A convoy of cars set off from the Six Counties to Dublin on Saturday morning, arriving in Dublin that afternoon to join in a short march through the city centre, to highlight the ongoing internment of Irish Republican activists. The event was organised by two organisations independent of political parties or organisations: Duleek Independent Republicans and Anti-Internment Group of Ireland.
Convoy passing through Dundalk (photo: S. Lynch )
The convoy set out on Saturday morning at 11am am from Newry and passed in turn through the towns of Dundalk, Drogheda, Julianstown and Whitehall to conclude at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin city centre. Unusually for such events, the convoy received no harassment in the Six Counties from the RUC/ PSNI – that work was left to their counterparts in the Twenty-Six Counties.
Supporters of the Dublin march began to gather at the Garden of Rembrance around 1.15pm and from then on every arrival was stopped by Irish Special Branch asking them their names and addresses. Some refused to give them.
The political police also asked for the driving licences of three of the convoy cars that arrived at the Garden of Rembrance (others had parked elsewhere in the city).
Garda Special Branch harassing convoy arrivals near Garden of Remembrance (photo D.Breatnach)
All of this harassment was exceeding the legal powers of the Gardaí and some of those they targeted told them so and refused to cooperate with them.
The march set off from its mustering point and proceeded down Dublin’s main street, O’Connell Street, passed by the Larkin Monument and the location of Bloody Sunday 1913, on to pass the O’Connell Monument (which still bears bullet holes from the 1916 Rising and possibly from the Civil War also) and across O’Connell Bridge.
Then D’Olier Street going south, turning right at the wall of Trinity College then right again at the Bank of Ireland building (until 1800 the Irish Parliament, from which Catholics and Presbyterians were barred).
The march turned right again into Westmoreland Street and headed back across the bridge to the GPO, along the same route as so many British artillery shells and rifle and machine gun bullets had poured one hundred years ago.
The march attracted considerable attention from people along its short route with many audible exclamations about internment still being in existence in Ireland.
Duleek Independent Republicans in O’Connell Street with their new banner (photo: S. Lynch )
SPEAKERS AT THE GPO
At the GPO building (the Headquarters of the Rising in 1916) the marchers gathered around to hear speakers. Diarmuid Breatnach from the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland greeted the marchers and other listeners briefly in Irish and then went on in English to note that internment without trial, which people believed had ended decades ago, continues still being used against Republican activists.
Breatnach recalled that one Republican had been sent to jail without trial for four years in the Six Counties. Another Republican activist had spent two years in jail on remand only to have the case against him collapse and he had been set free – however, having spent two years in jail already. Breatnach then introduced Cait Trainor, an Independent Republican.
Cait Trainor speaking at rally at GPO (Photo: T. Conlon)
Speaking in a strong carrying voice, Trainor pointed out that the Good Friday Agreement had not brought an end to political prisoners in Ireland and that among the crowd there that day there were “family members of Irish political prisoners and indeed some who have been prisoners themselves in the not-so-distant past.”
Trainor pointed out that different forms of internment have emerged over the years, including internment by remand, where activists are held in jail for long periods of time before coming to trial or sometimes the charges are dropped before they even get a chance to have their say in court but “in the meantime the person could have done the equivalent of a five-year sentence”. Moving on to another type of internment, that reserved for prisoners released “under licence”, Trainor mentioned that for example Martin Corey, Marion Price and currently Tony Taylor do not get to trial nor to see the reason they are being put in prison, it being a secret which will only be heard in a court hearing also held in secret.
“Every man was a right to know his accuser and to know at least what he is accused of,” Trainor pointed out.
Front of the march in O’Connell Street (Photo: T.Conlon)
Speaking to those who believe that there are no political prisoners in Ireland, Trainor asked how they explain “the scores of men currently in Roe House and Maghaberry Gaol”? Trainor stated that “while there has been British occupation of Ireland there has always been resistance to it, that did not end with the Good Friday Agreement.”
“The Freestate Government is no better,” stated Trainor and referred to the case of Dónal Ó Coisdealbha remanded in custody since May 2015 and convicted, not on anything he has done but on what he has said in conversation. To that has been added “the usual trumped-up charge of membership of an illegal organisation” and the state broadcaster RTÉ added the fabrication that he was in court on explosives charges.
At the GPO (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Referring to special legislation in the 26 Counties by which the word of a Garda Superintendent is sufficient to secure a conviction on a charge of membership of an illegal organisation, Trainor highlighted the cases of five men from Sligo and three from Dublin so charged and reminded her listeners that these Gardaí are part of a force “rotten with corruption as Garda whistle-blowers will attest to.”
Trainor pointed out that December is traditionally prisoners’-focus month for Republicans and called for unity around the issue of prisoners, stating that in the future it will be only through the ridding Ireland of British occupation that there will be no political prisoners.
At the GPO (Photo: D.Breatnach)
After the applause had died down, Breatnach referred to the special powers of the Offences Against the State Act in the Irish state and reminded listeners that a few days previously had been the day on which in 1972, British agents had exploded two bombs in Dublin City Centre in order to help the state push through the amendment to that legislation. Two years later they had exploded another two bombs in Dublin and one in Monaghan, killing more people in one day than any other explosion during the conflict. Yet little is said about those explosions, because they were not caused by Republicans.
Breatnach referred also to another point made by Trainor, saying that the Irish state is also becoming increasingly repressive and using its courts against people resisting the water tax and evictions. But those victims of the State appear not to see themselves as sharing the fate of Irish Republicans. “If we do not stand together we will fall,” said Breatnach, “but if we unite against repression we can defeat it.” In that context Breatnach regretted that “Irish socialists are not yet marching with us against internment.”
Breatnach then introduced Dave Hopkins, of the Irish Republican Socialist Party.
David Hopkins, who spoke at the rally on behalf of IRSP ( Cropped from photo by: T.Conlon)
Hopkins addressed some of the points that had earlier been made by Cait Trainor and stated that “even being in the company of a known dissenting voice could be deemed reason enough to charge a person with ‘membership’ now in this failed statelet.”
Turning to the Six Counties, Hopkins attacked the “stop and search tactics” being used by the PSNI (“the unreformed RUC”) to harass activists.
As Trainor had earlier, Hopkins also referred to the wrongful conviction of John Paul Wooton and Brendan McConville (the Craigavon Two) and to previous cases of wrongful conviction such as the Birmingham Six, the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four and pointed out that it had taken decades for these to clear their names.
Hopkins went on to discuss further repressive legislation which will “ensure further abuses of power and lead to more and more people becoming victims of injustice.” Hopkins referred to the “Investigatory Powers Act 2016” introduced by the Westminster Government which gives intelligence agencies …. the powers to track, monitor and use in evidence web browsing and internet use against all kinds of individuals.”
“What London does, Dublin will surely follow,” said Hopkins.
At the rally GPO (Photo: T.Conlon)
Following the applause at the end of Hopkins’ speech, Breatnach thanked both speakers on behalf of the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland and Duleek Independent Republicans, also pointing out that both organisations are independent of any political party or organisation, thanked all who had come to support the event, also the speakers and wished them all a “Slán abhaile.”
End
Irony intrudes (photo: T. Conlon)Family of supporters leaving Garden of Remembrance ad tail end of march (Photo: T. Conlon)A bunch of an Craoibhín SlíbhínSpecial Branch harassment at work (but don’t like being photographed)
The Sunday November 6th meeting of Marxism 20161 on the theme “When Governments Lie” hosted as speakers four women campaigners and Eamon McCann, a male campaigner, addressing the packed downstairs hall of the Club na Múinteoirí. A number of cancellations of speakers had taken place, including Gareth Pierce who sent a message which was read out to the meeting.
Brid Smith of the SWP (centre photo) chairing the meeting When Governments Lie public meeting at Marxism 2016 weekend (Photo: I.O’Kelly)
On the podium, taking turns to speak, were Sheila Coleman of the Hilsborough Justice Campaign, Kate Nash of the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign, Joanne Donnelly of the Justice for the Craigavon Two Campaign, and Antoinette Keegan of the Justice for Stardust/ 48 Never Came Home Campaign (summary of these campaigns below).
After being introduced by Bríd Smith, chairing the event, Joe Black with guitar, accompanied wonderfully by a musician on bazouki (if I can get his name will insert it here), launched the evening with Black’s powerful song about Giuseppe Conlon, father of Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four. The Guildford Four were wrongly convicted in 1975 of IRA bombings and served fourteen years before they were cleared. Giuseppe Conlon, who went to England to clear his son, was also jailed, as were his relatives the Maguire family. The Maguire1 Seven were cleared in 1991 but by that time Giuseppe had died in prison, an event that, along with his own imprisonment, devastated his son and affected him for his remaining years until he died in 2004 at the age of only sixty years.
