THE IRISH TIMES Wednesday, February 9th, 1916 On Monday evening at 6 o’clock two of the vanmen of Mr. J.S. Young, J.P., Controller of Recruiting in Galway, were conveying loads of empty mineral cases from Kinvarra to Galway. Close to the villages of Clarenbridge and Oranmore a crowd of men, numbering between twenty and thirty, armed with heavy blackthorn sticks and revolvers, and disguised with handkerchiefs and masks tied over their faces, jumped over the walls and stopped the drivers, who were dragged from their seats. The horses were taken from the vans and hunted over the country. The mineral cases were scattered over the road and the drivers were dragged into a field, where their pockets were searched, but as the men had their money concealed, they lost none of it. The men were then told to go to Oranmore or something worse would happen to them. They were escorted by the masked men in a round-about direction, and when they were liberated a number of revolved shots were fired in the air. The two men reached Oranmore and caught the night train to Galway. At the time of writing an active search is being made for Mr. Young’s horses. Mr. Young sent his vans out today as usual. There is considerable excitement in Galway over the occurrence, and a large body of police are engaged in investigating the affair.
The Art of Making Rebels
HOW THE GOVERNMENT PERSECUTED A KINVARA MAN AND HIS FRIENDS
Mr. William Hynes, Kinvara, one of the hunger strikers recently released from Wormwood Scrubbs, was arrested at Abbey, Loughrea, early in Spring, and confined in Galway prison. He was remanded on a few occasions while “the minions of the law” were trying to make a case against him, but subsequently he was released without a stain on his character. The Government, not to be outdone, re-arrested him a few weeks later, and deported him to Wormwood Scrubbs along with Mr. Patrick Kilkelly, now the chairman of the Gort District Council, and hundreds of others.
Mr. Hynes is the youngest son of Mr. Patrick Hynes, Doongora, Kinvara, and comes of a good old stock of fighting Nationalists. He is grandson of the late “honest Bartly Hynes,” of Killina, the first man in Ireland to be prosecuted for having his name in Irish printed on his cart, and who, to credit be it said, refused to pay the fine imposed by a pair of British “Removables.” His brother, Mr. Michael Hynes, was arrested after the Rebellion of 1916, and imprisoned at Frongoch. His cousin, the late Mr. Patrick Hamberry was, following the Rebellion, imprisoned in Frongoch, and died as a result of his cruel treatment immediately after his release.
Kinvara – Politics, as they go, are still matters of conversational interest here. The Sinn Fein movement is mentioned by some with sympathy for motive and contempt for methods and organisation. The rising came as a surprise, if not a shock, to some persons, but there were, or are, scattered sympathisers or objectors to the more drastic of the methods of repression among the middle as well as the working classes. For among those who paid the inevitable penalty of revolt in time or war were some leaders of ripe scholarship and, in other respects, stainless lives; “Poets of the Insurrection” as they were called, whose mistakes of judgment, policy and method are lightly regarded by those of emotional temperament to whom disinterestedness primarily appeals. Discontent now turns on the recent check to Home Rule as expressed in the Government of Ireland Act 1914. There is a feeling that the political system – Union Government – is still the source of any economic maladjustment and that the country will at once flower under the working of autonomy.
the Hon. P.McM.Glynn K.C. Minister for Home and Territories.
This fine verse, which appeared in the “Bulletin” of the 19th ult. was, says the editor, censored while a Labour Government was in power in the Commonwealth. An appeal was made from the Censor to Ministers. Hugh Mahon came into conflict with his colleagues over it; but permission to publish it was still refused.
Ireland – 1916
All I revered was this my Island, she
Whom through the granite years I wept and loved;
All that I wished, to make my Island free
Of blood from mine a universe removed;
To seat here where the younger nations sit,
Her soul stripped clean of ancient sorrowings,
To dream my dream of Brian and the Kings,
To clothe my dream in flesh and worship it.
For this I bound the falcon to my side
In sinless sinning! For these things I died!
Right of the stronger, when the Norman came,
Rogued me and ravished me and buffeted,
Blackened and scotched my heart with steel and flame,
Cinctured with thorns my felon-shaven head.
The needy Frank and Gascon venturer,
Glutted from Senlac, hot for gear and gold,
Parcelled my land in march and baron-hold,
Hoarse-laughing at the comely shame of her,
Tortured but could not tame my plaintless pride.
This I remember, and for this I died!
Bruised and unbroken, swathed in sweat and rags,
Sobbing, yet valiant, shattered but unspent,
Housed in the bogland, hiding in the crags,
Dying a dog’s death, grim and well-content,
My poet soul out-daring dearth and death
Bondman of every motley creed and crew
Drank at the bitter cup of cycles, knew
The “spacious days of great Elizabeth”
If this I should forget, Christ and the Bride
Forget me also! For this, too, I died!
I was the spoil of all the centuries,
And am forgotten. Later wrongs outweigh
Mine, for the grief of men looks overseas,
And Belgium was the spoil of yesterday.
Can Time’s effluxion make injustice just?
Men’s memories are facile to forget
Poland’s Gethsemane and bloody sweat,
And the long grief that stamped my heart to dust!
O age-sought recompense by men denied,
By this I seek you, and for this I died!
Scotland I know, and how her valour’s crown,
Hard-won, scarce-held by scarp and mountain sleep,
Shone on her helm the hardy decades down,
Guarding the freedom that I could not keep;
And by the crown she linked at last with hers,
As by the nationhood I loved as she,
I swore it on my cross-hilt wistfully
My sons should be my land’s real worshippers.
And this my oath, sworn by the Crucified,
I held and hold to – and therefor I died!
Shall mercy spring from dull hearts trebly stoned?
Shall alien blood and alien creed allot
Betrayal where no fealty is owned,
Disloyalty where loyalty is not?
My blood upon the roadway reddens yet,
The iron of the years is in my soul,
The pen of Fate is set upon the scroll, I am what you have made! Can I forget?
These things I cherish; is it marvel, then,
I died for them, as I shall die again!
Amongst the Sinn Feiners elected in Ireland is the Countess Markievitch, who took a leading part in the Dublin rebellion at Easter, 1916.
In spite of her name, the Countess Markievitch is an Irishwoman, being the eldest daughter of the late Sir Henry Gore-Booth, Bart., of Sligo. A sister is Miss Eva Gore-Booth, the poetess. In 1900 she married the Polish count Casimir Dunin de Markievich. The two, the wife being the leader, were in the forefront of the most “advanced” party in the intellectual circles of Dublin. But it was when authority had to be defied that the Countess surpassed herself. Then what denunciations of England came from this gaunt, excited figure! What belabourings of Man! For she was a Suffragette as well as a Sinn-Feiner and was a leader in the suffrage disorders in Dublin. One of her chief swoops into notoriety was in the great strike of 1918, when she was one of the most active supporters of Larkin. For her share in the Easter Rising at Dublin in 1916 she was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted, and she was subsequently amnestied. Similar treatment was meted out to Professor John MacNeill, the nominal head, or “Chief of staff,” as he styled himself, of the Sinn Fein volunteers, who has also been returned to Parliament, having defeated the Nationalist candidate for the National University of Ireland.
Ashford, Charleville, May 17, 1916.
Sir,
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of 12th inst., which has been forwarded to me here. I have read carefully your allegations against Rev….. .and Rev……., but do not see in them any justification for disciplinary action on my part. They are both excellent priests who hold strong national views; but I do not know that they have violated any law, civil or ecclesiastical. In your letter of 6th inst you appealed to me to help you in the furtherance of your work as military dictator of Ireland. Even if action of that kind was not outside my province, the events of the past few weeks would make it impossible for me to have any part in proceedings which I regard as wantonly cruel and oppressive.
You remember the Jameson Raid, when a number of buccaneers invaded a friendly State, and fought the forces of the lawful Government. If ever men deserved the supreme punishment it was they. But officially and unofficially, the influence of the British Government was used to save them, and it succeeded. You took care that no plea for mercy should interpose on behalf of the poor young fellows who surrendered to you in Dublin. The first information which we got of their fate was the announcement that they had been shot in cold blood.
Personally, I regard your action with horror, and I believe that it has outraged the conscience of the country. Then, the deporting in hundreds, and even thousands, of poor fellows without a trial of any kind seems to me an abuse of power, as fatuous as it is arbitrary; and altogether your regime has been one of the worst and blackest chapters in the history of the misgovernment of the country.
I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant.
Edward Thomas,
Bishop of Limerick.
To General Sir. J.G. Maxwell, Commander in Chief, the Forces in Ireland.
A cable from New York, dated Sunday last, states that the Secret Service has frustrated a second Sinn Fein rebellion which was planned to occur next Easter, on the anniversary of last year’s bloody Dublin riots. German gold was scheduled to play a part. The preliminaries were mapped out, and ready to be put in operation, when the Secret Service men stepped in and arrested “General” Liam Merlewes (sic.) one of the leaders of the 1916 outbreak. Baron von Reculinghausen (sic.) was apparently Count von Bernstorff’s designee to watch Germany’s interests in Ireland after Bernstorff was ousted from the United States.
The Canadian authorities, acting upon the information received from the Secret Service, arrested Dr. Patrick McCarton, upon his arrival at Halifax. He was travelling on a fraudulent seaman’s passport. McCarton enjoyed the title “Ambassador of the Irish Republic to the United States.” It is commonly reported that German agents are busy in Ireland, attempting to stir up a second outbreak. A German cargo, which submarines carried, comprising machine guns and ammunition, was landed in lonely inlets in the Irish Sea.
It is understood that the United States possesses the official Sinn Fein report of the 1916 riots and other valuable data in connection therewith. Merlewes (Mellows), prior to the Easter Monday rebellion, spent three months in an English prison. Later he proceeded to Galway, and organised 700 volunteers for the United States, following the failure of the revolt.
McCarton arrived in the United States early in 1917, a fugitive from justice. Both decided to return to Ireland. McCarton sailed on October 17.
Countess Constance Markiewicz c.1922 by J.B.Yeats Wikimedia Commons
A striking figure in the rebellion was an elderly woman stated to be of high title, who carried a rifle with fixed bayonet. She is stated to be one of the leaders of the Sinn Feiners. It is reported that Professor John MacNeill, chief of staff of the the Irish Volunteers has been held prisoner since Monday, whether by the authorities or the insurgents, is unknown. MacNeill repeatedly warned the more active of the insurgents against the evil consequences of their policy.
The Burren and Beyond 