December 23, 2015

Bernie Sanders: single-payer health care

From the Bernie Sanders campaign:

I want to talk with you about one of the very real differences between Secretary Clinton and me that surfaced during last weekend's debate, and that is our approach to health care in this country.

I was, and all progressives should be, deeply disappointed in some of her attacks on a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system. The health insurance lobbyists and big pharmaceutical companies try to make "national health care" sound scary. It is not.

In fact, a large single-payer system already exists in the United States. It's called Medicare and the people enrolled give it high marks. More importantly, it has succeeded in providing near-universal coverage to Americans over age 65 in a very cost-effective manner.

So I want to go over some facts with you and ask that you take action on this important issue:

Right now, because of the gains made under the Affordable Care Act, 17 million people have health care who did not before the law was passed. This is a good start, and something we should be proud of. But we can do better.

The truth is, it is a national disgrace that the United States is the only major country that does not guarantee health care to all people as a right. Today, 29 million of our sisters and brothers are without care. Not only are deductibles rising, but the cost of prescription drugs is skyrocketing as well. There is a major crisis in primary health care in the United States.

So I start my approach to health care from two very simple premises:

1. Health care must be recognized as a right, not a privilege -- every man, woman and child in our country should be able to access quality care regardless of their income.

2. We must create a national system to provide care for every single American in the most cost-effective way possible.

I expected to take some heat on these fundamental beliefs during a general election, but since it is already happening in the Democratic primary, I want to address some of the critiques made by Secretary Clinton and Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal directly:

Under my plan, we will lower the cost of health care for the average family making $50,000 a year by nearly $5,000 a year. It is unfair to say simply how much more a program will cost without letting people know we are doing away with the cost of private insurance and that the middle class will be paying substantially less for health care under a single-payer system than Hillary Clinton's program. Attacking the cost of the plan without acknowledging the bottom-line savings is the way Republicans have attacked this idea for decades. Taking that approach in a Democratic Primary undermines the hard work of so many who have fought to guarantee health care as a right in this country, and it hurts our prospects for achieving that goal in the near future. I hope that it stops.

Let me also be clear that a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system will expand employment by lifting a major financial weight off of the businesses burdened by employee health expenses. And for the millions of Americans who are currently in jobs they don't like but must stay put because of health care access, they would be free to explore more productive opportunities as they desire.

So, what is stopping us from guaranteeing free, quality health care as a basic fundamental right for all Americans? I believe the answer ties into campaign finance reform.

The truth is, the insurance companies and the drug companies are bribing the United States Congress.

Now, I don't go around asking millionaires and billionaires for money. You know that. I don't think I'm going to get a whole lot of contributions from the health care and pharmaceutical industries. I don't like to kick a man when he is down, but when some bad actors have tried to contribute to our campaign, like the pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli who jacked up the price of a life saving drug for AIDS patients, I donated his contribution to an AIDS clinic in Washington, D.C.

Secretary Clinton, on the other hand, has received millions of dollars from the health care and pharmaceutical industries, a number that is sure to rise as time goes on. Since 1998, there are no industries that have spent more money to influence legislators than these two. Billions of dollars! An absolutely obscene amount of money. And in this election cycle alone, Secretary Clinton has raised more money from the health care industry than did the top 3 Republicans -- combined.

Now, and let's not be naive about this, maybe they are dumb and don't know what they are going to get? But I don't think that's the case, and I don't believe you do either.

So, what can we do about it?

Changing the health care laws in this country in such a way that guarantees health care as a right and not a privilege will require nothing short of a political revolution. That's what this campaign is about and it is work we must continue long after I am elected the next President of the United States.

And because of the success we have enjoyed so far, I am more convinced today than ever before that universal quality health care as a right for all Americans will eventually become the law of the land.

It is the only way forward.

BernieSanders.com

December 18, 2015

“Frightfulness”

Oxford English Dictionary: frightfulness2. b. Used during the War of 1914–18 to render G. schrecklichkeit, implying a deliberate policy of terrorizing the enemy (esp. non-combatants) as a military resource.

From The Irish Republic, by Dorothy Macardle (1937, 1938, 1951):

[Note:  These excerpts describing the frightfulness of the English war against the Irish Republic (declared by Dáil Éireann, representing a sweeping majority of the people, on January 21, 1919) are only illustrative and by no means exhaustive, and they do not include the pogroms in Ulster, particularly in Belfast and Derry, to drive Catholics out of their jobs, businesses, and homes (which did not abate after the truce and increased after approval of the free state treaty and partition).]

[Also see:  Ireland in Insurrection, by Hugh Martin (1921).]

* * * * *

A new phase of the hostilities opened in September in County Cork. Here the Volunteers were well led and well armed. Liam Lynch was Commandant of the Cork Number Two Brigade. In Fermoy, on the 7th [1919], with men of his brigade, he attacked a British military party on its way to Church and a soldier was killed. On the following day about two hundred British Regulars were let loose on the town and sacked and looted shops, doing damage estimated at about £3,000.

* * * * *

Dublin Castle employed both troops and police during the autumn [of 1919] in a campaign of incessant activity designed to make life impossible for a population resistant to British rule. They were employed to suppress or break up all the innumerable activities which Dublin Castle had proclaimed. They dispersed meetings, markets and fairs; classes in the Irish language; concerts were “seditious” recitations or national songs might be expected to be part of the programme; exhibitions of Irish produce; sittings of the Commission of Inquiry on Industrial Resources which had been organised by the Dáil; hurling matches or other games which had been organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association. They combined in searching a raiding private houses. They visited printing-presses and dismantled the machinery. They carried out searches for persons suspected of Republican sympathies, and if such persons were were found in possession of Republican literature, conveyed them in armed lorries to jail, where they were detained without charge or trial for an indefinite time, or tried by stipendiary magistrates of courts martial.

On September 5th John O’Sheehan of Roscommon was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for singing The Felons of Our Land. On September 26th P. O’Keeffe, member of Dáil Éireann for North cork, received a sentence of two years for a seditious speech. Numbers of of Republicans were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for reading at meetings the manifesto of Sinn Féin.

Every day had its tale of aggression, only a small fraction which was reported in the censored Press. A typical day – October 27th – showed ten houses raided in county Tipperary; a Cork man arrested for having his possession a copy of the prospectus of the Dáil Éireann Loan; a County Meath man sentenced by court martial to twelve months’ imprisonment for being in possession of a revolver, ammunition and seditious documents; a farmers’ meeting suppressed by police and military accompanied by tanks.

The next day’s list showed the machinery of the Southern Star dismantled; a Cork man sentenced for possession of seditious literature; a hurling match stopped by police and military at Limerick; a boy of fourteen short and seriously wounded by soldiers in county Mayo. On the following day Miss Brigid O’Mullane was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment, charged with incitement; a priest was deported, a many sentenced by court martial. On September 20th all Republican Papers were suppressed.

The number of raids on private houses reported in the censored Press during the nine months ending on September 30th was 5,588. … The troops which had sacked Fermoy in September were removed to Cork. There, on November 10th, the soldiers sacked and looted nearly every shop in the principal street of the city. Similar destruction by the military took place in Kinsale and Athlone.

The number of raids on private houses carried out by Crown forces during the years 1917, 1918 and 1919 was computed to amount to 12,589.

Within two weeks in October twenty-two journals which carried notices of the Dáil Loan were suppressed.

On November 25th a Proclamation was issued by which Sinn Féin, the Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and the Gaelic League were suppressed in twenty-seven counties. On the same day Noel Lemass was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour for being in possession of arms. Five days earlier F. Leonard, a Unionist of Enniskillen, for the same offence had been fined 2s. 6d.

* * * * *

The British régime of suppression was now intensified. Thurles in County Tipperary was a scene of violent police reprisals on January 20th. Outside the town on that morning a constable was shot dead. During the night, police and military rushed through the town, smashing windows, firing shots into houses and throwing hand-grenades into the premises of the local newspaper. They “shot up” about ten houses, including the houses of four newly elected councillors. …

During the month of January over one thousand raids by the Crown forces and two hundred and twenty arrests of Republicans were reported by the daily Press. In the four weeks of February raids numbered over four thousand and arrests two hundred and ninety-six. …

“Frightfulness” was now a definite feature of the British policy; another feature was a systematic attack on the economic life of the country, and particularly on all branches of the reconstructive efforts organised by Dáil Éireann and Sinn Féin. …

An effective blow had been struck at the economic life of the countryside by the suppression of fairs and markets in places under military law. … People coming to market with their produce were turned back. In February an old farmer, Thomas Caplis, on his way to the cattle fair at Nenagh, was arrested, charged with illegal assembly, and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment. …

The unofficial reprisals by police and military in the form of sabotage continued unchecked. Thurles was shot up again on March 1st and on March 7th. On March 12th, in Cork, houses were wrecked by troops. …

Two days after the murder of Tomás Mac Curtáin [Lord Mayor of Cork] soldiers in Dublin shot a young man and a a girl, killing both. On March 29th, in Thurles, J. McCarthy was murdered by police in his own home, and on the 30th, T. Dwyer of The Ragg, County Tipperary, was murdered in his bed by police.

* * * * *

In the late spring [1920] Ireland was full of troops. … The troops and police … tore through the streets and roads of Ireland in armoured cars and lorries, which sometimes carried machine guns; the men were in a savage condition of nervousness, expecting an ambush at every corner. They carried rifles at the ready and sometimes shot recklessly at people on the roads. …

Already, between January and June, besides the armed Volunteers who had fallen in combat thirteen unarmed people had be killed by indiscriminate firing by the Crown forces, five had been deliberately killed by them, and one hundred and seventy-two persons wounded. Fifteen reprisals on towns and villages had been carried out in these six months. ([footnote] January 22nd: Thurles, County Tipperary, sacked by troops. February 27th: three houses in Dublin wrecked by troops. March 1st: Thurles, County Tipperary, partially wrecked by troops. March 7th: several houses in Thurles, County Tipperary, wrecked by troops. March 12th: many houses in Cork City wrecked by police. March 22nd: many shop windows in Dublin wrecked by troops. April 17th: Bouladuff, County Tipperary, shot up by police. April 26th: Kilcommon, County Tipperary, partially wrecked by police. April 27th: many houses in Limerick City shot up by police. May 1st: Limerick City shot up by police. May 13th: houses at Thurles, County Tipperary, fired and bombed by police. May 15th: houses at Bantry, County cork, wrecked by police. May 18th: Limerick city shot up by police. May 19th: Kilcommon, County Tipperary, shot up by police. May 28th: Kilmallock, County Limerick, sacked by police.)

