Another Irish outrage (1871 and 1921)

This otherwise mundane report of agrarian violence, published in The Illustrated London News in February, 1871, caught my eye because of its reference to "the shot this time knocking off the hat of the servant".  This event occurred on either January 22nd or 23rd, 1871. I did a little digging and it seems that Mr. Blagriff's residence is nowadays the Glasson Golf Hotel, although I haven't been able to confirm that. I found another report of the incident, printed in  New Zealand's Daily Southern Cross, of March 28th, 1871. The final couple of lines are golden.

While trying to find out more information about this incident I came across the case of another man named Blagriff, executed as a spy by the IRA in the Athlone area in early 1921. The name isn't all that common as far as I'm aware so it's entirely possible this poor man was a direct descendant of James Blagriff's. All the information I have here is taken from Bureau Of Military History 1913-1921 witness statements. This, from Henry O'Brien, of Athlone:

And from Michael McCormack, of Drumraney, Athlone:

And finally from Frank O'Connor, of Coosan, Athlone:
                                 

I've no evidence that these people were related although how close they lived to each other suggests strongly to me that the man executed was a grandson or maybe grandnephew of the man shot at in 1871. If anyone has any more information on either men I'd love to hear it so please comment.

Aboard the "Partition Express" (1948)

This is a pretty long article by the then UK Labour MP, Norman Smith, who was elected in 1945 and held his seat for 10 years. It's worth reading in its entirety, for a number of reasons. First off it describes the customs arrangements the north and south had at the time and the old railway that linked Bundoran to Belfast and Dublin. Also worth noting is Smith's attitude to the Irish language and socialism's prospects in Ireland. He points out some of the short comings of Northern Ireland that would come to a head 20 years later. Smith also neatly predicts the formation of the European Economic Community a decade before it was to come into being and 25 years before Ireland, north and south, would join. This article appeared in the (Melbourne) Argus, December 11th, 1948. The original article also included an image of the border town of Pettigo but it of too low a quality to include here.

Aboard the "Partition Express": This journey by an Irish Train Which Crosses the Border Five Times, Is Symbolic of the Problem of Partition Between the North and South.

Its real name is "The Bundoran Express," for it conveys travellers between Dublin and the popular County Donegal seaside resort. It is a very fine train by any Irish railway standards; and a through carriage labelled "Bclfast-Bundoran" connects with it at Clones. When you leave Bundoran the Belfast-bound coach is cordoned off from the Dublin part of the train. Customs men, with harps on their caps, examine our luggage and put it into a sealed compartment after satisfying themselves that we are not trying to export butter, ham, cigarettes, or other forbidden things. Then we are locked in. Off goes the train.

The Bundoran-Belfast coach crosses the border no fewer than five times on its journey - thrice from Eire into "the North" (as they call Northern Ireland all over the island), and twice from the North into Eire. So the Great Northern(Ireland) Railway Company arranges for the intermediate stages of the trip to be non-stop while the train is in Northern Ireland, even at the cost of passing through sizable places like Belleek or Newtown Butler, as well as Enniskillen, the largest town for nearly a hundred miles in these parts. Only when the border has been crossed from Eire into Northern Ireland for the third and last time does the train call at intermediate stations of "the North."

First crossing after leaving Bundoran is a little west of Belleek, famous for its pottery.Then for a few miles we are in the North and consequently non-stop. Later we cross from Fermanagh back into Donegal a mile or two before we stop at Pettigo.A little way east of Pettigo we are again in County Fermanagh, as is evident from occasional Union Jacks fluttering defiantly from loyal cottages. On we rattle for more than an hour until, in Eire once again, we stop at Clones for the operation of detaching our coach, which is coupled to the front of a Belfast-bound train that started its journey at Cavan, somewhere in mid-Eire.

Leaving the Bundoran Express to continue southwards towards Dublin, we now head north-east for Belfast, soon stopping at Monaghan for Eireann Customs men to search everyone's luggage except ours, which is still in the sealed compartment. It takes time; but eventually we get away again, and make our fifth crossing of the border at Tynan, just inside County Armagh, and, therefore, in a country where the Customs men wear crowns and not harps on their caps. These servants of HM Customs begin by searching the baggage of all the good people who had been searched at Monaghan by the Eireann men. Then they approach our locked carriage. Do any of us wish to leave the train before Belfast? Yes, one or two want to get out at Lisburn or Portadown! Very well! The sealed compartment must be unsealed for the removal of these people's baggage, which is duly searched at Tynan. The compartment is sealed again, and off goes the train once more.

At long last we come to a standstill alongside the roped-off arrival platform at Belfast - roped off, that is, for- our carriage only. HM Custom men search our baggage, and finally we find ourselves, free again, on the streets of the northern capital. From the time the first Customs formalities start at Bundoran until the last ones end at Belfast is exactly six hours. It is certain that, if there were no border, a good hour and a half could be knocked off the trip. And now a new anti-partition campaign is in full swing throughout Eire. Mr de Valera stumps the big cities of Great Britain. The claimant demand for "a united Ireland" begins all over again, and in an atmosphere heated by the Dublin Government's decision to cut the last formal link binding Eire to the Commonwealth.

The truth is that very many people in the North would fight before agreeing to be ruled from Dublin. That is the inescapable fact. There are three main reasons for this. First is that the North, predominantly Protestant, regards the overwhelmingly Catholic South with a sullen suspicion, which has been deepened by the Eire Government's frenzied efforts to revive the almost extinct Irish language. Second, while Eire, since it became a Free State, has done all in its power to cut the British connection, Northern Ireland is devoted to the Crown.And third, Belfast business men share with most of the city's workers the conviction that the British connection adds to their coffers.

The neutrality question is nowadays more important than the religious. While Britain stood alone against Hitler, Eire-stood aloof. And she remained aloof to the end. The average northerner does not believe, any more than you or I believe, that it didn't matter a hoot whether Hitler conquered Britain or not. It is no answer to say that very many Eireann citizens joined the British Forces. What signifies is the governmental attitude. As for the economic bond between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, Belfast knows that the Glasgow and Belfast establishments of Messrs Harland and Wolff could no more be separated from each other than two eggs could be parted out of an omelette. Most Belfast people shudder at the thought of a Customs barrier such as a united Ireland would interpose between Ulster and Great Britain. "Britain," they argue, "is a better market for us than Eire, because Britain's population is about 15 times Eire's."

There is, of course, something to be said on the other side. The southern Irish maintain that the Northern Ireland Government rigs electoral boundaries most unscrupulously to the detriment of Catholic minorities, and even indulges in repressive practice. But the decisive factor in the controversy is the unalterable objection of a big majority in the North to any ending of partition.

I believe it would have been practicable in 1886, 1893, or 1912, when Liberal Governments in London sought to enact Home Rule, to enact a Dominion of Ireland,united as between North and South and no less loyal to the British connection than Australia, for instance, is loyal. But the opportunity passed. For since those days an exaggerated, and probably unreasonable, Irish national sentiment has been kindled by the consequences of the "Easter Week" rebellion in 1916, when the South, acting on the maxim that "England's extremity is Ireland's opportunity," took advantage of the Kaiser's war to rise in armed revolt. In the bloody struggle that ensued the savagery of the so-called Irish Republican Army (a sort of Irish counterpart to Palestine's Irgun)was even excelled, if possible, by the brutality of the "Black and Tans," who had the task of reprisals.

It has been said that if both Eire and the North could elect Labour Governments, the two could come together, on the basis of a common devotion to Socialism. This superficial view ignores the truth that there is no more conservative and anti-Socialist country in Europe than Eire. World events may soon compel the formation of a Western Union, embracing the non-Communist nations of Europe in one defence, currency, and Customs amalgamation. Then Ireland will at last be united, though that is hardly the same as the "United Ireland" of the present campaign against partition.

Crackers (1966)

"The Day We Celebrate" - St. Patrick's Day (1867)

 

This is probably my favourite image depicting the drunken, violent Irish stereotype that was popular in certain quarters of the American press in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In this case we see the Irishmen battering forty shades of shite out of the local constabulary in New York City in celebration of that most holy of holidays, St. Patrick's Day. It was created by Thomas Nast, known as the "Father Of The American Cartoon". One of the many things I find funny is the likelihood that in that place, at the time many of the cops depicted were also Irish. Nast was a German-born American cartoonist whose work was hugely popular in his lifetime and whose influence is still felt in political cartoons. He contributed towards the image of Uncle Sam, Santa Claus, and the use of donkeys and elephants in the American political context. Nast, as can be clearly seen here and in numerous other cartoons, had no great fondness for the Irish (nor for that matter Catholicism). He did, however, defend Native American, African American and Chinese American rights in his cartoons. This cartoon appeared in Harper's Weekly, in April, 1867.

The Kingdome of Irland Devided into severall Provinces and the againe devided into Counties Newly described. (1676)

As with most contemporary maps of Ireland, this map by John Speed while largely accurate in details such as lakes, rivers, and major settlements, has the coastline of Connacht truncated. Although published in 1676 it seems this map originally dates from 1610 which makes sense since Speed was long dead by '76. The map is chockful of lovely little details like cherubs and sea monsters. The most interesting aspect of this map in my opinion is the in-set illustrations depicting three categories of Irish denizen at the time.

Here you have the Gentleman and Gentlewoman of Ireland, top of the pile of course.

 Then you have the middle management types, the Civill Irish woman and man.

And then you have the Wilde Irish man and woman. For reasons unclear to me the Wilde Irish man appears to be wearing Wonderwoman's boots.

Erin Go Bray (1799)

After the turmoil of the 1798 rebellion it was decided that unification with Britain might be a panacea to Ireland's ills. This cartoon lampoons Irish belicosity in the rebellion with "Erin go bray" being a pun on "Erin Go Bragh" a watchword of the rebellion. The donkey says "O how I long for a union with the English Bull, ay by my soul or the English Cow, or the English any thing! To the Devil with all the Priests and Proctors they have not left us a Potatoe between us." I have a sad feeling that on a night like this that many contemporary Irish folk might agree.

The March Of The White Plague (1907)

This rather eerie cartoon, published in the Lepracaun in 1907, illustrates the toll tuberculosis, known popularly as consumption, was then having on Ireland. It also shows, in the guise of wolves, what was thought to be its causes. It would be many years before this scourge was fully dealt with. It was only with Noël Browne-led changes in public health provision and the the introduction of streptomycin and other antibiotics in the  late '40s and '50s that tuberculosis stopped being an omnipresent killer in the Irish context. In "The March Of The White Plague", the artist Thomas Fitzpatrick, who usually drew cartoons in a more whimsical style, created a pastiche of JC Dollman's work, a popular contemporary English artist.

The Charms Of Finglas (1858)

 This potted history of Finglas comes from Irish Miscellany, a periodical published in Boston in the years 1858 and 1859. Unfortunately the author's name isn't given.

About three miles from town, on the Ashbourne road is the far famed village of Finglas. There are few who have not heard of it, being equally celebrated for its 'May sports'—its ass races, its pigs, with their tails shaved, and a host of other amusements—as for having been, from time to time, the theatre of some important scenes in Irish history. Indeed, there are few villages in Ireland can lay claim to much greater antiquity than the village of Finglas. It is supposed by many to have been a place of some notoriety even before Christianity was introduced into this country, from the May sports to which I have alluded, as these are known to be the remains of feasts instituted to celebrate the spring, or perhaps in honor of Ceres, the goddess of grain and husbandry. One thing is certain, that those feasts are evidently of Pagan origin. The Romans and many other nations had games and feasts in honor of spring. In England they were very common till the time of Henry the Eighth, when some commotion arising at one of them, of which he was a spectator, he expressed his personal dislike to them and also reprimanded the mayor of the town secretly. After this they gradually disappeared in England; but May day is still a kind of holiday in most villages throughout England and Ireland. I think I am not in error by asserting that Finglas existed long before Christianity in this country, for in the first years of the Christian era, we find the author of it (St. Patrick,) residing in this town. He also founded an abbey here; and it should be a place of some note, and consequently of some age, to induce him to go to so much expense at that early period.

In the year 1014, Brian Boru marched by Finglas, going to the memorable battle of Clontarf, where he lost his life. During the time the Danes were masters of Dublin both before and after the battle of Clontarf, they frequently plundered Fingall, and it is reasonable to suppose that Finglas had its share from them.

In 1171, Dublin, being in the possession of Strongbow and the English adventurers, was closely besieged by the monarch Roderick O'Connor, and reduced to great straits. Strongbow was about to surrender, but the Irish insisted on such extravagant' terms as broke off the treaty. It was then advised to make a sudden and desperate sally on the besiegers; and, accordingly Miles de Cogan and five hundred chosen men broke in on the Irish lines at Finglas, and entirely routed them.

I rather think this battle was fought about half a mile one side of the town, at a place called Finglas Wood, on the banks of the Tolka river. There is an old quarry there, which is almost filled up with clay, and some time ago, the soft part of it was broken with a plough, when a great number of human bones were found, though greatly decayed, and several pieces of rusty armor, so eaten away that it could not be said to what part of the body they belonged, also broken swords. Tradition says there was a great battle fought there, but ascribes it to the Danes and natives. Another circumstance that makes me think this is the spot is, there is a very steep hill rising over the quarry and along the river on that side, which would be extremely favorable to such an encounter as the above must have been. It is probable that it was down this hill that Miles de Cogan rushed with such irresistible force, on the Irish host, and nearly took King Roderick prisoner, who was at that time enjoying the then luxury of a bath.

In 1271, Fulke de Saunfort, Archbishop of Dublin, dying in his manor at Finglas, his body was conveyed to the Chapel of the Virgin, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, and there deposited.

In 1532, we find this town giving the title of baron to some family; for in the rebellion of Silken Thomas, the Archbishop (Allen) and Baron Finglas were obliged to shut themselves up in the castle, and stand to their defence. I cannot say to what family the title belonged.

In 1649, Cromwell's army marched through Finglas going to the siege of Drogheda, and threw down the ancient cross. The enclosed is a sketch of Finglas, taken from a field opposite to Dr. Duncan's Lunatic Asylum, which is the house seen to the left of the drawing. The air of Finglas was formerly accounted the best about Dublin, and hither all the victims of disease were ordered, before the mountain air of Dundrum was brought into notice. However, it is still considered salubrious, as there are no less than three lunatic asylums within a quarter of a mile of each other. To one of them we have already alluded, the other two belong to Doctors Harty and Gregory. They are all tasty buildings—particularly St. Helena, the seat of Dr. Harty. Tradition says that King James slept a night, during his retreat, or rather flight, from the Boyne, in the house now occupied by Mr. Savage, Finglas Wood— it is just beside the quarry before mentioned.

In 1690, King William III had his army encamped at Finglas after the battle of the Boyne; and from Finglas he went to the Church of St. Patrick, to return thanks to the Almighty for his victory over the unfortunate James.

The Happy Ring House (1906)

This is an ad for The Happy Ring House from The Lepracaun. The Happy Ring House is still there at 3 Upper O'Connell Street, having been rebuilt after its destruction during the Easter Rising and indeed is a landmark of sorts. McDowell's originally traded out of a store in Mary Street but moved to O'Connell Street in 1902. The building is also notable for the fact it had one of the few residences on the street with Carmel Moran being the last person to live on the street, in a flat on the top floor of the building.

Carson Kidnapping Ulster (1914)

This is a detail from this cartoon from Puck Magazine albeit from a generation later than the previous illustrations I've posted, so alas no simian Irish folk. I think it's great. Edward Carson is making off with Ulster, beheading "Home Rule Ireland". The cartoon predicts, more or less, what was to transpire a few short years later with the partition of Ireland. Carson et al would have to however forego counties Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan in order to keep a strong Protestant/Unionist majority north of the border. And of course the rest of the island became the Irish Free State, latterly the Republic of Ireland after the War Of Independence. The irony being that Carson, the man history most associates with it, was against partition almost as much as he was against Home Rule.

Each time the idea of Irish Home Rule had been brought up in the British Parliament there had been significant opposition, mainly from Protestants of Scottish and English ancestry, the lion's share of whom lived in the north east of the island. By the time of the Government of Ireland Act 1914 (aka the Third Home Rule Bill), Dubliner Edward Carson had become the primary agitator against Home Rule and had used opposition in Ulster as a bulwark against any such measure. It became increasingly clear that partition was inevitable as the local Protestant majority in Ulster would not acquiesce to the likely rule of the Catholic majority on the island as a whole. Having been vociferously against any measure of Home Rule, Carson eventually came to support the establishment of Northern Ireland. I'll conclude this post with quotes showing a couple of contemporary opposing viewpoints on the concept of Home Rule.

"Politicians who, like ostriches, possess the happy faculty of shutting their eyes to unpleasant facts, may say that there is only one nation in Ireland; but everyone who knows the country is quite aware that there are two, which may be held together as part of the United Kingdom, but which can no more be forced into one nation than Belgium and Holland could be forced to combine as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. And whatever cross-currents there may be, the great line of cleavage is religion. Of course I am aware of the violent efforts that have been made ever since the commencement of the Nationalist agitation to prove that this is not so." Anonymous in Is Ulster Right? (1913)

"We find ourselves there in presence of a minority which, on the sole ground that it is a minority, claims that in the government of Ireland it shall be not merely secure but supreme. Sir Edward Carson as odd man out (and I do not deny that he is odd enough for anything) is to be Dictator of Ireland. If eighty-four Irish constituencies declare for Home Rule, and nineteen against Home Rule, then, according to the mathematics of Unionism, the Noes have it. In their non-Euclidean geometry the part is always greater than the whole. In their unnatural history the tail always wags the dog. On the plane of politics it is not necessary to press the case against "Ulster" any farther than that. Even majorities have their rights. If a plurality of nine to two is not sufficient to determine policy and conduct business in a modern nation, then there is no other choice except anarchy, or rather an insane atomism" TM Kettle in The Open Secret Of Ireland (1912)