed the French service, for the Bourbons were naturally eager to pleasure the Court of England Some were actually banished from France ; some, more fortunate, had leave to remain on half-pay, and of the latter Byrne was one.<br />
<br />
But in 1830 the revolution which dethroned Charles X. brought better days for Miles Byrne. He was not only recalled to full pay, and given the rank of chef de bataillon (equivalent to lieutenant-colonel) which had been promised him under Napoleon, but he was at once actively employed, and in the cause of freedom. He held a high command in the first expedition dispatched for the liberation of Greece.<br />
<br />
For many years after this he was an ordinary regimental officer in the French army ; these Memoirs were the occupation of his leisure after he had finally retired, and the latter part of them was clearly never finished. The book, as it originally appeared, was edited by Mrs. Byrne, and it made three volumes, of which the first was occupied with the description of his experiences of rebellion in Ireland, while the second gave an admirable narrative of his campaigns under Buonaparte, including the whole history of Napoleon's Irish Legion from its formation to its dissolution. These two volumes are evidently as their author intended them to be. The third is little more than loose leaves from a notebook but a notebook full of interesting material. Opening with an account of Byrne's own life in Paris before the formation of the Legion, it passes into a general characterisation of the Irish exiles then in France. The account of the Greek campaign is fragmentary ; and there is a good deal of repetition and defective arrangement<br />
<br />
In the present edition the eleven hundred odd pages of the original have been reduced into the compass of two volumes; and even so the book remains so large that it has seemed best to add nothing by way of illustrative comment. My task as editor, then, has reduced itself to seeing the pages through the press, correcting the spelling of proper names, suppressing actual repretitions, and here and there altering the arrangement. I have dealt a little more freely with the third volume, omitting here and there what seemed to lack interest. But care has been taken to leave in full Byrne's judgment on the men with whom he served or whom he met during his residence in Paris ; for nothing is more remarkable in the book than the clearness and justice of perception which these judgments display. Byrne's mind was neither subtle nor brilliant ; but it was evidently rich in common sense, an it combined generosity with a rigorous conception of honour and principle.<br />
<br />
As a soldier, he seems to have been the very type of a regimental officer, whose place is in the fighting Hne[sic], whose concern is not with the general conduct of a campaign or an action, but who can be trusted to act boldly, decisively and intelligently in the individual circumstances of war. His book throughout makes one feel the most agreeable and most human aspect of warfare the generous relations between man and man, the cordiality of comradeship, the interludes of gaiety and good-humoured pleasure better than any other known to me except the admirable autobiography which General Sir George Napier wrote, to tell his children how he and his brothers and their brothers in arms fought in the Peninsula "for fun and glory."<br />
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But there one strikes a contrast and a sad one. Byrne was not, like the Napiers, a soldier by choice; necessity and unjust dominion drove him from his farm- He and his comrades were the descendants of the Wild Geese "war-dogs battered in every clime," fighters in every cause but their own. His book gives an extraordinary picture of the dispersion of his race : Irish names figure in it under every flag in Europe. And the book is naturally pervaded from first to last with a fierce resentment, the exile's anger against those who keep him from his home, against those who hold<br />
his native country in subjection. Byrne and his comrades fight for France against England with more than a Frenchman's detestation of the enemy. Is this to be wondered at ?<br />
<br />
To those Irishmen who know the book this publication will need little commendation. To those who do not, it may be said that it is a trial whether it be possible to find a public ready to buy reprints of books which have a high value in the study of Irish history, and which having passed out of general circulation, are only to be had at a high price ; and upon the success of this venture must depend the subsequent undertaking of similar publications.<br />
<br />
STEPHEN GWYNN. 1907<br />
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The full text of these excellent memoirs is available for free in numerous formats over on the excellent website http://archive.org/ at this <a href="http://archive.org/details/memoirsofmilesby01byrniala" target="_blank">link.</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-59048961654075084132013-01-16T18:34:00.000+00:002015-10-03T17:48:54.666+01:00Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitte, the Workers' Party and their links to Murder, Bank Robbery and Racketeering<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte</td></tr>
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>“In Ireland our party has no regular source of income, whatever resources we have secured it has been through our own efforts, we state in confidence to you, that we do not allow ourselves to be restricted in the methods of raising resources,” states a four-page letter to the SED [East German Ruling Party,the East German Socialist Unity Party of Germany ] central committee, dated February 26th, 1989.</i></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Legal and illegal means have been employed by us. We well recognize the dangers involved in some of our resources raising activity in Ireland and we are constantly examining ways and means whereby this danger can be eliminated.”</i></blockquote>
<br />
So said Sean Garland, general secretary of the Workers' Party in 1989. In 1989 both Rabbitte and Gilmore were elected as Workers' Party TDs. Gilmore joined the Official Republican movement when he was in college in 1975. Rabitte was first elected as a Workers' Party councilor in 1985. Today Eamon Gilmore today is of course leader of the Labour party, <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tánaiste</span></span> and Minister for Forign Affairs and Trade. Rabbitte is <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.</span></span><br />
<br />
We are all familiar with Gerry Adams denials he was in the PIRA, but at least he didn't pretend that they didn't exist. The Workers' Party, in which Gilmore and Rabbitte were leading members, routinely denied that the OIRA or "Group B" existed. However with the release of Garlands letter in the <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0114/1224328804886.html" target="_blank">Irish Times</a> (incidentally his old buddies in Labour campaigned to stop him from getting extradited to America recently over "superdollar" forgery charges. Garland was <a href="http://seangarlandextradition.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/latest-extradition-battle-ends-in-victory/" target="_blank">ultimately successful</a> in his attempts to block extradition) we have a clear admission that the Workers' Party had no "regular" income and was funded by "illegal" means.<br />
<br />
Everyone already knew this, but this letter serves as final confirmation. The Workers' Party was funded by bank robberies, theft, intimidation and forgery. (A printing press linked to the party was involved in forging money)<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Raising party funds was crucial to fight effective campaigns on both sides of the Border, he wrote, particularly as the party had just ordered a new offset printing press costing a total of £170,000 with a five-year bank “laese” (sic).<br />“Over the past years we have had to borrow large amounts of money to expand and maintain the party. Our technical section has been severly restricted for tactical reasons because of the dangers involved in illegal activity.”</i></blockquote>
<br />
Were the numerous election campaigns of the Workers' Party, including those of Gilmore and Rabbitte during the eighties and later funded by the OIRA? Garland says the party was funded by "illegal" means. Gilmore and Rabbitte have <a href="http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gilmore-unaware-of-illegal-fundraising-3353786.html" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: italic;" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;">both denied having any knowledge of illegal fundraising by their former political party."</span></a><i style="font-family: inherit;"> </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">They also stated that they </span>received<span style="font-family: inherit;"> no funds from Workers' Party headquarters for their 1989 general election campaign. What about their previous election campaigns? Ones such as these for example?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/eamon-gilmore-workers-party-nov-1982/" target="_blank">Eamon Gilmore – Workers Party- Dun Laoghaire- November 1982</a></li>
<li><a href="http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/eamon-gilmore-workers-party-1985-local-elections-ballybrack/" target="_blank">Eamon Gilmore- Workers Party -1985 Local Elections - Ballybrack</a></li>
<li><a href="http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/pat-rabbitte-workers-party-dublin-south-west-1987/" target="_blank">Pat Rabbitte – Workers Party – Dublin South West, 1987 General Election</a></li>
<li><a href="http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/eamon-gilmore-workers-party-1987-general-election-dun-laoghaire/" target="_blank">Eamon Gilmore -Workers Party -Dun Laoghaire, 1987 General Election </a></li>
</ul>
<br />
Are we supposed to believe that Gilmore and Rabbitte never got any money at all from their party to run campaigns or to carry out any other political activity? Ever?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4UWefabe7-PzE2qNH3y692D6CW0GD92_AVpn6WEVpqOnKANWuZ6KAbCQwx5czgpAm8589od9VUkl8KTEER0G5YaSvjQ30PhUaZ7Chn7W0F7M8MeTZayn0Xgk80AIkoTCcBJ8-Rqg1UE0/s1600/Lost+Rev+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4UWefabe7-PzE2qNH3y692D6CW0GD92_AVpn6WEVpqOnKANWuZ6KAbCQwx5czgpAm8589od9VUkl8KTEER0G5YaSvjQ30PhUaZ7Chn7W0F7M8MeTZayn0Xgk80AIkoTCcBJ8-Rqg1UE0/s400/Lost+Rev+cover.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>[From "The Lost Revolution"]<br />“Group B’s continued importance was evident in a financial report…in October 1990. From October 1989 until September 1990, costs covered by party head office had amounted to £360,300, of which WP funds provided £189,900 with the balance of £170,600 met by Repsol.”</i></blockquote>
<br />
Repsol were their publishing organ and were involved, according to the book and other sources, with money laundering and all sorts of other illegal activity. Take a look at who published and printed the election leaflets previously linked.<br />
<br />
It is incomprehensible that members of the Workers' Party did not know of "Group B" and their activities. In fact in the book it is asserted that De Rossa (former IRA prisoner, TD, MEP) a close ally of the twosome was assured by Garland around 1990 that Group B was to be wound up and criminal activity would stop... ie De Rossa knew of "Group B" and their activity. Garland lied anyway and activity did not cease. Gilmore, De Rossa, Rabbitte and co split from the workers party and set up Democratic Left after 92 and merged (and later in effect took over) Labour in 1999.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Throughout the 1980s, allegations that the Official IRA remained in existence and was engaged in criminal activity appeared in the Irish press. In June 1982 the feud with the INLA flared again after OIRA member James Flynn, the alleged assassin of Seamus Costello,[13] was shot dead by the INLA in Dublin.[14] In December 1985 five men, including a Mr. Anthony McDonagh, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud the Inland Revenue in Northern Ireland—McDonagh was described in court as an Official IRA Commander.[15] In February 1992 a British Spotlight programme alleged that the Official IRA was still active and involved in widespread racketeering and armed robberies.[16]<br />These eventually proved a considerable political embarrassment to the Workers' Party, and in 1992 the leadership proposed amendments to the party constitution which would, inter alia, effectively allow it to purge members suspected of involvement in the Official IRA. This proposal failed to obtain the required two-thirds support at the party conference that year, and as a result the leadership, including six of the party's seven members of Dáil Éireann, left to establish a new party, later named Democratic Left.</i></blockquote>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Irish_Republican_Army" target="_blank">From Wikipedia</a><br />
<br />
There are certainly questions for Gilmore and Co to answer.<br />