* * * * *

Between June 23rd and 28th acts of destruction by police occurred in Bantry, Limerick, Newcastlewest and Kilcommon. On July 1st, in Limerick City, newspaper offices were wrecked and fired by police. On July 3rd police shot up Union Hall, County Cork. Between July 6th and 22nd they bombed and wrecked houses in county Limerick and Arklow, shops and houses in Tralee, County Kerry, Ballagh, County Roscommon and Leap, County Cork. They fired into houses in Ballina, Galbally and cork City, wrecked a creamery at Emly and a National Foresters’ Hall at Enniscorthy. On July 20th the town of Tuam in county Galway was savagely sacked by drunken constables.

* * * * *

Less “haphazard” was the sabotage of Irish industrial life carried on during the Summer. Creameries had been wrecked during April; others were destroyed during July; now the destruction of the co-operative creameries, mills and bacon factories was systematised; two were burned down on August 6th, one on the 10th, others on the 16th and 17th. On August 22nd, one of the largest creameries in Ireland, that at Knocklong in County Limerick, was destroyed by bombs which were thrown into the engine-room by men of the R.I.C. …

[T]he police as well as the troops became increasingly reckless and savage. If, when raiding for a marked Republican, they failed to find him, they sometimes shot his father or brother instead. At Bantry, in August, a hunchback boy was murdered in this way.

In Hospital, County Limerick, on the night of August 14th soldiers came to the house of a man of forty named Patrick Lynch, ordered him to go with them and killed him the Fair Green. They “wanted” another Lynch, it was believed.

On the 27th, Seán and Batt Buckley, young volunteers, were captured in their home by Cameron Highlanders, guided by a policeman. They were handcuffed, placed on the floor of a lorry and driven along the road to Cork. When in the lorry both were shot, Seán fatally. “Shot while attempting to escape,” was the official formula used to cover the murders of arrested men. …

The Regulations made by the British Administration in Ireland under the new [Restoration of Order in Ireland] Act were promulgated on August 21st. They relieved the military forces in Ireland of almost all the restraints of law. … The British preparations for the final phase of the reconquest of Ireland were almost complete: the Irish nation had been outlawed; members of the Government’s forces had been indemnified in advance for excesses against Republicans; their campaign of terror had been categorically legalised.

On September 3rd, coroners’ inquests were abolished in ten counties and replaced by secret military courts of inquiry. With the following three weeks eighteen murders of unarmed persons were traced to the forces of the Crown.

* * * * *

The military conflict was growing more violent, and especially in the west. During September ambushes and reprisals were frequent; villages were “shot up”; houses of Republicans were destroyed by police and soldiers, there were fatalities on both sides.

… On September 20th, men of the Constabulary, Military, and Black and Tans wrecked houses in Carrick-on-Shannon and in Tuam. On the same night it was the turn of Drumshambo and Galway City, and Tuam was attacked again. On the 22nd, in County Clare, shops and houses were wrecked and ricks set on fire; Lahinch, Ennistymon, and Miltown-Malbay suffered reprisals and three young men were murdered. On the same night John Lynch of Kilmallock, a member of the Limerick County Council and Director of Elections for Sinn Féin, was murdered by military in his room in a Dublin hotel. …

Twenty-five houses in the village [of Balbriggan] were destroyed that night [of September 20th] and the smaller [hosiery] factory burnt out. The people fled to the country and lay hiding in ditches and barns. … Within the week following the sack of Balbriggan, destruction of the same kind was carried out by the police in the south, the midlands and the west. In Trim, a small market town in County Meath, Auxiliaries did damage estimated at £50,000. In Mallow, County Cork, as a reprisal for a successful attack on the barracks, military wrecked the Town Hall, did damage to the value of £200,000, and shot and wounded two men. In towns and villages in almost every county of Ireland now, people whose homes had been deliberately wrecked by the Crown forces were living in stables and barns.

* * * * *

On the day on which Kevin Barry was hanged in Dublin [November 1st, 1920] Ellen Quinn was shot dead in County Galway by police. She was sitting on her garden wall in Kiltartan with a child in her arms when they came tearing past in a lorry and fired. The only investigation made was a military inquiry at which the firing was found to have been “a precautionary measure.”

On the following day Thomas Wall of Tralee was killed by Crown forces; on the 4th John and Tom O’Brien of Nenagh were killed. … On the 5th the Crown forces killed Miss O’Connell and Michael Maguire of Ardfert; on the 6th William Mulcahy of Cork; on the 8th John Cantillon and Michael Brosnan in County Kerry; on the 10th Christopher Lucy of Cork and Frank Hoffman in County Kerry; on the 12th P. McMahon, J. Walsh and John Herlihy of Ballymacelligott. On the 13th, in Dublin, Annie O’Neill, aged eight, was killed when shots were fired from a lorry into a group standing in a gateway. A week later the body of another of their victims, Father Michael Griffin, was found in a Galway bog.

In the Intelligence Room of Dublin Castle ill-treatment and even torture of prisoners was being resorted to in the effort to secure information. …

Seventeen Irishmen were murdered in October … The number of Irish men and women killed by Crown forces during the month of November, other than the Volunteers killed in action, was thirty-three.

Among the operations conducted by the British forces in Ireland during November was the sacking of Granard in County Longford by men who arrived in eleven lorries with bombs and petrol and set four shops ablaze, and of Tralee in County Kerry where uniformed men came out of the police barracks armed with crowbars and hatchets, rifles and revolvers and supplies of petrol, and attacked the home of Republicans.

* * * * *

In Cork city on the following night [December 11th] fires broke out. They broke out first in Patrick Street, the principal business street of the city. On after another the shops blazed up. Later in the night, across the river, about a quarter of a mile away, the City Hall burst into flames. This hall, the centre of the Municipal Government, and the Free Library adjacent to it were completely demolished. The Fire Brigade was impotent against the terrific conflagration. Two members of the Brigade were wounded by bullets while at work. The damage done in that one night was estimated as between two and three million pounds. The streets were full, all night, of military and police.

On the following morning what had been the main thoroughfare of the city was nothing but a scene of wreckage and smouldering debris. Thousands of people had been thrown out of work. …

On the 14th a Proclamation was issued by the British Military Authorities in the counties under Martial Law to the effect that after December 27th any person convicted by a Military Court of certain offences would be liable to suffer death. The offences included the possession of arms, ammunition of explosives; wearing Irish Volunteer uniform or “clothing likely to deceive” and “harbouring and aiding or abetting” rebels – an offence with which nearly every member of nearly every family in Munster was chargeable at this time. …

On December 26th police broke into a dance hall at Bruff, County Limerick, and killed five young men and wounded seventeen.

The number of unarmed persons killed by Crown Forces in Ireland during the twelve months of 1920 reached two hundred and three; this included six women and twelve children under seventeen years of age. Sixty-nine were persons deliberately killed in the streets or their own homes; thirty-six were men killed while in custody; the rest were victims of indiscriminate firing by the Military and Police.

* * * * *

On New Year’s Day, 1921, seven householders in Midleton, Co Cork, received notice from the British Military authorities that in one hour’s time their houses would be destroyed. They had permission to remove valuable but not furniture. An ambush had been carried out in the neighbourhood and the inhabitants, it was officially stated, had “neglected to give information to the military and police.”

… By a proclamation of January 3rd [Major-General Strickland, Military Governor of Cork], commanded the people to refuse food and shelter, aid and comfort, to the Irish Volunteers, and to report to the British authorities any person suspected of being in possession of arms. Citizens failing to obey were to be prosecuted by Court Martial or “dealt with summarily.” An attitude of neutrality, the Proclamation stated, “is inconsistent with loyalty and will render the person liable under the order.”

The first execution under the new ordinance took place on February 1st, when Cornelius Murphy, charged with being in possession of a revolver and seven rounds of ammunition. was shot. His brother was arrested for failing to inform against him. … Internment camps, capable of holding thousands of prisoners, were set up at Ballykinlar, Gormanston and elsewhere. …

On February 28th, John Allen and five other young Irishmen, sentenced by Court Martial for possession of arms, were executed by shooting in Cork. …

Outside the Martial Law areas, also, executions continued. On March 14th, in Dublin, six Republican prisoners were hanged.

* * * * *

At Clonmult in County Cork, in February, a party of fifteen Volunteers was surrounded in a cottage by Auxiliaries and troops. They resisted, firing from windows, for about two hours, until the thatch was set ablaze. A military officer then called on them to surrender, promising that they would be properly treated, and the fifteen men came out, unarmed, with their hands up. The Auxiliaries fell on them, “like wild beasts,” one Volunteer said afterwards, killed nine of them, wounded five and tore from the dead and wounded watches, pens, religious medals, shouting and cursing the whole time. … Six of the Volunteers who had survived the surrender at Clonmult were court martialled and sentenced to death.

… In Limerick, in one night during Curfew hours, three of the leading citizens were killed – George Clancy, the Mayor; the former Mayor, Michael O’Callahan, and Joseph O’Donoghue.

… On April 25th Thomas Traynor was hanged in Mountjoy, and on the 28th four Volunteers, Patrick Sullivan, Patrick Roynane, Thomas Mulcahy and Maurice Moore, were executed by shooting in Cork. Patrick Casey was executed in Cork on the 2nd May and Dan O’Brien on the 16th.

