Tag Archives: Civil War

“I lived through this period in Ireland when there was fear of an island-wide civil war – which never actually happened – at the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland and the fear of civil war didn’t stop people from stepping back..[and saying] ‘oh we’d better be careful here (laughs) and not go there’. It went in the other direction, which is that for people inclined to violence…it gives the excuse then to say that we’d better start moving first. We better take the violent action before they get us and you get this kind of horrific circular logic where people who are in fact aggressors can see themselves as defenders. They can say that ‘we’re just taking action now to prevent the annihilation that’s coming from the other side’.

“We need to be very careful about talking about civil war and I think for America we need to be talking about what’s happening right now which is the issue of impunity. If you want to tackle the threats…you really have to start with the fact that there’s been an attempted coup, that there are a lot of court cases, a lot of minor people  perhaps being prosecuted but so far no real sense that it’s being called out for what it is, being seen as a crisis, an insurrection, which demands a response which actually criminalises that behaviour.”

Fintan O’Toole on the US January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot.

Anyone?

Previously: We Don’t Know Ourselves

Poor Ginger.

Name that jammer, anyone?

The First Day of the Irish Civil War (The Irish Story)

gpodestroy

Did your kindly great grandfather/mother claim to be in the GPO?

Now you can unmask him/her as a LIAR and a FRAUD!

The Irish Military Archives have released a tranche of REAL veterans with recognised 1916 or Civil War service and their positions.

The spoofing stops here.

Anon writes:

Phase 1 of the Military Pensions Collection  includes details of 3,200 individual pension applicants, including 2,400 recipients of pensions in respect of the 1916 Easter Rising and supporting files such as Membership Rolls for July 1921 & 1922 of the 16 Divisions of the IRA, Cumann na MBan and Na Fianna Eireann, and the Brigade Activities files relating to 1916. There’s also a cool map of 1916 action sites here.

Not so ‘great’ now, Great Grandda/ma.

Family FIGHT!

Military Service Pensions Collection (MilitaryArcives.ie)

(Telegraph)

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Today marks the two-year anniversary of the start of the civil war in
Syria.

Jane-Ann McKenna, Of MSF Ireland writes:

The Syrian population is faced with a conflict of extremeviolence and a humanitarian situation of catastrophic proportions: the health system has collapsed; food shortages are commonplace, and waterand electricity supply is disrupted; Medical aid is being targeted,hospitals destroyed and medical personnel have been captured.
The short video above, taken behind the lines in opposition held areas of Syria, demonstrates the suffering many women, children and elderly continue to endure. Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has launched a Syria Emergency Appeal today and we would really appreciate your support to publicise it.

MSF.ie

The Bakery Boys’ mystery.

Solved.

Sibling of Daedalus writes:

Ever since I first saw that photograph on Broadsheet (via the National Library) of two kids using the confusion of the Irish Civil War as cover for a daring heist on a bakery’s produce (some say they are ‘guarding’ the bread for the Irish Free State), I’ve been trying to work out its location.  I thought that the name of the baker might help and I spent time studying the photo, trying to decipher it from the half-letters visible, but no joy.
Until, searching the National Library archives for something else, I found this:-

Taken on Lord Edward Street, during the Civil War, it shows a cart from the bakery of Peter Kennedy. The lettering on the cart corresponds to that half-visible on the one in the first photo above.

So, I decided to look into the history of  Kennedy’s Bakery, if only to see if I could find anything about a daring schoolboy civil war bread robbery, but no joy there either and the lads above remain regrettably untraced.
Though what I found out about the bakery was interesting.

 

Kennedy’s Bread was a Dublin institution from as far back as the 1850s, when Peter Kennedy, the founder of the firm, took over an existing bakery in Great Britain Street (later Parnell Street).  Subsequently another branch was opened in Patrick Street. Kennedys not only survived with aplomb the Great Dublin Bakery Strike of the 1900s, but (unlike Bolands’ Mills and Jacobs’ Biscuits, which supplied their products free of charge and without consent) made a bit of a profit out of the Easter Rising by providing paid-for bread to the forces in the GPO.

Around this time the firm started manufacturing one of their most popular products, the Bermaline malt loaf (“brown bread that invites closer acquaintance… a crisp delicious crust which you will enjoy biting into… its flavour is altogether worthy of its looks”) to accompany that most popular Dublin staple, the Vienna Roll.
In 1938 Kennedys’ Well-Fruited Sultana and Madeira Cakes won first prize at the International Bakers and Confectioners Exhibition in the Royal Albert Hall, London, losing out narrowly to a rival firm for the Irish Challenge Shield.  And in 1953, just as rationing came to an end, the Kennedy Open Pan won first prize at the International Bakery Exhibition at the Mansion House, Dublin.
Things looked to be going well for Kennedys; but on Thursday the 3rd July 1971 breakfasters all over Dublin choked on their Bermaline toast at the announcement that the bakery end of the business, employing three-quarters of its 400-strong workforce, was to close.
Enter Brennan…

Sibling of Daedalus