<br />
As well as "money raising exercises" the OIRA were involved in numerous acts of violence including the notorious murder of Seamus Costello, this is the only time a leader of an Irish political party has been murdered.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://irishelectionliterature.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/costellocover.jpg?w=510&h=668" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://irishelectionliterature.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/costellocover.jpg?w=510&h=668" height="400" width="303" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/the-legacy-of-seamus-costello-starry-plough-25th-anniversary-edition-2002/" target="_blank">From Irish Election Literature</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"Of all the politicians and political people with whom I have had conversations, and whom I have had conversations, and who called themselves followers of Connolly, he was the only one who truly understood what James Connolly meant when he spoke of his vision of the freedom of the Irish people”<br />—Nora Connolly O'Brien</i></blockquote>
<br />
The OIRA met and were active until at least the mid nineties.<br />
<br />
Despite the history of the Workers' Party Gilmore, Rabbitte and Enda Kenny (etc etc) routinely berate Sinn Féin about the provos in the Dáil every time SF ask a question.<br />
<br />
This attack by Gilmore on Mary Lou McDonald is a prime example:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>TANAISTE Eamon Gilmore has launched his most stinging attack to date on Sinn Fein, declaring: "How many bodies are buried on this island because of Sinn Fein."<br />Mr Gilmore was responding to Sinn Fein deputy leader Mary-Lou McDonald’s allegations of “sharp corrupt practice” by Health Minister Dr James Reilly.....<br />Mr Gilmore said McDonald had “some neck”.<br />“So much illegal activity. How many bodies are buried on this island because of Sinn Fein. You have a neck. You have a neck,” he said.</i></blockquote>
<a href="http://www.independent.ie/national-news/how-many-bodies-are-buried-on-this-island-because-of-sinn-fein-gilmore-taunts-mcdonald-in-dail-spat-3332746.html" target="_blank">'How many bodies are buried on this island because of Sinn Féin?' - Gilmore </a><br />
<br />
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<a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/21/article-2028412-0D82682D00000578-209_634x605.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/21/article-2028412-0D82682D00000578-209_634x605.jpg" height="383" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Kathleen and Bernard Lynch</div>
<br />
I think Gilmore and Rabbitte and the other ex stickies in Labour (including Minister Kathleen Lynch who was a member of the Workers' Party too along with Gilmore and Rabbitte. Her PA, wages paid by the Irish people, is her husband Bernard Lynch who was acquitted of the brutal <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005451/Bernard-Lynch-serves-assistant-junior-minister-wife-served-year-bars.html" target="_blank">machine gun murder of Larry White</a> on a technicality) should look at themselves, and Kenny should look at who sits beside him, before pontificating about the IRA.<br />
<br />
Workers' Party members have had a huge influence, with secret cumann in organisations like RTE for example, on the media over the past few decades. These "sleepers" are perhaps one of the reasons why Gilmore and co never get asked about their past during interviews like Gerry Adams and pretty much everyone in Sinn Féin does. Vincent Browne is one of the very few media personalities who makes an attempt. As a result of his journalistic investigations into the Workers' Party (it was also known as Sinn Féin the Workers' Party), the OIRA and the murder of Seamus Costello, he suffered death threats in the 80's. You can find many of the articles in question, which first appeared in Magill, at the following links. They are essential reading and outline the links between the Workers' Party and the OIRA as well as describe the types of activity the OIRA got up to:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.politico.ie/component/content/article/221-politics/5428-sfwp-in-the-shadow-of-a-gunman-part-1.html" target="_blank">SFWP - in the shadow of a gunman</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.politico.ie/component/content/article/221-politics/5443-the-secret-world-of-the-sfwp-part-2.html" target="_blank">The secret world of the SFWP </a><br />
<br />
<br />
Why am I bringing this up?<br />
<br />
None of this is widely known among the general public. It should be, so people can see just what these Labour party members have been associated with in the past and that they are in no position to be accusing others of having "some neck".<br />
<br />
<br style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.1875px;" />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><i>Tyrants… hypocrites… liars!</i></span><br /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0PjKJ9nHS4" target="_blank">P.H Pearse, The Rebel</a></i></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
_________________________________________________________________________</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><u>Sources, further reading etc</u></b></div>
<br />
<b><u>Books:</u></b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Revolution-Story-Official-Workers/dp/0141028459" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers' Party - Brian Hanley and Scott Millar.</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> A must read.</span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b><u>Websites/blogs:</u></b></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://seangarlandextradition.wordpress.com/">http://seangarlandextradition.wordpress.com/</a></span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.politico.ie/">http://www.politico.ie</a></li>
<li><a href="http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/">http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com</a></li>
<li><a href="http://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/how-involved-in-racketeering-and-bank-robbery-were-messrs-gilmore-and-rabbitte/" target="_blank">How involved in racketeering and bank robbery were Messrs Gilmore and Rabbitte? - Namawinelake</a></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b><u>News Articles:</u></b></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005451/Bernard-Lynch-serves-assistant-junior-minister-wife-served-year-bars.html" target="_blank">Bernard Lynch serves as assistant to his junior minister wife, but also served a year behind bars: The minister, the husband in a State job and a murder conviction that was quashed on appeal</a></span></li>
<li><a href="http://www.independent.ie/national-news/gilmore-unaware-of-illegal-fundraising-3353786.html" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Gilmore 'unaware of illegal fundraising' - Indo</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2013/0114/1224328806007.html" target="_blank">Workers' Party admits illegal activity in letter to East Berlin in late 1980s - Irish Times</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2013/0114/1224328804886.html" target="_blank">Garland told East Berlin party would not be restricted in fundraising methods - Irish Times</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2013/0109/1224328598604.html" target="_blank">Vincent Browne: Gilmore and Rabbitte built their careers on cynicism - Irish Times</a></li>
</ul>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-64218874528358581752012-11-25T22:37:00.001+00:002012-11-25T22:37:40.939+00:00John Mitchel: Extract from 'The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)' pertaining to the Famine<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><i>The following is an extract from John Mitchel's work "The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)" (1876). It deals with the policies and actions of the British in the decades leading up to the Famine - and how the mass starvation was a culmination of British policy. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">______________________________________________________________________</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQhvkm1bVCVGtiWKqJnIeDPmoIDB37upfxB2lufV1Kx0bKLja6XnY1UcHRYjC1bX8iBNi_MM4ZiCHCHvyCYmP7kgOc_osJAlsmwMkQQNeU44K7srN7iKsZeFeZp36BUdgt4qW4wxNDKwsS/s1600/John+Mitchel.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQhvkm1bVCVGtiWKqJnIeDPmoIDB37upfxB2lufV1Kx0bKLja6XnY1UcHRYjC1bX8iBNi_MM4ZiCHCHvyCYmP7kgOc_osJAlsmwMkQQNeU44K7srN7iKsZeFeZp36BUdgt4qW4wxNDKwsS/s400/John+Mitchel.JPG" width="250" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In 1843, the Government sent
forth one of their endless "Commissions" the famous "Landlord
and Tenant Commission" to travel through Ireland, collect evidence, and
report on the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. In '44 it travelled
and investigated; and the next year its report came out in four great volumes.
The true function and object of this Commission was to devise the best means of
getting rid of what Englishmen called "the surplus population" of
Ireland. Ever since the year 1829, the year of Catholic Emancipation, British
policy had been directing itself to this end. We shall see how it worked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As a condition of Catholic
Emancipation, the "forty shilling franchise" had been abolished, so
that the privilege of voting for members of Parliament should be taken away
from the great mass of the Catholic peasantry. This low franchise had
theretofore induced landlords (for the sake of securing political power), to
subdivide farms and create voters. The franchise abolished, there was no longer
any political use for the people; and it happened about the same time that new
theories of farming became fashionable. "High farming" was the word.
There was to be more grazing, more green cropping; there were to be larger
farms; and more labour was to be done by horses and by steam. But consolidation
of many small farms into one large one could not be effected without clearing
off the "surplus population;" and then, as there would be fewer
mouths to be fed, so there would be more produce for export to England. The
clearance system, then, had begun in 1829, and had proceeded with great
activity ever since; and as the tenants were almost all tenants-at-will, there
was no difficulty in this, except the expense.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Code of Cheap Ejectment
was therefore improved for the use of Irish landlords. As the laws of England
and of Ireland are extremely different in regard to franchise and to
land-tenure; and as the Ejectment-laws were invented exclusively for Ireland,
to clear off the "surplus population," I shall give a short account
of them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There had been an Act of
George the Third (1815) providing that in all cases of holdings, the rent of
which was under £20 - this included the whole class of small farms - the
Assistant Barrister at Sessions (the County Judge) could make a decree at the
cost of a few shillings to eject any man from house and farm. Two years after,
the proceedings in ejectment were still further simplified and facilitated, by
an Act making the sole evidence of a landlord or his agent sufficient testimony
to ascertain the amount of rent due.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">By another Act of the first
year of George the Fourth, it was declared that the provisions of the cheap
Ejectment Act "had been found highly beneficial" (that is to say,
thousands of farms had been cleared off) -"and it was desirable that same
should be extended." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thereupon it was enacted that the power of summary
ejectment at Quarter Sessions should apply to all holdings at less than £50
rent; and, by the same statute, the cost of procuring ejectments was still
farther reduced. In the reigns of George the Fourth and Victoria, other Acts
were made for the same purpose, so that the cost and trouble of laying waste a
townland and levelling all its houses, had come to be very trifling. It must be
admitted that there is cheap justice in Ireland, at least for some people.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In many parts of the island
extermination of the people had been sweeping. At every Quarter Sessions, in
every county, there were always many ejectments; and I have seen them signed by
Assistant-Barristers by hundreds in one sheaf. They were then placed in the
hands of bailiffs and police, and came down upon some devoted townland with
more terrible destruction than an enemy's sword and torch. Whole neighbourhoods
were often thrown out upon the highways in winter, and the homeless creatures
lived for a while upon the charity of neighbours; but this was dangerous, for
the neighbours were often themselves ejected for harbouring them. Some
landlords contracted with emigration companies to carry them to America
"for a lump sum," according to the advertisements I cited before.
