Author Archives

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Helena Molony is born

On this day in 1883, Helena Molony was born in Dublin. She was orphaned when she was young and didn’t have the happiest of childhoods but this made her strong-willed and a survivor. She dreamt of a better life and soon that dream came to include a free Ireland. When she was older, she looked back at that time saying,  “I was a young girl dreaming about Ireland when I saw and heard Maud Gonne speaking by the Custom House in Dublin one August evening in 1903 . . . She electrified me and filled me with some of her own spirit.”

Whether it was Maud Gonne’s spirit that energized Helena or not, one thing is certain – she was immediately and completely devoted to Ireland. She and Maud became fast friends and together they were prominent members of both of Ireland’s Nationalist groups for women, Inghinidhe na hÉireann and Cumann na mBan. Helena founded the first political newspaper specifically for women in 1908 and she started a movement aimed at keeping girls away from English soldiers. She was heavily involved in nearly every suffrage or labor campaign and was assigned to the City Hall garrison during the Easter Rising of 1916. When the authorities came to interview her after she was arrested for her role in the uprising, they found her with torn and bleeding hands and the lock halfway off the door. Similarly, while Molony was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol her captors discovered that she was trying to dig her way through the massive stone walls with a rusty spoon. She was indomitable and unapologetic.

These traits carried over into every aspect of her life. Helena fought again in the War of Independence, ferrying messages for Micheal Collins and Liam Mellows and was fiercely opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty that partitioned Ireland. She was active in the resulting civil war on the Republican side. She remained loyal to her friends, even when her reputation and political career suffered for it. Molony was unwilling to compromise in nearly every way, including her personal life. She was linked romantically to both males and females in a time when that was considered not only a sin, but illegal- and she refused to be labeled or cornered. All of these things cost her and eventually, Helena was forced out of politics and public life.

Even then, Helena maintained strong friendships, often depending on friends for shelter and care. When she died after a long and full life, she was buried next to many of them in the Republican plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, where she is remembered to this day.

Helena

Addendum: For more about Helena please click here. If you’re looking for even more or other fierce women like her, why don’t you grab a copy of my book? “Petticoats, Patriots, and Partition” is available world-wide in bookstores, on Blurb, and all Amazon markets. (Sorry, it’s been awhile since I indulged in some shameless self-promotion.)

 

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Rosaleen Sands

Almost four years ago I wrote one of my first articles here in this wee blog. It was about the death of John Sands, Bobby Sands’ father. Today I am sad to report that his wife and Bobby’s mother Rosaleen has also passed away.

Gerry Adams had this to say about her this morning. “The dignity and strength she displayed was a testament to her character and her belief in standing up for what was right and just, even if that meant great suffering for herself, Bobby’s father John and their family. In many ways she epitomized what all the mothers of the hunger strikers endured and her sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

Bobby Sands wrote a little poem called Dear Mum. I figured today is the perfect day to highlight it.

Dear Mum by Bobby Sands

Dear Mum, I know you’re always there
To help and guide me with all your care,
You nursed and fed me and made me strong
To face the world and all its wrong.

What can I write to you this day
For a line or two would never pay
For care and time you gave to me
Through long hard years unceasingly.

How you found strength I do not know
How you managed I’ll never know,
Struggling and striving without a break
Always there and never late.

You prayed for me and loved me more
How could I ask for anymore
And reared me up to be like you
But I haven’t a heart as kind as you.

A guide to me in times of plight
A princess like a star so bright
For life would never have been the same
If I hadn’t of learned what small things came.

So forgive me Mum just a little more
For not loving you so much before,
For life and love you gave to me
I give my thanks for eternity.

 

For more on this breaking story, please click here.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam. I hope this beaming face greeted her along her way. DSCN1135

 

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Remembering Jennie Wyse Power

Jennie Wyse Power

 

On this day in Irish history, Jennie Wyse Power passed away in Dublin. Prior to her death was a mother of four, a restaurant owner, a senator, a rebel, a suffragist, the first president of Cumann na mBan, and a founding member of both Cumann na Saoirse and Sinn Fein.

For more about this super capable woman and her full and crazy life, please click here.

