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MIXED MESSAGES.

Using signs, advertisements and messages as the inspiration for observation and comment - enlightened and otherwise

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The Yank

4/4/2019

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‘It wasn’t that I was ungrateful to America because America had been good to me, and still is, but even the very bird prefers the area where it was hatched’
Tomás Ó Cinnéide – The Wild Rover
(trans. Pádraig Tyers)

Last July, heading for a weekend on the Dingle peninsula, I detoured at Cordal and took time-out, a few minutes of me-time in Kilmurry Cemetery. There, for the first time, I met with John O’Donoghue who had died 35 years earlier, about the time that I was receiving my Leaving Certificate results.
 
I have seen many nicknames on headstones on my rambles through cemeteries. The term ‘The Yank’ struck. Maybe it was because I had not long finished the book by another returned Yank, Tomás Ó Cinnéide. Maybe it sparked a memory of the tales told of Kruger.
 
As possibly the only returned emigrant in the area, use of ‘John O’Donoghue’ was likely to cause confusion in the area, whereas there was, most likely, just one ‘Yank’.
 
This morning, I spotted a tweet about a recently released book by Sinéad Moynihan on the ‘Returned Yank’ that will probably be requested of my local library in the near future.
 
It brought back that minute on two standing with John O’Donoghue on a lovely quiet Kerry morning.
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James Daly – d. 2 Nov, 1920

2/11/2018

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“My dearest Mother, I take this opportunity of writing to you to let you know the dreadful news, that I am to be shot on Tuesday morning, the 1st of November. What harm, it is all for Ireland. I am not afraid to die, but it thinking of you I am. That is all: if you will be happy on earth I will be happy in Heaven. I am ready to meet my doom. The priest is with me when needed so you need not worry over me… I am the only one of 62 of us to be put out of this World, but I am ready to die”
Private Jim Daly, leader of the Mutiny
Mutiny For The Cause – Sam Pollock (1969)
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The day after Kevin Barry was executed, James Daly met a similar fate.
 
Growing up I would have learned of Kevin Barry, the former Belvedere student who was due to sit an exam as part of his U.C.D. Medical Studies but participated in an I.R.A. attack, was captured, court-martialled and hanged. Years ago, I would have heard the song sung by Paul Robeson, Leonard Cohen and others.
 
It was much more recently that I learned of James Daly.
 
He was a member of the Connaught  Rangers who refused to soldier when they heard of the treatment of Irish men and women at the hands of the Black & Tans. Patrick McGrath, a colleague of his from India, lies in Castlehyde Cemetery. His headstone prompted my reading of the Indian Mutiny.
 
James Daly led a group of the Connaught  Rangers in an attempt to regain their guns which they had handed over. Two soldiers died. As leader, James Daly was court-martialled and executed.
 
Last month, I had to travel from Dublin to Roscommon so I availed of the opportunity to travel the old main road west and make a visit to Tyrellspass and leave one of my stones on the grave of James Daly.

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Lying Well Back – Striving To Be Overweight

1/9/2018

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Today, I was reminded of my one-time challenge to self to become overweight.
 
In checking the internet for this particular rambling, it seems that the term ‘morbidly obese’ has appeared to have changed, or been dumbed down, to Obese II or even ‘very obese’. Even (most of ) the websites of the weight loss clinics have dispensed with ‘morbidly’ in favour of ‘extremely obese’, or just ‘obese’. In April 2005, my visit to I.C.U. did prompt a desire to become, just, overweight. ‘Morbidly’ does carry some import and effect.
 
As with many good intentions, that lasted a while and in the intervening period, I have moved closer to ‘morbidly obese’ than overweight. Maybe putting this in words may act as an incentive.
 
Today, a spare hour around Ennis before heading to Thomond Park brought me to Kilraghtis Cemetery where I encountered a few things never met before.
 
Before I even got to the cemetery, I was attacked. To open the gate to the track to the cemetery, I had to disturb some bees, or maybe wasps, that appeared to have taken up residence in the hole used to accommodate the gate lock. One of them head-butted me on my neck but no sting – strange. Exiting, I climbed the gate – lesson learned.

 
Within the cemetery, I learned of the diet of rabbit and pike of George Marlborough – such a diet and such a cause of death I had never seen on a headstone before.
 
