From July 1919 to December 1921 Ireland’s democratically established
National Government published THE IRISH BULLETIN to inform the
world of the situation in the country whilst the British Government was
ruthlessly and brutally trying to suppress it and the voters who established
it.
Lawrence Ginnell, as Dail Eireann’s Director of Publicity, established the Bulletin
as a fortnightly summary of acts of aggression by British Crown Forces and
then as a weekly. Ginnell, a considerable figure was succeeded by equally
impressive writers – Robert Brennan, Frank Gallagher, Desmond FitzGerald
and Erskine Childers. Although FitzGerald took the “Treaty” side and was a
member of the Cabinet that “executed” Childers, on finding on his premises
a small pistol, (a present from Michael Collins!) Brennan and Gallagher, who
took the Republican side in the “Civil War” wrote brilliant memoirs, in which
FitzGerald’s record both as an activist and journalist was highly praised.
Garret FitzGerald, in HIS 700 page memoir “All In A Life” declares that his
father’s “insistence that nothing be published that could not be stood over
in every detail infuriated many of his colleagues who were less meticulous
in their concern for the truth.”
Garret’s declaration was cowardly and false. Cowardly, because he names nobody.
He implies that Ginnell, Brennan, Gallagher and Childers were not men of integrity.
He buried that confounded lie in a long book. If there is a next life I hope he has
paid for it.
Garret infamously, in Dail Eireann declared on the day Charles Haughey was elected
Taoiseach that he was a man with a “Flawed Pedigree.” Haughey’s mother was present. Haughey’s
parents, like Garret’s had served in the National Movement, if in not quite so exalted
roles.
Garret’s father was Christened “Thomas” but, in self-exaltation presented as “Desmond”
implying the possession of an Earldom (of South Munster). In his London youth he had Expressionist poetry published. Apparently he was the first to write an appreciation of the
poetry of T.S.Eliot, who was to become a frequent visitor to him in Dublin. Eliot was regarded by many as being anti-Semitic. The Expressionist clique that the young “Desmond” hung out with included the American Ezra Pound, whom the Americans wanted to prosecute for Treason.
When Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize he asked Garret if he could have a look
at Fitzgerald Senior’s verse.
His request was refused.
Amazing! How do you know all this stuff? Encyclopedia Hibernia?
Asa kid I rarely afford to go to the movies.
And wasn’t much good at field games.
Besides I was darned lazy and read books.
My mother’s father, his father and one of
her brothers were Dublin Master Bookbinders.
Her brother was offered the task of rebinding
the Book of Kells, but declined because he was
past his best. As a member of Fianna Eireann
he had helped unload the Asgard at Howth,
but on John Redmond’s advice had joined
the Dublin Fusiliers. He was nearly 4 years
in Flanders when he threw away his rifle
and ran to escape the mustard gas, and keep
up with hiscomrades in the great German
counter offensive in the spring of 1918.
(Ironically the Asgard’s owner also
fought in the Brit forces in that war!
My paternal grandfather, a very scholarly
man was the First President of ASTI,
(Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland)
and his former next-door neighbour in
Cloughjordan, over 10 years his junior
was its first General Secretary, Thomas
MacDonagh.
My younger brother who had worked in]
Derry, went to Martin McGuinness’s
funeral. He asked a woman with a chain
of office what it represented. It was the
Presidential office our grandfather had
first occupied.
I’ll be 83 on 28th December, and cannot remember where I put my specs even when they
are on my nose
But I remember my 3rd Birthday. Apple pie and a model airplane my brother told me was a
four engined bomber.
One of the two ack-ack batteries defending our capital city as less than half a mile u the road
on Howth’s Baily Green. But, bombs and bombers and the concept of war meant nothing to me.
Of course, like all bien-pensant citizens, I BLAME DEV and Bless his little Cotton Socks!