All of the speakers emphasised that the State’s officials lied with regard to their respective cases and concealed evidence and most speakers also accused the media of complicity. In the cases of Bloody Sunday, the Craigavon Two and Hillsborough, the British state was placed in the dock by the speakers while the Stardust fire cover-up was laid at the feet of the Irish state.
Most of the speakers also warned people in similar circumstances to beware of establishment party politicians who try to flatter campaigners and decide which are the “reasonable” ones to deal with, always at the price of reducing the objectives being sought. The speakers for the Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough campaigns in particular warned against this element, Kate Nash singling out Sinn Féin as the party that acted that way with regard to Bloody Sunday (Kate Nash’s brother was killed that day and her father shot and injured) and how they tried to bring the campaign to an end with an apology from the then British Prime Minister, while no senior officer or government official was held to account and while one of the unarmed dead remained accused of carrying a nail bomb.
Sheila Coleman of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign addressing When Governments Lie public meeting at Marxism 2016 weekend (Photo D.Breatnach)
Eamon McCann, who was on the march in Derry on Bloody Sunday 1972, finished the evening with one of the rants for which he is famous, going beyond his allocated time by a fair bit and despite the Chairperson’s frequent reminders. McCann located the similarities of the cases within the class system – most of those injustices represented were about repression of working class communities, or ignoring the damage done to them and the lies were told to protect the system and its supporters – big businessmen, politicians, the police, the Army.
The meeting ended to sustained applause but without any opportunity to ask questions or to make contributions, to the regret certainly of a number of Republicans and campaigners against what they consider to be ongoing internment without trial. All however seemed agreed that the talks had been interesting and educating in at least some aspect of the issues and events covered.
WHY SO LONG?
It is good that this meeting about State injustice and lies was held by an Irish socialist organisation. It is the duty of socialist organisations to point out the injustice of the State even when the victims are not socialists – or not socialists in the way that socialist organisations think they should be. Prominent socialists Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were not Fenians but they campaigned for the release of Fenian prisoners being held in English jails (where, by the way, it said that one third of them died and one third went insane).
It is said that we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes and certainly, if we are to bring about a revolution and the society we want, we must learn from our failures. And in that spirit, I must ask: why has it taken so long for Irish socialist organisations, particularly in Dublin, to wake up to the repression being exercised against Irish Republicans?
Five years ago Marian Price, a former Republican prisoner released under licence as part of the Good Friday Agreement, had her licence revoked and was taken to Maghaberry jail, kept for months without charge or bail, eventually charged and kept in jail without bail, sick, until her mental and physical health was broken. In Dublin the socialist organisations sent a couple of representatives to one demonstration for her freedom and never attended a picket about her case afterwards.
After the Marian Price campaign ended with her release in 2013 on “compassionate (sic) grounds”, some of those involved in Dublin launched a campaign against “internment by other names”, a process by which ex-prisoners released on licence are returned to jail without even a trial in the no-jury courts of the Six Counties2 and other Republican political activists are harassed and arrested and refused bail on spurious charges which eventually collapse after the accused have been held for months or years in jail3.
I must ask again: why has it taken so long for Irish socialist organisations, particularly in Dublin where the major part of their organisation is located and most of their activities organised, to wake up to the repression being exercised against Irish Republicans?
Is it perhaps because the socialists feared to be painted with the nationalist brush? But did they not fear being daubed with complicity with imperialism instead? It is a strange kind of socialist organisation that can’t make common cause with Republicans against the tyranny of the colonial statelet and capitalist State! In that failure, it misses the opportunity to unite forces against its enemies’ state and also to disseminate its ideas among Republican activists. One might also remark that a failure of people who are prepared at times to unite with social democrats for reforms, to unite with Irish Republicans against a capitalist state is a strange indication of revolutionary socialism!
Or is it purely because they didn’t care – it wasn’t happening to them – that Irish socialist organisations haven’tt campaigned against State repression of Irish Republicans, or even protested in solidarity with them? If so, they will by the seed of their inactivity one day certainly reap a harvest of repression for themselves too. Solidarity against State attacks is not only a noble thing with a long tradition; it is a necessity for revolutionaries.
So now that this “Marxism” weekend is over, when its organisers are taking a deserved rest, or writing it up for the British and Irish version of their newspaper, or compiling their recruitment slips to see how many new members or at least mailing list contacts they have gained – will they do anything different?
Will we see the highlighting, from time to time, of the almost everyday harassment of Irish Republicans in the leaflets and newspaper of the SWP and PBP? Will their TDs in the Dáil raise these issues where they might get some bourgeois media coverage? Are we going to see PBP and SWP militants on the regular pickets organised by the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland anywhere and, in particular on those called by the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee?
We can hope, I suppose.
Diarmuid Breatnach
APPENDIX: THE CAMPAIGNS
Hillsborough Justice Campaign seeks vindication that the original disaster was due to crowd mismanagement by the South Yorkshire Police and that some of the subsequent deaths were also due to their mismanagement of some still-breathing victims and lack of coordination of the emergency services. The disaster took place at Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield, England, UK, on 15 April 1989, during the 1988–89 FA Cup semi-final game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. With 96 fatalities and 766 injured it is the worst disaster in British sporting history. Originally, the Liverpool football fans were blamed for the disaster but subsequently it became clear that the blame lay elsewhere.
Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign seeks a proper accounting of the deaths of 14 and injury of at least 14 after British troops opened fire on unarmed people demonstrating in Derry on 30th January 1972 against Internment. Originally, the British Army and Government claimed that they had shot “terrorists” in “returning fire” after being first fired on and a British enquiry backed them on this and claimed to have evidence that some of the dead had been handling weapons.
Founded in 2012, a campaign to overturn the clearly unjust convictions in May 2012 of John Paul Wooton and Brendan McConville for the killing of a member of the British colonial police force, the PSNI, in March 2009.
The forensic evidence was contradictory and in a number of cases even pointed to the innocence of the accused, electronic surveillance equipment had been interfered with by the British Army; the State produced no witnesses to the incident and only one who placed one of the accused at the scene – this witness came forward a year after the arrests of the two, his account of his movements that evening were not supported by his wife; a close family relative called him a habitual liar and then this family member was arrested and subjected to intimidation by the colonial police after he had given a statement to the accused’s legal team..
In the early hours of 14 February 48 young people died in a fire at a disco at the Stardust nightclub in Artane, Dublin and 214 were injured.
The campaign seeks to shift the blame from alleged “arsonists” to a fault in the premises wiring and other factors within the responsibility of the club’s management and owners, including blocked emergency exits. The allegation is that there has been a cover-up connived at by the Irish Government to exonerate businessmen friends, who to add insult to injury, received substantial financial compensation for the loss of the building. An ongoing controversy over inquiry findings and ignoring of important pieces of evidence have lent increasing credence to the version of the campaigners.
1This is organised annually in Dublin, Ireland by the Socialist Workers’ Party
2A prominent example in the past has been Martin Corey of Republican Sinn Féin; a current example is Tony Taylor
3For example Stephen Murney of the éirigí political party and the independent activist Colin Duffy and members of his family
FIFTEEN YEARS PRISON THREATENED FOR BASQUE YOUTHS IN BAR ALTERCATION PROVOKED BY SPANISH POLICE – SIX ALREADY IN JAIL
Monday 15 November 2016
Diarmuid Breatnach
Six Basque youths are in jail without bail tonight and altogether twelve face fifteen years in prison, in a case arising out of an altercation in a bar in the southern Basque Country (i.e under Spanish occupation) involving two officers of the Guardia Civil (Spanish militarised police force) in Altsasu in the province of Nafarroa (Navarra).
Protest demonstration in Altsasu tonight. The slogan says: “FREE THE DETAINED!” (Source: Basque contacts)
Altsasu is known as a town with a particularly strong history of Basque resistance and a continuing sympathy among the population. The town also has, by no means accidentally, one of the strongest barracks of the Guardia Civil.
On the night of 15th October, the two male Guardia Civil officers, off duty and with their female partners, went into Taberna Koxka, a well-known bar and night spot frequented by the Abertzale (pro-Basque Independence) Left, where they behaved provocatively. Inevitably the policemen were challenged by some of the patrons of the bar and a scuffle broke out.
