Irish Brigade to fight for General Franco in Spain

In August 1936 General Eoin O’Duffy, the former Garda commissioner and leader of the Blueshirts, announced the formation of an Irish Brigade to fight for General Franco in Spain where a Civil War had broken out. O’Duffy claimed he was motivated by the historic links between Ireland and Spain, anti-communism and the need to defend the Catholic Church. The Spanish Civil War, fought between 1936-1939 would prove to be one of the most controversial and bloodiest conflicts of the twentieth century and had Irishmen on both sides. The following newspaper report described the departure of O’Duffy’s brigade:

General O'Duffy, sailed from Liverpool on Saturday for Lisbon…O'Duffy, who, like his men, was dressed in civilian clothes, refused to discuss the intentions and movements of the party, but one member admitted that they were bound for Spain, ‘to fight for their faith’. The majority of the men were under 25, and little luggage was carried. Some of the men are believed to have formerly held rank in the Free State Army, while others are stated to be students.

These idealistic young men also saw their participation in the Spanish Civil War as helping to solve political divisions in Ireland and ultimately Irish unity. Interviewed in Dublin prior to his departure for Spain, Capt. P. Quinn from county Kilkenny, made the following statement:

I believe that if an Irish Brigade succeed in reaching Spain, and there fights against Communism and all its terrors, it will do more good than anything else to help the Irish people to organise at home and bury political differences in the interests of national unity.

Interviewed before he sailed, General O’Duffy said told reporters that ‘this is no time for words, but actions’. As the boat left the quayside there were loud cheers and one young solider shouted ‘we will be back before Christmas’.

 ; source newspaper: www.irishnewsarchives.com / Irish Press 1931-1995, Monday, November 23, 1936; Section: Front page, Page: 1;

19.November.1978 Theobald Wolfe Tone

When news of the outbreak of the United Irish rebellion in May 1798 reached the then exiled Wolfe Tone he once again set in motion plans for a French invasion of Ireland. Devastated and embarrassed by the failure of almost 15,000 French troops to land at Bantry Bay in 1796, Tone managed to secure a much smaller force to embark on an invasion two years later. On 16 September, Tone sailed with General Hardy and 3,000 men and reached Lough Swilly on the Donegal coast. However, they were no match for the English navy and the small French fleet was captured on 12 October.

Tone was taken prisoner to Dublin and tried by court-martial on 10 November. He appeared in his French uniform, was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, though he pleaded for a soldier’s death by firing squad. Early on the morning fixed for his execution, he was found with an opened artery in his neck and died on 19 November 1798. He was buried in Bodenstown churchyard near Clane in County Kildare.

Remembered as the ‘Father of Irish Republicanism’, for generations his grave has been a place of pilgrimage for nationalists and republicans. Speaking in Bodenstown in 1913, Patrick Pearse, one of the signatories of the 1916 proclamation, said of Tone that he was the ‘greatest of Ireland’s dead’. Of Bodenstown he said: ‘We have come to the holiest spot in Ireland, holier even than where Patrick sleeps in Down. Patrick brought us life but this man died for us’. Today, Bodenstown remains a place of pilgrimage for a number of Irish political parties who remember Tone’s vision

To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman, in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, these were my means.

 Source newspaper:  www.irishnewsarchives.com Freemans Journal 1763-1924, Tuesday, November 13, 1798; Page: 3

16 November 1920 Massacre at Killaloe Bridge

On the 16 November 1920 one of the most notorious incidents in the Irish War of Independence occurred in the village of Killaloe, County Clare close to the Tipperary border. After an earlier attack on Scariff R.I.C. Barracks, the Auxiliaries began to search for IRA suspects but met with little success.