Others did not care what became of them; and hundreds and thousands perished
every year, of mere hardship.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">All this seems a tale of
incredible horror. But there are in these United States, this moment, at least
one million of persons, each of whom knows the truth of every word I have
written, and could add to my general statement, circumstances of horror and
atrocity, that might make one tremble with rage as he reads.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Irish are peculiarly
attached to their homesteads; and, like all people of poetic temperament,
surround their homes and hearths with more tender associations than a race of
duller perception could understand. Take, from a volume published in '44, one <i>ejectment
tableau</i><i>;<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><i><br /></i></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"Having swept from every
corner towards the door, she now took the gatherings by handfuls, and flung
them high into the air, to be scattered by the winds. Having next procured some
salt upon a plate, she went again through every part of the dwelling, turning
the salt over and over with her fingers as she went. This lustral visit
finished, she divided the salt into separate parcels, which she handed to those
without, with directions for its farther distribution.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"She now wrenched from
the threshold the horse shoe which the Irish peasantry generally nail upon it,
imputing to it some mystic influence; after which, standing erect, with one
foot within the house and the other outside, she signed the sign of the Cross
on her brow and on her breast. This strange ceremony was concluded by a
sweeping motion of the hand towards the open air, and a similar one in the
contrary direction, attended by a rapid movement of the lips, as though she
muttered some conjuration. A reverent inclination of her body followed, and
again she made the holy sign; then, drawing herself up to her full stature, she
took her place among the children, and, without casting a look upon the
desecrated cabin, she departed from the place."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It is but fair to tell, that
sometimes an ejecting landlord or agent was shot by desperate, houseless men.
What wonder? There were not half enough of them shot. If the people had not
been too gentle, forgiving, and submissive, their island could never have
become a horror and scandal to the earth.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There was a "Poor
Law" in Ireland since 1842 - a law which had been forced on the country
against its will, on the recommendation of an English tourist (one Nichols);
and workhouses, erected under that law, received many of the exterminated
people. But it is a strangely significant fact, that the <i>deaths by
starvation</i> increased rapidly from the first year of the poor law. The
Report of the Census Commissioners, for 1851, declares that, while in 1842 the
deaths registered as deaths by famine amounted to 187, they increased every
year, until the registered deaths in 1845 were 516. The "registered"
deaths were, perhaps, one-tenth of the unregistered deaths by mere hunger.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Such, then, was the condition
of Ireland in 1844-5; and all this before the "Famine."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Now, the "Landlord and
Tenant Commission" began its labours in '44. The people were told to
expect great benefits from it. The Commissioners, it was diligently given out,
would inquire into the various acknowledged evils that were becoming proverbial
throughout Europe and America; and there were to be parliamentary
"ameliorations." This Commission looked like a deliberate fraud from
the first. It was composed entirely of landlords; the chairman (Lord Devon)
being one of the Irish absentee landlords. It was at all times quite certain
that they would see no evidence of any evils to be redressed on the part of the
tenants; and that, if they recommended any measures, those measures would be
such as should promote and make more sweeping the depopulation of the country.
"You might as well," said O'Connell, "consult butchers about
keeping Lent, as consult these men about the rights of farmers."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Report of this set of
Commissioners would deserve no more especial notice than any of the other
Reports of innumerable Commissions which the British Parliament was in the
habit of issuing, when they pretended to inquire into any Irish
"grievance" - and which were usually printed in vast volumes, bound
in blue paper, and never read by any human eye, - but that the Report of this
particular "Devon Commission" has become the very creed and gospel of
British statesmen with regard to the Irish people from that day to this. It is
the programme and scheme upon which the Last Conquest of Ireland was undertaken
in a business-like manner years ago; and the completeness of that conquest is
due to the exactitude with which the programme was observed.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The problem to be solved was,
how to get rid of the people. There was a "surplus population" in
Ireland - this had long been admitted in political circles - and the alarming
masses of powerful men who had trooped to the summons of O'Connell, and had
been by him paraded "in their moral might," as he said, at so many
points of the island, brought home to the bosoms of Englishmen a stern
conviction of the absolute necessity that existed to thin out these
multitudinous <i>Celts.</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">One of the strongest demands
and most urgent needs of these people, had always been permanence of tenure in
their lands; - O'Connell called it "fixity of tenure," and presented
it prominently in his speeches, as one of the greatest benefits to be gained by
repealing the Union. It was indeed the grand necessity of the nation - that men
should have some security -that they who sowed should reap - that labour and
capital expended in improving farms should, in part, at least, profit those who
expended it. This would at once prevent pauperism, put an end to the necessity
of emigration, supersede poor-laws, and prevent the periodical famines which
had desolated the island ever since the Union. It is a measure which would have
been sure to be recommended as the first, or indeed, the only measure for Ireland,
by any other Commission than a Commission of Irish landlords.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In the northern province of
Ulster, there was, as before mentioned, a kind of unwritten law, or established
custom, which, in some counties, gave the tenant such needful security The
"Tenant-Right of Ulster" was the name of it. By virtue of that
Tenant-Right, a farmer, though his tenure might be nominally "at
will," could not be ejected so long as he paid his rent; and if he desired
to move to another part of the country, he could sell his "good will"
in the farm to an incoming tenant. Of course the greater had been his
improvements, the larger price would his Tenant-Right command; in other words,
the improvements created by his own or his father's industry were his. The same
custom prevented rents from being arbitrarily raised in proportion to the
improved value; so that in many eases which came within my own knowledge, in my
profession, lands held "at will" in Ulster, and subject to an ample
rent, were sold by one tenant-at-will to another tenant-at-will at full half
the fee-simple value of the land. Conveyances were made of it. It was a
valuable property, and any violent invasion of it, as a witness told Lord
Devon's Commission, would have "made Down another Tipperary." <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The custom was almost
confined to Ulster. It was by no means (though this has often been stated),
created or commenced by the terms of the Plantation of Ulster in the time of
King James the First; but was a relic of the ancient free social polity of the
nation, and had continued in Ulster longer than in the other three provinces,
simply because Ulster had been the last part of the island brought under
British dominion, and forced to exchange the ancient system of tribe-lands for
feudal tenures. Neither is the custom peculiar to Ireland. It prevails in
Italy, in Spain, in Hungary, in all Austria. In France and Prussia it has
ripened into full peasant proprietorship; and nowhere, perhaps, in all Europe,
is it denied or disallowed to the tillers of the soil, except in Galicia (the
Austrian part of Poland), and in the three Southern provinces of Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Surely it was fair, it was
not unnatural, that Tipperary should seek to become another Down; and if,
throughout all Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, there was idleness and
indifference to improvement of farms, who could expect it to be otherwise,
seeing that if a man was so insane as to improve, to drain, to fence, to build
a better cabin, his landlord was quite sure to serve him with a "notice to
quit." In fact, on many estates those notices were always served regularly
from six months to six months - so that at every Quarter Sessions the whole
population of such estates was liable to instant extermination.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The people of Ireland are not
<i>idle.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> They anxiously sought opportunities of exertion on fields where
their landlords could not sweep off all their earnings; and many thousands of
small farmers annually went to England and Scotland to reap the harvest, lived
all the time on food that would sustain no other working men, and hoarded their
earnings for their wives and children. If they had had Tenant-Right they would
have laboured for themselves, and Tipperary would have been a peaceful and
blooming garden.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is the American mind able to
conceive it possible that noble lords and gentlemen, the landlords and
legislators of an ancient and noble people, should deliberately conspire to
slay one out of every four - men, women, and little children - to strip the
remainder barer than they were - to uproot them from the soil where their
mothers bore them - to force them to flee to all the ends of the earth - to
destroy that Tenant-Right of Ulster where it was, and to cut off all hope and
chance of it where it was not? No; I can hardly suppose that an American is
able to grasp the idea; his education has not fitted him for it; and I hesitate
to make the assertion of this deliberate conspiracy. Take the facts and
documents, and draw such inferences as they will bear.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">First, then, for the Report
of the Devon Commission. As first printed, it fills four stupendous "Blue
Books." But it contained too much valuable matter to be buried, like other
Reports, in the catacombs which yawn for that species of literature. The Secretary
of the Commission, therefore, was employed to abstract and condense, and
present the cream of it in two or three octavo volumes. This had the advantage,
not only of condensation, but of selection; the Commissioners could then give
the pieces of evidence which they liked the best, together with their own
recommendations. Now, those volumes have been the Bible of British legislators
and Irish landlords; the death-warrant of one million and a half of human
beings, and the sentence of pauper banishment against full a million and a half
more. It is worth while to examine so portentous a volume. It is called a
"Digest of the Evidence," &c., is published by authority, and has
a preface signed "Devon."<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Much of the volume is
occupied with dissertations and evidence respecting "Tenant-Right,"
which the North had, and the South demanded. The Commissioners are clearly
against it in every shape. They term it "unphilosophical;" and in the
preface they state that the Ulster landlords and tenants look upon it in the
light of a life-insurance - that is, the landlord allows the sale of
Tenant-Right, and the incoming tenant buys it, lest they should both be
murdered by the outgoing tenant. The following passage treats this Tenant-Right
as injurious to the tenant himself:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"It is even questionable
whether this growing practice of Tenant-Right, which would <i>at the first view</i>
appear to be a <i>valuable assumption</i> on the part of the tenant, be so in
reality; as it gives to him without any exertion on his own part an <i>apparent
property</i> or security, by means of, which he is enabled to incur future
incumbrance in order to avoid present inconvenience - a practice which
frequently terminates in the utter destitution of his family, and in the sale
of his farm, when the debts thus created at usurious interest amount to what its
sale would produce."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It appears, then, that it is
injurious to the tenant to let him have anything on the security of which he
can borrow money; a theory which the landlords would not relish if applied to
themselves. Further, the Commissioners declare that this Tenant-Right is
enjoyed without any exertion on the part of tenants. Yet they have, in all
cases, either created the whole value of it in the sweat of their brows, or
bought it from those who did so create it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Commissioners
"foresee some danger to the just <i>rights of property</i>, from the
unlimited allowance of this Tenant-Right.'' But they suggest a substitute:
"Compensation for future improvements;" surrounding, however, that
suggestion with difficulties which have prevented it from ever being realized.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Speaking of the <i>consolidation</i>
of farms, they say:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"When it is seen in the
evidence, and in the return of the size of the farms, how small those holdings
are, it cannot be denied that such a step is absolutely <i>necessary.</i>"</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And then, as to the people
whom it is thus "necessary" to eject, they say:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"<i>Emigration</i> is
considered by the committee to be peculiarly applicable as a remedial
measure."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">They refer to one of their
Tables (No. 95, p. 564), where;<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"The calculation is put
forward, showing that the consolidation of the small holdings up to eight acres
[An Irish acre is to an English one in the proportion of eight to five, nearly.]