Driving back, I wondered how long it had been since I stood on weighing scales – this ostrich preferring not to know how close the classification of ‘morbidly obese’ is becoming. It would be great to say that that was a second lesson learned – it would be, but….

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The Pope In Ireland

22/8/2018

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In 2014, we spotted the vinyl record of the visit of Pope John Paul II on the walls of Ard Bia restaurant in Galway. It led to a discussion among friends and colleagues as to 1979 being a very different time.
 

As a teenager then, I was brought to Limerick. I remember walking back to my uncle’s house afterwards and it was as if everyone in Limerick had been at the racecourse – the roads were so quiet on way back.
 

My cousin went to Dublin and Galway. A neighbour of similar vintage was on a coach to Galway with a sing-song the whole way up.
 

I am contemplating travelling to the vigil at Tuam this Sunday. The Dublin vigil looks like it will be very well supported.
 

I do not know of any one person attending Knock or Phoenix Park this weekend – definitely different times.
 
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I was very surprised to recently  see reference to the visit of Pope John Paul II on a headstone at Kilbannivane Cemetery, Castleisland. I will be so much more surprised if a see in the future a reference on a headstone to the visit of Pope Francis – these are very different times.
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Ard Bia, Galway - 2014
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Kilbannivane Cemetery, Castleisland
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Victims of the War – But Which War?

15/8/2018

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Quite a few blog posts hereabouts have been accompanied by the expression that ‘it is a bad day when one does not learn something new’.
 
Last week, I learned something completely new. Upto then, I would have thought that it could not have been true.  It was so ‘not a bad day’.
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Private A. George died 21st March, 1921
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Serjeant F. Boxold died 11th February, 1921
Those of you who regularly pass by these pages are probably aware of my interest in Commonwealth War Graves – the inscriptions; the dates; the distances travelled; the alias; the location; and, the neighbours in the graveyard.
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I had understood that such headstones were erected to those who had died in the World Wars or slightly after as a consequence of action in a World War.


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Died Easter 1916

1/7/2018

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​This is an expression not exclusive to the Republican side – as I would have thought.
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The first headstone to a Crown Forces soldier who died in the Easter Rising that I can recall meeting, was met where Patrick McGrath also lies.
 
Major Percival Havelock Acheson died on 29 April, 1916 and the headstone gives possibly more priority to Easter Week that the actual calendar date. The desire to find out more prompted by this headstone was satisfied very quickly by the internet.
 
Major Acheson did not die in Dublin as I had presumed and mentally filed away as I drove away from Castlehyde Cemetery, away from Fermoy towards Ballyhooly. If I had thought of Thomas Kent, and the plaque on the bridge at Fermoy, I might have done some internet searching there and then and discovered that Head Constable William Rowe, who died at Bawnard, is also a resident at Castlehyde – a reason for a return visit as I did not see that on my first visit.
 
Major Acheson died by a bullet from his own side, possibly a victim of heightened tension and nervy sentries – shot when failing to respond to challenge at a checkpoint outside Fermoy, near Grange.
 
So avoidable.
 
The Find-A-Grave website appears to have a photograph of the memorial wall in Glasnevin Cemetery recording all of those who died in Easter Rising, including that of Percival Havelock Acheson – a name to look out for when I get to visit.

 
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Castlehyde Cemetery
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Castlehyde Cemetery
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Bridge at Fermoy
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When the Tricolour Flew in the Punjab

30/6/2018

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A tweet from Irish History Links on Thursday reminded that it was 98 years since the mutiny by the Connaught Rangers in India
 
My education of these events was prompted by a headstone in Castlehyde Cemetery near the banks of the River Blackwater, commemorating Patrick McGrath. I had first learned of this event at the annual window sale of history/local books in the Cancer Society shop on Castle Street, where I purchased Mutiny For The Cause, by Sam Pollock.
 
The book had rested on my bookshelf for a year or more. My encounter with Patrick McGrath led to the book being taken from the shelf. My education as to what happened in India in 1920 started and led to bit of a trail about treatment of soldiers disobeying orders.
 
The Connaught Rangers in Jullundur and Solon refused to soldier for the British King because of the actions of the Black & Tans against Irish people. It was a peaceful action – a refusal to work, until after mess closing one night and discussions as to rumour that fellow protestors in Jullundur had been killed, those at Solon sought to break into the munitions store to retrieve their guns – resulting in death of one protestor (Smith in book; Smythe on Wikipedia; Smythe on memorial at Glasnevin, and Pte Peter Sears who depending on the sources was a protestor or was caught by a stray bullet.
 
One soldier died while being held for trial, Private Miranda. James Daly, born in Ballymote, Co. Galway but from Tyrrellspass, Co. Westmeath, the leader of the attack on munitions store, was sentenced to death at court martial hearing.

​He died by firing squad on 2nd  November, 1920.
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A crowd of more than 6,000 attended the return of Daly’s body to Tyrrellspass in October 1970. The ceremonies, held shortly before the 50th anniversary of his execution, elevated Daly to an equal of the greatest heroes of the republican movement. The Irish flag that draped Daly’s coffin had previously lain on the coffin of Terence MacSwiney, the lord mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike in October 1920. In a speech at Daly’s graveside, Old IRA representative Thomas Malone identified Daly’s sacrifice with the republican goal of a 32-county republic:
‘It was in the words of Pearse who said the seeds sown by our martyrs of all generations fructify in the hearts of future generations . . . The purpose for which James Daly died had not yet been achieved and much still remained to be done before the republic of Pearse, Tone, Connolly and James Daly was achieved.’
 
HistoryIreland
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In 1999, Fergal Keane wrote recommending the granting of a pardon for James Daly.
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​Mutiny For The Cause led to a period of books on soldier executions. First was a reread-
‘For much of the last century the detail of how hundreds of British soldiers were executed has been a state secret. It is only in recent years that the details of the courts martial and the executions have become public. The story marks one of the most controversial chapters in British military history, and the emotion and pain that surround the men’s deaths. The long-running campaign to obtain pardons for them has clearly pricked the national consciousness in Britain and in Ireland.
The twenty-six Irish born soldiers who were executed during the Great War were men of all faiths and backgrounds and from all parts of Ireland. This book examines their stories: who they were, where they enlisted, and how they died. Using previously confidential court martial records, battalion war diaries, personal diaries and interviews, I have been able to compile the most complete narrative of the Irish soldiers who were executed during the First World War.’
Forgotten Soldiers – The Irishmen Shot at Dawn – Stephen Walker – Gill & Macmillan, 2007
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Twenty five were pardoned in 2006 by the UK Government.
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In 2001, the Canadian Government spoke of the 23 Canadian soldiers executed in World War I, including James Wilson:

‘To give these 23 soldiers a dignity that is their due, and to provide closure to the families, as Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, and on behalf of the Government of Canada, I wish to express my deep sorrow at their loss of life, not because of what they did or didn’t do, but because they too lie in foreign fields where “poppies blow amid the crosses, row and row.” While they came from different regions of Canada, they volunteered to serve their country in its citizen army, and the hardships they endured prior to their offences will be unrecorded and unremembered no more.’
Forgotten Soldiers – The Irishmen Shot at Dawn – Stephen Walker – Gill & Macmillan, 2007
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​Michael Marpugo was a favourite of our then ten year old. Many books have been read and audio books heard. When I heard of the play Private Peaceful then coming to the Everyman Palace, the book was purchased and read in a day – one possible example of why a soldier might be executed by his own side.
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Life intervened and I was unable to get to the Everyman so that remains on the list to be seen.
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​Next up, compliments of the library, was Robert Widders’ Spitting on a Soldier’s Grave which told of those in the Irish Army who deserted to join the British Army to fight in World War II and how they were ostracised by the government here.
‘After the war, the Irish government court-martialled these men en masse and in abstentia. Under Fianna Fáil Taoiseach (or prime minister) Eamon de Valera, the men were formally dismissed from the Irish Army and stripped of all pay and pension rights. The government also circulated a list of 4,983 names and addresses, entitled, the “List of personnel of the Defence Forces dismissed for desertion in time of National Emergency.” The aim was to prevent those men from finding work by banning them for seven years from any paid employment paid by State or public funds.’

Spitting on a Soldier’s Grave – Robert Widders (Matador, 2010)

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​Paul O’Brien’s book on The Curragh Incident, or The Curragh Mutiny, A Question of Duty, soon followed on the reading list.

Dealing with 1914 when officers in the Army refused to follow orders to prepare for possible action in Ulster against Protestants who were arming themselves in anticipation of defence of the Union of Ireland with Great Britain.

You might not find it odd that none of the Officers met the same fate as James Daly – or even Patrick McGrath’s period of hard labour on the Isle of Wight.
Mutiny For The Cause – Sam Pollock (1969)
​

​Intro
“My dearest Mother, I take this opportunity of writing to you to let you know the dreadful news, that I am to be shot on Tuesday morning, the 1st of November. What harm, it is all for Ireland. I am not afraid to die, but it thinking of you I am. That is all: if you will be happy on earth I will be happy in Heaven. I am ready to meet my doom. The priest is with me when needed so you need not worry over me… I am the only one of 62 of us to be put out of this World, but I am ready to die”
Private Jim Daly, leader of the Mutiny
 
P34 onwards – Wellington Barracks, Jullundur
“But that summer”[1920]”the men of The Connaught Rangers had to endure worse than the Turkish bath conditions prevailing in the bungalows. In the sweltering heat of the plains of India the British Army normally completed all its parades and exercises in the early hours – between the hours of 6 and 8 a.m., before the sun had climbed to a height which made outside activity a torture and a danger to health. But in June, 1920, the men of The Connaughts had been required to undergo a series of vigorous exercises in daylight hours during which even a brisk walk reduced a soldier’s drill jacket to a sweat-soaked rag. ……….

It was suspected by some of the men that this spell of Active Service conditions was deliberately designed to keep them out of mischief – maybe even to weary them beyond the stage at which they might react violently to the news from Ireland; the news of the doings of the Black and Tans. In the event the sufferings imposed on the Rangers – unnecessary sufferings even in the strictest military terms one of the officers was later to agree – aggravated their rage when word came to them of what was being done to their fellow-countrymen at home…….

….It was at the nightly sessions in the battalion Wet Canteen that stories of such happenings,”[Balck and Tan actions]”with the much-thumbed letters from home that backed them, were passed from man to man. The stories and the letters circulated with the beer, each inflaming the effects of the other….

…Sunday, June 27, 1920……That Sunday evening Private Joe Hawes from County Clare sat at a table in a corner apart from the regular schools with four friends: Paddy Sweeney, Stephen Lally, Paddy Gogarty and William Daly. None of the five friends was a member of a Boozing School, being only occasional and moderate drinkers. All around them the air was filled with violent language….as to indignation of the deeds of the Tans about which they’d heard from home or read about in the letters of others. Vengeance was denounced against the perpetrators of the outrages……

None of the shouting that evening that evening was done byHawes and his friends, Quietly they sat in the corner over beer, and quietly they listened to Joe Hawes, the leading spirit of the group, as he urged them that something could be done about what was happening in Ireland.

At that time India too, though mainly by passive resistance had begun her struggle for  freedom and independence. The year before – in 1919 – a British general, Dyer, had ordered his troops to open fire on a crowd of men, women and children peacefully demonstrating at Amritsar, and over three hundred had died, immediately, that is.; hundreds more probably died later, of those left lying wounded and uncared for on the ground. The Connaught Rangers had had no part in that affair – the troops who obeyed General Dyer’s order were, in fact, Indians. But the Irish battalion was a unit of the British forces in India, and this was a point made by Joe Hawes as he talked with his four comrades. The Connaught Rangers were doing in India, said Joe, the same job that English regiments were doing in Ireland – holding down the people. Did they want to go on doing it? He personally had made up his mind no longer to serve England’s king in that capacity, or any other, until British forces were withdrawn from Ireland. The next day, Monday morning, he intended to go to the guardroom and tell the guard commander that he refused to solider, and ask to be put inside.’Volunteering for the guardroom’ was once a common enough gesture of defiance or protest by British soldiers, usually when under the influence of drink. But, as has been said, Hawes and his four companions were all moderate drinkers, so it was not the case of beer talking. Fired by his eloquence and example, and feeling aggrieved by the news from Ireland which they’d talked about many times, his friends agreed to support and emulate his gesture….

…Early on Monday morning….One man, William Daly, allowed himself to be persuaded, for the time being, that their proposed action would be useless, but the other four – Hawes, Sweeney, Gogarty and Lally – were undeterred.

