In part 1 explained the blissful experience of being born in an Ireland at peace when most of the worldwas reaping the havoc of irresponsible policies pursued by Imperialist powers since the Treaty of Versailles, havoc which De Valera warned against on its signing in 1919 and sought to prevent by statesmanship at the League of Nations during the 1930s.
I mentioned the Truthless assertion by the Ruthless polemicist Ms. Dudley-Edwards that the 1916 Insurgents ushered in a century of violence in Ireland.
As I said, I was born on 28 December 1941 and witnessed no violence at all in my formative years.
Ten years later, on December 28 1951 there was a bank robbery in Dublin which , together with the
resulting prosecution were front page news. Such things just didn’t happen there. At the Sutton
Grand Cinema at Sutton Cross I watched Hollywood depictions of such shenanigans, but from
Haulbowline to Malinhead via the Hill of Howth such things did not happen. The would-be tooled-up
Dublin Dillingers used a harmless starting pistol.
Albert Reynolds recalled leaving thousands of pounds collected in his dance-halls in the unlocked
boot of his car overnight. And Terry Wogan used asually leave enough cash to buy two bungalows Dublin a hold-all on the floor of Bewley’s during a coffee break, when transferring it from the Munster and Leinster Bank HQ in Dame Street to its O’Connell Street Branch.
I don’t think any bank robberies recurred until about 1969. They were, a by-product of the war of resistance to British misrule in the north.
By the 1970s the Sutton Grand Cinema had been replaced by a Quinns’ Supermarket. During
a visit home there was an actual robbery of a bank beside it causing traffic disruption in a failed attempted to capture the robbers. By that time such events were routine.
Between 1923 and 1968 most of Ireland was at peace and Frank Aiken, newly appointed IRA
Chief of Staff,aged 25 who had ordered a Cease Fire and the storing of arms in secure dumps
Chief of Staff,aged 25 who had ordered a Cease Fire and the storing of arms in secure dumps
saved humanity from Nuclear War. As Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1958 to 1968 he laboured
at the UN and his diplomacy was rewarded with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which he was the first signatory, in Moscow at the invitation of the Soviets.
That Treaty may now be a dead letter because of the attempt by the puppet Ukrainian Regime’s attempt to acquire such weapons and the secretive acquisition of them by other irresponsible killers.
I recommend another film gem from De Valera’s Ireland
“Once upon a Tram” on you tube. It was shot on the Howth Peninsula 1959.
Between 1941 and 1959 an infinitesimal number of people were shot or died from violence in the 26
counties, and, by international standards few within the 32.
My next instalment will depict the wider world following the Second World War
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