* * * * *

The British Military, on the plea that a state of war was raging in Ireland, were hanging and shooting their prisoners. … Thomas Keane was shot in Limerick on June 4th. On June 7th, Edward Foley and Patrick Maher, charged with the shooting of a sergeant at Knocklong in May, 1919, were hanged.

Twenty-four Irish Volunteers were executed between November and June. In the first half of the year – between January and June, 1921 – Republicans killed, untried, while in custody were believed to number one hundred and thirty-one, and the people killed by indiscriminate firing to include seventeen children, five women and sixteen men.

The total number killed on the Irish side since the first meeting of Dáil Éireann in January, 1919, including civilians and volunteers, was estimated at about seven hundred. ([footnote] Between January 1st, 1919, and July 12th, 1921, 752 killed and 866 wounded. Estimate probably below the actual figure as numerous casualties were never reported.)

The unequal combat was rendered more unequal by the difference between the attitude to prisoners on the two sides. More than eight hundred members of the British Forces, captured by the I.R.A. between January, 1919, and June, 1921, were released unhurt; but, while the Volunteers, proud of their cause and eager to show themselves its worthy soldiers, were scrupulous in their treatment of captured combatants, no such ideal hampered the British Auxiliaries. An example of the difference which impressed English as well as Irish observers was the case of Commandant Seán McKeon.

Commandant McKeon, whose columns were active in County Longford, received a warning that he was to be shot at sight. On January 7th he saw police closing round Miss Martin’s cottage where he was living. In order to avert a fight in the house he rushed out, firing. there was an exchange of shots; District Inspector McGrath of the R.I.C. was fatally shot and Seán McKeon escaped. The Police seized five women as hostages and burned the cottage.

On February 2nd McKeon ambushed a reprisal party in lorries near Ballinalee; after a fight lasting three quarters of an hour, in which two Auxiliaries and a District Inspector of Police were killed, the surviving fifteen, of whom eight were wounded, surrendered and laid down their arms. The uninjured prisoners were released and given one of the captured lorries in order that they might convey their wounded comrades to hospital.

A month later, Commandant McKeon was captured and handcuffed; attempting to escape he was shot and wounded; he was recaptured and beaten with rifle butts. While in prison he was elected a member of Dáil Éireann for Longford and Westmeath. On June 14th he was charged before a Field General Court Martial in Dublin with the murder of District Inspector McGrath and sentenced to be hanged.

* * * * *

Truce: July 11, 1921

“Free State” treaty (with partition and loyalty to King):
  • Signed, under threat of immediate and merciless war of “re-conquest” and without consultation with Dublin: December 6, 1921
  • Ratified by U.K. Parliament: December 16
  • Approved (narrowly) by Dáil Éireann: January 7th, 1922
Constance (Countess) Markiewicz:  “It is the capitalists’ interests in England and Ireland that are pushing this Treaty to block the march of the working people in England and Ireland.”

January 14, 1922:  Southern Parliament (remainder of Dáil Éireann for 26 counties) approves treaty, selects a Provisional Government for transfer of British Powers; Provisional Government starts usurping powers and funds of Dáil Éireann and the Republic as well, including the abolition of Republican courts on July 25 in Dublin and on October 27 in the rest of the country

July 28:  Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, at bidding and with support of English, attack the Republican Army in Dublin

August 11:  Last Republican-controlled town taken

August 12:  Arthur Griffith dies

August 22:  Michael Collins killed

October 25:  Republican Army and Éamon de Valera form a new Dáil Éireann; Free State constitution passed by Provisional Government

September 27:  Army Emergency Powers enacted by the Provisional Government to allow its forces to operate without law

October 10:  Irish Bishops condemn anti-Treaty Republicans, denying them communion

October 15:  Military Courts begin: all acts of rebellion against the Treaty, including possession of arms or ammunition, punishable by death

November 17:  Executions begin; continuing through May 2, 1923, they totaled 77, 55 of them before January 31, 1923

December 5:  U.K. approves Free State constitution

December 6:  Irish Free State established, neither treaty nor constitution having been put before voters

December 7:  Northern Ireland removes itself from the Free State, and thwarts a Boundary Commission

March 1923:  “The number of military prisoners in jails and internment camps in the Free State was estimated now as about twelve thousand. As a result of prolonged hardship and confinement the majority were in a low state of health. The practice of interrogating prisoners to the accompaniment of severe beating, kicking, and other forms of punishment was generally practised. Guards frequently fired into the prisoners’ cells and compounds. Mary Comerford was fired at and wounded in Mountjoy Prisons; Patrick Mulrennan was mortally wounded by an officer in Costume Barrack in Athlone [October 6, 1922], and eight men were killed in this way. The sufferings of men and women from cold, malnutrition, insanitary conditions and the lack of medical appliances increased with the overcrowding of the prisons and camps. … In the early morning of March 7th nine prisoners, one with a broken arm, another with a broken wrist, were taken in a lorry from Tralee prison to Ballyseed Cross, where a log with a mine beside it lay on the road. There the hands of each prisoner were tied behind him and each was tied by the arms and legs to the man on either side. A rope was passed around the nine men, holding htem in a ring, their backs to the mine which was in the centre. The soldiers then moved away and exploded the mine. … On the same day five prisoners were taken from Killarney prison to Countess Bridge where a mine had been placed against a barricade of stones. There the soldiers exploded the mine and then threw bombs. … At Cahirciveen on March 12th five prisoners were killed in the same way …”

April 30, 1923:  (7 years to the day after the final surrender ending the Easter Rising in Dublin) Republicans cease military actions, but Free State government continues activity against them, demanding surrender of arms and keeping loyalty oath to deny them political participation

May 1923:  “[T]he defeat of the Republicans was a victory for England, not for Ireland; the leaders who had achieved it had defeated their own cherished ends. They, too, had desired the Republic; they had agreed to the Treaty only for fear that refusal would bring another war on Ireland, and, in consenting, had brought war on Ireland themselves … they had accomplished for the English what the English might have failed to accomplish for themselves.”

August 15:  De Valera arrested at campaign appearance, held in solitary confinement until July 16, 1924

August 27:  Despite many still in prison, the rest threatened with arrest, and their campaign activities violently suppressed and sabotaged, Republicans (including de Valera) win 44 of 153 seats in Dáil, pro-treaty party (now called Cumann na nGaedheal) 63 – but Republicans barred by oath; Republicans up to 48 seats by March 11, 1924

October:  Republican prisoners, including 10 members of Dáil, start hunger strikes

January 16, 1924:  Free State government renews power to keep Republicans imprisoned without trial

April 3:  Treasonable Offences Act passed with only 30 out of 153 votes, joining and joined by other laws to exclude Republicans from public life – reminiscent of 18th-century Penal Laws

November:  Boundary Commission keeps nationalist areas of Ulster (Tyrone, Fermanagh, southern Down and Antrim, Derry City) in Northern Ireland, adds parts of Donegal to surround border towns

December 3:  Free State executives submit to partition and debt payments – passed by House of Commons November 8, House of Lords and Northern Parliament November 9, Free State Dáil December 10; “We have been burgled and we have bribed the burglar” (Maurice Moore)

March 1926:  After failing to persuade Sinn Féin Republicans to work within the Free State Dáil, de Valera forms Fianna Fáil, which also becomes much more centrist

June 9, 1927:  Fianna Fáil wins 44 seats in Dáil, Cumann na nGaedheal 47, Labour 22; Fianna Fáil deputies sit but refuse oath

July 10:  After murder of Minister of Justice Kevin O’Higgins, Fianna Fáil forced to take oath

February 1932:  Fianna Fáil wins 72 seats in Dáil, Cumann na nGaedheal 57 – remains largest party until 2011

March 7, 1932:  De Valera becomes Prime Minister

September 1933:  Cumann na nGaedheal absorbs National Centre Party and far-right Blueshirts to form Fine Gael

July 1, 1937:  Voters approve new Constitution, which takes effect December 29

April 18, 1949:  (Easter Monday) Ireland becomes a Republic

December 17, 2015

Executed Republicans, Ireland, 1916–1923


1916
(by English)

Dublin
May 3rd
P. H. Pearse
Tom Clarke
Thomas MacDonagh
May 4th
Joseph Plunkett
Edward Daly
William Pearse
Michael O’Hanrahan
May 5th
John MacBride
May 8th
Eamon Kent [Ceannt]
Michael Mallin
Con. Colbert
Sean Heuston
May 12th
Sean MacDermott [MacDiarmada]
James Connolly

Cork, May 9th
Thomas Kent

Pentonville Prison (London), August 3rd.
Roger Casement (hanged)

1920–21
(by English)

Kevin Barry, hanged in Dublin, November 1st, 1920.
Cornelius Murphy, shot in Cork, February 1st, 1921.
Thomas O’Brien, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Daniel O’Callaghan, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
John Lyons, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Timothy McCarthy, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Patrick O’Mahony, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
John Allen, shot in Cork, February 28th, 1921.
Thomas Whelan, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Patrick Moran, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Thomas Bryan, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Patrick Doyle, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Frank Flood, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Bernard Ryan, hanged in Dublin, March 14th, 1921.
Thomas Traynor, hanged in Dublin, April 26th, 1921.
Patrick Sullivan, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Maurice Moore, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Patrick Ronayne, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Thomas Mulcahy, shot in Cork, April 28th, 1921.
Patrick Casey, shot in Cork, May rnd, 1921.
Daniel O’Brien, shot in Cork, May 17th 1921.
Thomas Keane, shot in Limerick, June 4th, 1921.
Edward Foley, hanged in Dublin, June 7th, 1921.
Patrick Maher, hanged in Dublin, June 7th, 1921.