would require the removal of about one hundred and ninety-two thousand three
hundred and sixty-eight families."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That is, the removal of about
one million of persons.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Such was the Devon programme:
Tenant-Right to be disallowed; one million of people to be <i>removed</i>, that
is, swept out on the highways, where their choice would be America, the
poor-house, or the grave. We shall see with what accuracy the details were
carried out in practice.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The "Integrity of the
Empire" was to be menaced no more by half-million Tara meetings: those
ordered masses of the "Irish Enemy," with their growing enthusiasm,
their rising spirit, and their yet more dangerous discipline, were to be
thinned, to be cleared off: but all in the way of "amelioration."
They were to be ameliorated out of their lives: there was to be a <i>battue</i>
of benevolence. Both government and landlords had been thoroughly frightened by
that vast parade of a nation: and they knew they had only been saved by
O'Connell and his Peace-principle: and O'Connell was not immortal.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">When I say there was a
conspiracy of landlords and legislators to destroy the people, it would be
unjust, as it is unnecessary, to charge all members of the Queen's Government,
or all or any of the Devon Commissioners, with a privity to that design. Sir
Robert Peel knew how Irish landlords would inquire, and what report they would
make, just as well as he knew what verdict a jury of Dublin Orangemen would
give. Sir Robert Peel had been Irish Secretary. He knew Ireland well; he had
been Prime Minister at the time of Catholic Emancipation; and he had taken care
to accompany that measure with another, disfranchising all the small farmers in
Ireland. This disfranchisement, as before explained, had given a stimulus and
impetus to the clearance system. He had helped it by cheap Ejectment Acts. But
it had not worked fast enough.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-75019989308838529302012-11-14T17:13:00.002+00:002013-11-15T00:13:20.395+00:00Speeches From The Dock: Thomas Russell<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The </span>following<span style="font-family: inherit;"> is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: justify;">an extract taken from the text "</span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: justify;">Speeches From the Dock Part 1/Protests of Irish Patriotism</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: justify;">" first published in 1868.</span><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
THOMAS RUSSELL.</h2>
<br />
When Emmet was dead, and the plan to which he devoted his fortune, his talents, and his life, had sunk in failure, the cause of Irish independence appeared finally lost, and the cry, more than once repeated in after times, that "now, indeed, the last bolt of Irish disaffection has been sped, and that there would never again be an Irish rebellion," rung loudly from the exulting enemies of Ireland. The hearts of the people seemed broken by the weight of the misfortunes and calamities that overwhelmed them. The hopes which had brightened their stormy path, and enabled them to endure the oppression to which they were subjected by expectations of a glorious change, flickered no longer amidst the darkness. The efforts of the insurgents were everywhere drowned in blood; the hideous memories of '98 were brought up anew; full of bitter thoughts, exasperated, humiliated, and despondent, the people brooded over their wretched fate, and sullenly submitted to the reign of terror which was inaugurated amongst them. Little had the Irish patriots to look forward to in that dark hour of suffering and disappointment. A nightmare of blood and violence weighed down the spirits of the people; a stupor appeared to have fallen on the nation; and though time might be trusted to arouse them from the trance, they had suffered another loss, not so easily repaired, in the death and dispersion of their leaders. Where now should they find the Moses to lead them from the land of captivity? Tone, Fitzgerald, Emmet, Bond, M'Cracken, the Sheareses—all were dead. M'Nevin, Neilson, and O'Connor were in exile. Heavily and relentlessly the arm of vengeance had fallen on them one by one; but the list was not even then completed. There was yet another victim to fall before the altar of liberty, and the sacrifice which commenced with Orr did not conclude until Thomas Russell had perished on the gallows of Downpatrick.<br />
<br />
The importance of the part which Thomas Russell fills in the history of the United Irishmen, the worth of his character, the purity and nobility of his sentiments, and the spirit of uncompromising patriotism displayed in his last address, would render unpardonable the omission of his name from such a work as this. "I mean to make my trial," said Russell, "and the last of my life, if it is to close now, as serviceable to the cause of liberty as I can," and he kept his word. To-day, we try in some slight way to requite that fidelity which endured unto death, by rescuing Thomas Russell's name from oblivion, and recalling his services and virtues to the recollection of his countrymen.<br />
<br />
He was born at Betsborough, Dunnahane, in the parish of Kilshanick, county Cork, on the 21st November, 1767. His father was an officer in the British army, who had fought against the Irish Brigade in the memorable battle of Fontenoy, and who died in a high situation in the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham. Thomas, the youngest of his three sons, was educated for the Protestant Church; but his inclinations sought a different field of action, and at the age of fifteen he left for India as a volunteer, where he served with his brother, Ambrose, whose gallantry in battle called down commendation from the English king. Thomas Russell quitted India after five years' service, and his return is ascribed to the disgust and indignation which filled him on witnessing the extortions, the cruelties, the usurpations, and brutalities, which were carried out and sanctioned by the government under which he served. He left Ireland burdened with few fixed political principles and little knowledge of the world; he returned a full grown man, imbued with the opinions which he never afterwards abandoned. He was then, we are told, a model of manly beauty, one of those favoured individuals whom we cannot pass in the street without being guilty of the rudeness of staring in the face while passing, and turning round to look at the receding figure. Though more than six feet high, his majestic stature was scarcely observed, owing to the exquisite symmetry of his form. Martial in his gait and demeanour, his appearance was not altogether that of a soldier. His dark and steady eye, compressed lip, and some what haughty bearing, were occasionally strongly indicative of the camp; but in general the classic contour of his finely formed head, the expression of sweetness that characterised his smile, and the benevolence that beamed in his fine countenance, seemed to mark him out as one that was destined to be the ornament, grace, and blessing of private life. His manners were those of the finished gentleman, combined with that native grace which nothing but superiority of intellect can give; he was naturally reserved and retiring in disposition, and his private life was distinguished by eminent purity and an unostentatious devotion to the precepts of religion.<br />
<br />
Such was Thomas Russell when he made the acquaintance of Theobald Wolfe Tone in Dublin. There is no doubt that the views and opinions of Tone made a profound impression on young Russell; it is equally certain, on the other hand, that Tone learned to love and esteem his new friend, whose sentiments were so much in accordance with his own. Throughout Tone's journal we find constant references to Thomas Russell, whom he always places with Thomas Addis Emmet at the head of his list of friends. Early in 1791 Russell proceeded to Belfast to join the 64th Regiment, in which he had obtained a commission; before leaving Dublin he appears to have become a member of the Society of United Irishmen, and in Belfast he soon won the friendship and shared the councils of the patriotic men who were labouring for Ireland in that city.<br />
<br />
While in Belfast, Russell fell into pecuniary embarrassments. His generous and confiding nature induced him to go bail for a false friend, and he found himself one morning obliged to meet a claim for £200, which he had no means of discharging except by the sale of his commission. Russell sold out and retired to Dungannon, where he lived for some time on the residue of the money thus obtained, and during this period he was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the county of Tyrone. After a short experience of "Justices' justice" in the North, he retired from the bench through motives alike creditable to his head and heart. "I cannot reconcile it to my conscience," he exclaimed one day, "to sit on a bench where the practice exists of inquiring what religion a person is before investigating the charge against him." Russell returned, after taking this step, to Belfast, where he was appointed to a situation in the public library of the town, and where he became a regular contributor to the organ of the Ulster patriots, the Northern Star.<br />
<br />
In 1796 he was appointed by the United Irishmen to the supreme military command in the county Down, a post for which his military experience not less than his personal influence fitted him, but his political career was soon afterwards interrupted by his arrest on the 26th of September, 1796. Russell was removed to Dublin, and lodged in Newgate Prison; his arrest filled the great heart of Tone, who was then toiling for his country in France, with sorrow and dismay. "It is impossible," he says in his journal, "to conceive the effect this misfortune has on my mind. If we are not in Ireland in time to extricate him he is lost, for the government will move heaven and earth to ensure his condemnation. Good God!" he adds, "if Russell and Neilson fall, where shall I find two others to replace them?" During the eventful months that intervened between the date of his arrest and the 19th of March, 1799, poor Russell remained chafing his imprisoned soul, filled with patriotic passion and emotion, in his prison cell in Kilmainham. On the latter date, when the majority of his associates were dead, and their followers scattered and disheartened, he was transferred to Fort George in Scotland, where he spent three years more in captivity. The government had no specific charge against him, but they feared his influence and distrusted his intentions, and they determined to keep him a prisoner while a chance remained of his exerting his power against them. No better illustration of Russell's character and principles could be afforded than that supplied in the following extract from one of the letters written by him during his incarceration in Fort George:—"To the people of Ireland," he writes, addressing an Irish friend and sympathiser, "I am responsible for my actions; amidst the uncertainties of life this may be my valedictory letter; what has occasioned the failure of the cause is useless to speculate on—Providence orders all things for the best. I am sure the people will never abandon the cause; I am equally sure it will succeed. I trust men will see," he adds, referring to the infidel views then unhappily prevalent, "that the only true basis of liberty is morality, and the only stable basis of morality is religion."<br />
<br />
In 1802 the government, failing to establish any distinct charge against Russell, set him at liberty, and he at once repaired to Paris, where he met Robert Emmet, who was then preparing to renew the effort of Fitzgerald and Wolfe Tone. Time had not changed, nor suffering damped, the patriotic impulses of Thomas Russell; he entered heartily into the plans of young Emmet, and when the latter left for Ireland in November, 1802, to prosecute his hazardous enterprise, it was with the full understanding that Russell would stand by his side in the post of danger, and with him perish or succeed. In accordance with this arrangement, Russell followed Robert Emmet to Dublin, where he arrived so skilfully disguised that even his own family failed to recognise him. Emmet's plans for the outbreak in Dublin were matured when Russell, with a trusty companion, was despatched northwards to summon the Ulster men to action. Buoyant in spirit, and filled with high expectation, he entered on his mission, but he returned to Dublin a week later prostrate in spirit and with a broken heart. One of his first acts on arriving in Belfast was to issue a proclamation, in which, as "General-in-Chief of the Northern District," he summoned the people of Ulster to action.<br />