Then on 16 November a Board of Works steamer, The Shannon, sailed into Williamstown Harbour, with a force of auxiliaries hidden below deck. They quickly surrounded Williamstown House where they arrested four men Alfie Rogers, Brud McMahon, Martin Gildea, and Micheal Egan. At midnight, the four prisoners were marched across Killaloe Bridge to the nearby R.I.C. Station. What happened next remains unclear but the four prisoners were shot on the bridge, supposedly while trying to escape and not halting when called upon to do so. There was no medical report at the Military Inquest, but it was reported that the R.I.C. had fired only ten bullets hitting as follows: Gildea - 1 bullet in the head; Egan - 1 bullet to the head; Rogers - 2 bullets to abdomen and 1 bullet to the head and McMahon -1 bullet to the abdomen. A newspaper account of the incident noted as follows:

It is remarked as a peculiar circumstance that the prisoners should have been brought there at that hour, as it is stated they had been brought to the Lakeside Hotel, occupied by the police, early that evening. At the bridge, which is about 200 yards long, the road is-straight and narrow, and underneath flows the Shannon at a depth which would mean instantaneous death to a man plunging off the bridge. The spot would not, therefore, be considered- a favourable place to attempt an escape…The natives heard 15 or 20 rifle shots that night, followed by moans and a pathetic cry for the priest. No priest was, however, summoned, although the Presbytery is only about 100 yards from the scene of the tragedy.

Download: Source newspaper: www.irishnewsarchives.com Irish Independent 1905-current, Friday, November 19, 1920; page 6

15 November 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement signed
Thirty-four years ago today a political crisis, much like the present day, loomed large in Irish society. On 15 November 1985 at Hillsborough Castle, County Down the Anglo-Irish Agreement was singed by Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald and British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

The framework it was hoped would help to end the northern torubles, then entering a sixteenth year and which had claimed countless lives. The agreement provided for regular meetings between ministers in the Irish and British governments on matters affecting Northern Ireland. It outlined cooperation in four areas: political matters; security and related issues; legal matters, including the administration of justice; and the promotion of cross-border cooperation.
For Unionists however it was a 'gross betrayal' and they threatened to make Northern Ireland ‘ungovernable’. Both leaders expressed the hope that there would not be a violent reaction from Loyalists. James Molyneaux, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, said that if the course of action set out in the Anglo-Irish deal was allowed to go unchecked and it came to the stage where Unionists were to be ‘transferred like a trussed up parcel from one state to another and the Irish Army attempted to take over this Province, then there would be violence’. The outspoken Ian Paisley added that the violence would be ‘to the death’.
Both leaders sought to reassure Unionists concerns wtih Garret FitzGerald stating that ‘Irish political unity would come about only with the consent of a majority’. Margaret Thatcher went further and claimed that there would be ‘no change in the status of Northern Ireland without their consent. The legitimacy of the unionists position has been recognised by the Republic in a formal international agreement’. While ultimately the agreement would be dismissed as a failure it did act as a starting point in negotiations which would lead to the Good Friday Agreement thirteen years later.

Source newspaper: www.irishnewspaperarchives.com Irish Independent 1905-current, Saturday, November 16, 1985, page 9

14 November 1923 William Butler Yeats Wins Nobel Peace Prize
On 14 November 1923 Irish poet and senator, William Butler Yeats created history when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Irish citizen to achieve such an accolade.

The prize was awarded to Yeats ‘for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation’. Somewhat surprised by the award, Yeats would later write in his autobiography:
Early in November (1923) a journalist called to show me a printed paragraph saying that the Nobel Prize would probably be conferred upon Herr Mann, the distinguished novelist, or upon myself, I did not know that the Swedish Academy had ever heard my name.
The news of the award was widely praised in Ireland with members of Dáil Éireann proudly announcing that it had placed Ireland on the international stage. It was a sentiment reiterated by the laureate himself, who at the awards ceremony claimed that the Nobel Prize was less for himself than for his country and called it Europe’s welcome to the Free State. In his presentation speech, Per Hallstrom, the then chairman of the academy’s Nobel Committee, praised the poet’s ability to ‘follow the spirit that early appointed him the interpreter of his country, a country that had long waited for someone to bestow on it a voice’.
For many people Yeats was one of the few writers whose greatest works were written after the award of the Nobel Prize. The publication of his poetry which included The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), and Last Poems and Plays (1940), made him one of the outstanding and most influential twentieth-century poets writing in English.
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Source newspaper: www.irishnewsarchives.com Download: Irish Independent 1905-current, Thursday, November 29, 1923; Page: 9

One hundred years ago today towns and villages all across Ireland marked the first anniversary of the Armistice or the end of the First World War in November 1918. It is interesting now looking back at the enthusiasm which existed for these armistice events, illustrating that although the War of Independence had begun in January 1919, public opinion had not yet changed. On the previous day, the 10th November, the Evening Herald newspaper, amongst others, carried advertisements from the King, ordering people to observe two minutes silence at 11am in memory of those who had died during the war.