1922-1923
(by pro–UK treaty Irish; this list does not include those murdered after capture)

Dublin
November 17th
James Fisher
Peter Cassidy
Richard Twohig
John Gaffney
November 24th
Erskine Childers
November, 30th
Jos. Spooner
Patrick Farrelly
John Murphy
December 8th
Rory O’Connor
Liam Mellows
Joseph McKelvey
Richard Barrett
December 19th
Stephen White
Joseph Johnston
Patrick Mangan
Patrick Nolan
Brian Moore
James O’Connor
Patrick Bagnel

Kilkenny, December 29th
John Phelan
John Murphy

Dublin, January 8th
Leo Dowling
Sylvester Heaney
Laurence Sheehy
Anthony O’Reilly
Terence Brady

Dundalk, January 13th
Thomas McKeown
John McNulty
Thomas Murray

Roscrea, January 15th
Fredrick Burke
Patrick Russell
Martin O’Shea
Patrick MacNamara

Carlow, January 15th
James Lillis

January 20th, 1923
Tralee
James Daly
John Clifford
Michael Brosnan
James Hanlon
Limerick
Cornelius McMahon
Patrick Hennessy
Athlone
Thomas Hughes
Michael Walsh
Herbert Collins
Stephen Joyce
Martin Burke

Dundalk, January 22nd, 1923
James Melia
Thomas Lennon
Joseph Ferguson

Waterford, January 25th, 1923
Michael Fitzgerald
Patrick O’Reilly

Birr, January 26th, 1923
Patrick Cunningham
William Conroy
Colum Kelly

Portlaoighse, January 27th, 1923
Patrick Geraghty
Joseph Byrne

Maryborough, February 26th, 1923
Thomas Gibson

March 13th, 1923
Dublin
James O’Rourke
Cork
William Healy
Wexford
James Pearle
Patrick Hogan
John Creane,

Drumboe, March 14th, 1923
Tim O’Sullivan
Charles Daly
John Larkin
Dan Enright

Tuam, April 11th, 1923
James O’Malley
Frank Cunnane
Michael Monaghan
John Newell
John Maguire
Michael Nolan

Tralee, April 25th, 1923
Edward Greaney
Reginald Hathaway
James Mcinerney

Ennis
April 26th, 1923
Patrick Mahoney
May 2nd, 1923
Chris Quinn
William Shaughnessy

[Source: The Irish Republic: A Documented Chronicle of the Anglo-Irish Conflict and the Prtitioning of Ireland, with a Detailed Account of the Period 1916–1923. Dorothy Macardle. 1937 & 1938 (Victor Gollancz), 1951 (Irish Press).]

December 12, 2015

Sinn Féin Manifesto, General Election, December 1918

[The manifesto of Sinn Féin, prepared for the general election of December 1918, censored by Dublin Castle.]

GENERAL ELECTION
==========
Manifesto to the Irish People

The coming General Election is fraught with vital possibilities for the future of our nation. Ireland is faced with the question whether this generation wills it that she is to march out into the full sunlight of freedom, or is to remain in the shadow of a base imperialism that has brought and ever will bring in its train naught but evil for our race.

Sinn Féin gives Ireland the opportunity of vindicating her honour and pursuing with renewed confidence the path of national salvation by rallying to the flag of the Irish Republic.

Sinn Féin aims at securing the establishment of that Republic.

1.  By withdrawing the Irish Representation from the British Parliament and by denying the right and opposing the will of the British Government or any other foreign Government to legislate for Ireland.

2.  By making use of any and every means available to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise.

3.  By the establishment of a constituent assembly comprising persons chosen by Irish constituencies as the supreme national authority to speak and act in the name of the Irish people, and to develop Ireland’s social, political and industrial life, for the welfare of the whole people of Ireland.

4.  By appealing to the Peace Conference for the establishment of Ireland as an Independent Nation. At that conference the future of the Nations of the world will be settled on the principle of government by consent of the governed. Ireland’s claim to the application of that principle in her favour is not based on any accidental situation arising from the war. It is older than many if not all of the present belligerents. It is based on our unbroken tradition of nationhood, on a unity in a national name which has never been challenged, on our possession of a distinctive national culture and social order, on the moral courage and dignity of our people in the face of alien aggression, on the fact that in nearly every generation, and five times within the past 120 years our people have challenged in arms the right of England to rule this country. On these incontrovertible facts is based the claim that our people have beyond question established the right to be accorded all the power of a free nation.

Sinn Féin stands less for a political party than for the Nation; it represents the old tradition of nationhood handed on from dead generations; it stands by the Proclamation of the Provisional Government of Easter, 1916, reasserting the inalienable right of the Irish Nation to sovereign independence, reaffirming the determination of the Irish people to achieve it, and guaranteeing within the independent Nation equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens.

Believing that the time has arrived when Ireland’s voice for the principle of untrammelled National self-determination should be heard above every interest of party or class, Sinn Féin will oppose at the Polls every individual candidate who does not accept this principle.

The policy of our opponents stands condemned on any test, whether of principle or expediency. The right of a nation to sovereign independence rests upon immutable natural law and cannot be made the subject of a compromise. Any attempt to barter away the sacred and inviolate rights of nationhood begins in dishonour and is bound to end in disaster. The enforced exodus of millions of our people, the decay of our industrial life, the ever-increasing financial plunder of our country, the whittling down of the demand for the “Repeal of the Union,” voiced by the first Irish Leader to plead in the Hall of the Conqueror to that of Home Rule on the Statute Book, and finally the contemplated mutilation of our country by partition, are some of the ghastly results of a policy that leads to national ruin.

Those who have endeavoured to harness the people of Ireland to England’s war-chariot, ignoring the fact that only a freely-elected Government in a free Ireland has power to decide for Ireland the question of peace and war, have forfeited the right to speak for the Irish people. The green flag turned red in the hands of the Leaders, but that shame is not to be laid at the doors of the Irish people unless they continue a policy of sending their representatives to an alien and hostile assembly, whose powerful influence has been sufficient to destroy the integrity and sap the independence of their representatives. Ireland must repudiate the men who, in a supreme crisis for the nation, attempted to sell her birthright for the vague promises of English Ministers, and who showed their incompetence by failing to have even these promises fulfilled.

The present Irish members of the English Parliament constitute an obstacle to be removed from the path that leads to the Peace Conference. By declaring their will to accept the status of a province instead of boldly taking their stand upon the right of the nation they supply England with the only subterfuge at her disposal for obscuring the issue in the eyes of the world. By their persistent endeavours to induce the young manhood of Ireland to don the uniform of our seven-century old oppressor, and place their lives at the disposal of the military machine that holds our Nation in bondage, they endeavour to barter away and even to use against itself the one great asset still left to our Nation after the havoc of the centuries.

Sinn Féin goes to the polls handicapped by all the arts and contrivances that a powerful and unscrupulous enemy can use against us. Conscious of the power of Sinn Féin to secure the freedom of Ireland the British Government would destroy it. Sinn Féin, however, goes to the polls confident that the people of this ancient nation will be true to the old cause and will vote for the men who stand by the principles of Tone, Emmet, Mitchel, Pearse and Connolly, the men who disdain to whine to the enemy for favours, the men who hold that Ireland must be as free as England or Holland, Switzerland or France, and whose demand is that the only status befitting this ancient realm is the status of a free nation.

Issued by the Standing Committee of Sinn Féin.

December 7, 2015

Hillary Clinton at Brookings Institution ‘Saban Forum’, Dec. 6

New York Times: 'Hillary Clinton Urges Silicon Valley to “Disrupt” ISIS'

'Mrs. Clinton’s comments echo recent White House calls for what would amount to a cease-fire with technology firms after the revelations by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, that the government had gotten inside the firm’s communications technology.'

—This is a lot more problematic than the "familiar complaints" [regarding] 'freedom of speech'" that Clinton evoked. It is enlisting private industry as agents of the government, likely acting extrajudicially, i.e., it's the government's word only and wrongful victims have no recourse, let alone protection in the first place.

'Mrs. Clinton used the forum to continue staking out a harder line on Iran than President Obama has in public. She repeatedly threatened to take what she called “harsh” steps at the first sign that Iran seeks to violate commitments it made in the July nuclear agreement ….' [emphasis added]

'She had strong words as well for America’s Arab allies, calling on them to crack down on the financing of ISIS and other extremist groups, and to think about military contributions far beyond what they are now committed to.'

—Saudi Arabia? Turkey?

'On Saturday [Dec.5], Secretary of State John Kerry, Mrs. Clinton’s successor, appeared in front of the same group and warned against allowing the Palestinian Authority to collapse. He argued that that would place Israel in the position of having to occupy and administer the West Bank, which Mr. Kerry just visited. He said that was not viable and would kill any hope of a two-state solution.'

—Uh, Mr. Kerry, Israel already occupies and administers the West Bank. That's the problem. Has been for decades.

'Mrs. Clinton did not discuss the Palestinian Authority’s future in her speech. But with some of the most right-wing members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet in mind, she said, “A one-state solution is no solution — it is a prescription for endless conflict.”'

—Whereas the mirage of two states has proved to be a prescription for, whoops, endless conflict.

=============

Reuters: 'Clinton aims to take US relationship with Israel "next level"'

'"I would extend an invitation to the Israeli prime minister to come to the United States," Clinton said at a Washington forum hosted by the Brookings Institution when asked about her first day in the White House, "to work towards very much strengthening and intensifying our relationship on military matters."'

=============

Jerusalem Post: '"Black flag of ISIS" may be alternative to Palestinian Authority, Clinton says'

'The black flag of Islamic State may fly over the Palestinian territories should the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, fail to maintain order, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday.

'Speaking to the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum, an annual Washington gathering on relations between the US and Israel, Clinton, the front-runner for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, recommitted to the pursuit of a twostate solution: “A one-state solution is no solution,” she told the forum, but called on Palestinian leadership and the Arab League to recognize that, under such a scheme, Israel would be a Jewish state, alongside a sovereign Palestinian state.