No injuries were sustained by the police although one of them claimed an injury to his ankle, a story that fell flat when it was revealed that he was already on sick leave at the time of the incident due to an injury to his ankle. In addition, the Guardia Civil report itself, though claiming the officers’ behaviour was non-provocative and peaceful, did not claim police injuries and the province’s “autonomous” police force (but very hostile to the Abertzale Left), the Policía Foral, also denied there had been any injuries.
The pro-Spanish media not only spread police lies but added to them, one surreal story alleging that the quietly relaxing police officers and their partners had been attacked by 50 Abertzale Left youth throwing martial arts punches and kicks. Tragically, such lies will find a ready audience in much of the Spanish state outside the Basque and Catalan countries.
At first the police classified the incident as a “hate crime” but the State Prosecution upgraded its classification to “terrorism”.
The eight youths were detained in police raids this morning and taken to the National Court in Madrid although, upon learning that they had been namedby the Guardia Civil in a list of 12 people involved, they had already voluntarily presented themselves to testify before a judge in Irunea who, however, could not be found. Despite that earlier voluntary attendance, a “risk of fleeing” was given as the primary reason for refusing them bail. Two others were released under stringent reporting to police conditions and two others, who also presented themselves voluntarily to be tried with the others, were told to return to court tomorrow.
Guardia Civil provocatively driving through an Abertzale Left demonstration. The people in costume are Zapantzarak, traditional performers particularly in Spring festivals but often participating in Abertzale Left events also. (Source: Basque contacts).
“Terrorism”
The Prosecution has asked for the Basque youths to be tried under Article 573 of the new Penal Code, set aside for crimes of “terrorism”, the definition of which even the UN has declared to be “excessively imprecise and broad” and which “may criminalise behaviour which is not terrorist.” Conviction under Article 573 can carry a sentence of 15 years in jail.
Tonight in Altsasu, Basque youth took to the streets in peaceful but militant protest demonstration (see photo).
This incident is not without a context: in recent months the town has seen hundreds of Guardia Civil driving through the town at various times and a demonstration organised by Abertzale Left on 22ndOctober was penetrated by Guardia Civil vehicles (see photo). The strongest anti-repression organisation in the Basque Country, “Ospa Mugimendua”, has an active following in the town.
Guardia Civil has his photo taken mocking an event organised by the anti-repression organisation Ospa Mugimendua. (Source: Basque contacts).
The Guardia Civil, although established in the Spanish state in 1844, is a militarised police force (type of carabinieri) associated in the minds of most Basques, Catalans and progressive Spaniards with the Spanish Civil War and with General Franco, whom the force enthusiastically supported. The force has a long history of violent repression, torture, murder and even rape. After the “reform” of the State with the death of Franco, the force was neither abolished nor reformed. The Guardia Civil is also much loved by the Spanish Right and the “Association of Victims of Terrorism” (sic), which regularly demands increased repression against Basques and Basque political prisoners, is mostly composed of relatives of the Guardia.
You will not question the Leadership of the Organisation. That is disrespectful. Besides, they know better than you. They are more intelligent and/ or better educated or have been at it longer than you.
The Leadership are incorruptible and have suffered much along the way. That makes it disloyal to question them.
You don’t want to be disrespectful and disloyal, do you?
Let the Leadership do the thinking. Is that not easier?
You must not listen to those who challenge or criticise the Leadership. Those people are disloyal and disrespectful. Besides, some of the things they point out will make you uncomfortable. Put your trust and faith in the Leadership and be comfortable and at ease.
Those who challenge the Leadership are troublemakers. They seek to upset things. It is right that they be expelled and then things will return to the state with which we can be comfortable. If remaining inside the Organisation, they will create disorder. If they are outside the Organisation, their words should not be reported or their criticism printed. Their activities should not be publicised.
You know and your comrades know that you are not a troublemaker, or disrespectful or disloyal. But if you associate with those critics, the ones from outside or that left or were expelled, people will begin to suspect that you too are like them. You want the Leadership and comrades to trust you, to be at ease with you, don’t you? Best ignore the critics, not have anything to do with them.
Besides, what can they possibly have to offer, outside the Organisation?
Solidarity against the attacks of the enemy is a good thing, but not with the critics. They have forfeited any right to solidarity when they broke from or criticised the Leadership and the Organisation. They have brought all this down upon themselves.
Concentrate upon the path pointed out by the Leadership. Concentrate upon the tasks of the moment. All will be well. You are in good hands. The Organisation is in good hands. Everything is fine.
As Mayo began to prepare for a replay of the 2016 championship Gaelic Football final against Dublin, I stood with others on a very wet day in Dublin’s Croppies’ Acre to commemorate and honour Robert Emmet and the United Irishmen – an event replete with Mayo connections.
Eniscorthy Historical Reenactment Society inside the monument during the ceremony. (Photo: Paddy Reilly)
The event, organised by the Asgard Howth 1916 Society, was graced by the presence of the Enniscorthy Historical Reenactment Society, men and women in 1798 costume bearing pikes, including officer uniforms – they had travelled up from Wexford that morning to attend the event. Donal Fallon, historian, blogger, tour guide and broadcaster was to give the oration. Padraig Drummond, the organising persona, had asked me to sing two songs at the event, one near the start and the other near the end.
For the first song, I had chosen the Bold Robert Emmet ballad1 (originally known as The Last Moments of Robert Emmet2), a song that commonly sung more often a few decades ago but still reasonably well remembered. For the second, I was spoiled for choice of relevant songs: Anne Devlin, Boolavogue, The Croppy Boy, Henry Joy, The Irish Soldier Laddie. Kelly the Boy from Killane, The Rising of the Moon, Rodaí Mac Corlaí, Sliabh na mBan, the Three Flowers, The West’s Awake, The Wind That Shakes the Barley …… or I could finish learning some of which I knew bits, like the Sean Bhean Bhocht, General Munroe, Memory of the Dead (Who Fears to Speak of ’98?) or the Mayo version of An Spailpín Fánach.
Drawing depicting the trial of Robert Emmet in Green Street Courthouse, Dublin. (Photo source: Internet)
Though a beautiful song in lyrics and air, I felt Sliabh na mBan was too long for the event and cutting it would also feel wrong. Anne Devlin remembers an extremely brave comrade of the United Irishmen and gives rare acknowledgement to the role of women in the struggle for Irish freedom, which had me veering towards that choice. However, I eventually settled on Men of the West, celebrating the 1798 uprising in Mayo when a small French force under General Humbert landed to support them.
Diarmuid Breatnach singing “Men of the West/ Fir an Iarthair”. (Photo: Paddy Reilly)
MEN OF THE WEST
The Mayo connection in the forthcoming GAA final was one reason for the choice, another was that this time of year is that which witnessed the repression in Mayo after the defeat of the last rising of that year (and the last forever, the British and their Orange supporters may have thought, until Emmet came out five years later). And other reasons were that I could sing it as a macaronic song (with some of the verses in Irish and some in English), the song was not too long and it has a chorus in which participants could join.
Bartholomew Teeling, with the French who landed at Mayo, captured when they surrendered at Baile na Muc. Hung in Dublin and his body thrown into the “Croppy Hole”. (Photo source: Internet)
There were yet other reasons for the choice too – not in our culture of song and game, nor in the calendar, but in the ground under our feet, for somewhere under there in what was first called “The Croppies’ Hole” and later “Croppies’ Acre”, the mass grave of many United Irish, lie the bodies of the executed Matthew Tone — younger brother of Theobald Wolfe Tone (who was soon after to give his own life to the Rising) – and Bartholomew Teeling. The younger Tone and Teeling had landed with the French in Mayo, been taken prisoner after the surrender of the French at Baile na Muc, in Co.Longford, brought to Dublin and, despite their French Republican Army officer rank, tried as rebels and hung there.
And in researching background for this article, I came across even further Mayo connections.
The lyrics of Men of the West were written by William Rooney and put to the air of an Irish song called Eoghan Chóir written in turn — and also air apparently composed — by a Mayo United Irishman and songwriter, Riocard Bairéad (Richard Barrett3), who composed the even better-known Preab San Ól4.
The lyrics of Men of the West were later translated into Irish by Conchúr Mag Uidhir, who won a prize for that work at a Feis Ceoil in 1903 – again in Mayo. It was the lyrics of both these versions that I combined to make the macaronic version I chose to sing at the commemoration at Croppies’ Acre5.
