I’ve had a busy oul day down in the capital.
Consequently, the laptop is only now on at the close of play.
However, it would be remiss of me not to mark the day that’s in it.
It seems highly appropriate that these words blink to life in Parnell Square just a few yards from the Garden of Remembrance.
At the place where the British head of state bowed her head to honour the IRA is this poem by Dublin born author Liam Mac Uistín:
“An Aisling”
I ndorchacht an éadóchais rinneadh aisling dúinn.
Lasamar solas an dóchais agus níor múchadh é.
I bhfásach an lagmhisnigh rinneadh aisling dúinn.
Chuireamar crann na crógachta agus tháinig bláth air.
I ngeimhreadh na daoirse rinneadh aisling dúinn.
Mheileamar sneachta na táimhe agus rith abhainn na hathbheochana as.
Chuireamar ár n-aisling ag snámh mar eala ar an abhainn. Rinneadh fírinne den aisling.
Rinneadh samhradh den gheimhreadh. Rinneadh saoirse den daoirse agus d’fhágamar agaibhse mar oidhreacht í.
A ghlúnta na saoirse cuimhnígí orainne, glúnta na haislinge.
We did indeed see a vision.
History forgotten is a betrayal.
The other side of this square is the site of Vaughan’s hotel.
Back then it was revolution central and much of the planning of Bloody Sunday could have taken place there.
My own grandfather Joe visited Mick on at least one occasion there, bringing dispatches from his IRA division in the West.
Back then Ireland was on lockdown under martial law.
Therefore, being a railway guard travelling from Mayo to Dublin was rather handy.
All warfare is based on deception.
I don’t know if the Big Fellow read Sun Tzu but the Chinese strategist would have approved of the Irishman as he bested a vastly superior foe.
I often thought of that meeting as I left the An Phoblacht office which is further down the square from where the hotel had been.
On this 99 years ago on the streets of Dublin, a new form of warfare that was first imagined in Frongoch POW camp by a young fella from West Cork was put into action to stunning effect.
Mick Collins had deployed his squad to carry out targeted assassinations against the clotted cream of British intelligence.
The specially picked team they had brought to Ireland to catch the Corkman was wiped out.
The young 
Fenian from West Cork was unapologetic.
As news came in through the day the chaps in Dublin Castle were reeling.
The lad from Clonakilty knew that if he would take out Britain’s high-level intelligence gatherers in Ireland then the enemy would be seriously weakened.
Everyone on that target list had been followed, surveilled and thoroughly checked out.
The response later that day from Crown Forces was barbarically indiscriminate.
Attending a Gaelic football match at Croke Park was suddenly considered a capital offence and at the end of the carnage 14 innocents lay dead. And 70 were wounded.
The Auxies then invented a fiction to cover their crimes.
This would happen again in Derry over half a century later.
These well-paid war criminals alleged that “IRA sentries” had initiated a gun battle and the Brits had merely returned fire.
It turned out that the men in question were ticket sellers.
The firing was only one way.
It was a massacre.
Now, the Brits have their Poppy Porn.
However, we here do things rather differently.
We do not have the loss of an empire to mourn.
Indeed, for centuries we were victims of that imperium.
Today things were put right by those in the last of the unmarked graves who died on that awful day at the hands of the British.
In Glasnevin, cemetery headstones were unveiled for Jerome O’Leary, 10, the youngest of the victims, as well as for labourer Patrick O’Dowd, 57, and former British soldier Michael Feery, 40.
Feery was murdered by the Crown that he had fought for in the trenches.
It is worth remembering that the Royal British Legion Poppy is also for those heroic chaps who fired into the crowd that day 99 years ago.
Killed at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday: Jane Boyle (26), James Burke (44), Daniel Carroll (30), Michael Feery (40), Mick Hogan (24), Tom Hogan (19), James Matthews (48), Patrick O’Dowd (57), Jerome O’Leary (10), William Robinson (11), Tom Ryan (27), John William Scott (14), James Teehan (26), Joe Traynor (21).