'In a speech framed by her personal commitment to Israel, Clinton said three major threats face the state that require robust American defense and diplomatic support: Metastasizing extremism throughout the Muslim world; an aggressive government in Iran; and an effort to delegitimize Israel in international bodies.' …

'Iran’s “fingerprints,” she added, are on every conflict in the Middle East – a challenge for the US and Israel alike.'

—Not like the U.S. and Saudi Arabia!

'She also had harsh words for the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, which she said was not only counter-productive, but linked to anti-Semitism.'

—"Counterproductive" only from the viewpoint of an Israel interested in perpetuating the denial of justice to the Palestinians, meaning BDS is turning out to be quite effective. And antisemitism? There is nothing antisemitic about BDS, any more than divestment from South Africa in the 1970-80s was anti-Boer. Similarly, BDS aims to end the denial by the Israeli government of national rights to the Palestinians. It is, however, a threat to U.S.-Israel policy, because it might actually force an end to their deadly charade.

'She offered criticism of Israeli leadership, as well, asking many conservative Israeli politicians present, who is “standing in the wings” should Abbas leave office.

'“Let’s be honest here,” she said. “The alternative is the black flag of ISIS [Islamic State].”

'Earlier in her prepared remarks, she noted the growth of an Islamic State cell in the Sinai Peninsula, and the potential for support of the group in the Gaza Strip.'

—So far, however, it is notable that the enemies of Islamic State are also the enemies of Israel. Clinton's words are misdirection and fearmongering.

December 2, 2015

Get yourself a war president!

A correspondent wrote in reply to today’s New York Times article by Patrick Healy, “Voters, Worried About Terrorism, Look for Leaders at Home on Silver Screen”:
The fact that the US is not actually at war defending its shores, but is simply an invading bunch of Huns destabilizing the entire planet for the further profit of billionaires, is somehow never realized. The US military is now [almost exclusively] being used as a private armed force for giant greedy corporations to clear the way for the exploitation and plundering of the unfortunate countries who have something they want. People have been brainwashed into accepting this “war president” crap and it’s pathetic.
I would only add the corporations/investors driving this ‘imperative’ represent the mad economy of war itself, a perpetual machine that not only takes the wealth of other nations, but also sucks up most of our own. It has gone so far that we can not imagine an alternative. Instead we are at war with ourselves as well, and the worst must inevitably triumph.

November 25, 2015

Science in the age of information

Science is not a realm of independent inquirers. It is a grant-seeking game very much like that of corporate environmental groups. The ones who speak out are by definition fringe voices and automatically discredited by the academy. The analogy is not David vs. Goliath but Cassandra among the Trojans.

November 14, 2015

I stand with the trees and watch with the raptors.

Our friends at AWEO.org received a not untypically incoherent letter of complaint recently, which they haved shared with your editor. It came from Alabama, but I do not publish the author’s name, instead encouraging him to stop misdirecting his own energies, both negative and positive.
You could more effectively direct your energies to environmental and health consequences of millions of acres of oceans, atmosphere polluted by nuclear radiation and from fossil coal, and oil burning which is killing entire forests, poisoning sea life, and manifests health conseuqences for hundreds of millions if not billions of populations who can barely breathe in cities choked with pollution.

I stand with the trees and the raptors.

Your ignorance of the inetivable course of humanity in its greed for energy is an outrage. Complaining that governments waste money or that wind power engineering in its inefficiencies and pre-maturity or unsightlyness should be stopped in its tracks; pretending to prevent exploit of secondary 'renewable', in fact inexhaustible, solar wind and wave power would condemn centuries of windmills which have proven their utility and innocence for generations.

Soon the spectre of your poor ignorance will be redundant. Meso-scale changes in global weather perhaps even completely uncorrelated with the burning of dinosaurs and biomass which you prefer to ignore are forecast to endanger significant proportion of global populations living near seacoasts, and diminish those winds which, if properly exploited, might provide some glimmer of an alternative for the energy needs of billions on this planet.

Enjoy the weather.
AWEO replied as follows, and after several days have not received a reply in turn.
You claim to stand with the trees and the raptors, yet you would have the former leveled and the latter decimated to build enough wind towers to provide any meaningful fraction of our electricity needs — and only when the wind happens to be blowing in the right direction at the right speed, and never mind our other energy needs.

Obviously our efforts should be directed at cleaning up and reducing our actual energy use, not at pretending to provide alternatives that remain and ever will remain sideshows at best. But worse, they are sideshows increasingly destructive of landscape and wild habitat, as well as costly wastes of resources.

November 13, 2015

GORT: field; GORTA: hunger

Gort, g. guirt, pl. id., m., a field or plantation, a corn-field and esp. a field of oats; al. name of Irish letter G; g. féir, a hay-field; g. arbhair, a corn-field; tá g. maith agam i mbliadhna, I have a good crop of oats this year; in place-names: Gortineddan; G. na cille, Gortnakilla, etc.; dim. goirtín (gu-); cf. páirc and garrdha.

Gorta, g. id., f., hunger; scarcity, famine, destitution; stinginess; g. eolchair, hunger during lying-in; fuair sé bás den gh., he died of hunger; leigfeadh fuil fuil ’on g., acht ní leigfeadh fuil fuil do dhortadh, one might let his relative starve but not his relative’s blood to be spilled (with impunity); an gh. ghann, lean famine (poet.); gs. as a., stingy, miserly, as ruidín g., a miserly little creature.

Gorthach, -aighe, a., vehement, ardent; cf. an ghéag gh. raobh chosnaimh laoch lonnach láidir, the ardent youth, shielder of impetuous and doughty warriors (Fil.); sm., a wounder, a warrior who presses hard on the enemy.

Gortuighim, -ughadh, v. tr., I hurt, wound, oppress, pain, afflict, injure; al. goirtighim.

Gortuighim, v. tr., I starve.

—Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, 1927, by Patrick Dinneen

November 2, 2015

How to dilute negative results to protect an industry

A recently published study implies that wind turbines as close as 0.25 mile and up to an outdoor average noise level of 46 dB(A) do not disturb sleep. In fact the actual noise levels were only estimated and averaged only 35.6 dB(A), which is a level that indeed would be unlikely to disturb sleep indoors. Furthermore, the range of distance from wind turbines extended to 11.22 kilometers. The result is that the data from households closer to noisier wind turbines are obviously diluted by the greater amount of data from farther away. Finally, averaging sleep experience over time serves to mask, rather than discover, any experience of particularly disturbing nights.

When the full paper is available, it will be interesting to see if the authors acknowledge these limitations: that their sample size from noisier and closer sites was insufficient to reach any conclusions, that noise levels were outdoors only and estimated rather than measured, and that sleep disturbance was assessed as 30-day averages, ignoring actual nightly experience.

Sleep. 2015 Oct 22.
Effects of Wind Turbine Noise on Self-Reported and Objective Measures of Sleep.
Michaud DS, Feder K, Keith SE, Voicescu SA, Marro L, Than J, Guay M, Denning A, Murray BJ, Weiss SK, Villeneuve PJ, van den Berg F, Bower T.

November 1, 2015

Eibhlín Nic Niocaill — obituary by Pádraig Pearse

From An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae, 21 August 1909:

There are times when journalists and public men experience a trial more cruel than others can easily imagine. It is when they are called upon in the course of their duty to write or speak in public of things that touch the innermost fibres of their own hearts, things that to them are intimate and sacred, entwined, it may be, with their dearest friendships and affections, awakening to vibrations old chords of joy or sorrow. The present is such an occasion for the writer of these paragraphs, and this must be his excuse if he does not pay to Eibhlín Nic Niocaill such tribute as readers of An Claidheamh Soluis will expect. It is not in human nature to write a glib newspaper article on a dead friend. One dare not utter all that is in one’s heart and in the effort of self-restraint one is apt to pen only cold and formal things. Therefore we will discharge as briefly as may be the duty that falls upon us.

First we would voice the sorrow of our organisation for the death of one of its most brilliant and heroic members. We have often spoken in the name of the Gaelic League, but never have we felt ourselves peculiarly at one with it as thus making ourselves the mouthpiece of its tribute to Eibhlín Nic Niocaill. We knew her well, and she was the most nobly planned of all the women we have known. The newspapers have truly spoken of her as the most distinguished student of her time. Gaelic Leaguers will remember her as an incomparably strenuous worker during her brief but crowded career of active service. But it is neither as a student or as a League worker that her friends will think of her. Her grand dower of intellect, her gracious gift of charm and sympathy, her capacity for affairs, were known to all, but those who knew her best know that all of these were the least of her endowments. What will stand out clear and radiant in their mental picture of her is the loftiness of her soul, the inner sanctity of her life.

The close of that life had been worthy of it. If she had been asked to choose the manner of her death she would surely have chosen it thus. She died to save another, and that as a young Irish-speaking girl. Greater love than this no man hath than he give his life for his friend. To Eibhlín Nic Niocaill high heroism was native. Her life was consecrated to the service of high things. And without seeking reward she found rich reward in the enthusiastic love of hundreds. She gave much love and received much love. Not many have been carried with such passion of grief and affection as that which thrilled in the keenings of the Kerry women as the curraghs forming her funeral procession moved across the sound:

“Mo ghroidhn tú, a Eibhlín,
“Mo ghroidhn do mháthair,
“Mo ghroidhn go bráth í!”
they said. In Dublin her comrades’, and fellow-students’, grief was not articulate, but no one who witnessed it could doubt its poignancy. Our second duty is to offer respectfully the sympathy of her and our co-workers to her father and mother and brothers. The memory of her life and death will be the greatest treasure in the years that are to come. And for them the treasure will be none the less though many thousands of her people claim a share in it also.

I bhfochair an Uain go raibh a hanam ar feadh na sforaíochta!

—P.H. Pearse

October 16, 2015

“Renunciation”

Fornocht a chonac thú,
a áille na háille,
is dhallas mo shúil
ar eagla go stánfainn.

Chualas do cheol,
a bhinne na binne,
is dhúnas mo chluas
ar eagla go gclisfinn.

Bhlaiseas do bhéal
a mhilse na milse,
is chruas mo chroí
ar eagla mo mhillte.

Dhallas mo shúil,
is mo chluas do dhúnas;
Chruas mo chroí,
is mo mhian do mhúchas.

Thugas mo chúl
ar an aisling do chumas,
is ar an ród seo romham
m’aghaidh a thugas.

Thugas mo ghnúis
ar an ród seo romham,
ar an ngníomh a chím,
is ar an mbás a gheobhad.

 

Naked I saw thee,
O beauty of beauty.
And I blinded my eyes
For fear I should fail.

I heard thy music,
O melody of melody,
And I closed my ears
For fear I should falter.

I tasted thy mouth,
Sweetness of sweetness,
And I hardened my heart
For fear of my slaying.

I blinded my eyes.
And I closed my ears,
I hardened my heart
And I smothered my desire.

I turned my back
On the vision I had shaped
And to this road before me
I turned my face.

I have turned my face
To this road before me,
To the deed that I see
And the death I shall die.

—Pádraig Pearse

October 12, 2015

Letter from Trey Gowdy to Elijah Cummings, Oct. 8, 2015

Excerpts. Complete PDF available at: http://d1u7i8c4jvis7m.cloudfront.net/Gowdy-Cummings-1510-7.pdf

… When we began this investigation, Sidney Blumenthal was not on our potential interview list. Secretary Clinton’s exclusive use of private email, housed on her own private server, was not a topic of our inquiry. Yet when we learned nearly half of Secretary Clinton’s entire email correspondence regarding Benghazi and Libya before the attacks was with Sidney Blumenthal, that became a fact we could not ignore. When we learned Secretary Clinton exclusively used private email to correspond for her official duties and that the State Department did not even have access to these records until this Committee asked for them, that became a fact we could not ignore. …

Blumenthal was neither a State Department employee nor an employee of the federal government nor an expert on Libya, by his own admission. The fact that former Secretary Clinton relied so heavily on an individual for the Libyan intervention, her quintessential foreign policy initiative, whom the White House explicitly prohibited from working at the State Department is mind boggling. … Blumenthal was not merely acting as a steward of information to Secretary Clinton but was acting as her de facto political advisor. …

In a six day span in February 2011, Blumenthal sent Clinton detailed reports titled “Latest Libya intel,” “Libya intel,” “No fly zone over Libya,” “Intel on Gaddafi’s reinforcements,” “Libya WMD,” “Qaddafi’s Scuds and strategy for holding on,” “Option on WMD,” “Phone #s that may work,” and “Q location, new defections, beginnings of interim govt.” These daily emails, filled with unvetted intelligence, continued for nearly six weeks. Secretary Clinton often responded to Blumenthal, and almost always forwarded them to her top policy advisor, Jake Sullivan, in some cases cautioning him not to “share until we can talk.” Much of the information in Blumenthal’s emails came from Tyler Drumheller, a controversial former CIA operative, and Cody Shearer, another old Clinton friend. Interestingly, Secretary Clinton even took the further step to hide from Sullivan the fact that some of this information came from Shearer. It is unclear why she did this, and it is not at all clear what intelligence tradecraft was undertaken to ensure the reliability of this information, or whether the State Department’s very own intelligence bureau, funded by taxpayers for that very purpose, was even aware of these matters.

Dozens of emails between Clinton and Blumenthal show an individual who tried to heavily influence the Secretary of State to intervene in Libya. Blumenthal pushed hard for a no-fly zone in Libya before the idea was being discussed internally by senior U.S. government officials. Clinton told Blumenthal that she was pushing the option with the “[U.N.] Security Council,” and to “[s]tay tuned!” Shortly thereafter, the U.S. pushed a no-fly zone through the U.N. Security Council.

The emails also show Blumenthal firmly as a political body who pulled no punches towards the White House or others in government with whom he disagreed. In one email he discussed “National Security Adviser Tom Donilon’s babbling rhetoric about ‘narratives’ on a phone briefing of reporters” that “inspired derision among serious foreign policy analysts here and abroad.” In another email he described “[Obama] and his political cronies in the WH and in Chicago are, to say the least, unenthusiastic about regime change in Libya or anywhere else in the ME. Why is that? Hmmm. Obama’s lukewarm and self contradicting statements have produced what is at least for the moment, operational paralysis.”

Once Blumenthal got his way and a no-fly zone was established, he pushed for a more aggressive posture by the U.S. in the conflict, including arming the rebels. To support his rationale to Secretary Clinton, he used sagging polling numbers. …

Beyond the pure politics that were occurring at this time, perhaps more disturbing is that at the same time Blumenthal was pushing Secretary Clinton to war in Libya, he was privately pushing a business interest of his own in Libya that stood to profit from contracts with the new Libyan government — a government that would exist only after a successful U.S. intervention in Libya that deposed Qaddafi. This business venture was one he shared with Tyler Drumheller and Cody Shearer, the authors of the information sent to Secretary Clinton. It is therefore unsurprising that somebody who knew so little about Libya would suddenly become so interested in Libya and push an old friend in a powerful place to action — for personal profit. …

“You should be aware that there is a good chance at the contact meeting in Turkey the TNC [National Transitional Council of Libya] ambassador to the UAE, a man you have not yet met, whose name is Dr. Neydah, may tell you the TNC has reached an agreement with a US company. The company is a new one, Osprey, headed by former General David Grange, former head of Delta Force. Osprey will provide field medical help, military training, organize supplies, and logistics to the TNC. They are trainers and organizers, not fighters. Grange can train their forces and he has drawn up a plan for taking Tripoli similar to the plan he helped develop that was used by the first wave of Special Forces in the capture of Baghdad. This is a private contract. It does not involve NATO. It puts Americans in a central role without being direct battle combatants. The TNC wants to demonstrate that they are pro-US. They see this as a significant way to do that. They are enthusiastic about this arrangement. … As I understand it, they are still working out funding, which is related to the overall TNC funding problems. Grange is very low key, wishes to avoid publicity and work quietly, unlike other publicity hungry finns. Grange is under the radar. Tyler, Cody and I acted as honest brokers, putting this arrangement together through a series of connections, linking the Libyans to Osprey and keeping it moving. The strategic imperative: Expecting Gaddafi to fall on his own or through a deus ex machina devolves the entire equation to wishful thinking. The TNC has been unable to train and organize its forces. The NATO air campaign cannot take ground. The TNC, whose leaders have been given to flights of fancy that Qaddafi will fall tomorrow or the day after, have come to the conclusion that they must organize their forces and that they must score a military victory of their own over Qaddafi that is not dependent solely on NATO in order to give them legitimacy. …

In addition to Sidney Blumenthal’s business interests, Secretary Clinton also apparently received classified information from Blumenthal — information she should have known was classified at the time she received it. In one email, Blumenthal writes “Tyler spoke to a colleague currently at CIA, who told him the agency had been dependent for intelligence from [redacted due to sources and methods].” This information, the name of a human source, is some of the most protected information in our intelligence community, the release of which could jeopardize not only national security but also human lives. Armed with that information, Secretary Clinton forwarded the email to a colleague — debunking her claim that she never sent any classified information from her private email address. …

September 27, 2015

Irish nationalists deported to Britain in 1916: Their trades

Source: Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook: Easter, 1916. Compiled by the Weekly Irish Times, Dublin: 1917. Pages 69–86.

“The following are the names of the persons who were deported, so far as they have been published by the military. These lists were all officially issued to the Press for publication by the military authorities on the dates mentioned:—”

200 to Knutsford on 1st May. Weaver, carman, typist, body maker, shop assts., upholsterers, boot cutter, labourers, tailors, goods checker, chauffeurs, library asst., bakers, porters, van driver, motor driver, law clerk, grocers, carpenters, farmers, clerks, compositors, farrier, vanmen, office boy, grocer’s assts., wax bleacher, vice-maker, actors, boilermaker, bookbinder, cabinet makers, wood worker, paper ruler, insurance agent, carters, plumbers, painters, student, electricians, attendant, firemen, caretaker, joiner, range fitter, brushmaker, gardener, chemist’s asst., locksmith, fitters, hole borer, riveter, provision acct., canvasser, coach-builders, drapers, mattress maker, shunter, slater, singer’s agent, cash desk, school teacher, groom, printers, engineers, electrical fitter, apprentices, artist, checker, cooper, poulterer, librarian, insurance inspector, waiter, school attendant, packer, hairdresser, driller, barman, night watchman, draper’s asst., belt-maker, shirt cutter, law clerk.

289 to Stafford on 1st May. [trades not listed]

308 to Knutsford on 3rd May. Commission agent’s clerk, cabinet-makers, fitters, teacher, labourers, lamplighter, machinists, general merchant, cotton merchant, carpenters, coopers, Corporation labourers, despatch clerk, engineer’s fitter, inspector G.P.O. telephones, compositors, bakers, warehouse clerk, plumbers, engine driver, clerks, boot salesman, wine porters, brass moulder, machine minder, tailors, range setter, boot-makers, silk-weavers, shop asst., civil service clerks, mechanic, chauffeur, brass polisher, chemist, shopman, draper’s assts., insurance agents, bricklayers, carter, medical student, porters, farm labourer, gardeners, van drivers, plumber, gas fitter, plumber’s asst., grocers, electric worker, grocer’s assts., coachmaker, vanman, firemen, saddler, house painters, machinist, tool maker, turner, painters, motor mechanics, plate polisher, checkers, old age pensioner, printers, cycle mechanic, waiters, butchers, printer’s asst., students, messengers, flour packer, private means, bank clerk, harness maker, draper, plasterers, hairdressers, seamen, upholsterer, bookseller’s clerk, fitter’s apprentices, Corporation clerk, brass finisher, blacksmiths, clerk at Guinness’s Brewery, grocer’s porters, travellers, attendant, bricklayers, watchmaker, theatre manager, Linotype operator, druggist, cinematograph operator, glazier, clerk to ship-broker, tramway clerk, blacksmith’s improver, foremen, decorative artist, slater, law clerk, coachbuilder, commercial clerk, railway clerks, tea packer, groom, coal agent, warehouse clerk, carrier, drilling machinist, ex-policeman, apprentice coachbuilder, ship’s fireman, book-keeper, farmers, pattern case maker, postman, cabinet maker’s apprentice, butcher’s asst., skilled labourer, body-maker, furniture salesman, basket maker, bookbinder, apprentice to brass moulder.

