“As Ard-Mhéara, I pledge that I will be non-partisan and inclusive in all my duties, whether inside or outside the council chamber and to highlight the injustices that make our society unequal.”
That’s Councillor Chris O’Leary. He’s been elected Cork’s first Sinn Féin mayor in ninety years. Funny how things conjoin, because I was reading a couple of days ago about another mayor of Cork, Tomas Mc Curtain.
He was a friend and confidant of Michael Collins and was shot dead in March 1920 by a group of men it was believed was led by RIC Detective Inspector Oswald Ross Swanzy. Using his intelligence network and in particular information from RIC Sergeant Matt McCarthy, Collins traced Swanzy to Lisburn. IRA Intelligence Officer Sean Culhane was sent to Belfast in August 1920, where he linked up with local IRA activists. They took a taxi to Lisburn. Culhane and one of the Belfast IRA men, Roger McCorley, walked up to Swanzy as he was passing the Northern Bank and shot him dead. They then made their escape.
Over the next days and weeks, hundreds of Catholics fled for their lives from Lisburn to Belfast. Catholic houses were set on fire. Where there was a danger that an adjoining Protestant house might be damaged, the Catholic family’s furniture was taken out on the street and burned. Some Catholic who couldn’t afford to take the train to Belfast, walked. Many of these were attacked and some killed as they tried to pass through Lambeg. Inside a week, a total of twenty-two people had been killed.
I’m not sure what the moral of all this is, if there is one. Maybe it’s that one killing leads on to another and then to mass slaughter. Maybe it’s that sectarianism is a scourge which results in innocent people being burnt out of their homes and killed. Maybe it’s that Ireland is a small country and the distance from Cork to Lisburn isn’t as far as some might think.
A commemorative tablet was erected in the wall of Lisburn Cathedral in honour of DI Swanzy. Is there, somewhere in Lisburn, a plaque commemorating those innocent Catholics who were burned from their homes and killed in 1920?
Highly unlikely, if this was addressed to the unionist burghers of Lisburn they will deny it happened because it is a republican narrative and as we all know they never tell the truth.
To the people who erected the tablet, Swanzy is seen as a God fearing and loyal servant of the crown, The Catholics who were murdered were, well, Catholics. Thus no tablet.
There almost certainly isn’t any commemoration of the people pogromised. It would be interesting to see how long centenary plaque, or whatever, stayed i. place.
Nostalgia is not what it used to be
Some people not familiar with Parkinson, Alan F. Belfast’s UnHoly War: The Troubles of the 1920s, subscribe to the view that ‘the troubles’ started in 1968
.
On 24 March 1922, six Catholic civilians were shot dead and two were wounded in Belfast, all but one were members of the McMahon family. Masked policemen and ‘B’ Specials broke into the McMahon home and shot the eight men. Mrs McMahon confirmed that some of the killers wore RIC uniforms. The McMahon family had no connection to any paramilitary violence. An inquiry was carried out by the Irish Defence Ministry. No such inquiry was undertaken by anyone in the north of Ireland. The Irish report alleged that 12 police officers including District Inspector John Nixon were responsible for the murders and other attacks on Catholics. The rest is history with the UVF involved in murder in Belfast in 1966.
It is often stated in media sources, that there is no justification for the use of violence in order to further political objectives. War mongers and arms manufacturers tend to ignore such sentiments when it comes to places like, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other theatres of death and destruction. Given evidence of at least 36 unsolved shootings in the north east of the island to date, it is clear that the UVF/UDA have the means to promote violence and mayhem in sectarian extracurricular activities.
Ahh Lisburn, that city of inclusiveness and fairness to both communities- Not.
I always remember commentator Chris Donnelly on the Nolan TV shows infamous “Fleg Episode” where he puts the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson on the spot about Lisburn. What exactly does Lisburn, that has a heavily dominated Unionist majority council (think of it as a mini 1950’s Stormont), do to reach out to the nationalist/catholic people of Lisburn that live there? As Chris Donnelly put it himself: “Absolutely nothing”.
Lisburn is not unique. Can anyone here name a Unionist majority council that has implemented power sharing and elected a Sinn Fein Lord Mayor? Nah, me neither because none exist. While every SF/SDLP run council in the 6 counties has elected Unionist Mayors. See the trend here? It doesn’t take Albert Einstein or some other genius to work out who’s moving forward to a shared future and who’s clinging to the past.
Here’s Chris Donnelly on the Nolan Show, the “Fleg Episode” talking about Lisburn
Till one read your blog today, Esteemed Blogmeister, one was wistfully unaware of that item regarding the first Sinn Fein Lord Mayor on Leeside in ninety years.
But then down here in the Free Southern Stateen we were up to, erm, 90 about other rather more substantial matters. Such as the epic encounter to be in the (completed ) Aviva Stadium against our Caledonian cousins last night.. On the blanket coverage in the run up, our free,ungagged press could not be faulted.
This morning, oddly enough, there would appear to have been something of a Section 31 blackout in the sporting sense as first of all there was not even as much as a single, solitary dicky b. about The Massive Game of Crucial Importance in the item known as ‘What it says in the papers’ on RTE 1.
Curious. But, then, things became even more curiouser.
For it took Dame Dosh Finucane all of one hour plus to deign a first mention of the Game of Games involving the Grampians and the Champions (of the terraces).
As She is the one who has carried the Torch of Sporting Justice (cf Thierry Anrai) almost,erm, single-handedly for the past seemingly endless number of years, this slow to praise but steadfast listener was fully confident that her shrill though skillfully distilled choice of words would be heard decrying the Irish goal (alleged).
As it was clearly offside, one felt the Human Rights Court in the Hague (at the very least) would have been called upon to see that the Justices there would not only shake their buns, but also, most importantly, be seen to be shaking their buns..
Not only was The Hague not mentioned,however, but Dame Dosh remained vague to the point of being bubonically obscure. With Sunday M. coming down, not only was the closet containing the cleanest dirty ganseys of green not fumbled in, but it was not even (gasp) stumbled towards.
Aisteach, ach fior / Peculiar, but true.
The other word which jumped out, Esteemed Blogmeister, and hit one straight between the eyes was the surname: Swanzy.
This is but the second time one has come across this unusual surname; the other bearer of which was the critically-acclaimed Dublin cubist, Mary Swanzy.
(Here on Liffeyside in the most outre of artistic circles we tend to pronounce the name so as to rhyme it with the native town of Dylan Thomas: Swansea).
By one of those curious and circuitous freaky-deaky conincidences her surname came to mind as I read of Tomas Mac Curtain. Whose superb portrait by Sean Keating was exhibited in 1966 during the Golden Jubilee Commemorations of the Easter Rising.This was in the distinguished ambiance of the National Gallery on Merrion Square, D2..
Sean Keating’s shamanistic gift for realistic representation was later to fall out of favour (along with much else besides in the intervening half-century) with those of us who like to be numbered among the artistic elite. Thus, mere paint tubists were replaced by painterly cubists like, (gulp) Mary Swanzy.
(Painterly is a daarling word, Joxer).
For those of you dears who tend to give Galleries a wide berth: in representational art a nose tends to look like a nose; in the cubist variety, a nose is apt to resemble a juxtaposed garden hose. That is all you need to know, dears.
The National Gallery, aisteach go leor, was also the topic of a trenchant article in The Unionist Times this very weekend by its occasional but critically-acclaimed art critic. F. O’Toole (for it is he !) was less than best pleased by said institute’s decision to off-load a selection of The Beit Collection:
Fulminated Fintan: ‘ When far-sighted collectors such as Alfred Beit left their collections for the public benefit (in Beit’s case, the Irish public) they never imagined they would be broken up and flogged off piece by piece’.
Fine Art Fintan, of course, is famously familiar with canvas in all its varieties (from canvasing the votes of the mere electorate by the wearing out of shoe leather, usually one’s own) to the canvas which ends up framed and hanged / hung.
(Though he gave serious thought to the former some years ago, out of sheer intellectual generoisty, he eventually abandoned the idea, lest the public be deprived by his so doing).
During the course of a lengthy article replete with barbs aplenty, somehow he forgot to put the FOT into the, erm, origins of the Alfred Beit moolah. Odd, rather, for Fine Art Fintan is usually good on that sort of thing.
Search one might but search in vain one will for any mench of the ubermensch family Beit from Hamburg. Who, in the 19th Century turned their noses (qua noses) in a southerly direction towards Sud Afrika. Back then all Rhodes (including good old Cecil) led to Kimberly. And its mines of diamond.
This was the origin of the globally acclaimed Beit Arts and Shafts Foundation. (The Shafts relates to both the graft of installing mining shafts and the art of shafing the Kaffirs).
When it came to Sir Alfred Beit, alas, Fine Art Fintan failed, for reasons best known to his ubermindset, to go but gentle into that dark knight.(See Swanzy,Sawnsea,Dylan Thomas above).
As the noted art collectors Rose Dugdale (whose taste tended towards the more particular and favoured the Dutch Interiors) and Martin Cahill (whose preference leaned towards the general) might well have duetted:
-Diamonds are a Gallery’s best friend.