THE DUBLIN SONGWRITER — BACKGROUND
While I need to do some research to find out more about this Mag Uidhir, quite a lot is known about William Rooney (Liam Ó Maolruanaigh). Born in the Dublin former red-light district known as “The Monto”6 in 1873, Rooney grew up in a what had been considered the second city of the British Empire but had declined in status with the abolition of the Irish (colonial) Parliament in 1800. The city contained the residence of the Crown’s representative in Ireland, a number of British army barracks and the administration apparatus of the colony, the latter in Dublin Castle. Dublin also contained a substantial loyalist population of the Ascendancy, in addition to “Castle Catholics”7. However, Dublin was also a focal point in Irish nationalist and separatist politics. Relatives and descendants of members and sympathisers of the United Irishmen of 1798 and 1803 lived in the city and the events were in the living memories of some.
William Rooney, journalist, organiser, Irish language revivalist and author of songs. (Photo source: Internet)
Irish Republicanism had seen a resurgence with the Young Irelanders of 1848 and some of their supporters were easily alive when William Rooney was born in 1873 and during his childhood. The founding of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1858 preceded Rooney’s birth by only 15 years and although the raid on the The Irish People newspaper took place in 1865, followed by the trial and conviction to penal servitude of Ó Donnobháin Rosa, Thomas Clarke Luby and John O’Leary, they would have been still talked about during Rooney’s childhood.
The following year, 1866 saw the failed rising of the Fenians in Ireland and also their shock invasion of Canada and, in 1867, the stirring freeing of the American Fenian prisoners in Manchester and the subsequent hanging of the three martyrs, Allen, Larkin and O’Brien. The spectacular rescue of escaping Fenian prisoners from Australia by the Catalpa and their celebrated delivery to the freedom in the United States took place in 1876.
Although these events were all over (or just occurring, in the case of the Catalpa) by the date of Rooney’s birth, their echoes remained – in living memory, in the cause of prisoners serving sentences in English jails or penal colonies and in agitation for a political prisoners’ amnesty. And God Save Ireland8, written to commemorate the Manchester Martyrs in 1866 by Timothy Daniel Sullivan would have been an extremely popular song among a wide section of the Dublin population during Rooney’s childhood, along with patriotic verses and songs by Thomas Moore (1779-1852), Thomas Davis (1814-1845) and James Clarence Mangan (1803-1849). Verse and songs by these poets were learned by ear and recited or sung but were also available in printed form, in songbooks, song sheets and nationalist publications.
Sullivan was a journalist, owning and editing the publications The Nation, Dublin Weekly News and Young Ireland. As a journalist, Sullivan published reports of meetings of the banned National League in December 1887, for which he was convicted and imprisoned for two months by the British administration. William Rooney was in his late teens at that time and Sullivan lived until 1914.
At the age of around thirteen William Rooney became acquainted with a leading Irish nationalist of his times, Arthur Griffith, through Rooney’s membership of The Irish Fireside Club, a literary discussion group. Both of them joined the Leinster Debating Society (which later became the Leinster Literary Society) which they soon led, Griffith as presidents and Rooney as Secretary. The early 1890s controversy surrounding Parnell’s relationship with Catherine O’Shea caused a serious disruption in the nationalist movement of the time and caused a serious split in the Irish Parliamentary Party of which the Leinster Literary Society became a casualty.
Rooney then formed the Celtic Literary Society in 1893, of which he became president; he also edited An Seanachuidhe (old spelling of “Seanchaí”, a story-teller, a relater of things past), the Society’s journal. The Society’s aims were the study of the Irish language, history, literature and music; it had branches in different parts of the country and its members included John O’Leary, Frank Hugh O’Donnell and Arthur Griffith.
AN GHAEILGE
William Rooney was fluent enough in the Irish language to write and to give orations in it and journalists of his times, after summarising a speech in English from the same platform, generally wrote only that he had spoken in Irish9. When he learned his Irish is not clear but he was teaching it in the offices of the Celtic Society. Then Eoin MacNeill got him to join the Gaelic League/ Connradh na Gaeilge after it was formed in 1893.
The Connradh was mainly concerned with promoting the Irish language and literature but also became a social focus in later years, hosting céilidhe (dances and occasion for songs, recitations). Patrick Pearse advocated a more political approach to promoting Irish culture and this accorded with Rooney’s opinion. On the other hand Rooney regarded Irish independence without the revival of the language and culture as meaningless and he castigated the Irish Parliamentary Party for its inaction on the Irish language.
Rooney gave an alternative example, traveling the country speaking publicly in Irish and in English on the need for Irish independence and for the revival of the Irish language.
JOURNALISM AND POLITICAL ORGANISATION
Building on his earlier writing in An Seanachuidhe, Rooney founded with Griffith The United Irishman newspaper in 1899 and his articles and other writings were published in a number of publications of his times:United Ireland, The Shamrock, Weekly Freeman, The Evening Herald, Shan Van Vocht and Northern Patriot (the latter two in Belfast).
Near the end of 1900, again in conjunction with Griffith, William Rooney helped found Cumann na nGaedheal. The former Fenian John O’Leary was president and the Cumann was intended as an umbrella organisation to co-ordinate the activities of a number of nationalist groups (it was merged with others in 1907 to form the original Sinn Féin).
As the centenary of the 1798 Uprising approached, there was something of a fever of preparation with many indicating an interest in participation. Rooney would see his 25th birthday during centenary year and becameof the most prominent organisers for the National Commemoration committee, if not, indeed, the main one.
The year 1898, somewhat similarly to the current centenary of the the 1916 Rising, saw commemorative plaques and monuments being erected, along with talks, meetings, lectures, articles and songs being written. According to historian Ruan O’Donnell, a feeling that the 1889 events had not reached an appropriate level led in 1903 to substantial commemorative events of Emmet’s rising in 1803. Many political working relationships were made during those years which were to survive into much more active days less than two decades since. Many of the songs we have today about the 1798 Rising were written during this period too and Rooney’s Men of the West was presumably also.
In the year of the 1798 centenary commemoration, one of the main centenary commemorations was held in Croppies’ Acre, attended by a reported 100,00010.Rooney was one of the main organisers and a stone was laid on the site which is there to this day.
Stone laid (or unveilled) during commemoration event in Croppies’ Acre in 1898, the first centenary of the Rising. The stone is on the ground near the north-west gate and corner of the park. (Photo: Paddy Reilly)
WILLIAM ROONEY IN MAYO
(The following text is taken from an article by Brian Hoban in the on-line edition of the Castlebar News for 22, Apr 2011)
William Rooney had visited Castlebar with Maud Gonne in 1898 for the centenary celebrations of ‘The Year of the French’. He gave a passionate speech in Irish in which he exhorted people to think for themselves, to educate themselves, and not to take their teachings from others.
He founded Castlebar’s first Public Library at the Town Hall, to which he dedicated his books. Three years later, at the early age of twenty-eight, William Rooney was dead, but the esteem in which he was held in Castlebar continued to grow. In 1911, a new Hurling Club in the town was named the ‘William Rooney’ in his honour. The following year “The Rooney Hall” was opened in Tucker Street. It became a local landmark for several generations, much used by various civic and voluntary organisations, including the PTAA.
The one surviving connection is in ‘Poems and Ballads’, a collection of Rooney’s poetry edited by Arthur Griffith and published in 1902, a year after his death. An original of this title is held by Mayo County Library where it can be consulted.
1798 Centennial Celebrations
William Rooney was one of the main protagonists in establishing the National Commemoration to celebrate the centennial of the 1798 rebellion. Only one month after its inception nationalists in Mayo formed the “Castlebar Central and Barony of Carra ’98 Centenary Association with James Daly appointed as president of the Connaught ’98 Centenary Council. On the 9th January 1898 a commemoration, which was presided over by James Daly, was held at Frenchill, near Castlebar. This was attended by Maud Gonne Mac Bride and addressed by James Rooney. ……………….
James Daly pointed out that the event was both about remembering dead patriots and undertaking “to abide by the principles of the men of ’98 until their country was free again and took its place among the nations of the earth.”
EARLY DEATH AND MEMORY
William Rooney died of TB in 1901 at the age of 27, shortly before he was due to marry. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.
In 1902 the United Irishman published a collection of his writings and in 1908 a collection of his work edited by Griffith, Poems and Ballads of William Rooney, was published. The publication was reviewed disparagingly in the Daily Express that year by James Joyce but Yeats dedicated the 1908 edition of Cathleen Ni Houlihan “To the Memory of William Rooney”.A collection of his lectures and articles, from the United Irishman was published by M.H. Gill the following year.
Griffith described William Rooney as “the Thomas Davis of the new movement”. Brian Ó hUigín (“Brian na Banban” 1882–1963), editor for many years of The Wolfe Tonne Annual and himself no slouch as a writer of songs and verse, said of Rooney that “he blazed the trail to 1916 and gave his life for Ireland”.
And many of William Rooney’s songs are still being sung.
End.