The quartet presented themselves at the guardroom at eight o’clock that morning, and Joe Hawes addressed the corporal of the guard….’In protest’, he said,’against British atrocities in Ireland, we refuse to soldier any longer in the service of the king’
 
 P49 – after Commanding Officer, Colonel Deacon had spoken to the 35 soldiers who now formed the mutiny
“It was evident from the expression on some of the men’s faces that the colonel’s plea had impressed them. Joe Hawes stepped forward. ‘Colonel’, he said – and to address his C.O. in that way, and not as ‘Sir’, was presumptuous for a British private soldier in those days – ‘all those honours,’ said Hawes, ‘on The Connaughts’ flag were for England. Not a one of them was for poor old Ireland, and it’ll be the greatest honour of them all.’” Whether this speech of Hawes’ would have by itself have nullified the effect of the colonel’s address, we do not know. Other words, not so loudly spoken by the battalion’s adjunct, who was one of the officers present, may have been more decisive. The adjutant was apparently convinced that the colonel had won – that the men would accept his offer. ‘When the men return to their bungalows’, he muttered to the R.S.M., ‘see that Hawes is put under arrest.’ Softly as he spoke, he was overheard by Private Coman, a man from Tipperary who was one of the thirty-five. Immediately Coman shouted :’Never mind putting Hawes in the guardroom! We’re all going there.’ And turning to his comrades, he commanded: ‘Left turn, lads! Back to the guardroom – quick march!’ And regimental to the last, smartly and in perfect order and step, the volunteers wheeled into the guardroom, and back behind the grill.

P65
“In their measures for the security of arms, and in nearly every other activity – guard-mounting, opening and closing of the canteen, and in the daily parade which was still held – the mutineers punctiliously clung to the regiment’s traditional discipline, and to the traditional ceremonial routine. There was, however, one departure from the latter. At sundown every evening, it had been the custom to lower the Union Jack on the flagstaff before the guardroom, re-hoisting it at Reveille. The committee decided that the lowering even temporarily, of the tricolour might be misimterpreted as a sign of surrender. All the night – which ended the first day of the mutiny – the green-white-and-gold flag flew high above the barracks at Jullundur.”
 
 
P96
“it will be recalled that on the day following the impressive protest led by Jim Daly at Solon, he, with the the other occupants of the hut above which flew the tricolour, had consented to hand over their rifles and ammunition, which were then stored in the magazine under guard…….

The mutineers’ rifles and ammunition having been handed in, the rest of the day passed without incident. Outside their bungalow, the men who had refused to soldier mixed freely with those who had remained loyal, when the latter were not on parade…….the policy adopted by the officers of the Rangers there seems to have been like Brer Rabbit to ‘lie low and say nuthin’’…..
​
At dinner in the officers’ mess in Solon that night, a rumour reached the company commander, perhaps through a mess waiter or someone else in touch with the men – that an attempt was to be made by the mutineers to break open the magazine and recover their arms. The magazine, it will be remembered, was guarded by a detachment of bandsmen under their sergeant, all Englishmen, but on hearing this rumour, the company commander ordered the guard to be strengthened and command of it to be taken over by two junior officers armed with revolvers, which they were not to hesitate to use, if attacked. 

Curiously, at the time, when the rumour reached the officers’ mess, it was unfounded. Daly was fixed in his determination to abide by a policy of non-violence, especially thanks to his outstanding qualities of leadership, he was firmly in control of his followers. Then rumour once more intervened. Just before the canteen closed that night, around 10 p.m., it began to be whispered among the men drinking there, that terrible things had happened at Jullundur. There had been, it was said, another Amritsar massacre, with the victims this time the mutineers of The Connaught Rangers. English troops had marched in, the story ran, and had ruthlessly mowed down Joe Hawes and hundreds of other men who had protested, with machine guns. Were they going to sit there helpless, some of Daly’s men asked, until the same happened to them? Why should they not break into the magazine and, recovering their arms, die like soldiers selling their lives dearly, not like dumb cattle led to the slaughter? Some who urged this course had, no doubt, drunk quite a few pints of beer that evening, but Jim Daly….was a total abstainer. He told the men he was going to keep his promise to Father Baker, and that in any case, the rumours were probably wild exaggerations.