Nor shall debt have no dominion, if the boom he lowered in the direction of the FSS Government Department charged witth the, erm, governance of the National Gallery was anything to go by.
Fulminated Fine Art Fintan further: ‘Thirdly, of course, there is a vacuum of political direction from the Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht, an arm of government which has more or less gone to seed under the present Goverment’.
Eh?
Working backwards in an arseway direction (excusez moi Le Francais) and beginning with the G-word for Gaeltacht, within the last couple of weeks, two sourfaced news items have surfaced (barely) somewhere between the Fat Lady of Fatima Mansions losing Forty Four Stone but winning Slimmer of the Year and the Corrupt Zebra of Zambia who was stripped of its Stripes, to the effect:
– A grand total of two of the 31 local councils are compliant with their legal obligation to provide a service in Leprehaun.
(Reaction of Fine Art Fintan who is finely tuned to Left-leaning Rights: tost / silence).
– The leaking of a suppressed snorter of a report by independent academics (not always a contradiction in terms !) to the effect that Departmental indifference will lead to the demise of the Leprechaun-speaking Districts within 10 years.
(Reaction of Fine Art Fintan who is finely etc etc: tost / silence).
But then, in the rarefied air which the finely tuned intellectual goliaths such as FOT inhabit, leprechaun has been long since done and, erm, tosted.
Ah, its time,one sees, to pass around the plate of complimentary bisicuits.
-Mine’s a Kimberly.
GRMA.
Thomas Ashe, also Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork, murdered by the British as they force fed him whilst on Hunger Strike – September 1917 – death led to massive out cry and was a catalyst for many people turning to Sinn Fein and/or the IRB/Volunteers!
I never knew about this. It’s important that these stories are told, and not forgotten.
We are currently witnessing the death of Unionism on the island of Ireland. History is written by the victors.
Really I suspect wishful thinking from you RJC most unionists I know are fit and healthy and many no doubt will have a lovely tan this time next year!
Next year!? Honestly Neill, and you wonder why Unionists have a reputation for being short sighted? 😉
I am of course talking about the longue durée…
Long term we are all dead is that an accurate prediction? : )
Death and taxes, Neill my man. Death and taxes : )
The problem with this blog as usual is this that it is remarkably one eyed I have no problem saying what happened in 1922 in Lisburn was wrong and shouldn’t have happened in exactly the same way what happened in Cork to protestants was wrong as well the key problem is blood lust and the horrible cycle you get involved in
Why can’t everybody who uses this blog come out and say murder is wrong full stop no if and buts no historical analysis just come out and say it was wrong?
Fair enough, neill. There is the temptation to give one’s own lot a by-ball. But ‘no historical analysis’? I can’t agree – particularly since violence was at the root of the establishment of this state, in the face of a democratic vote by the British government.
Jude the UVF circa 1912-1914 may have threatened violence but didn’t actually commit violence. If they had committed violence I would have condemned them fully
Speaking as a unionist would I have wanted to go into a state ran by Redmond probably not, certainly I would not have wanted to be in a united Ireland circa 1922-94 for any number of reasons
Sadly with the world war violence became far more acceptable and rooted in our political psyche and even today we are slowly moving away from it.
The question is and will always be why didn’t protestants want to have Home Rule and why were Catholics unable to sell the vision to them?
Good points, neill – particularly last paragraph. Actually I’ve been thinking about this and there is massive hypocrisy by governments throughout the world. The way disputes in 98% of cases is by discussion – AFTER physical force has been used. As to the unionist threat of violence at the start of 20th century – I really wouldn’t distinguish between the man who held a gun to my head and threatened to pull the trigger but then found it unnecessary and the man who holds a gun to my head and finds it necessary to pull the trigger.
Lisburn, a totally unionist city, i work in it every day – i should know.
They built a social housing estate recently, before is was finished – it was completely covered in ‘X factor’ flags.
Did you know, Swanzy was a Monaghan man born and bread, a son of Oriel, a Castleblaney man to be exact.
Death and taxes, Neill my man. Death and taxes : )
Who said anything about taxes? : )
“Many of these were attacked and some killed as they tried to pass through Lambeg. Inside a week, a total of twenty-two people had been killed.”
Is there any evidence of these 22 killings? I have studied this event in great detail for a PhD, and found that only one person, other than Swanzy, was killed. The victim was an unidentified burnt corpse found in the ruins of a shoe factory. If there were a number of other deaths I would greatly appreciate the source of this information.