376 to Wakefield on 6th May.
Ballsbridge Party. Dairyman, carters, painter’s apprentice, printer, plasterer, cabman, storekeeper, labourers, house painter, grocer’s assts., market gardener, confectioner, bookkeepers, tailors, porters, law clerks, mess man, electricians, hair dressers, gardeners, dentist’s apprentice, coach builder, vanman, clerks, case makers, motor drivers, nagsman, barmen, railway porters, blacksmiths, winchman, plumbers, dentists, Gas Company clerk, ship plater, boatmen, retired railway official, driver, dray man, turf dealer, cycle salesman, tailors, coal labourer, joiners, motor fitter, mechanic, moulder, rivetter, wine porter, shop asst., stationers, insurance clerk, farmer, cabinet-makers, legal searcher, laboratory asst., chauffeur, independent, waiter, pig minder, billposter, plumber’s asst., fitter’s asst., factory hand, wood cutter, house agent, newsman, storekeeper, bookbinder’s edge gilder, reporter, G.P.O. civil service, munitions, commercial traveller, messengers, gas stoker, railway guard, pawnbroker’s asst., general labourer, car owner, printer’s clerk, engine driver, coach painter, jeweller, bootmakers, warehouseman, horse shoer, handyman, property master, draper’s asst., carpenters, groundsman, bakers, baker and confectioner, student, brass fitter, smith’s helper, painters, architect, dockyard labourer, coat maker, wheelwright, tram co., teacher, Corporation employee, van drivers, provision asst., junior clerk, draper’s porter, caretakers, book maker and window dresser, SS clerk, lawyer, yardman, upholsterer, workman, canvasser, assistant, carrier, general worker, seaman, bullockman, tram conductor, filer, machinist, concreter, stone-cutter, marble polisher, coal merchant, Corporation labourer.
List from Kilmainham. [trades not listed]
List from Arbour Hill. Fishmonger, sheet metal worker, tailor, asst. dentist, carpenters, fitter and turner, motor mechanics, driver, Asst. Supt. Tel. at G.P.O., chauffeurs, painters, farmers, labourers, porter, shop assts., travellers, bakers, shopkeeper, blacksmith, painter, coach builder, vanmen, bootmaker, messengers, clerk, plumber’s asst., warehouseman, grocer’s asst.

203 to Stafford on 8th May.
197 to Wandsworth on 9th May.
54 to Wandsworth on 13th May.

58 to Stafford on 13th May. Painter, labourers, groom, postman, farmer and builder, apprentice, farmers, carpenters, stonemason, draper, builder, chemist.

273 to Wakefield on 13th May. ’Bus driver, draper’s assts., apprentices, labourers, coal porter, farmers, science teacher, motor driver, clerk, motor mechanics, carpenters, shopkeepers, teachers, blacksmiths, Monotype operator, baker and grocer, trader, electricians, surveyor, C.D.B. clerks, bakers, shop assts., engine fitter, banker, Gaelic teachers, grocer, ironmonger, cabinet maker, farmer’s sons, bricklayers, National school teacher, barman, students, butchers, garage owner, porters, van drivers, bookkeeper, reporter, Commission agent, bootmaker, engineer fitter’s apprentice, engine drivers, shoemaker, painters, ledger clerk, merchants, tailors, harness-maker, Company agent, printer, grocer’s assts., railway clerk, tobacconist’s asst., builder’s foreman, law clerk, stationmaster, stone-cutter, postmen, grocer’s porter, cardriver, builder, contractor, maize oil extractor, mason, farm manager, draper, accountants, motor engineer, boot dealers, undertaker, gas inspector, chauffeur mechanic, compositor, rate collector, apprentice fitter, weaver, gardeners, cooper, chemist’s asst., railway employee, sculptor, egg packer, journalist, brewer’s secretary, mercantile clerks, P.O. clerk, machinist, engineers, mill foreman, poplin weavers, chauffeur, jeweller, carrier, forester, vanman, seed merchant, A.S.C., school teacher, carrier employee, hairdresser, tinsmith.

197 to Glasgow and Perth on 20th May.

40 to Woking on 20th May. Farmers, horse-shoer, plasterer, Lino operator, agricultural overseer, cycle agent, shopkeeper, engine driver, labourers, carpenters, electrician, grocer asst., valet, clerks, spinner, coachbuilders.

59 to Lewes on 20th May. Labourers, clerks, sewing machine agent, publican, farmers, butcher, surveyor, postman, carpenters, dock labourer, plumber, foundry labourer, poultry merchants, shop assts., waiter at O’Neill’s Hotel, merchant, machine man, teachers, draper’s asst., bootmaker, asst. agent.

100 to Wakefield on 2nd June.
49 to Wandsworth on 2nd June.
50 to Knutsford on 2nd June.

41 to Knutsford on 7th June. House painter, organ builder, gardener, plasterer, farmers, Labour Exchange clerk, house furnisher, farmers, clerks, medical practitioner, grocer’s asst., barrister, messenger, whitesmith, artist, cooper, insurance agent, confectioner, school teacher, butler, shop asst., labourers, commercial traveller, master tailor, clerk to Trade Union Secretary, machinist, farmer’s sons, boot and shoe-maker, priest’s boy, carpenter.

25 to Knutsford on June 16th. Blacksmith, farmer, shipbuilder, compositor, cardriver, bootmaker, foreman, farmer’s son, carter, farmers, blacksmith, shopkeeper.

[total: 2,519]

September 16, 2015

Dispatches from the General Post Office, Easter Friday, 1916

Army of the Irish Republic
(Dublin Command),
Headquarters, April 28, 1916.


To Soldiers,

This is the fifth day of the establishment of the Irish Republic, and the flag of our country still floats from the most important buildings in Dublin, and is gallantly protected by the officers and Irish soldiers in arms throughout the country. Not a day passes without seeing fresh postings of Irish soldiers eager to do battle for the old cause. Despite tha utmost vigilance of the enemy we have been able to get in information telling us how the manhood of Ireland, inspired by our splendid action, are gathering to offer up their lives if necessary in the same holy cause. We are here hemmed in because the enemy feels that in this building is to be found the heart and inspiration of our great movement.

Let us remind you what you have done. For the first time in 700 years the flag of a free Ireland floats triumphantly in Dublin City.

The British Army, whose exploits we are for ever having dinned into our ears, which boasts of having stormed the Dardanelles and the German lines on the Marne, behind their artillery and machine guns are afraid to advance to the attack or storm any positions held by our forces. The slaughter they suffered in the first few days has totally unnerved them, and they dare not attempt again an infantry attack on our positions.

Our Commandants around us are holding their own.

Commandant Daly’s splendid exploit in capturing Linen Hall Barracks we all know. You must know also that the whole population, both clergy and laity, of this district are united in his praises. Commandant MacDonagh is established in an impregnable position reaching from the walls of Dublin Castle to Redmond’s Hill, and from Bishop street to Stephen’s Green.

(In Stephen’s Green, Commandant [Mallin] holds the College of Surgeons, one side of the square, a portion of the other side, and dominates the whole Green and all its entrances and exits.)

Commandant De Valera stretches in a position from the Gas Works to Westland row, holding Boland’s Bakery, Boland’s Mills, Dublin South-Eastern Railway Works, and dominating Merrion square.

Commandant Kent [Ceannt] holds the South Dublin Union and Guinness’s Buildings to Marrowbone lane, and controls James’s street and district.

On two occasions the enemy effected a lodgment and were driven out with great loss.

The men of North County Dublin are in the field, have occupied all the Police Barracks in the district, destroyed all the telegram system on the Great Northern Railway up to Dundalk. and are operating against the trains of the Midland and Great Western.

Dundalk has sent 200 men to march upon Dublin, and in the other parts of the North our forces are active and growing.

In Galway Captain [Mellows], fresh after his escape from an Irish prison, is in the field with his men. Wexford and Wicklow are strong, and Cork and Kerry are equally acquitting themselves creditably. (We have every confidence that our Allies in Germany anu kinsmen in America are straining every nerve to hasten matters on our behalf.)

As you know, I was wounded twice yesterday and am unable to move about, but have got my bed moved into the firing line, and, with the assistance of your officers, will be just as useful to you as ever.

Courage, boys, we are winning, and in the hour of our victory let us not forget the splendid women who have everywhere stood by us and cheered us on. Never had man or woman a grander cause, never was a cause more grandly served.

James Connolly,
Commandant-General,
Dublin Division.


[[[[·]]]]

Headquarters, Army of the Irish Republic, General Post Office, Dublin.

28th April, 1916, 9.30 a.m.


The Forces of the Irish Republic, which was proclaimed in Dublin, on Easter Monday, 24th April, have been in possession of the central part of the capital, since 12 noon on that day. Up to yesterday afternoon Headquarters was in touch with all the main outlying positions, and, despite furious, and almost continuous assaults by the British Forces all those positions were then still being held, and the Commandants in charge, were confident of their ability to hold them for a long time.

During the course of yesterday afternoon, and evening, the enemy succeeded in cutting our communications with our other positions in the city, and Headquarters is to-day isolated.