<br />
The North, however, refused to act. It was the old, old story. Belfast resolved on waiting "to see what the South would do," and the South waited for Belfast. Disgusted and disappointed, Russell quitted the Northern capital and proceeded to Antrim, where at least he thought he might expect to find cordial co-operation; but fresh disappointments awaited him, and with a load of misery at his heart, such as he had never felt before, Russell returned to Dublin, where he lived in seclusion, until arrested by Major Sirr and his myrmidons on the 9th of September, 1803. A reward of £1,500 had been offered for his apprehension. We learn on good authority that the ruffianly town-major, on arresting him, seized the unfortunate patriot rudely by the neck-cloth, whereupon, Russell, a far more powerful man than his assailant, flung him aside, and drawing a pistol, exclaimed—"I will not be treated with indignity." Sirr parleyed for a while; a file of soldiers was meanwhile summoned to his aid, and Russell was borne off in irons a prisoner to the Castle. While undergoing this second captivity a bold attempt was made by his friends to effect his liberation by bribing one of the gaolers; the plot, however, broke down, and Russell never breathed the air of freedom again. While awaiting his trial—that trial which he knew could have but one termination, the death of a felon—Russell addressed a letter to one of his friends outside, in which the following noble passage, the fittest epitaph to be engraved on his tombstone, occurs:—"I mean to make my trial," he writes, "and the last of my life, if it is to close now, as serviceable to the cause of liberty as I can. I trust my countrymen will ever adhere to it: I know it will soon prosper. When the country is free," he adds—that it would be free he never learned to doubt—"I beg they may lay my remains with my father in a private manner, and pay the few debts I owe. I have only to beg of my countrymen to remember that the cause of liberty is the cause of virtue, which I trust they will never abandon. May God bless and prosper them, and when power comes into their hands I entreat them to use it with moderation. May God and the Saviour bless them all."<br />
<br />
Russell was taken to Downpatrick, escorted by a strong force of cavalry, where he was lodged in the governor's rooms, preparatory to being tried in that town by a Special Commission. While in prison in Downpatrick he addressed a letter to Miss M'Cracken, a sister of Henry Joy M'Cracken, one of the insurgent leaders of 1798, in which he speaks as follows: "Humanly speaking, I expect to be found guilty and immediately executed. As this may be my last letter, I shall only say that I did my best for my country and for mankind. I have no wish to die, but far from regretting its loss in such a cause, had I a thousand lives I would willingly risk or lose them in it. Be assured, liberty will in the midst of those storms be established, and God will wipe the tears from all eyes."<br />
<br />
The sad anticipations expressed by Russell were but too fully borne out. There was short shrift in those days for Irishmen accused of treason, and the verdict of guilty, which he looked forward to with so much resignation, was delivered before the last rays of the sun which rose on the morning of the trial had faded in the gloaming. It was sworn that he had attended treasonable meetings and distributed green uniforms; that he asked those who attended them, "if they did not desire to get rid of the Sassanaghs;" that he spoke of 30,000 stands of arms from France, but said if France should fail them, "forks, spades, shovels, and pickaxes" would serve that purpose. It was useless to struggle against such testimony, palpably false and distorted as it was in some parts, and Russell decided on cutting short the proceedings. "I shall not trouble my lawyers," he said, "to make any statement in my case. There are but three possible modes of defence—firstly, by calling witnesses to prove the innocence of my conduct; secondly, by calling them to impeach the credit of opposite witnesses, or by proving an alibi. As I can resort to none of those modes of defence without involving others, I consider myself precluded from any." Previous to the Judge's charge, the prisoner asked—"If it was not permitted to persons in his situation to say a few words, as he wished to give his valedictory advice to his countrymen in as concise a manner as possible, being well convinced how speedy the transition was from that vestibule of the grave to the scaffold." He was told in reply, "that he would have an opportunity of expressing himself," and when the time did come, Russell advanced to the front of the dock, and spoke in a clear, firm tone of voice, as follows:—<br />
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"Before I address myself to this audience, I return my sincere thanks to my learned counsel for the exertions they have made, in which they displayed so much talent. I return my thanks to the gentlemen on the part of the crown, for the accommodation and indulgence I have received during my confinement. I return my thanks to the gentlemen of the jury, for the patient investigation they have afforded my case; and I return my thanks to the court, for the attention and politeness they have shown me during my trial. As to my political sentiments, I shall, in as brief a manner as possible (for I do not wish to engross the time of the court), say a few words. I look back to the last thirteen years of my life, the period with which I have interfered with the transactions of Ireland, with entire satisfaction; though for my share in them I am now about to die—the gentlemen of the jury having, by their verdict, put the seal of truth on the evidence against me. Whether, at this time, and the country being situated as it is, it be safe to inflict the punishment of death upon me for the offence I am charged with, I leave to the gentlemen who conduct the prosecution. My death, perhaps, may be useful in deterring others from following my example. It may serve, on the other hand, as a memorial to others, and on trying occasions it may inspire them with courage. I can now say, as far as my judgment enabled me, I acted for the good of my country and of the world. It may be presumptuous for me to deliver my opinions here as a statesman, but as the government have singled me out as a leader, and given me the appellation of 'General,' I am in some degree entitled to do so. To me it is plain that all things are verging towards a change, when all shall be of one opinion. In ancient times, we read of great empires having their rise and their fall, and yet do the old governments proceed as if all were immutable. From the time I could observe and reflect, I perceived that there were two kinds of laws—the laws of the State and the laws of God—frequently clashing with each other; by the latter kind, I have always endeavoured to regulate my conduct; but that laws of the former kind do exist in Ireland I believe no one who hears me can deny. That such laws have existed in former times many and various examples clearly evince. The Saviour of the world suffered by the Roman laws—by the same laws His Apostles were put to the torture, and deprived of their lives in His cause. By my conduct I do not consider that I have incurred any moral guilt. I have committed no moral evil. I do not want the many and bright examples of those gone before me; but did I want this encouragement, the recent example of a youthful hero—a martyr in the cause of liberty—who has just died for his country, would inspire me. I have descended into the vale of manhood. I have learned to estimate the reality and delusions of this world; he was surrounded by everything which could endear this world to him—in the bloom of youth, with fond attachments, and with all the fascinating charms of health and innocence; to his death I look back even in this moment with rapture. I have travelled much, and seen various parts of the world, and I think the Irish are the most virtuous nation on the face of the earth—they are a good and brave people, and had I a thousand lives I would yield them in their service. If it be the will of God that I suffer for that with which I stand charged, I am perfectly resigned to His holy will and dispensation. I do not wish to trespass much more on the time of those that hear me, and did I do so an indisposition which has seized on me since I came into court would prevent my purpose. Before I depart from this for a better world I wish to address myself to the landed aristocracy of this country. The word 'aristocracy' I do not mean to use as an insulting epithet, but in the common sense of the expression.</blockquote>
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"Perhaps, as my voice may now be considered as a voice crying from the grave, what I now say may have some weight. I see around me many, who during the last years of my life have disseminated principles for which I am now to die. Those gentlemen, who have all the wealth and the power of the country in their hands, I strongly advise, and earnestly exhort, to pay attention to the poor—by the poor I mean the labouring class of the community, their tenantry and dependents. I advise them for their good to look into their grievances, to sympathize in their distress, and to spread comfort and happiness around their dwellings. It might be that they may not hold their power long, but at all events to attend to the wants and distresses of the poor is their truest interest. If they hold their power, they will thus have friends around them; if they lose it, their fall will be gentle, and I am sure unless they act thus they can never be happy. I shall now appeal to the right honourable gentleman in whose hands the lives of the other prisoners are, and entreat that he will rest satisfied with my death, and let that atone for those errors into which I may have been supposed to have deluded others. I trust the gentleman will restore them to their families and friends. If he shall do so, I can assure him that the breeze which conveys to him the prayers and blessings of their wives and children will be more grateful than that which may be tainted with the stench of putrid corpses, or carrying with it the cries of the widow and the orphan. Standing as I do in the presence of God and of man, I entreat him to let my life atone for the faults of all, and that my blood alone may flow.</blockquote>
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"If I am then to die, I have therefore two requests to make. The first is, that as I have been engaged in a work possibly of some advantage to the world, I may be indulged with three days for its completion; secondly, that as there are those ties which even death cannot sever, and as there are those who may have some regard for what will remain of me after death, I request that my remains, disfigured as they will be, may be delivered after the execution of the sentence to those dear friends, that they may be conveyed to the ground where my parents are laid, and where those faithful few may have a consecrated spot over which they may be permitted to grieve. I have now to declare, when about to pass into the presence of Almighty God, that I feel no enmity in my mind to any being, none to those who have borne testimony against me, and none to the jury who have pronounced the verdict of my death."</blockquote>
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The last request of Russell was refused, and he was executed twelve hours after the conclusion of the trial. At noon, on the 21st of October, 1803, he was borne pinioned to the place of execution. Eleven regiments of soldiers were concentrated in the town to overawe the people and defeat any attempt at rescue; yet even with this force at their back, the authorities were far from feeling secure. The interval between the trial and execution was so short that no preparation could be made for the erection of a scaffold, except the placing of some barrels under the gateway of the main entrance to the prison, with planks placed upon them as a platform, and others sloping up from the ground, by which it was ascended. On the ground hard by, were placed a sack of sawdust, an axe, a block, and a knife. After ascending the scaffold, Russell gazed forward through the archway—towards the people, whose white faces could be seen glistening outside, and again expressed his forgiveness of his persecutors. His manner, we are told, was perfectly calm, and he died without a struggle.<br />