Wreath being laid by Pól Ó Scannaill inside the monument on behalf of a number of groups. Padraig Drummond of Asgard 1916 Society MC of event. (Photo: Paddy Reilly)
APPENDIX
THE MACARONIC VERSION OF MEN OF THE WEST/ FIR AN IARTHAIR
(Arranged by D.Breatnach)
1.
Má mholtar le dán is le h-amhrán,
Na fir a bhi tréan agus fíor,
Donal Fallon, historian, blogger, tour guide and broadcaster who gave the main oration
‘Chuir clú agus cáil lena ndánacht
Ar shruthán ‘s gleann agus sliabh:
One of the panels inside the circular monument. (Photo: Paddy Reilly)
Ná fágaidh ar deire na tréan-fhir
Do chruinnigh ar phlánai Mhuigheo –
Nuair a ghnóthaí na Gail I Loch gCarman,
Said muinntir an Iarthair ‘bhí beo.
Chorus
I give you the gallant old West, boys,
Where rallied our bravest and best;
When Ireland lay broken and bleeding:
Hurrah boys, hurrah for the West!
(Photo: Paddy Reilly)
2.
The hilltops with glory were glowing
‘twas the eve of a bright harvest day,
And the ships we’d been wearily awaiting
Sailed into Killalla’s broad bay.
And over the hills went the slogan
To awaken in everyone’s breast
That spirit that’s never been broke’ boys
Among the true hearts of the West.
Curfá
Seo sláinte muinntir an Iarthair daoibh,
Section of Croppies Acre on a drier day, showing open circular 1798 monument in middle distance and Collins Barracks Museum in the far background. View is from SE gate on Wolfe Tone Quay. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Unknown author but sometimes credited to Tom Maguire (1892– 1993, famed leader of the Mayo Flying Column [yet another Mayo connection!] in the War of Independence, who later took the Republican side in the Civil War). On the other hand Zimmermann (1967) gives the song its earliest appearance as c.1900, when Maguire would have been around only eight years of age. For Tom Maguire credit see http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/robert-emmet and a number of other references, some of which state inaccurately that Emmet was “hung, drawn and quartered”; that was indeed his sentence but the British practice of cutting the body of “traitors and rebels”open while still alive to access the entrails had been discontinued for decades although the decapitation part was still practiced and was carried out on Emmet.
3In the very brief research I carried out on the Mayo songwriter, I came across another songwriter by the name of Richard “Richie” Barrett (1933– 2006), an Afro-American who was also a singer, musician and band promoter, involved with such famous rythm ‘n blues groups as the Chantels and Three Degrees. One might hope for a family connection ….
4Translated later into English, recorded by the Dubliners folk and ballad group under the title Another Round.
5For lyrics, see the Appendix after article body and Sources.
7A pejorative term to describe Catholics who cooperated with the colonial Ascedancy regime in Ireland and sought admission to their social circles (for example, to balls and receptions held at the Castle in the 19th Century). An even more contemptuous description for the behaviour of this stratum was the Irish “ag sodar i ndiaidh na h-uaisle” (‘trotting after the nobles’, i.e. like dogs or perhaps servants)
8He also wrote the All for Ireland! anthem, Song from the Backwoods and the Michael Dwyer ballad.
http://www.ainm.ie/Bio.aspx?ID=1038 (NB: I am not the Diarmuid Breathnach, joint author of this piece — please note the slightly different spelling of his family name)
O’Donnell, Ruan: Remember Emmet: Images of the Life and Legacy of the Irish Revolutionary Robert Emmet, National Library of Ireland (2003)
Zimmermann, Georges-Denis, Songs of Irish Rebellion: Political Street Ballads and Rebel Songs 1780-1900 (1967), Allen Figgis, Dublin; reprinted (2012) by Four Courts Press.
Information picket (with table across the road) organized by Anti-Internment Group of Ireland in September 2014 at Thomas St./ Meath St. junction, Dublin.Palestinian and Kurdish flags at a Kobane solidarity rally in Trafalgar Square, London in 2014. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The flag of the ICA, flown over Murphy’s Imperial Hotel in 1916
I’m no shade of green,
though neath such flags I’ve oft times been,
and ‘neath the Plough in Gold on Green,
and some years back
Also the black,
aye and the red-and-black;
or Palestinian red and black and white and green,
Cumann na mBan, “Irish Republic” and Tricolour flags displayed at Dublin’s GPO by Moore Street campaign supporters. (Phoro: D. Breatnach?)
Or the Basque crosses white and green upon red …..
In solidarity I have flown all those flags I’ve said
But when all’s said and done —
though hard to choose just one —
from my heart and from my head:
I choose the workers’ Red.
Sept 2016
A number of the Basque flag, the Ikurrina, flying in Dublin during a solidarity protest. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Anarcho-Sindicalist and Anarchist black flags (Photo source: Internet)Bangladeshis on Mayday demonstration. (Photo source: Internet)
One of my appointments on a recent trip to Euskal Herria, the Basque Country, was with a “free radio station”, with a dual purpose: to learn about their operation and to give them an interview about my thinking on the political phenomena known to most people as “peace processes”. The radio station in question is Zintilik and located in the Orereta area of Errenteria town, not far north from Donosti/ San Sebastian, in the souther Basque province of Gipuzkoa and my hosts were Hektor Gartzia and Julen Etxegarai.
View of side of building which houses Zintilik. Photo D.BreatnachJulen and Hektor setting up for the interview Photo D.Breatnach
Not long after I arrived, one of my hosts related his memory of events in the area after a local ETA fighter had been killed. The Guardia Civil had swamped the area to prevent an “homenaje” (an event honouring the dead) taking place, guns pointing at men and women; the children, of which he had been one, gathered into their grandparents’ house ….. He showed me where the police vehicle had parked at the end of the street, his sweeping hand indicating the places where the armed police had stood.
THE “FREE RADIO”
The “free radio station”, also known as “pirate radio” has been broadcasting for 32 years, which I find amazing. It began broadcasting from an “okupa”, an occupation of a private empty building, turning it into an alternative social and political centre. Under popular pressure, the local authority, under the control at the time of the PSE, i.e. (Spanish unionist social democratic party), granted them the building they currently use.
Front of Zintilik building from the street. Photo D.Breatnach
Originally built to house a smithy, for some reason the building never saw service in that capacity. It is in my estimation an attractive building in a traditional-enough local style, of thick stone, compact without being squat. It has an attractive back yard, no doubt intended at one time to receive the horses with hooves in need of iron shoes, fitted and nailed. The roof is tiled in what seems the usual way for the Basque Country.
Zintilik broadcasts 24 hours a day, which it is able to do using repeats. The Zintilik collective owns its equipment and funds itself through fund-raising concerts, txosnak (stalls/ marquees) at festivals and occasional donations. They run advertisements for
Julen and Hektor again. Photo D.Breatnach
local community groups and announce events but accept no commercial sponsorship – nor does their wish for independence stop there. “We don’t receive any funding from the local authority or from the Basque Autonomous Government,” declares Julen, “nor do we wish to.”
“Funding from such sources comes with strings attached”, adds Hektor.
“Or one becomes dependent on it and unable to function without it”, further explains Julen.
Partial scenic view from the back of the building. A block of flats to right just out of shot does restrict it however. (Photo D.Breatnach}
As a further illustration of self-reliance, they tell me how they climbed on to the roof of their building to repair a leak, rather than ask the municipal authorities to do it. And it was the same when branches of a nearby plane tree needed cutting to prevent them knocking against the radio aerial on windy days.
“We know it’s work that the local authority owes us and that we and the rest of the community pay their salaries but we prefer not to depend on them,” they explain.
As an example of how dependency – although of a different sort – can undermine a community resource, they relate the story of building which was occupied in order to be used as a community resource. As time passed, many were using it as a social resource but less people were volunteering for the work involved in maintenance at any level. Appeals of the four or so committed people who ended up doing everything fell on the deaf ears of the clientele until one day the four locked the centre doors after the last user had left for the evening and, the next day, handed the keys over to the local authority.
The back yard to the building where we ate a meal after the interview. The structure there is an outhouse. (Photo D.Breatnach)
“As you imagine, this was a great shock to the clientele,” they tell me, “but it was the result of their own lack of commitment to the project.”
I reflect that many activists will identify in one way or another with that sad experience.
RECORDING THE INTERVIEW
Julen and Hektor discuss the format and general content of the interview with me and map it out, do sound checks and then we go to it. Hektor, who knows quite a bit about the more recent Irish history and about the current situation in the Six Counties, is my interviewer, while Julen monitors from the control room and occasionally joins in with comment or question.
Interview room. Photo D.Breatnach
For music in between sections of interview, Irish Ways and Irish Laws (John Gibbs) and Where Is Our James Connolly? (Patrick Galvin) have been chosen, both sung by Christy Moore and Joe McDonnell (Brian Warfield), by the Wolfe Tones.
They also invited me to sing Back Home in Derry, Christy Moore’s lyrics arrangement of Bobby Sands’ poem – but to the air I composed for it. I am happy to oblige – I enjoy singing but it is more than that: I want the air I composed to get a hearing. Christy Moore used Gordon Lightfoot’s air to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald for Sands’ poem and, excellent though that fit is, especially with Moore’s chorus, I think that the poem (and its author) deserves an air of its own.
Recording room. Photo D.Breatnach
Although the main focus of the interview was the phenomenon of “peace (sic) processes”, we discussed aspects of Irish, Spanish, Palestinian and South African recent history, including the 1916 Rising in Ireland, along with the backgrounds to the songs chosen. For the most part, I left it to my interviewers to draw conclusions relating to their experience of political processes in their own country.
FESTIVALS AND STORMS
Upstairs in the broadcasting/ recording and interview rooms, all is in good order: equipment and facilities. After the interview, I note that downstairs, in the main space, things are a in a bit of a mess, for which Julen apologises (he has never seen the state of my flat).
“Some of the community groups we support store their placards and banners here,” he says. “Besides, we’ve just finished our local festival and everyone relaxes, dumps their equipment and goes on holiday.” Throughout the Summer and early Autumn, each village, town, city and even area will have its own week-long festival for which the community groups and campaigns will organise and participate.
Down in Donostia (San Sebastian), to where Hektor and Julen accompanied me after we ate the food they had prepared, the city was in the midst of its own festival and was heaving with people – tourists from everywhere, it seemed, as well as Basques.
With that picturesque bay and its island in our background, they got a passing young woman to take our photo, the three of us – the conversation with her was in Euskara only. I held up the placards I had prepared for the photo in turn, one in Irish and another in English, supporting the Moore Street quarter in Dublin.
R-L: Julen, Diarmuid, Hektor. Donosti bay in the background with island partly visible. Storm building in the sky.
Dark clouds were gathering overhead and on the horizon the sky was a baleful orange. A storm or at least a downpour was being promised and, as we turned back towards the bus station, the first drops began to fall. In the humid heat, the light rain was welcome for awhile but for part of my solitary journey back to Bilbo, it formed a silvery curtain in the coach’s headlights and streamed down the windows.
I remembered being told that one can frequently witness a violent storm in the Donosti bay while not so far away in Bilbao, as a result of local conditions, all is calm. As for winter storms in Donosti, the waves hitting and surging over the seafront and piers have to be seen to be believed; occasionally the sea reaches inland, floods cellars and converts parked cars into boats or semi-submarines.
The rain eased off and stopped about half-way through my journey and when I got into San Mames station in Bilbo, the streets were not even wet.
“Almost slash and burn,” is how one of the people I am talking with describes the procedures they expect from Lisadell, the construction company employed by the Department of Heritage in Moore Street, to work on where the GPO Garrison retreated in the last days of the Easter Rising.
“The roof doesn’t need replacing,” says another. “It needs the hole in the roof fixed and the timbers carefully repaired, not replaced.” I remark that I’ve known people who’ve had water damage or dry rot and just had the timbers replaced. “Yes, of course, when conservation is not an issue. But when it is, the work is slow and painstaking, bit by bit, to conserve everything that can be conserved, putting in extra supports when needed.”
I am talking to people with expertise in the area of conservation of buildings of historical and/ or architectural value. They know what should be done to conserve the historic buildings in the Moore Street quarter and they feel certain that it will not be done. They feel impotent – they have the expertise, they care about conservation but they fear the combined powers of the State and big property speculators such as Hammerson, who plan to build a huge shopping centre over the whole Moore Street quarter. They will advise but if they go “too far”, they feel their professional lives will be seriously impaired. Perhaps they fear even more than that – who knows?
In 2007, just before Nos.14-17 Moore Street were made a national monument, TG4 in the their Iniúchadh Oidhreacht na Cásca program broadcast a remarkably in-depth exposure of the battle between Chartered Land and another firm of property speculators for control of the quarter and how Joe O’Reilly of Chartered Land, coming from behind, had been given an incredible advantage over his competitors with a preferential deal with the Planning Department of Dublin City Council. This took place among more than a whiff of corruption and of complaints by elected Councillors who were excluded from a secret meeting and at another, threatened with financial penalties. Joe O’Reilly of Chartered Land (and also joint owner with Irish Life of the ILAC shopping centre) gobbled up most of Moore Street and only a fierce campaign in the autumn of 2014 prevented the Planning Department getting authorisation to swap him two Council properties in the Street, thereby clearing the way for him to begin demolition of the terrace.
“THESE TIMBERS HEARD …. MACHINE GUNS … SCREAMS … THE PAINFUL DECISION TO SURRENDER …”
Another of the experts intervenes. “These timbers they are going to rip out are the ones that heard the discussion around whether to surrender or to go on fighting,” she says. I am a little surprised at such poetic imagery from a person whose work is in bricks and mortar, plaster, timbers and slates – but there is no denying the passion and there is more to come.
“Those timbers heard the chatter of British machine guns, the crack of their rifles, screams in the street, the occasional crack of a Volunteers’ rifle, perhaps an occasional groan from the wounded Connolly. They heard Elizabeth O’Farrell volunteering to go out under a white flag although civilians had already been shot down under such a flag. They heard the discussions upon her return, the painful decision to surrender, Pearse’s decision to go out with O’Farrell, Seán Mac Lochlainn’s orders to march out in military order ….”
Can damaged timbers and bricks be conserved? I ask. “Oh yes, they do it in England on historic buildings, even genuine Tudor ones. All kinds of damaged timbers can be conserved. But if at all possible you do it in place, in situ – removing timbers causes further damage.”
And bricks? And slates? “Well,” breaks in another, “you’d photograph everything carefully in advance or as you uncovered sections. Anything to be temporarily removed would be numbered, slates or bricks. Then the supporting timbers or brickwork is slowly treated, then everything put back in the same order.”
What about missing or broken bricks or slates? “Broken bricks can sometimes be repaired but otherwise you’d source bricks from the same brickyard. Or if the brickyard is no longer in business, you’d look for other buildings of the same bricks being demolished and buy the material. The same with slates.” I think of the descriptions by campaigners occupying the buildings of how they found timbers just thrown into a set-aside room, and all kinds of objects left leaning against plasterwork that was probably in need of conservation.
A woman shows me on her Ipad a section on restoration procedures on the website of Historic England, a body sponsored by the British Department of Media, Culture and Sports. I quickly record three paragraphs (I will look up the rest later). “A conservative approach is fundamental to good conservation – so retaining as much of the significant historic fabric and keeping changes to a minimum are of key importance when carrying out repair work to historic buildings.
“The unnecessary replacement of historic fabric, no matter how carefully the work is carried out, can in most situations have an adverse effect on character and significance.
“The detailed design of repairs should be preceded by a survey of the building’s structure and an investigation of the nature and condition of its materials and the causes and processes of decay.”
I remark that doesn’t seem to be what is going to happen to Nos.14-17 Moore Street. They nod – they agree.
“It’s just a building site to them,” says one. “What they have already done in defacing a national monument is criminal – but who will prosecute them?”
“They put more holes in the front of those buildings than British soldiers did in 1916,” says another man angrily. “Then they just ripped out their Hilti bolts and filled up the holes with an epoxy resin, instead of pointing material.”
This is a reference to the drilling of holes for the erection of a banner without planning permission, across Nos. 14-17 Moore Street, officially a national monument since 2007. Judge Barrett agreed it was illegal in the case taken by Colm Moore, the nominee of some 1916 fighters’ relatives. Although she is appealing that and other decisions of Barrett’s, the Minister had it taken down recently — but again using questionable methods.
“No wonder Humphreys doesn’t want independent inspection and monitoring”, says another, a reference to the Minister of Heritage’s consistent refusal to allow any independent conservation experts in, or indeed the Lord Mayor of last year, or a number of TDs and Councillors, always under the guise of “Health & Safety requirements” that no-one not of the workforce should enter. Yet when they had their media exercise after the Government’s purchase late last year, RTÉ camera crews were in there as was Caitriona Crowe of Trinity College, praising the purchase of the buildings and the Department’s alleged intentions. It later emerged that the demolition of three adjoining buildings was part of that plan but a five-day occupation of the building by concerned citizens put a stop to that, before an injunction was granted by Judge Barret preventing further demolition until the case taken against the State had been decided.
While the rest of the buildings in the quarter and the streets themselves, uncared for and subject to constant assault of weather and with broken drainpipes, heavy traffic and so on accelerate in deterioration, and the Minister’s appeal against the Barret Judgement will not even open until December next year, an assault is imminent on the roof and parapets of four of the buildings of the historic 1916 terrace, those with the best-preserved original frontages and among those with the highest specific historic importance within that terrace. If this were a case of some greedy or careless private owner or company, a complaint could be made to the National Monuments Service. Many such cases have ended in heavy fines for the perpetrators.
But Terry Allen, the Principal Officer of that very Service baldly said in his evidence to Judge Barrett that Moore Street was not a 1916 battlefield. His office comes under the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, of which Minister Heather Humphreys is the boss. And the Government’s Cabinet stands behind her, if not actually pushing her forward. We tend to look to the State to protect national monuments from people damaging them. But who can protect them from the State itself?
End.
NB: These conversations happened but not with all of the people present at the one time. I have put them together for the sake of a condensed narrative and for the protection of identities.
Further information:
Principles of Repair for Historic Buildings from Historic England website:
Croppies’* Acre, a piece of parkland believed to the site of a mass grave of United Irishmen insurgents and non-combatant victims, situated between the Liffey’s Wolfe Tone Quay and the Collins Barracks complex of the Irish National Museum, was some weeks ago reopened to the public for the first time in four years. Few if any of the campaigners for its saving or its reopening were invited to the event or given credit in the short newspaper report about the occasion.
This report seeks to correct that omission, to give a brief account of efforts made over the years and to comment on the care of the park today.
(* “Croppy” was a name given to supporters of the United Irishmen, apparently because of the males wearing their hair cut short and close to the scalp, in the style of the revolutionary French of the time. “Crapaí” and “Cnapaí” were the versions of the word in the Irish language).
The Pedestrian Gate on Wolfe Tone Quay, Liffey side, open to the public again after four years (Photo C. Sulish)
HISTORY OF THE SITE AND OF THE CAMPAIGNS AROUND IT
In 2012, after the site had been closed for some time allegedly due to health and safety concerns for visitors due to drug-injecting paraphernalia left there by people using the site at night-time, Pádraig Drummond and Diarmuid Breatnach set up the Croppies Acre Rejuvenation project with a Facebook page to promote the importance of the site and to gather forces to pressure the authorities into reopening the site and maintaining it properly.
Prior to this, a number of visits had been made by Irish Republicans (the 1916 Societies on some occasions, independent Republicans on others) to the closed site to collect and dispose safely of drug-injecting paraphernalia and other waste and it was felt that a public campaign was needed.
Memorial stone about halfway along the the Liffeyside of the park. In the distance, the heaped earth and earth-moving machine in October last year which had caused concern (Photo: D. Breatnach)
As part of the campaign a letter to the media was composed by Drummond and Breatnach in consultation with the National Graves Association (a voluntary independent organisation that marks and maintains the graves of those who fought for Irish freedom and which also erects plaques to commemorate people and events). Although none of the main media published the letter it is reproduced here not only as a document of the history of campaigning for the site in its own right but also because it summarises well what had gone before.
“Croppies Acre is remembered in Dublin folklore as the site of a mass grave in which the bodies of dead insurgents were thrown in 1798. Among those lying in Croppies’ Acre are reputedly the bones of Bartholomew Teeling and Matthew Tone (brother of Wolfe Tone — CS), both hanged at the Provost Prison on Arbour Hill after the Battle of Ballinamuck on 8 September 1798.
“In 1898, the centenary of the United Irish uprisings, 100,000 marched to the site and placed a plaque there. As many people will be aware, the centenary commemoration of the United Irish played a significant part in the creation of a national pro-independence culture which fed into the Easter 1916 Rising, less than twenty years later, and which in turn fed into the War of Independence 1919-’21 and the creation of an Irish state.
Memorial stone placed during 1798 centenary commemoration which was attended by 100,000 (Photo: D. Breatnach)
“Although a 1798 rising commemoration plaque was laid at the site by “soldiers of the Eastern Command” of the Irish Army in 1985, soldiers were sometimes to be seen playing football on the field until the mid-1990s, while Collins Barracks was still in use by the Irish Army. This practice ceased after a number of complaints from members of the public who felt the practice was not respectful to the dead insurgents. The Irish Army vacated Collins Barracks in 1996 or thereabouts and the National Museum moved into the buildings in 1997.
“In 1997 a proposal to turn the graves of the Patriot Dead into a car and bus park was all the more stunning as the bi-centenary of the United Irishmen’s Rising of 1798 was imminent and groups everywhere were renovating monuments and graves, organising seminars and lectures and planning pike marches.
“The then secretary of the National Graves Association, Tess Kearney (since deceased — SC), was in poor health, but decided that such an occasion required action regardless of her personal circumstances. Tess turned in a magnificent effort for the television cameras and organised a campaign to “Save the Croppies Acre”. Within days, various interested parties came together and, under the leadership of the NGA, the plan to build a coach park on the site was defeated and the Croppie’s Acre site was developed two years ago (i.e in 2010 — CS) as a national monument with an expenditure of some €35,000. The field layout is simple with `(some individual) flagstones throughout the site presumably symbolising the bodies lying below and a small open circular stone structure on which are reproduced parts of the text and facsimile typeface of the Droites del Homme (Rights of Man) document from the French Revolution (1789). Also featured is the text of Seamus Heaney’s poem “Croppies” and the motif of the barley seed head is reproduced on the stone in reference to the poem and Irish folk memory.
The enclosure monument in Croppies’ Acre, with National Museum, Collins Barracks in the background. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Drummond/ Breatnach letter, signed by a number of historians, history tour guides, authors and history enthusiasts, also noted that:
“The Office of Public Works has closed the site because it considers it unsafe to permit public access due to some night-time activities there. Recently some of us went to inspect the site and were shocked at the condition into which it has sunk. Used syringes, discarded needles, bottles, cans and other rubbish were found at a number of locations but especially inside the stone structure.
“Rubbish bags were filled and disposed of, with the hazardous waste disposed of in bio hazard containers that were then handed into the local authorities. A return visit found almost as much rubbish as had been disposed of previously. A third visit found even more. This is not acceptable and must change.
The letter concluded by stating that
“It may be that some will say that the expense, even though relatively small, of looking after a national monument, cannot be justified in the current climate of austerity. To those we would say that possibly, had we valued sufficiently our independence and the sacrifices made for it in the past, we would not have allowed foreign finance speculators to bring us to sad straits in which we find ourselves now. The image of our past locked away while we are plundered as a nation in the present is a stark contrast.
“However about that, the Office of Public Works must take the appropriate action to look after this site properly and offer safe access to the park during the hours of daylight seven days a week. At night, the site needs to be well-lit and protected. Mr. Brian Hayes, TD, Minister of State responsible for the OPW since 2011, must take urgent action.”
At the time, the OPW probably seemed a much safer bet as custodians than Dublin City Council, especially with the Council’s Planning Department having granted property speculators planning permission to construct a giant shopping centre over the Moore Street battleground and market. However, it was eventually Dublin City Council that took responsibility for the maintenance and reopening of the site to the public.
But throughout the years after the setting up of that campaign, from 2012 to 2014, nothing seemed to be happening to put matters right. Groups of Republican volunteers paid visits from time to time to clean up the site, collecting horrifying amounts of used hypodermic needles and other paraphernalia and waste but the authorities appeared unmoved.
Twice in February 2014, questions were asked in the Dáil, the Irish Parliament, of Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brian Hayes. Pádraig Drummond had written to TDs (elected representatives) Clary Daly and Maureen O’Sullivan, who received replies to their questions, the former written and the latter an oral reply. Daly’s reply from Minister of State Hayeswas that “The Office of Public Works and Dublin City Council have agreed in principle that the management and maintenance of the Croppies Acre Memorial Park will be undertaken by the Council. OPW and Dublin City Council are reviewing the Council’s proposals regarding improved access to the park prior to formalising a licence arrangement, following which the park is expected to re-open to the public.”
The oral reply was much longer but the nub of it was the same.
“We weren’t getting people signing up to form a campaigning group and we were running out of energy”, said one of the campaigners about those years.
In September 2015, soon after DCC staff were seen to have been cleaning up the site and cutting the grass, concerned Republicans visited the site and posted photos on the campaign FB page of drug paraphernalia and mess which had quickly accumulated again on the site.