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Undocumented in the US

The Irish have always flocked to America’s shores for one reason or another. Some have argued that the Irish built America itself, despite its inherent distrust and discriminatory attitudes toward them. And just how did the U.S. repay them for their work? Not well. America treated the Irish horribly. There were anti-Irish riots. There were “No Irish” signs. The Irish people were used and abused for years but they kept coming and eventually they became part of the fabric of the country where many thrived. It’s safe to say that without them, the United States would be a very different place.

Today there are 34.5 million people in the U.S. who claim an Irish heritage, which is nearly 30 million more than the entire population of Ireland itself. This includes the few hundred thousand Irish-born people who currently live and/or work in America legally but it doesn’t count the estimated 10,000-50,000 Irish people who are not legally supposed to be in the country. These folks usually settle in so-called “Sanctuary cities” like New York, Boston, and San Francisco where there are large, established Irish communities and city law enforcement agencies that do not contact or cooperate with immigration officials unless absolutely necessary. It creates an illusion of safety but the pervasive threat of discovery is serious and it’s getting more dire every day.

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Sweet Revenge, the burning of Cork

I don’t ever really mine my own posts, but this was one of my favorites and since it is that time of year again, I thought why not?

Choosing the Green's avatarChoosing the Green

Whoever first said that revenge is best served cold did not live in Ireland in 1920. In Cork city, revenge was a burning hot firestorm and it left many homes, businesses, and lives in its disastrous wake.

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Danny Doherty and William Fleming

Danny Doherty and William Fleming grew up in Derry. They were from Republican families and each had relatives that were imprisoned at one time or another for their political ideals and paramilitary activities. They followed in their families’ footsteps and each joined Na Fianna Éireann at a young age, before funneling into the Derry Brigade as soon as they were able.

Each man knew what the cost might be. They knew their membership in the IRA could land them in prison or in the grave but they felt it was worth the risk. Danny Doherty was a veteran with six years of active service in the Derry Brigade but Willie Fleming was younger and greener with only two years under his belt when the two men were killed (or overkilled) in a hail of gunfire on this day in 1984.

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Thatcher Out

America celebrates Thanksgiving soon, and while the origin of the holiday is incredibly racist, genocidal, and otherwise problematic, the season serves as a good reminder to take a minute to give thanks for the positive things in the world. So if you need a reason to give thanks today, I’ve got one for you. On this day in 1990,  Margaret Thatcher resigned.

Happy Thanksgiving all, no matter where you are in the world.

thatch

 

 

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Bridget Brede Connolly

Bridget “Brede” Connolly was one of the many women who took part in Ireland’s Easter Rising of 1916. She navigated through the streets of Dublin ferrying communications between James Connolly in the General Post Office and Ned Daly, in Church Street. Brede didn’t have that far to go as the crow flies but she had to make it through some of the fiercest fighting of the insurrection to deliver these messages and she did it time and time again.

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The Gate to Hell

Ireland has a complicated relationship with religion. Many of its troubles in the last few hundred years are ultimately based in religious conflict and the church has ruled much of the island for centuries. But it wasn’t always so and some of its most-visited and well-known landmarks predate the Christian takeover of the island. Everywhere you go you can see signs of the old ways peeking through the hedges if you are looking for them. Many good Catholics will cross themselves or roll their eyes when they talk about the faeries but they also leave bowls of milk outside to appease them. You’ll still find iron in many doorways, though perhaps the reason it was placed there has been forgotten. As Samhain (more commonly known as Halloween) approaches, seasonal offerings left in fields, forts, tombs, and shrines increase all over Ireland. This time of year may not be the sanest time to go to the gateway to hell, but it certainly is the most appropriate one if you want to meet The Morríghan and her dark minions on one of the only nights they can escape the underworld.

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Thomas Desmond

It’s not unusual to find a few corrupt people in law enforcement across the world – in fact, it has become all too common. There have been countless examples of collusion and many abuses of power throughout the course of history on every continent and they continue to this day. It is more rare to find someone who went from being a very publicly seditious outlaw to the sheriff of one of the most well-known cities in the world. The first who comes to mind that fits that bill is Thomas Desmond.

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