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A purer soul, a more blameless spirit, than Thomas Russell, never sunk on the battle-field of freedom. Fixed in principles, and resolute in danger, he was nevertheless gentle, courteous, unobstrusive, and humane; with all the modesty and unaffectedness of childhood, he united the zeal of a martyr and the courage of a hero. To the cause of his country he devoted all his energies and all his will; and when he failed to render it prosperous in life, he illumined it by his devotion and steadfastness in death. The noble speech given above, and the passages from his letters which we have quoted, are sufficient in themselves to show how chivalrous was the spirit, how noble the motives of Thomas Russell. The predictions which he uttered with so much confidence have not indeed been fulfilled, and the success which he looked forward to so hopefully has never been won. But his advice, so often repeated in his letters, is still adhered to; his countrymen have not yet learned to abandon the cause in which he suffered, and they still cherish the conviction which he so touchingly expressed—"that liberty will, in the midst of these storms be established, and that God will yet wipe off the tears of the Irish nation."<br />
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Russell rests in the churchyard of the Protestant church of Downpatrick. A plain slab marks the spot where he is laid, and there is on it this single line—<br />
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"THE GRAVE OF RUSSELL."</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-34366066977858890362012-11-02T17:19:00.000+00:002013-11-15T00:17:21.982+00:00Speeches From The Dock: John O'Leary<br />
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<b>JOHN O'LEARY.</b></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">"</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">Romantic Ireland's dead and gone; it's with O'Leary in the grave</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">"</span></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">'September 1913'</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; text-align: start;">, </span>W.B.Yeats.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">On 16 September 1865 </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13.316666603088379px;"> John</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> O'Leary was arrested along with several others including </span></span>Thomas Clarke Luby<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">, and tried on charges of </span>high treason<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">, later reduced to 'treason felony' in relation to his activities with the IRB and his involvement with the newspaper '</span></span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;">The Irish People'.'</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"> The following is an account of his trial and speech from the dock, taken from the text "<i>Speeches From the Dock Part 1/Protests of Irish Patriotism</i>" published in 1868.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">While the jury in the case of Thomas Clarke Luby were absent from the court deliberating on and framing their verdict, John O'Leary was put forward to the bar.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He stepped boldly to the front, with a flash of fire in his dark eyes, and a scowl on his features, looking hatred and defiance on judges, lawyers, jurymen, and all the rest of them. All eyes were fixed on him, for he was one of those persons whose exterior attracts attention and indicates a character above the common. He was tall, slightly built, and of gentlemanly deportment; every feature of his thin angular face gave token of great intellectual energy and determination, and its pallid hue was rendered almost death-like by contrast with his long black hair and flowing moustache and beard. Easy it was to see that when the government placed John O'Leary in the dock they had caged a proud spirit, and an able and resolute enemy. He had come of a patriot stock, and from a part of Ireland where rebels to English rule were never either few or faint-hearted. He was born in the town of Tipperary, of parents whose circumstances were comfortable, and who, at the time of their decease, left him in possession of property worth a couple of hundred pounds per annum. He was educated for the medical profession in the Queen's College, Cork, spent some time in France, and subsequently visited America, where he made the acquaintance of the chief organisers of the Fenian movement, by whom he was regarded as a most valuable acquisition to the ranks of the brotherhood. After his return to Ireland he continued to render the Fenian cause such services as lay in his power, and when James Stephens, who knew his courage and ability, invited him to take the post of chief editor of the Fenian organ which he was about to establish in Dublin, O'Leary readily obeyed the call, and accepted the dangerous position. In the columns of the Irish People he laboured hard to defend and extend the principles of the Fenian organization until the date of his arrest and the suppression of the paper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The trial lasted from Friday, the 1st, up to Wednesday, the 6th of December, when it was closed with a verdict of guilty and a sentence of twenty years' penal servitude—Mr. Justice Fitzgerald remarking that no distinction in the degree of criminality could be discovered between the case of the prisoner and that of the previous convict. The following is the address delivered by O'Leary, who appeared to labour under much excitement, when asked in the usual terms if he had any reason to show why sentence should not be passed upon him:—</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"I was not wholly unprepared for this verdict, because I felt that the government which could so safely pack the bench could not fail to make sure of its verdict."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—"We are willing to hear anything in reason from you, but we cannot allow language of that kind to be used."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Mr. O'Leary—"My friend Mr. Luby did not wish to touch on this matter from a natural fear lest he should do any harm to the other political prisoners; but there can be but little fear of that now, for a jury has been found to convict me of this conspiracy upon the evidence. Mr. Luby admitted that he was technically guilty according to British law; but I say that it is only by the most torturing interpretation that these men could make out their case against me. With reference to this conspiracy there has been much misapprehension in Ireland, and serious misapprehension. Mr. Justice Keogh said in his charge against Mr. Luby that men would be always found ready for money, or for some other motive, to place themselves at the disposal of the government; but I think the men who have been generally bought in this way, and who certainly made the best of the bargain, were agitators and not rebels. I have to say one word in reference to the foul charge upon which that miserable man, Barry, has made me responsible."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—"We cannot allow that tone of observation."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Mr. O'Leary continued—"That man has charged me—I need not defend myself or my friends from the charge. I shall merely denounce the moral assassin. Mr. Justice Keogh the other day spoke of revolutions, and administered a lecture to Mr. Luby. He spoke of cattle being driven away, and of houses being burned down, that men would be killed, and so on. I would like to know if all that does not apply to war as well as to revolution? One word more, and I shall have done. I have been found guilty of treason or treason-felony. Treason is a foul crime. The poet Dante consigned traitors to, I believe, the ninth circle of hell; but what kind of traitors? Traitors against king, against country, against friends and benefactors. England is not my country; I have betrayed no friend, no benefactor. Sidney and Emmet were legal traitors, Jeffreys was a loyal man, and so was Norbury. I leave the matter there."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One hour after the utterance of these words John O'Leary, dressed in convict garb, his hair clipped, and his beard shaved off, was the occupant of a cell in Mountjoy prison, commencing his long term of suffering in expiation of the crime of having sought to obtain self-government for his native land.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-26439639635838942632012-10-30T15:41:00.003+00:002013-11-15T00:18:17.708+00:00J.F Lalor - The Rights of Ireland<br />
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<em> "Ireland her
own, and all therein, from the sod to the sky. The soil of Ireland for the
people of Ireland"</em> </div>
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<u><strong>THE RIGHTS OF IRELAND.</strong></u></h2>
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<i><o:p> </o:p>(From the first number of the
Irish Felon, June 24th, 1848). </i></div>
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To found a paper like the Irish Felon
for the mere purpose, in whole or in part, of making a fortune or making a
farthing, would be a felon's crime indeed, deserving no hero's doom, lamented death
or honoured exile, but death on the scaffold, amid the scoff and scorn of the
world. For years we have seen men in Ireland alternately trading on the
government and trading on the country, and making money by both ; and you do
not imagine, perhaps, to what degree the public mind has been affected with a feeing
of suspicion by the circumstance — a feeling deepened, extended and justified,
by all we see or know of ourselves. For, indeed, the craving to get money — the
niggard reluctance to give money — the coward fear of losing or laying out
money — is the bad and coarse point that is most apparent in the character of
all ranks and classes of our people ; and I often fear it argues an utter absence
of all heroism from our national temperament, and of all the romantic passions,
whether public or private. In other countries men marry for love ; in Ireland
they marry for money. Elsewhere they serve their country for their country's
thanks or their country's tears — here they do it for their country's money. At
this very time, when Ireland, to all appearance, is stripping for her last
struggle on this side of ages, there are, I am convinced, many persons among
the middle classes who refuse to fall into the national march, or countenance
the national movement, merely from the hope — in most cases as vain as it is
vile — of obtaining some petty government place ; or from the fear of losing some
beggarly employment or emolument ; and I know myself in this country many and
many a sturdy and comfortable farmer who refuses to furnish himself with a
pike, merely and solely because it would cost him two shillings. For ourselves
— I say nothing of others — let us aim at better rewards than mere money
rewards. Better and higher rewards has Ireland in her hands. If we succeed, we
shall obtain these ; and if we do not succeed, we shall deserve none. In cases
like this, the greatest crime that man can commit is the crime of failure. I am
convinced it has become essential to our fame and our effectiveness — to the
success of our cause and the character of our country, to keep clear and secure
ourselves from the suspicion, that our only object may be nothing more than a
long and lucrative agitation. The Confederation pledged its members to accept
no office or place of profit from an English government. That pledge was efficient,
perhaps, for its own professed purposes, but not for others — for an
"agitation" has places and profits of its own to bestow. Let them say
of us whatever else they will — let them call us felons, and treat us as such,
but let them not, at least, have the power to call us swindlers. We may be
famous: let us not become infamous. </div>
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For these and other still more
important reasons, needless to be stated as yet, I certainly could have wished
that this journal had been established on a subscribed capital, and the effective
ownership vested in a joint-stock company of, say eight hundred or a thousand proprietors.