One of his followers sneered. Was their leader afraid? For all his strength of mind, Jim Daly was too young, and too high-spirited, to remain unmoved by such a remark. He’d show them. He’d lead them to the magazine, if they’d follow. Twenty-seven men volunteered to take part in the operation, which Jim Daly remained level-headed enough to insist should be soberly planned, and carried out after a reconnaissance…. By the light of the moon they could see that the guard had been heavily strengthened. In place of the lone sentry, several men, with rifles to the ready, were patrolling around the magazine, and others could be observed lying on the flat roof, also armed and ready to repel an attack. But Daly had now committed himself and was not the man to draw back…Determined that his followers should know what they were up against, he stressed the strength of the guard and its obvious preparedness to fire on any aggressor. No matter, said the volunteers – it was only bluff and they’d call it. Daly instructed them to be ready to rush the magazine at midnight. Bayonets, the only arms they had, would be carried.

At midnight, with naked bayonets in their hands, the party deployed at the foot of the slope, and, led by Daly, advanced in line uphill…….A challenge from one of the magazine patrol rang out: ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ Again, some guile might have been more effective, but it was not Jim Daly’s way. ‘I am’, he oddly replied, ‘Jim Daly of Tyrrellspass, Westmeath. Hand over our rifles, and there’ll be no trouble.’ ‘If you advance another step,’ called an officer from the roof of the magazine, ‘we’ll fire.’ While he spoke the cassocked figure of a priest came running from the direction of the men’s quarters. It was Father Baker, to whom Daly had given his promise. But before Father Baker could reach the attackers, Jim Daly had spoken. ‘Come on, boys!’ he shouted; ‘charge for Ireland!’ And, clearly marked by the white shirt he wore, contrasting with the army ‘grey-backs’ of the others, he ran up the slope towards the magazine, waving on the men behind with his drawn bayonet. A volley of shots rang out from the roof, and two of the attackers fell to the ground. At that moment Father Baker reached them, and with outspread arms restrained Daly and his followers from advancing further. ‘Cease fire!’ the priest shouted towards the magazine, and then turning to Daly told him that any more bloodshed would be on his head……. Then Father Baker pointing to the two figures lying prone on the ground, urged that they be taken immediately to the medical hut. One of them was already dead. The second, John Egan, had been shot through the lung but lived to nurse that scar, with others received at Mons and Ypres, at his home in County Mayo. The man killed outright was Private Smith.”

P101
“In an interview with an Irish newspaper in 1952 Joe Hawes stated that the shots were fired by two officers, Walsh and McSweeny. He also stated that a second man killed, Sears, was not one of the Mutineers but was hit by a stray bullet whilst walking towards his quarters some way away.”
 
P103 – when Mutineers held in cells awaited trial
“But an occasional cigarette was not enough to stave off the disease induced by bad and inadequate food. Several of The Rangers were struck down by dysentery, and were reduced to almost skeletons by the time they were brought to trial. ‘I wonder,’ said one of them later, ‘that the witnesses for the prosecution were able to identify some of us. I didn’t recognize myself, when I looked in the glass.’ One man, an Englishman called Miranda, died of dysentery in Dagshai. ‘He wasn’t an Irishman,’ the same informant remarked; ‘But he was a true comrade. God rest his soul!’”

P118
“Daly lies buried in the Simla hills in Dagshai military cemetery – grave number 340.”

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A Father Remembers

23/6/2018

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I approached this graveyard memorial from the back. It was definitely interesting looking, demanding further inspection. It did not disappoint.
 
Often the word ‘Erected’ can be seen engraved on headstones. The unique style of this memorial did suggest that Daniel Courtney himself both made and erected the memorial to his wife and son.
 
The Irish harp and the dates around 1916 added to intrigue.
 
This was another from my visit to Kilmurry Cemetery in Passage West that went on the TO FIND OUT MORE list – surviving there for only a very short while, compliments of the internet.
 
The 1901 census confirms that Daniel Courtney was a blacksmith and lived with his wife, Kate, and his 4 year old son, James in 95 Hibernian Buildings in Cork city, an area known as Jewtown. The 1911 Census still has the three in the same house but records that there was a second child, who no longer survived.
 
To me, that only adds to the power and symbolism of the memorial.
 
The census records the son as James – so like Thomas Curtin, the name was changed to the Irish version.
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97 Hibernian Buildings with Sale Agreed sign
The website, History of Na Fianna Éireann, has a photograph of Seamus Courtney who was born in 1897; who became Officer Commanding of Na Fianna in Munster in 1915; who spent three months in Cork Gaol in 1917; who was co-opted by Tómas MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney onto Battalion Council of Irish Volunteers; and, who died at his aunt’s house in Ballymacelligott in 1918.
 