The enemy has burnt down whole blocks of houses, apparently with the object of giving themselves a clear field for the play of artillery and field guns against us. We have been bombarded during the evening and night by shrapnel and machine gun fire, but without material damage to our position, which is of great strength.

We are busy completing arrangements for the final defence of Headquarters, and are determined to hold it while the buildings last.

I desire now, lest I may not have an opportunity later, to pay homage to the gallantry of the soldiers of Irish Freedom who have during the past four days been writing with fire and steel the most glorious chapter in the later history of Ireland. Justice can never be done to their heroism, to their discipline, to their gay and unconquerable spirit in the midst of peril and death.

Let me, who have led them into this, speak in my own, and in my fellow-commanders’ names, and in the name of Ireland present and to come, their praise, and ask those who come after them to remember them.

For four days they have fought and toiled, almost without cessation, almost without sleep, and in the intervals of fighting they have sung songs of the freedom of Ireland. INo man has complained, no man has asked ‘why?’ Each individual has spent himself, happy to pour out his strength for Ireland and for freedom. If they do not win this fight, they will at least have deserved to win it. But win it they will, although they may win it in death. Already they have won a great thing. They have redeemed Dublin from many shames, and made her name splendid among the names of cities.

If I were to mention names of individuals, my list would be a long one.

I will name only that of Commandant General James Connolly, Commanding the Dublin Division. He lies wounded, but is still the guiding brain of cur resistance.

If we accomplish no more than we have accomplished, I am satisfied. I am satisfied that we have saved Ireland’s honour. I am satisfied that we should have accomplished more, that we should have accomplished the task of enthroning, as well as proclaiming, the Irish Republic as a Sovereign State, had our arrangements for a simultaneous rising of the whole country, with a combined plan as sound as the Dublin plan has been proved to be, been allowed to go through on Easter Sunday. Of the fatal countermanding order which prevented those plans from being carried out, I shall not speak further. Both Eoin MacNeill and we have acted in the best interests of Ireland.

For my part, as to anything I have done in this, I am not afraid to face either the judgment of God, or the judgment of posterity.

P. H. Pearse,
Commandant General,
Commanding-in-Chief, the Army of the Irish Republic and President of the Provisional Government.


[[[[·]]]]

Source: Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook: Easter, 1916. Compiled by the Weekly Irish Times, Dublin: 1917.

On Friday evening, the GPO had to be abandoned. On Saturday, the provisional government of the Irish Republic offered their surrender. Fighting continued into Sunday until all the rebel outposts received the order and agreed to it. A total of 112 republicans were tried and sentenced to death. Executions ended after 14 leaders were killed in Dublin. (Thomas Kent was also executed in Cork, and later Roger Casement in London.) More than 3,000 were arrested and almost all of them transported to prison camps in Britain.

September 8, 2015

Bernie Sanders and the left

William Kaufman writes:

[A]t this moment of gathering darkness for our species and planet, in this pivotal presidential campaign season, who is making greater strides toward triggering the mass enlightenment that is the key to empowering the oppressed: Sanders or his left critics? ...

To dismiss these crucial inroads into mass consciousness as mere diversion, to deride his proposals as milquetoast Keynesian stopgap, betrays the old far-left allergy to the complexity and cacophony of the large stage of life, a debilitating preference for the safety and certitude of the tiny left echo chamber. ...

[I]t is only through the vehicle of his presidential campaign as a Democrat that these kinds of progressive issues and solutions can flood the airwaves and touch the tens of millions of desperate but ill-informed Americans who most need to think and hear about them — in most cases, for the first time. This is the unique and irreplaceable value of the Sanders candidacy: it is strewing seeds of mass consciousness around issues of class and inequality and the environment in a way that no other person or party could accomplish right now. Radicals need to ask themselves: How is that a bad thing? ...

So this is the audience the left must address: not the doughty, battle-ready proletariat of far-left daydreams, but the massively depoliticized and demoralized casualties of the culture industry and neoliberal piracy. ... Blind to these tactical exigencies, Sanders’s far-left detractors merely reinforce the political isolation that they seem to brandish as a badge of virtue; in reality it is a symptom of political debility, a fatal estrangement from the tactical challenges and possibilities of the moment.

August 29, 2015

Flags and other images of 1916

Cumann na mBan was formed in early 1914 as a women’s auxiliary of the Irish Volunteers, which became the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1919 and the war for independence. Cumann na mBan continued then and after the civil war as part of the IRA.











The Irish Citizen Army was formed during the Dublin lockout in late 1913 to protect workers from the police. It joined with the Irish Volunteers (formed earlier in 1913) for the 1916 uprising.



The Irish Republic flag was raised over the General Post Office on August 24, Easter Monday, 1916.


August 24, 2015

MARCACH: horseman; EACH: horse

Each, g. eich, pl. id., eacha and eachra(idh, coll.), m., a horse, a steed; e. Spáinneach, a variety of short horse; e. riata, a trained or coach horse; e. uisce, a water-horse, a mythical inhabitant of lakes (Con., Don.); e. réais, a race-horse; e. cóimhlionga, id., al. a dromedary; e. sléibhe, See under earc [a species of lizard found on moors; al. a term of reproach for a person]; d’e., on horseback. See under cor [cór capall, a troop of horses]; sluagh laighean idir cois agus e., the Leinster forces both mounted and foot; cóiste sé n-e., a coach and six; e. gan srian, an unbridled horse, fig. of fruitless effort; fir na n-e., the horsemen; ar muin an eich, on horseback; mara gcuiridh tú uait na h-eacha tá fút cuirfidh siad earóg ort, if you do not give over the capers you will rue it.

Eachach, -aighe, a., abounding in horses

Eachaidhe, g. id., m., a horseman, a jockey.

Eachaire, g. id., pl. -rí, m., a stable- or horse-boy.

Eachán, -áin, pl. id., m., a reel to wind yarn (O’R.).

Eachan, -ain, m., wind, storm; e. gaoithe., a whirlwind.

Eachanach, -aighe, a., stormy, windy.

Eachlach, -igh, pl. id., m., a horseman, a courier, a cavalryman, hence a messenger, one to tell the tale (after a battle); e. úsláir, a domestic servant; bain-e., a woman courier.

Eachlais, -e, -í, f., a lazy woman; a slattern (used also of a man).

Eachlann, -ainne, -anna, f., a stable; smt. g. -ainn, m..

Eachlsc, -aisce, -a, f., a rod, a whip, a horse-lash; eachlarca ban sídhe, fairy women’s whips, a plant name; al. eachlairc; each-fhlearc (Aur.).

Eachlascaim, --ascadh, v. tr., I horsehwip, I lash.

Each-liaigh, m., a veterinary surgeon.

Each-luath, a., of the swift steeds; an epithet of a prince, warrior, etc.

Eachmaire, g. id., pl. -rí, m., a stallion.

Eachmairt, -e, f., desire of copulation in horses; act of copulation; faoi e., said of a mare in season.

Eachrach, a., handy. See acrach. [Acrach, -aighe, a., convenient, useful, obliging, civil; bean a., a concubine; beidh t’anam-sa go hacrach ar theintibh ceap, your soul will be conveniently settled in the fires (P. F.).]

Eachrach, -aighe, a., abounding in horses, “horsey”; is e. srianta iad, they are well equipped with horses and bridles; e. éideach, mounted and mailed.

Eachraidh, -e, pl. id., m. and f. (coll.), steeds, horses, cavalry; e. ’charlaibh, a team of horses; e ghruagach, a stud of horses with flowing manes; an e. sídhe, the fairy horsemen; smt. eachra, eachradh.

Eachraidhe, pl., accoutrements for a horse as in ploughing, etc.; an bhfuil na he. go léir agat? have you all the accoutrements? (S. O’L.).

Eachraidheas, -dhis, m., harness, etc. U.).

Eachrais, -e, f., a way a road; a passage; a sally; e. con agus giollaí an dúna, a passage for the hounds and servants of the fortress.

Marc, g. mairc, pl. id. and -a, m., a horse; ar muin mairc a chéile, huddled together, in a state of entanglement or disorder.

Marcach, -aigh, pl. id. and -aighe, m., a horseman, a rider, a knight, a noble; a little grain growing by the side or root of a grain of corn; mac uicht, mac ochta (uchta), id.; (Mac Uchta is the appropriate name of a hill near Errigal); m. duana reachaire ghabhas dán, a rider of verse, i.e., a reciter of a poem; m. trúpa, a trooper.

Marcach, -aighe, a., abounding in steeds; al. -mharceach in compd.; ban-mh., female (of horses; Contr.).

Marcachas, -ais, m., horsemanship, riding; do mh. fá gcamallaibh i gcasc chiartha, your gloomy faring in a dark coffin (Br.).

Marcaidhe, g. id., pl. -dhthe, m., a horseman, a rider.

Marcaidheacht, -a, f., act of riding; horsemanship; a ride, a lift, cavalry; dá chéad ar m., two hundred horse (F.F.); fuair sé m., he got a ride on a horse, a drive on a car, etc.; m. ar ghabhar, a ride on a goat; ag m. ar an gcadán, crossing the sea, al. being transported.

Marcán, -áin, pl. id., m., a horseman (Don. Q. L.).

Marc-fhlaith, m., a cavalier.

Marclach, -aigh, m., a cavalcade, a wedding party mounted (Or.); al. a horse-load; a rider, a cavalry-man; al. márclach, málcrach, ⁊c.

Marclann, -ainne, -a, f., a stable.

Marclannach, -aigh, pl. id., m., a groom; an hostler (O’N.).

Marcradh, -aidhe, f., horses, steeds, cavalry.

Marc-shluagha, a., a cavalcade; coll.. horsemen, riders, cavalry.

Marc-shluaghach, a., belonging to cavalry.

Marchuighim, vl. marcaidheacht, v. intr., I ride on horseback, drive on a car, etc., with ar; m. ar each, I ride a horse; smt. without ar.

—Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla, 1927, by Patrick Dinneen