In Cork the sailors and soldiers observed the armistice and most of the workers of the city stopped work, while at the Curragh in county Kildare a great military event was laid on to commemorate the end of the War. Some detailed accounts survive of this first armistice commemoration, among them that at Mountmellick, County Laois. Here the Leinster Express newspaper recalled that
At 11am all the unemployed members of the association assembled at the club and proceeded to the RC Church where they spent some time in remembrance of the Mountmellick men, which numbered upwards of 70 men….One of the scrolls which they carried read ‘Lest we Forget’, while another read ‘We commemorate the 71 Mountmellick men who gave their lives to preserve our homes. Comrades keep the home fires burning’… One of the features of the Mountmellick display was the man who had lost both of his feet in the war and was in a tricycle, and the car which carried soldiers who were unable to walk.
Things would soon change in Ireland and when the armistice was next celebrated numbers were far lower in towns such as Mountmellick and elsewhere.

Source newspaper:  www.irishnewsarchives.com Download: Cork Examiner 12.November.1919

Leinster Express, 15 November 1919; Irish Examiner, 12 November 1919

#armistice #ww1 #history

10 November 1861 Terence Bellew McManus
The funeral of Terence Bellew McManus in Dublin on 10 November 1861, when over 100,000 people followed the funeral cortege to Glasnevin proved to be a defining moment in the Fenian movement copper fasting support for the fledgling organisation.

Born in county Fermanagh in 1811 Terence Bellew MacManus, a member of the Repeal party and the Young Irelanders, took part in the ill-fated 1848 uprising in Ballingarry, county Tipperary. He was sentenced to death for his part in the Rising, but this was later commuted to transportation for life. Sent to Van Diemens Land, Tasmania, McManus escaped two years later and made his way to America, where he remained in San Francisco for the remainder of his life.
When he died in January 1861 the Fenian Brotherhood in San Francisco seized the moment and decided that McManus should be repatriated to Ireland and plans were put in place for his remains to be brought to Glasnevin cemetery for burial. It was a major coup for the Fenians and allowed them to drum up support all across the USA, Britain and Ireland as the funeral plans were put in place. Despite intense opposition from the Catholic Church in Ireland, the funeral provided the Fenian movement with its first public spectacle.
Archbishop Paul Cullen refused to allow the remains to lie in state in any church in his diocese, except for the funeral mass, so the ceremony took place from the Mechanics Institute on Abbey Street Lower. Passing through the streets of Dublin, thousands of Fenians in uniform paraded past the sites associated with Robert Emmet, Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Described as the ‘greatest spectacle’ ever witnessed in Dublin the funeral had the effect of reawakening nationalist sentiment in Ireland which was said to have been dormant following the devastation of the Great Famine.

Source newspaper: www.irishnewsarchives.com

Download below : Connaught Telegraph 13.November.1861 & Kerry Star 16.November.1861:

#history #archives #republican #Bellew #Irish

On the 9 November 1791 the Society of United Irishmen was formed in Dublin, having met the previous month in Belfast. Spurred on by Theobold Wolfe Tone’s pamphlet titled, An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland, these young radicals proposed three resolutions, which were to guide the new movement forward and which left a lasting impression on generations of Irish men and women.

Firstly, that there existed the need for ‘a cordial union among all the people of Ireland’; secondly that a complete and radical reform of the representation of the people in Parliament was needed and, thirdly, that this reform should include ‘Irishmen of every religious persuasion’. The new organisation immediately tried to bring about change and Tone through his work as secretary of the Catholic Committee, organised a Catholic Convention in Dublin in 1792.

Although a Catholic Relief Act  was passed in 1793, which rescinded some of the harsh Penal Laws, the United Irishmen soon turned their attention to France where they were heavily influenced by the French revolutionary ideals of ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’.