The Bureau of Military History witness statement of Commandant P.J. Murphy records that the funeral of Seamus Courtney in Passage West involved firing three volleys of shots, the first time since Easter 1916 that firearms were publicly used.
 
Daniel Courtney died a few years later in 1921, shortly after the truce following the War of Independence.
 
It is somewhat disappointing to this observer that his name is remembered in stone and not in the medium of metal with which he worked and with which, I presume, he himself remembered his own family with the pike, a symbol of Irish uprising for centuries; the harp of the Irish Volunteers and the sunburst of Fianna Eireann
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​UPDATE 2018.10.29

​Pauline Murphy had an article in The Cork Advertiser which provided more information on Seamus Courtney
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Timothy Connell – Murdered, on this Day

22/6/2018

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Yet another headstone that intrigued with its story – a headstone that shouted out to be place on the TO FIND OUT MORE list.

This headstone is located in Old Kilmurry Cemetery near Passage West. It is not my first blog post from my one visit – and will not be the last.
​

​You gentle reader that do pass this way
attend a while adhere to what I say.
By murder vile I was bereft of life
and parted from two lovely babes and wife
by CAPTAIN STEWART I met an early doom
on board the MARY RUSSELL the 22nd of June
forced from this world to meet my GOD on high
with whom I hope to reign eternally. Amen.


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I did wonder when reading if ‘murder’ was only in the mind and opinion of the grieving brother who erected the headstone to Timothy Connell.
​
The web quickly led to HistoryIreland which educated that Captain William Stewart did kill Timothy Connell and six others .

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​‘There were seven human beings with their sculls [sic] so battered, that scarcely a vestige of them was left for recognition, with a frightful mess of coagulated blood—all strewed about the cabin, and nearly a hundredweight of cords binding down their bodies to strong iron bolts, which had been driven into the floor for that murderous purpose. Some of the bodies were bound round about six places, and with several coils of rope round their necks, and all were in a state of decomposition, so that it required a constitution of no ordinary strength to bear up against the spectacle, and the effluvia that arose from a confined cabin.’
​

However, the court held it was not murder – ‘not guilty, having committed the act while labouring under mental derangement.”

Captain James Gould Raynes, Francis Sullivan, John Keating, James Murley, James Cramer, William Swanson and stableman, Timothy Connell were bound and tied to the floor and attacked with crowbar and then an ax - but they were not legally murdered on board the Mary Russell.
​
I think I am with Patrick Connell and his use of language.

​UPDATE – 2018.10.29

Thanks to Louvain Rees on Twitter, I read a very interesting article on the BBC News website on Murder Stones – headstones where the deceased has been murdered and the headstone contains details.

It makes reference to a book edited by Dr Jan Bondeson which featured a number of Murder Stones.
​
I sense that this may make an appearance on my bookshelf at some stage…..

3 Comments

That Would Kill Anyone

31/5/2018

1 Comment

 
To lose a child must be so so tough.
 
Could you contemplate what it might be like to lose two children?
 
Now contemplate three children dying.
 
Now, if your three children died within 8 weeks…..

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Last Tuesday week brought me to Passage West to commiserate at a funeral. Emotions were still too raw to sit through the memorial service so I headed homeward on a road not travelled before. I spotted Old Kilmurry Cemetery which called out to offer a few minutes chill-out time.
 
It was the overwriting on R.I.P of the name Josephine Devereux which caused me to pause and read, but then I saw that six months before she died, her three children, Mary, Eddie & Frank all died within 8 weeks – aged for 4 to 6.
 
It is now on my mental To Do List to investigate as to TB or other disease outbreak in 1943 that might have claimed four lives so quickly.
 
In the meantime, it will remain on my brain as a story so so sad.
 
It may be 75 years ago but that does not reduce the tragedy.

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There You Are Bernie Murphy

30/5/2018

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​My first visit to St. James Cemetery at Chetwynd was exactly one month ago. There will be regular visits from here out.
 