Lest we forget…
Discover more from Phil Mac Giolla Bháin
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If you are going to remember the war dead then please remember them every single day of the year with a short prayer, not for a few days with a flower on your breast. The idea of the poppy originally was as a sign that you had contributed and it saved anyone else from bothering you. Now it is used to glorify war and to condemn those who refuse to act like sheep.. I find it hard that people can shed tears for grand uncles, or grandfathers even, who died over 70 years ago when they would hardly visit the ones at home who had survived, or even talk about the mass slaughter of unborn infants up, now, until the day they are born.
Time it was all consigned to the past.
You often wonder what they would have found to interest them if there hadn`t been any wars.
All Nationalism is divisive.
Well it divided Ireland. An all Ireland vote for independence would have been a virtual landslide. However, the importance of the Belfast shipyards made that a tad risky for the UK government. They would keep just the one of the four provinces, the fenian bastarts would settle for that. “Aw fuck it gie them Donegal as well. It’s good for nothing but feeding sheep!”
And that’s where we are.
Thought provoking and spot on piece Phil.
For myself, Poppies are not an issue – that subject has been politicised and debated previously and at length..
My thoughts are for innocent victims who thought they were just going to a match that day and found themselves central to the war of independence being fought at that time.
It is fitting and correct that, even after all this time, they are remembered and honoured.
Historically, it was yet another example of how the “Army of Empire” dealt with indigenous people during times of tension.
Of course it had the effect of unifying public opinion in Ireland behind those fighting for freedom.
The mistakes made at that time by the imperial leadership were, unfortunately, not learned from and they went on to compound them by lying about the events of that day.
I’m sure many readers here will know the subsequent events that flowed as a result.
Great read Phil!
I am a Brit who landed up in Ireland working for the nationalist cause. Now I have moved on elsewhere in the Empire – a country that has an unhappy origin that is an embarrassment to me and to all my fellow thinking Australians. I wear a poppy every year; I always have done and probably always will. I do so to signify my respect for those who gave their lives or their limbs, however misguidedly, for me and future generations. I have never done so with any sense of triumphalism, and even in nationalist Belfast I believe my colleagues respected my stance when I explained it to them. Just as I abhor British nationalists trying to define the poppy for their ends, I am saddened when Irish nationalists similarly try to define it for their own ends.
I’m no fan of what the poppy has become and represents .. Or its appropriation by those who want to glorify war.
…. but would hope though that this particular group of soldiers genuinely deserve to be remembered for fighting the axis powers in WWII
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16287211
I hope the Irish government will soon see the decency in granting pardons to all and apologies to the few still alive.
Something else that needs ‘put right’.
You can’t cherry-pick the blood-stained Poppy
What happened at Croke was an atrocity. As for poppies that is a complex issue. As is the record of Michael Collins “squad” in places like County Kerry. Did that august body of volunteers not tie nine fellow Irish Republicans with whom they had an ideological disagreement to a landmine and detonate it? Collin’s “squad” was linked to a number of such incidents. It wasn’t just agents of the British crown which suffered at their hands, speaking of cherry-picking.
Neither can we cherry pick atrocities either Phil there is no side involved in this argument who is without the stains of innocents on their hands in that regard.
Wholeheartedly agree about the Poppy it has been hi jacked ,weaponised
and used as a Political Baton in order to enforce the will of the few over the many.
Murder is murder no matter the cause God will judge us as individuals and accordingly.
Best make sure your hands are clean when you get there.
Like many people, I used to find myself conflicted when paying respect to those killed in the atrocity of war, whether they are “ours” or “theirs”, whether they are “patriots”, the conscripted poor, the flag following jingoists or, more often, the unwitting victims of the slaughter. They all deserve our thoughts and prayers. I found a comfort in wearing the white poppy instead of the militarised red poppy, although some years it is hard to source. Also, whatever our stance on the British army, it does not say much for a country that can socialise and recruit its young men to fight for its flag and can then rely heavily on the charity begging bowl to care for its casualties.
It’s a National disgrace no question Patrick though many of those who choose to serve in the Forces do so for their own reasons.
There is nothing dishonourable about Serving your Country but to do so dishonourably or without conscience is an entirely different matter altogether.
Many a good person has died needlessly Serving a Nation or cause.
We should never forget the sacrifices that were made so we can have freedom of expression or choice.
A nod or bow at a Cenotaph means as much to those men as a Political Poppy ever will.
Even for former Celtic players?