In October of that year, Dublin City Council staff began work inside the park with earth removers. In the absence of any notice of what was intended and no public consultation, protesters — including Éirigí — mobilised and halted work. Dublin City Council gave a written guarantee (see photo) that the work was only to create or upgrade a circular pathway. The protests ceased but an eye was kept on proceedings.
However photographs taken during a visit by other concerned people that same month showed drug paraphernalia again accumulating at the site.
View from the west pedestrian gate to the east since the Acre opened (Photo: C. Sulish)The letter guarantee which led to calling off the protests in October 2014
THE SITE REOPENS TO THE PUBLIC
By June this year, the site had been cleaned up, planted, a path put through part of it and finally reopened to the public, four years after the campaign to reopen it had begun. The Daily Herald reported on the opening ceremony (see link for their report below) on the 15th, presided over by Lord Mayor Críona Ní Dhálaigh in one of her last acts before her year as Mayor was up.
The Herald report alluded to the years of closure and “problems with drug users” but not once did it mention the National Graves Association, the Republican groups that repeatedly visited the site and those that mobilised to protect it in October last year, or the campaign set up in 2012 and the letter to the media of that year and TDs questions in the Dáil.
A sleeping bag, perhaps, against the wall within the monument park weeks after reopening. (Photo: C.Sulish)
The report did mention Councillor Mannix Flynn who, it said, had been campaigning over the years for the site’s reopening. “Councillor Mannix Flynn, for all I know, may have been campaigning hard for the site’s reopening,” said Diarmuid Breatnach. “I can’t say he has and I can’t say he hasn’t. But I can say that not once in those years of agitation, campaigning and trying to raise the profile of the issue, did we ever hear from or about him in connection with Croppies’ Acre.”
This month, I visited the site again and found it open and being used by the public, reasonably clean and with some attractive plantings of flowers and grasses. But inside the circular monument, there was a small pile of excreta in one spot and, on the way out, I noted what seemed to be a sleeping bag against the eastern wall. The site will need continual watching.
End.
(Photo: C. Sulish)(Photo: C. Sulish)View southwards across the park (Photo: C. Sulish)The Tricolour in this case would have been better replaced by the green flag of the United Irish with the harp in gold. (Photo: C. Sulish)
APPENDIX
LINKS TO QUOTED AND RELATED MATERIAL
Letter sent to mass media in 2012, after DCC had locked up the site: http://www.politics.ie/…/221010-croppies-acre-rejuvenation.…
Daily Herald report on the reopening of Croppies’ Acre
Foreign tourists and Irish-based visitors looked on with curious interest at a gathering at the foot of the East Pier, Howth on Sunday 24th – the group contained a number in military-type uniform, some were carrying flags, each one of a different design and a number of people in ordinary civilian clothes were carrying floral wreaths.
The Asgard, Molly Childers and Mary Spring-Rice on board at Howth (photos from Internet)Participants, Tourists and Visitors (photo D.Breatnach)
Most onlookers at that point would not have known that those gathered there had a threefold purpose:
to commemorate the landing of Mauser rifles for the Irish Volunteers
to commemorate the massacre of civilians by enraged soldiers later that same day on Bachelors Walk and to
launch the Asgard 1916 Society.
The men and women in uniform formed up with the flags as a colour party and led the procession the full length of the pier to its end. There the procession came to a halt in front of a plaque on the wall commemorating the landing of 900 Mauser M1871 single-shot rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition in 1914 by a crew skippered by Erskine Childers with his wife Molly and friend Mary Spring Rice. The arms were taken ashore and whisked away in an operation planned by Bulmer Hobson of the IRB and carried out by the Irish Volunteers and Na Fianna Éireann.
Colour Party marching along the pier towards the ceremony (photo D.Breatnach)
The Dublin Metropolitan Police and British Army were mobilised by Dublin Castle authorities to seize the guns (unlike at the previous much larger operation by the Loyalist UVF at Larne) but only managed to get a few. As the disgruntled Scottish Borderers marched back into town, they were jeered by Dublin crowds and some cabbage stalks were thrown at them. On Bachelors Walk, very near the Ha’penny Bridge, an officer brought them to a halt and they faced the crowd with guns pointed, then opened fire. Three men and a woman were killed and 38 wounded, including the father of singer Luke Kelly of the Dubliners ballad group (also called Luke). One of the victims died of bayonet wounds.
Margaret McKearney speaking and chairing the occasion on the pier (photo D.Breatnach)
Margaret McKearney, who has had three brothers killed in the Six Counties during the 30-years war, stepped forward to address the crowd as tourists and visitors took photos or watched and listened. After giving a brief account of the Howth landing and of the massacre on the Dublin quays, also of the smaller landing at Kilcoole, McKearney called forward Pól Ó Scanaill of the 1916 Societies to read the 1916 Proclamation of Independence. After he had finished, McKearney called for the young bearers of two floral wreaths to make their presentations:
Ellen O’Neill, with a wreath in memory of those killed and injured by the British soldiers at Bachelors’ Walk;
Roibeard Drummond, whose uncle Michael Moore was a crew member of the Nugget, landing rifles at Kilcoole, laying a wreath for the Asgard 1916 Society to commemorate the landing of the rifles and those who carried them in battle in 1916.
Last of the wreath-layers was Denise Ní Chanain on behalf of the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland.
Ellie O’Neill after laying wreath in memory of the dead and injured in the Bachelors’ Walk massacre (photo D.Breatnach)
MOORE STREET SPEECH
Roibeard Drummond, after laying wreath on behalf of the Asgard 1916 Society (photo D.Breatnach)
Niamh McDonald gave a short speech on the current situation in the struggle to save the revolutionary quarter of Moore Street. She informed her audience that NAMA had sold the debt of the Irish speculator company Chartered Land (Joe O’Reilly) to Hammerson, a British-based vulture capitalist company, who are continuing with the plan to build a huge shopping centre over the whole historic quarter. Meanwhile, the Minister for Heritage, Heather Humphreys, is appealing the High Court judgement that the whole quarter is a national monument. McDonald asked people to keep an eye on the campaign’s
Denise Ní Chanain bringing forth the wreath from the Anti-Internment Group of Ireland (photo D.Breatnach)
Facebook page for updates and for calls to support actions.
McKearney then called on Diarmuid Breatnach to sing Me Old Howth Gun, pointing out that guns landed at Howth had been the first to fire on the Lancers in O’Connell Street on Easter Monday 1916. Breatnach introduced the song as having been written apparently in 1921, that is a year before the outbreak of the Civil War, by James Doherty, who also used the pseudonym Seamas Mac Gallogly.
Niamh McDonald speaking on behalf of the Moore Street 2016 campaign (photo D.Breatnach)
MAIN SPEAKER — JOHN CRAWLEY FROM THE MARITA ANN
The next speaker to be introduced by McKearney was John Crawley who was arrested on board the Marita Ann trawler, intercepted off the Kerry coast by the Irish Naval Service on September 29, 1984, when seven tonnes of arms were seized. The US heavy machine guns recovered on the Marita Ann had special mountings allowing them to be used as anti-aircraft weapons. Another of those detained on board – and later jailed for 10 years – was Martin Ferris who went on to become a Kerry TD for Sinn Fein, while John Crawley has taken a line of opposition to the Good Friday Agreement.
John Crawley giving his oration with the plaque commemorating the landing of the Howth guns behind him (photo D.Breatnach)
John Crawley gave the main speech at Howth, in which he traced the history of the struggle for the Irish Republic from the Volunteers onwards, pointing out that many who fought the British in 1916 had different aspirations for the country, which explained why they parted ways in 1921. Crawley stated that the British have always been able to pick out those whose primary intention was to survive the struggle from those whose intention was if necessary to give their lives for the objective of the Irish Republic.
Pól Ó Scanaill reading the 1916 Proclamation at the head of the East Pier, Howth (photo D.Breatnach)
Crawley pointed out that some people had led a section of the Republican movement in accepting the right of a foreign country to decide the future of a part of our country; they had joined in the colonial administration and had accepted the colonial police force.
After the applause for the speech died down, McKearney thanked those who had participated and asked Diarmuid Breatnach again to step forward to sing the national anthem. Breatnach sang it in Irish, first verse and chorus (and noticeably sang “Sinne Laochra Fáil” instead of “Sinne Fianna Fáil”). Participants joined in with the chorus and then all made their way along the pier towards a local pub where refreshments had been made available by the new 1916 Society.
Diarmuid Breatnach singing Amhrán na bhFiann at end of the ceremony. Earlier he had sung “Me Old Howth Gun”. (Photo: Des Keane from Sean Heuston 1916 Society page)
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