I had seen a photograph of this headstone online but had to seek it out for my own eyes. There was so much to like
  • The simple message of ‘Here Lies The Bones’
  • The Corkness of ‘Here Lies’ when compared to ‘Here Lie’
  • The pint of stout
  • ‘Here I am’
 
I remember Bernie Murphy as a sandwich board man or holding advertising signs around town – regularly throwing out comments at those daring to pass by.
 
The Dunne Brothers were musicians who would be spotted on Patrick’s St or Princes St or when my grandfather brought me to matches down ‘The Park’ or the Mardyke. They first introduced me to the sound of the banjo.
 
They and Bernie Murphy were thought by the younger me to be part of Cork that were always there and would always be there – the innocence of youth.
 
I will be nodding towards Bernie on my regular visits – There You Are, Bernie Murphy…..

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Leaving His Mark

28/5/2018

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I spotted tweets earlier today regarding the formal opening of the former Cork District Model School as the new Courthouse Complex.
 
There are many photos of the refurbished areas and the new extension – some of the 25,000 replaced bricks
 
What struck me when the scaffolding came down was not captured in any photograph or clip that I have seen but the mark left of the current generation of craftsmen to remind the future that those in 2017 also assisted its retention.
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That April Friday evening, while I was taking my photos, a lady also stopped to look at the newly exposed building. She said that she had gone to school there and was looking forward to being able to look inside.
 
 A few weeks later, in Chetwynd, I was reminded as to the titles I might like on my headstone and wondered if my school or place of employment might be one, probably not for me.

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Set in Stone

25/3/2018

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I didn’t make it back to the West Cork Stone Symposium. It was on this weekend but time, and life, didn’t allow me a spare day. I did order my chisels from TabulaRasa – I write that more as a rebuke and reminder to self, rather than a piece of information for readers.
​
When visiting Paris in November 2016, I spotted this engraver adding to the writings on stone surrounding a grave. I could have spent an hour or more just watching. Disneyland was calling for a ten year old so I did not have that luxury, but in the few minutes that I stood and admired, I was struck by the difficulty in the stance of the craftsman; his patience; and, the peace of the cemetery.
Leaving Cimetiére de Montmartre that morning, I remembered when, less than two weeks previous, on another lovely morning, we took time out of the Bank Holiday weekend to visit another cemetery – in Crosshaven when I left puzzled as to the correction made in a headstone.

I have blogged previously as to some stone engraving that might be considered less than perfect. Unlike the headstone at St. Bartholomew’s in Kinneigh, I did not for a moment consider this to be the work of a family relative.

I have on a few occasions pondered why the correction was made and allowed stand. I would have thought that many would have erected a new stone.

Maybe Mr. Porteous was a bit of a joker and wanted the last laugh at those left behind.

Maybe, it was deliberate to prompt passers-by, such as yours truly, to pause a while longer and think of Joseph McNeil Porteous – if so, it worked.

The tweets earlier today on other headstone corrections reminded me again of Joseph Porteous and prompted this rambling.
​
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Seán Ó Ríordáin b. 1916.12.03

3/12/2017

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Today’s listing from Stair na hÉireann advised that on this day in 1916, Séan Ó Ríordáin was born.

This prompted a reminder to self to finish the grouping of the very many photographs and start uploading here. I have spent a while this afternoon putting together the different aspects relating to Seán Ó Ríordáin that I have encountered in the past few years – as well as a  bit of a distraction on YouTube.
​
SEE ALL HERE
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​It has also provided a reminder to get back to the exercise of using the poems of Ó Ríordáin to increase my vocabulary.
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A Graveyard Clown

7/9/2017

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​Clowns were never meant to be funny.
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‘People like eccentrics. Therefore they will leave me alone, saying that I am a mad clown.’ –
​Vaslav Nijinsky
​
​“I am not crying, but have tears in my heart.”

​― Vaslav Nijinsky
I read on twitter this morning that originally, they were masked demons. This has led to a lost half hour of work reading about the dark side of clowns and clowns impersonating the dead at their funerals.

I have even pondered reading my first ever Charles Dickens book, excluding the school enforced Hard Times. No doubt, if spotted in a charity shop, The Pickwick Papers will make it onto my shelves to tempt further.

The photograph that accompanied the tweet this morning reminded me of my escape time at Cimetière de Montmartre in Montmartre last year and this particular clown – a sculpture of Nijinsky.
​
I was pleasantly surprised at the time with the Clown of God – now I will have to think as to whether it was intended to be pleasant after all.

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