Tag Archives: Wexford

An American reporter in 1920 Ireland: Outrages

Harry F. Guest

American journalist Harry F. Guest of the New York Globe spent January and February 1920 reporting from revolutionary Ireland. Upon his return to America, he wrote two dozen stories based on his interviews and observations, which were syndicated to U.S. and Canadian newspapers through May 1920. See earlier posts in this series and other stories about American reporting of Irish independence at the linked project landing page. Reader input is welcomed, including photos or links to relevant source material. MH

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Sinn Féin in Name of Patriotism Commits Shocking Outrages1

Guest published several consecutive stories about the republican Sinn Féin revolution. The activity he observed in Ireland, he wrote, “will prove something of a shock to many Americans who, by the purchase of Sinn Féin bonds,  gave moral as well as financial support to the so-called ‘war against English rule’ which is being waged on the turbulent island across the sea. But, as investors, they are entitled to know how the enterprise is being conducted.”

As examples, Guest detailed the Jan. 21 attack on Timothy T. Mangan of Killorglin, County Kerry, whose ears were cut off; and the Feb. 14 murder of 61-year-old Ellen Morris, near Enniscorthy, County Wexford; and other crimes during his two months in Ireland. Guest published an “unofficial list” of police statistics for “outrages charged to the Sinn Féin  movement” for the period Jan. 1 to Feb. 15, 1920, by province:

  • Munster………209
  • Leinster………..94
  • Connaught……47
  • Ulster……………22

“These figures will give a fair idea of how crime in Ireland is getting beyond all control of the authorities,” he wrote. “Emboldened by their success in eluding capture and by the way in which these outrages have been glorified in America, the perpetrators have grown more daring and more defiant.”

The 32 counties and four provinces of Ireland. Map image: Family Tree Magazine

Sinn Féin Attacks on Barracks Usually Made To Get Munitions2

“Although the Royal Irish Constabulary is as large as the police force of New York, is better armed and has the advantage of military training, it is unable to keep down crime among a population only two-thirds that of New York,” Guest began his fourth installment.3 He noted the lack of electric lighting in rural Ireland, which he had visited at the darkest time of the year.

Guest detailed the late January 1920 attack on the Murroe RIC barracks, eight miles north of Limerick city, near border with County Clare. 

“Barely a night passed while I was in Ireland that there was not either an attack on a police barracks, or the shooting down of a policeman, or a raid upon some farmer’s house for arms. And there were times when all three occurred in a single night.”

Big Rewards For Information In Irish Cases Goes Unclaimed4

This story described how Sinn Féin tampered with the mail system to gather intelligence and thwart the government’s efforts to pay citizens for information about attacks on police and the military. Further, Guest wrote:

The past six months have witnessed a widespread revival of the secret societies that flourished in the days of the Finians and before that time. … It is these secret societies which carry out the attacks upon police barracks, the raids for arms upon the homes of farmers; which burn haystacks or drive off or maim cattle; which terrorize families by firing shots through the windows of their homes; which hold up and bomb trains. Their word is law with the Irish people.

Scotland Yard Sleuths Fail to Identify Irish Rebels5

“One of the most popular forms of spreading terror among the peasantry in the south and west of Ireland is the posting of proclamations containing warnings and threats as to what will happen to persons who hold intercourse with the police or military,” Guest reported. He quoted one poster from the outskirts of Cooraclare, County Clare, which said that “traitors [should] be shunned as if they were fever stricken.” Other posters, often handwritten, were spotted in Ballyvaneen, Clare; Macroom and Michelston, County Cork; and Rearcross, County Tipperary.

Guest also reported that when Irish rebels or members of secret societies were arrested, their families received regular weekly payments “from some mysterious source.” Like the threatening posters, social boycotting, and nocturnal attacks on police and civilians reported in his earlier stories, such activity vividly recalls the Land War period of the 1880s.  

“Is there a link between the dreaded secret societies and Sinn Féin?,” Guest posed. “Dublin Castle says there is, but has offered no proof. If there is a link, it is well hidden. Personally, I was unable to find any connection. … Ireland is a hard place in which to prove anything.”

NEXT: ‘Dora’ Gives Sweeping Powers To British Rulers In Ireland

Wreck of the ‘Alfred D. Snow’ near Wexford, 1888

Sometimes discovering a pearl that you are not looking for can be as exciting as finding the diamond you were searching out; regardless if others have touched it earlier.