What is there to hinder that this arrangement should be made even now ? It would
contain securities, and create powers, which no other could offer or pretend
to. There are, indeed, some practical difficulties in the way, but they might
easily, I think, be overcome. Whether any such arrangement be adopted or not, I
believe, however, that I am fully warranted in desiring — and I think our own
true interest and honour concur in demanding — that the Felon office shall not
be a commercial establishment, but organised and animated as a great political
association. And, for my part, I enter it with the hope and determination to
make it an armed post, a fortress for freedom to be, perhaps, taken and retaken
again, and yet again ; but never to surrender, nor stoop its flag, till that
flag shall float above a liberated nation. </div>
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Without agreement as to our
objects we cannot agree on the course we should follow. It is requisite the
paper should have but one purpose ; and the public should understand what that purpose
is. Mine is not to repeal the Union, or restore Eighty-two. This is not the
year '82 this is the year '48. For repeal I never went into " Agitation ''
and will not go into insurrection. On that question I refuse to arm, or to act
in any mode ; and the country refuses. O'Connell made no mistake when he
pronounced it not worth the price of one drop of blood; and for myself, I regret
it was not left in the hands of Conciliation Hall, whose lawful property it was
and is. Moral force and Repeal, the means and the purpose, were just fitted to
each other — <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arcades ambo</i>, balmy
Arcadians both. When the means were limited, it was only proper and necessary
to limit the purpose. When the means were enlarged, that purpose ought to have
been enlarged also. Repeal, in its vulgar meaning, I look on as utterly
impracticable by any mode of action whatever ; and the constitution of '82 was absurd,
worthless, and worse than worthless. The English government will never concede
or surrender to any species of moral force whatsoever ; and the
country-peasantry will never arm and fight for it — neither will I. If I am to
stake life and fame it must assuredly be for something better and greater, more
likely to last, more likely to succeed, and better worth success. And a
stronger passion, a higher purpose, a nobler and more needful enterprise is
fermenting the hearts of the people. A mightier question moves Ireland to-day
than that of merely re- pealing the Act of Union. Not the constitution that
Wolfe Tone died to abolish, but the constitution that Tone died to obtain —
independence; full and absolute independence for this island, and for every man
within this island. Into no movement that would leave an enemy's garrison in
possession of all our lands, masters of our liberties, our lives, and all our
means of life and happiness — into no such movement will a single man of the
greycoats enter with an armed hand, whatever the town population may do. On a wider
fighting field, with stronger positions and greater resources than are afforded
by the paltry question of Repeal, must we close for our final struggle with
England, or sink and surrender. </div>
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Ireland her own — Ireland her
own, and all therein, from the sod to the sky. The soil of Ireland for the
people of Ireland, to have and hold from God alone who gave it — to have and to
hold to them and their heirs for ever, without suit or service, faith or
fealty, rent or render, to any power under Heaven. From a worse bondage than
the bondage of any foreign government — from a dominion more grievous and
grinding than the dominion of England in its worst days — from the cruellest
tyranny that ever yet held its vulture clutch on the body and soul of a country
— from the robber rights and robber rule that have turned us into slaves and
beggars in the land which God gave us for ours — Deliverance, oh Lord,
Deliverance or death — Deliverance, or this island a desert. This is the one prayer,
and terrible need, and real passion of Ireland to-day, as it has been for ages.
Now, at last it begins to shape into defined and desperate purpose; and into it
all meaner and smaller purposes must settle and merge. It might have been kept
in abeyance, and away from the sight of the sun — aye, even till this old
native race had been finally conquered out and extinguished, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sub silentio</i>, without noise or notice.
But once propounded and proclaimed as a principle, not in the dust of remote
country districts, but loudly and proudly in the tribunes of the capital, it
must now be accepted and declared as the first and main Article of Association
in the National Covenant of organised defence and armed resistance : as the
principle to take ground, and stand, and fight upon. When a greater and more
ennobling enterprise is on foot, every inferior and feebler project or
proceeding will soon be left in the hands of old women, of dastards, imposters,
swindlers, and imbeciles. All the strength and manhood of the island — all the
courage, energies, and ambition — all the passion, heroism, and chivalry — all
the strong men and the strong minds — all those things that make revolutions
will quickly desert it, and throw themselves into the great movement, throng
into the larger and loftier undertaking, and flock round the banner that flies
nearest the sky. There go the young, the gallant, the gifted, and the daring ;
and there, too, go the wise. For wisdom knows that in national action littleness
is more fatal than the wildest rashness ; the greatness of object is essential
to greatness of effort, strength, and success ; that a revolution ought never
to take its stand on low or narrow ground, but seize on the broadest and
highest ground it can lay hands on ; and that a petty enterprise seldom
succeeds. Had America aimed or declared for less than independence, she would,
probably, have failed, and been a fettered slave to-day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Not to repeal the Union, then,
but the conquest — not to disturb or dismantle the empire, but to abolish it
utterly for ever — not to fall back on '82, but act up to '48 — not to resume
or restore an old constitution, but found a new nation and raise up a free
people, and strong as well as free, and secure as well as strong, based on a peasantry
rooted like rocks in the soil of the land — this is my object, as I hope it is
yours ; and this, you may be assured, is the easier as it is the nobler and the
more pressing enterprise. For Repeal, all the moral means at our disposal have
in turns been used, abused, and abandoned. All the military means it can
command will fail as utterly. Compare the two questions. Repeal would require a
national organization ; a central representative authority, formally elected ;
a regular army, a regulated war of concentrated action and combined movement.
On the other question all circumstances differ, as I could easily show you. But
I have gone into this portion of the subject prematurely and unawares, and here
I stop — being reluctant, besides, to trespass too long on the time of her
Majesty's legal and military advisers. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The principle I state, and mean
to stand upon, is this, that the entire ownership of Ireland, moral and
material, up to the sun and down to the centre, is vested of right in the
people of Ireland ; that they, and none but they are the land-owners and
law-makers of this island ; that all laws are null and void not made by them,
and all titles to land invalid not conferred or confirmed by them ; and that
this full right of ownership may and ought to be asserted and enforced by any
and all means which God has put in the power of man. In other, if not plainer words,
I hold and maintain that the entire soil of a country belongs of right to the
entire people of that country, and is the rightful property, not of any one
class, but of the nation at large, in full effective possession, to let to whom
they will, on whatever tenures, terms, rents, services and conditions they will
; one condition, however, being unavoidable and essential, the condition that
the tenant shall bear full, true, and undivided fealty and allegiance to the
nation, and the laws of the nation, whose land he holds, and own no allegiance
whatsoever to any other prince, power, or people, or any obligation of
obedience or respect to their will, orders or laws. I hold further, and firmly
believe, that the enjoyment by the people of this right of first ownership in the
soil, is essential to the vigour and vitality of all other rights ; to their
validity, efficacy, and value ; to their secure possession and safe exercise.
For let no people deceive themselves, or be deceived by the words and colours,
and phrases, and form of a mock freedom, by constitutions, and charters, and
articles and franchises. These things are paper and parchment, waste and
worthless. Let laws and institutions say what they will, this fact will be
stronger than all laws, and prevail against them— the fact that those who own
your lands will make your laws, and command your liberties and your lives. But this
is tyranny and slavery ; tyranny in its widest scope and worst shape ; slavery
of body and soul, from the cradle to the coffin — slavery with all its horrors,
and with none of its physical comforts and security ; even as it is in Ireland,
where the whole community is made up of tyrants, slaves, and slave-drivers. A
people whose lands and lives are thus, in the keeping and custody of others,
instead of in their own, are not in a position of common safety. The Irish
famine of '46 is example and proof. The corn crops were sufficient to feed the
island. But the landlords would have their rents, in spite of famine and defiance
of fever. They took the whole harvest and left hunger to those who raised it.
Had the people of Ireland been the landlords of Ireland, not a human creature
would have died of hunger, nor the failure of the potato been considered a matter
of any consequence. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There are, however, many
landlords, perhaps, and certainly a few, not fairly chargeable with the crimes
of their orders ; and you may think it hard they should lose their lands. But
recollect the principle I assert would make Ireland, in<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> fact</i> as she is of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right</i>,
mistress and queen of all those lands ; that she, poor lady, had ever a soft
heart and grateful disposition ; and that she may, if she please, in reward of
allegiance, confer new titles or confirm the old. Let us crown her a queen ;
and then — let her do with her lands as a queen may do. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In the case of any existing
interest, of what nature soever, I feel assured that no question but one would
need to be answered. Does the owner of that interest assent to swear allegiance
to the people of Ireland, and to hold in fee from the Irish nation ? If he
assent he may be assured he will suffer no loss. No eventual or permanent loss
I mean; for some temporary loss he must assuredly suffer. But such loss would be
incidental and inevitable to any armed insurrection whatever, no matter on what
principle the right of resistance should be resorted to. If he refuses, then I
say — away with him — out of this land with him — himself and all his robber rights,
and all the things himself and his rights have brought into our island — blood
and tears, and famine, and the fever that goes with famine. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Between the relative merits and
importance of the two rights, the people's right to the land, and their right
to legislation, I do not mean or wish to institute any comparison. I am far,
indeed, from desirous to put the two rights in competition or contrast, for I
consider each alike as the natural complement of the other, necessary to its
theoretical completeness and practical efficacy. But considering them for a
moment as distinct, I do mean to assert this — that the land question contains,
and the legislative question does not contain, the materials from which victory
is manufactured ; and that, therefore, if we be truly in earnest, and
determined on success, it is on the former question, and not on the latter, we must
take our stand, fling out our banner, and hurl down to England our gage of
battle. Victory follows that banner alone — that, and no other. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This island is ours, and have it
we will, if the leaders be but true to the people, and the people be true to
themselves. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The rights of property may be
pleaded. No one has a higher respect for the real rights of property than I
have ; but I do not class among them the robber's right, by which the lands of this
country are now held in fee from the British crown. I acknowledge no right of
property in a small class which goes to abrogate the rights of a numerous
people. I acknowledge no right of property in eight thousand persons, be they
noble or ignoble, which takes away all rights of property, security,
independence, and existence itself, from a population of eight millions, and
stands in bar to all the political rights of the island, and all the social
rights of its inhabitants, I acknowledge no right of property which takes the
food of millions, and gives them a famine — which denies to the peasant the
right of a home, and concedes, in exchange, the right of a workhouse- I deny
and challenge all such rights, howsoever founded or enforced. I challenge them,
as founded only on the code of the brigand, and enforced only by the sanction
of the hangman. Against them I assert the true and indefeasible right of
property — the right of our people to live in it in comfort, security, and
independence, and to live in it by their own labour, on their own land, as God
and nature meant them to do. Against them I shall array, if I can, all the
forcesthat yet remain in this island. And against them I am determined to make
war, — to their destruction or my own. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
These are my principles and
views. I shall have other opportunities to develop and defend them. I have some
few other requisitions to make, but I choose to defer them for other reasons
besides want of time and space. Our first business, before we can advance a
step, is to fix our own footing and make good our position. That once done,
this contest must, if possible, be brought to a speedy close.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
______________________________________________________________________________</div>
<br />
<br />
The above is sourced from the following book:<br />
<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4463630120885787700.post-29580130391254644102012-10-28T22:34:00.000+00:002014-02-23T11:38:21.340+00:00The First Great Robbery of the Irish People - and Today's Sequel<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One would be forgiven for thinking that the current
situation Ireland finds herself in is unprecedented, that the Great Robbery she
is currently experiencing, the Irish people being forced to pay debts which are
<b>NOT THEIRS</b>, is an entirely new
phenomenon. It’s not.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Irish history is littered with traitors and betrayals. If we
look at what has been, more oft than not, a disgusting creature, (honourable
exceptions of course) the Irish politician, three great betrayals of the Irish
people stand out. The first was passing the Act of Union in the Irish House of
Commons on 1st August 1800. The second was voting to accept the Anglo Irish
Treaty on 7 January 1922. The third was the Bank Guarantee of September 30<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup>
2008.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just prior to the 1798 rebellion Irish public debt stood
somewhere in the region of £4,000,000. However by the act of Union in 1801 that
debt stood at £26,841,219, nearly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seven
times</i> as much as it was just three or four years before. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All of the expenses that Britain incurred over those three
or four years, the huge sums it cost to maintain a vast army in Ireland to
crush the rebellion, the money needed to bribe juries, to pay and give pensions
to spies and informants, the money needed to influence members of the Irish
House of Commons to pass the act of the Union – all these and more were charged
to the Irish account.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Irish were made to pay for the privileges of those
terrible years, to pay for the slaughter and destruction. Today we pay for, and
suffer because of, the reckless actions of banks, domestic and foreign, and for
the reckless gambling bondholders engaged in. We also pay to bail out the
developers and golden circles. We give massive pensions, and through NAMA,
wages to those who brought us to this terrible position, the politicians and
their developer friends. Both then and now the ordinary Irish people were made
to pay, and suffer, to preserve the comfortable position of native and foreign
elites. </span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Following the act of Union the “books” of Ireland and
England were to be kept separate under the following terms;</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">I.</b> Ireland would
have no liability for British National debt incurred prior to the Union.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">II.</b> The separate
debt of each country being first provided for by a separate charge, Ireland was
then to contribute two-seventeenths towards the joint or common expenditure of
the United Kingdom for twenty years.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">III.</b> Ireland’s
taxation would not be raised to the (higher) standard of Britain until the
following conditions should occur:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1.</b> That the two
debts should come to bear to each other the proportion of fifteen parts for
Great Britain to two parts for Ireland ; and</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2.</b> That the
respective circumstances of the two countries should admit of uniform taxation.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These conditions were protested against by opponents of the
Union, particularly with regards to the ratio the debts would have to be to one
another to warrant an amalgamation of the debt and an increase of the tax in
Ireland to Britain’s higher levels. (England’s debt would have to amount to
seven and a half times that of Ireland)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The monstrous
absurdity you would force down our throats is, that Ireland's increase of
poverty, as shown by her increase of debt, and England's increase of wealth, as
shown by diminution of debt, are to bring them to an equality of condition, so
as to be able to bear an equality of taxation."</i> – Foster, Speaker of
the Irish House of Commons, 1800.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They also protested at the fact that the Irish would have to
pay two seventeenths of the common expenditure of the UK, as this was obviously
far too high an amount which simply could not be paid.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the act of Union
Imperial spending was approx £25,000,000. By 1813 it was over £72,000,000.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Britain racked up huge amounts of debt financing her wars
against France and funding France’s enemies – much of this debt was hoisted
upon impoverished Irish shoulders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During
this period Ireland’s debt increased more than twice as fast as that of England.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The dramatic increase in “Irish debt” can clearly be seen in
the following table:</span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdB9KKCReEIlCvV8blqiS67r8mSErrW1QkwyUrWMM8IbCiPhYi7t4IMWSU7P7HVF86TcZnseo88QUJ7-Nfc3oXm5X3NfcdqhUcGDEVXBt46YySdBR2M41eJa4LQ7ePTv9PP4uRGJiOm6x/s1600/Irish+Debt+1801+-+1817.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdB9KKCReEIlCvV8blqiS67r8mSErrW1QkwyUrWMM8IbCiPhYi7t4IMWSU7P7HVF86TcZnseo88QUJ7-Nfc3oXm5X3NfcdqhUcGDEVXBt46YySdBR2M41eJa4LQ7ePTv9PP4uRGJiOm6x/s640/Irish+Debt+1801+-+1817.JPG" height="236" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">By 1817 the charge on Ireland’s debt was the same as its
total debt before the rebellion of 1798.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fosters “monstrous absurdity” proved worse than he had
feared, as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">both</i> debts increased.
Ireland’s debt in 1794 had been only a sixteenth of the amount England owed.
Now England owed three and a half times the amount that Ireland “owed”. This
was over the seven and a half time limit in the Act of Union; this allowed the
two “national” debts to be combined and the Irish rate of tax to be increased
even further to match that of Britain.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus Ireland was loaded with debt which was not her own in
order to allow increased taxes for the Irish, and to bring about the
combination of the British and “Irish” debts in order to force the Irish to
contribute towards Britain’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pre union
debt</i> as well as that incurred since.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After being loaded with this massive unsustainable foreign
debt Ireland was ‘heroically’ bailed out by the British by way of an act
consolidating the British and Irish exchequers – at the time some Irish
politicians spoke, as they do today, of the debt on Irish books as “Irish debt”
- while it was anything but - and British politicians spoke of the Act
consolidating the Exchequers as being a massively generous move by them to
rescue the Irish. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In this way the Irish were made pay the debts of elites.
Domestic and foreign. To pay for their own subjugation and suffering. Sound familiar?</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This was the First Great Robbery. The Second Great Robbery,
which we are living through now, is an even more daring, devious, underhanded
and villainous one then that of the early nineteenth century. We are allowing
history to repeat itself. Then, as now, Irish sovereignty rests not with the
Irish people but with parasitic elites, domestic and foreign.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The national debt has increased to astronomical levels, (it
stood at over 169 Billion Euro at the end of 2011). Debt as a proportion of GDP
rose from 25% in 2007 to 106% per cent in 2011. The rate of interest we pay on
the debt is many times the growth rate of the economy. In other words we cannot
grow our way out. It is impossible for things to continue as they are. There <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>will</u></b> be some form of write down,
there has to be. Those who hold Ireland’s sovereignty will write off the
absolute minimum they have to, leaving Ireland with a somewhat smaller debt,
but still an extortionately high one. Otherwise they may get nothing paid back.
The FG/Labour government, and media, will herald this news. The fact that <b>NONE</b>
of the debt incurred bailing out the banks and paying off bondholders should be
paid - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as it is not our debt - </i>will
be swept under the rug as the establishment pats itself on the back.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As if only having to
pay most of someone else’s debt is to be applauded. </span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As Irish people <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">we
need to do more</i> to stop this massive injustice.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fool me once...</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Historical Sources:</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">'Eighty Five Years of Irish History', 1800-1855 - Daunt, William J. O'Neill</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">'The Financial Grievences of Ireland' - Daunt, William J. O'Neill</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">'The History of Ireland' - John Mitchel</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0