When the United Irishmen were proclaimed a secret society and members arrested, Tone made for America, and then France but made known his objectives for Irish Independence and that he wished:

To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter – these were my means’

The 1798 rebellion would soon follow and although achieving initial success was brutally suppressed, thereby ending the ideals of the United Irishmen in uniting the people of Ireland.

 Source newspaper: www.irishnewsarchives.com

Download: Belfast Newsletter, 16 December 1791;

Download: Belfast Newsletter 1738-1938, Friday, September 14, 1792

#UnitedIrishmen #history #irish #WolfeTone

8 November.1990 Mary Robinson elected of Ireland
Twenty-nine years ago today the Republic of Ireland elected its first female President when Mary Robinson was declared the winner of the presidential election. Robinson, who had won the hearts of people of all ages and political persuasions claimed that it was a ‘great day for the women of Ireland, a great, great day’.
The election saw veteran Fianna Fail TD Brian Lenihan; SDLP politician, Austin Currie and Robinson, a Senator (and supported by the Labour Party and the Workers’ Party) go head to head.

However, the election was not without controversy. During the campaign, it emerged that Lenihan had applied pressure on former President Patrick Hillery during an earlier political crisis and his candidacy was in jeopardy. Initially denying this, Lenihan was forced to backtrack on ‘mature recollection’ when a tape of him admitting it was leaked. In the end, the so-called ‘Rainbow’ coalition delivered a massive personal vote for Robinson.
In a specially written piece for the Sunday Independent, the president-elect outlined what for her was a ‘proud challenge’ to represent the people of Ireland as their president. Throughout the campaign, Robinson spoke about her great interest in the plight of Irish emigrants, of the Irish abroad and about representing Ireland abroad. Robinson was inaugurated as the seventh President of Ireland on 3 December 1990.
Robinson proved a popular choice as President and during her term in office, she oversaw the signing into law two very important bills for which she had long advocated, those relating to the sale of the availability of contraceptives and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
Her presidency would also help portray the role of the president in a new light to the people of Ireland and elsewhere. In particular, her role and in interest in visiting countries and regions afflicted by Famine and disease led to her subsequent appointment as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Source newspaper: www.irishnewsarchives.com Sunday Independent, 11 November 1990.

How to the race was won: Download Sunday Independent 08.November.1990

My Proud Challenge: Download Sunday Independent 08.Nov.1990

7 November  1975 Dr  Tiede Herrema freed

On 7 November 1975 the story which had gripped the nation for over thirty days came to a dramatic, if somewhat anti-climatic conclusion when the ‘Siege of Monasterevin’ ended and the Dutch businessman Dr Tiede Herrema was freed by his two IRA captors. Chief executive of the Ferenka steel company in Limerick which employed 1,200 people, Herrema had been kidnapped on 3 October at a bogus checkpoint set up by republicans Eddie Gallagher and Marian Coyle. The kidnappers, phoning the Dutch Embassy in Dublin, demanded a cash ransom and the release of three republican prisoners. If this was not done within 48 hours they threatened to shoot  Herrema.

Taoiseach Liam Cosgrove refused to pay the ransom fearing that it would lead to the exit of foreign business investment and also spark copycat kidnappings. It was the start of a 36 day ordeal for Herrema and led to the biggest manhunt in the history of the Irish state. The Gardai operation alone, which included 4,000 officers and the army, was said to have cost the state more than £3 million.

Finally, just over two weeks later the kidnappers were tracked to a council estate in the quiet village of Monasterevin, County Kildare. Gardai and Army surrounded the house and made several attempts to enter the house but Coyle and Gallagher repelled them firing wildly as they retreated upstairs with Herrema.

Holed up in the upstairs box room for over four days, Gallagher, who had become violently ill, and Coyle decided to surrender and so ended the siege at ‘1014 St Evin’s Park’. Marian Coyle was later sentenced to 15 years, of which she served, while Gallagher served 14 years of his 20-year sentence.

For many in the Republic of Ireland, it brought the reality of the troubles closer to home.

Download the Irish Independent  here 7 November 1975 Dr Tiede Herrema freed

Source newspaper: www.irishnewsarchives.com / Irish Independent, 8 November 19757 November 1975 Dr Tiede Herrema freed