I’ve been reviewing U.S. consulate in Ireland records for my ongoing research on the murder of John Foran and other “agrarian outrages” of the late 19th century Land War period. Both paper and microfilm records from consulate offices in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Belfast are stored at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

During a recent review, I read letters and other documents related to the 4 January 1888 wreck of the “Alfred D. Snow” in the Irish Channel near County Wexford. The three-masted wooden ship was sailing with a cargo of wheat to Liverpool, England, from San Francisco on the U.S. west coast. The grain originally came from Australia.

The ship had just turned northward in St. George’s Channel when it encountered a gale, ran aground and broke apart near the entrance of Wexford Harbor. Capt. William J. Willey and his crew of 28 men scrambled to their lifeboats but were drowned in the churning sea.

A registry of the dead sent to the consul office at Cork shows the crew were from Russia, Norway, Germany and one Irishman, Thomas Lloyd. The Waterford Harbour Tides and Tales Blog, which offers a fine account of the wreck (with images), identifies the Irishman as Michael O’Sullivan. Other crew were from New York, Delaware, Illinois and Maine, including Capt. Willey.

His body was shipped home to Thomaston, Maine, in a brandy-filled lead casket, while other bodies that eventually washed ashore were buried locally. The New Ross Poor Law Union contacted the consul office for reimbursement, including whiskey for those involved in washing and “coffining” the corpses. The U.S. State Department approved the expenditures, as reported by Bernadette Whelan in her excellent book, “American Government in Ireland, 1790-1913: A History of the U.S. Consular Service.”

Here’s another blog post about the wreck.

A traditional Irish folk air was written in 1890 to memorialize the “Alfred D. Snow.”  The song begins:

Of shipwrecks and disasters we’ve read and seen a deal
But now the coast of Wexford must tell a dreadful tale
On the 4th day of January the wind in a gale did blow
And four and twenty hands were lost of the Alfred D. Snow

From the port of San Francisco she sailed across the main
Bound for the port of Liverpool her cargo it was grain
On a happy day she sailed away to cross the stormy foam
There’s not a soul alive today to bring the tidings home

The Wexford Song Project blog has the full lyrics. According to the website, timber from the wreck was auctioned off for other uses, including the bar counter and shelving of the Strand Tavern in Duncannon.

Irish-American president and streetcar workers

The 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s June 1963 trip to Ireland is getting a lot of attention. Part of the commemoration has included bringing a flame lit from the eternal flame at Kennedy’s grave in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. to New Ross in County Wexford.

Flame

Image from ABC

Kennedy’s trip was a triumph for Ireland, for Irish-Americans and for Roman Catholics. Thirty-two years before his 1960 election, Irish-Catholic Democrat Al Smith was crushed by Herbert Hoover in his bid for the presidency. The nation was still too mired in its prejudice against Smith’s ethnicity and faith. (As it turned out, missing the 1929 stock market crash and start of the Great Depression might have saved Irish-American Catholics further hatred in the long run. It sure helped the Democrats.)

As Kennedy made his historic visit to Ireland in June 1963, a small group of Pittsburgh-area politicians and volunteers established the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. They realized that street railways in Pittsburgh and other parts of the nation were fading from regular use as buses became the preferred public transit to serve far-flung, rapidly growing suburbs.

What does that have to with Kennedy?

Irish immigrants dominated the labor force of street railways in urban America from the time the systems were created in the late 19th century. They joined the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees, formed in 1892, to push for higher wages and better working conditions.

“The streetcar workforce and the union were composed entirely of men, many of whom were Irish,” says the National Streetcar Museum in Lowell, Mass.

The same was true in other Irish immigrant hubs such as nearby Boston (where Kennedy’s ancestors settled), New York, Chicago and Pittsburgh. My Kerry-born grandfather, his brother-in-law and three cousins were among many Irish immigrants employed by Pittsburgh Railways Co. as motormen and conductors.

Like cops, the Irish had a big advantage over other immigrants in obtaining these big city jobs, which required frequent public contact. They spoke the language. In both professions, these unionized, uniform-wearing jobs helped first-generation Irish immigrants build middle-class lives that provided even better opportunities for their children and grandchildren.

And that’s another important part of what JFK’s trip to Ireland symbolized in June 1963.

PRC

Early 20th century Pittsburgh Railways Co. streetcar workers.

DISCLOSURE: I am a member of the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum.