Black And Tans In Leinster House.

1169 and Counting…..an award nominated Irish blog on Irish history and Irish politics-all 32 counties

‘THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DAY…..’
By Peadar O’Donnell ; first published in January 1963.
It was against this background that Blythe’s talk on land annuities had to be considered – he was the least likely of ministers freely to take land annuities on his conscience. At least he knew enough of the language of the Left to be spoken of with respect around Liberty Hall. They took a few problems to him , and I argued that it did not make sense that Free State ministers, fooled and humiliated by the British, should voluntarily abase themselves by declaring land annuities a just debt.
I stated that the only explanation that made sense was that the British claimed this money under Article V and that, rather than have the Treaty demonstrated a worse instrument than the 1920 Act on this touchy issue, the Free State Government avoided the embarrassment of a public claim by declaring the annuities a just debt. Colonel Moore , wisely I think, chose to take the government spokesman at their word – Article V was out. The Irish conscience was not in pawn in its place.
It was clear to me that Colonel Moore’s agitation must be a great embarrassment to the Free State Government and, as I was desperately in need of some help to widen the area of struggle and to bring new voices on to the land annuity platform, he handed me the resolution on which , he thought, an agitation could be promoted. It declared the payment of land annuities to Britain to be illegal and immoral and a burden on the economy of the country. I read it over with the townlands shining in my thoughts , checking it against their needs…. (MORE LATER).

THE ANATOMY OF AN AFTERNOON : THE STORY OF THE GIBRALTAR KILLINGS……..

By Michael O’Higgins and John Waters. From ‘Magill Magazine’ , October 1988.
By the time of the Commissioner’s briefing at midnight on Saturday , practically all the preparations for the operation had been completed. Word had come through from Spain on Friday that the three IRA members had been spotted at Malaga airport and Spanish police had also furnished details of the passports on which the three were travelling : Séan Savage was travelling on an Irish passport in the name of ‘Brendan Coyne’ , Mairead Farrell on a British passport in the name of ‘Katherine Alison Smith’ (nee ‘Harper’) and Daniel McCann was using a UK passport in the name of ‘Robert Wilfred Riley’.
The surveillance operation in Gibraltar had been under way since before Friday , but nothing at all had happened. As to whether the IRA ASU were under surveillance in Spain , the picture is far from clear : various witnesses , military and police, would give evidence to the inquest that there was no such surveillance by the Spanish, but countless rumours were circulating before and during the hearing that the Spanish police had a completely different tale to tell and it did eventually emerge in court that Chief Inspector Ullger , head of the Gibraltar special branch, had obtained permission from the Spanish authorities to get access to some computer surveillance facilities on the Spanish side of the border.
This would enable a Gibraltar police officer to examine suspect passports from a room with a video screen onto which the passports were flashed. This information did not emerge until very late in the inquest, long after the Commissioner and many other official witnesses had given evidence. (MORE LATER).

‘SUPPORT MARTIN COREY’ PICKET , LEINSTER HOUSE , MONDAY 14TH OCTOBER 2013.

A two-hour picket in support of Martin Corey will be held outside Leinster House in Kildare Street , Dublin , on Monday 14th October 2013 , beginning at 1pm. All genuine supporters are welcome , even if they cannot stay for the full two hours. More information here.

‘REBEL’ CORK : A ‘PASSPORT’ FOR SOME TO REBEL AGAINST FULL IRISH INDEPENDENCE.

Some of the ‘Corkonians’ who unashamedly welcomed an English ‘queen’ to their county in May 2011. That same type have now given her a ‘passport’ for a return visit.
The same Irish gombeens who stood on Irish footpaths (under ‘Union Jack’ umbrellas, in some cases!) to give an English ‘queen’ a royal (!) welcome to the ‘Rebel County’ have now taken their initiative one step further – they have presented a ‘Rebel Passport’ to , amongst others, an English ‘queen’ (Elizabeth) and an English ‘prince’ (Philip) and have been praised in ‘establishment’ circles for doing so.
There is so much wrong with that type of presentation , on a moral level, for one, that I don’t know where to begin and perhaps it’s better that I don’t, as I couldn’t do so without using copious amounts of un-ladylike language. Those people are either ignorant of Irish history (never mind the on-going history of Cork in relation to our on-going struggle for full independence) and/or they are aware of that history but just don’t care and/or their only concern is to get as close as possible to a ‘celebrity’ and/or they do/don’t know their history , do/don’t care about ‘celebrities’ but just view the ‘passport’ episode as another way to make money. Confused? Me too. But I’m only confused about their motives, not whether it’s right or wrong to pay homage to two figureheads , one of whom is the Head of the same armed forces that continue to occupy part of this country. Those under the ‘Union Jack’ umbrellas should be ashamed of themselves.

BLACK AND TANS IN LEINSTER HOUSE.

That front page article can be read here.
Although we have wrote about those paramilitary bandits over the years on this blog, we are always open to reading other material on them, from a variety of sources – and this man , Tom Toomey, deserves a mention for producing such a fine read in relation to the Black and Tans :
“Essentially the Black and Tans were recruits to the RIC who were recruited in England. The vast majority, but by no means all, were men who had served in the British forces during WWI. In December 1919 Fermoy born, ex-army officer, Major Cyril Francis Fleming was appointed to organise the recruitment drive. Fleming set up an office in London and soon began his drive. The first of these recruits joined the RIC in January 1920 and after a ‘four week training course’ they were allocated to stations around Ireland. They received the name ‘Black and Tans’ when a Limerick based journalist noticed a number of these new recruits boarding a train at Limerick Junction in March 1920. They were dressed in a motley uniform, part bottle green of the RIC and part Khaki of the British military. This colour scheme reminded of the journalist of the famous pack of ‘Back and Tan’ hounds from Scarteen near Knocklong in County Limerick. In an article written about his experience the journalist described the recruits as ‘Black and Tans’ and the name took hold…..” (From here.)
It’s a very interesting read , and won’t take up too much of your time. Plus, as out post title suggests, it will give you further indication of why Irish republicans object when anyone – even those in Leinster House – seeks to ‘re-invent’ that British paramilitary gang as ‘a product of their time’ or whatever. If they were to be ‘whitewashed’ , then that liquid should only have been used on the wall they should have been put standing in front of…

WICKLOW , LIMERICK , DUBLIN AND SLIGO -

- Bray Wanderers (Wicklow) are playing a match against Limerick this coming Sunday (13th October 2013) , St. Patricks Athletic (Dublin) are taking on Sligo Rovers on that same day and CABHAIR will be having its own ‘field’ day : a 650-ticket raffle will be held in a hotel on the Dublin-Kildare border , with all proceeds going , via Cabhair, to the families of the Irish republican prisoners it looks after. I presume that some ‘Premier League’ or whatever football games will be held that day as well – I honestly don’t know and really couldn’t be bothered to ask or do a ‘Google’ search about it! – but I do know about those matches mentioned above as we got flyers re same last month at the raffle and so we know to expect a good crowd in the venue which translates into a good day , financially , for the hotel and a good day for us , too!
As usual , we will post the names etc of the winners here on or before the following Wednesday as its a lot easier than posting the names etc of the losers ! And if our regular colleagues reading this wee announcement can make it to the raffle , it’s our turn to get the drinks in…. !!

Thanks for reading , Sharon.

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