Category Archives: History

War on Achill in 1920

In the summer of 1920 there was an escalation of conflict between the Crown forces and the IRA. Ordinary civilians were often targeted as reprisals for

This triggered a grave escalation of the conflict as the new forces carried out reprisals on the civilian population for IRA attacks – in the summer of 1920 burning extensive parts of the towns of Balbriggan and Tuam for example. The IRA in response formed full-time Flying Columns (also called Active Service Units), which in some parts of the country became much more ruthless and efficient at guerrilla warfare.

Purteen, Keel where the marines landed in 1920

Alongside the limited armed campaign there was significant passive resistance including hunger strikes by prisoners (many of whom were released in March 1920) and a boycott by railway workers on carrying British troops.

https://www.theirishstory.com

Another way of passive resistance was refusing to provide troops with food and other necessities, as was the case on Achill in summer 1920.

MARINES ON ACHILL

A detachment of 25 marines landed at Purteen Harbour, Keel, Achill, and occupied the local coastguard station. they were refused supplies at the shop of Miss M’Hugh and Lr. Achill Co-op. Society. A man bringing turf to the coastguards was turned back. Posters warning the people against dealings with the marines were torn down by the officer.

Irish Independent 30 June 1920

Sources

https://www.theirishstory.com/2012/09/18/the-irish-war-of-independence-a-brief-overview/#.XvpGSfJ7nVo

Irish Independent 30 June 1920

The Sphere 07 July 1951

Holdups on the Achill Railway

Old map of Railway to Achill

As the Anglo Irish war progressed throughout 1920, ambushes became more common, even outside the main urban areas. As a guerilla war which relied on ambushes. These localized attacks on usually on police (RIC) stations, where volunteers from the area stole arms of the law keepers, who were usually set free earlier on in the war but as it progressed they didn’t get off so lightly.

Non-compliance with the authorities was another tactic employed, by civilians. One such incident on the Dublin Achill railway line in June 1920 at Castlebar as described in the article below.

Sources

Manchester Evening News 26 June 1920

Irish Independent 30 June 1920

Fishing Gazette 23 September 1899

100 Years Ago

Summer on Achill

Emily, Anita McMahon, Eva O’Flaherty along with Marguerite Chevasse did all they could to bring industry to Achill so that the locals did not have to migrate during the summer months to earn a living. Many islanders traveled mostly to Scotland to help harvest the potato crop, some went to England to in industry there. In June 1920 400 men from the island found employment on the Birkenhead waterworks outside Liverpool. According to the article below entitled “Army of Giants” described “Achill Islanders as splendid specimens of physical strength“. Their work was valued so much that the company overseeing the construction of the waterworks laid on sporting events for their amusement!

The ladies maintained their campaign to bring employment to Achill, which they did with much success but that was after Ireland won independence a year or so later.

Sources

Birmingham Daily Gazette 25 June 1920

Daily Mirror 01 June 1938

International Day of the Nurse

Three Nurses

Florence Nightingale

Today is the International Day of the Nurse, it is also the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. Emily Weddall was a nurse too. Inspired by Nurse Nightingale, she trained at Sir Patrick Dunn’s Hospital, Dublin under the supervision of Nurse Margaret Rachel Huxley, who as a young girl was inspired by Florence Nightingale. Nurse Huxley can be credited with reforming Irish nursing.

Margaret Rachel Huxley

As a fully qualified nurse, Emily adhered to her very modern training, which commenced in 1891, when she was twenty-three, the appropriate age at the time. She nursed in public and private hospitals and as a personal nurse too. Her career took her to Europe and beyond, became a source of income to her in a time of great financial hardship. She applied her skills during a typhus outbreak in 1913 and during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. She also collected money to help fund the Lady Dudley Nurses.

Emily by Tina O’Rourke

Emily as a nurse was a valued member of Cumann na mBan, and gave classes in first aid during the Revolutionary years in Ireland. She also attended to wounded members of the IRA during the dark days of the War of Independence. She was known to cycle long distances during wet cold nights “to nurse a sick member or to save the capture of others”. When an apology was made or gratitude expressed to her, she always replied; ” It is my duty to help our soldiers”. She was in her own way a ‘lady with a lamp’.

Sources

Florence Nightingale

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Margaret_Huxley.png

Belfast Weekly News 05 December 1907

Mayo News 3rd December 1952

Irish Independent 1905-2011 Date:May 21, 1913;Section:None;Page Number:3

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Transforming Nursing

When Florence Nightingale set about changing the style of nursing it was not a profession it was employment that attracted the likes of the Dickensian character Sarah Gamp. It was certainly not a path for young ladies like Florence herself or those that came after her, such as Emily. It did not happen for her overnight in fact it took until she was well over thirty and the horrors of the Crimean War for her to fulfill a destiny that was ‘a calling from God’.

Young Florence

Florence, Italy

Nurse Nightingale, was born in the Italian city, Florence, which she is named after in May 1820. Her family were wealthy and well connected enjoying many privileges such as a two houses one for the summer months and the other for wintering. Her education was administered by her father, who taught her and her older sister, Frances Parthenope (after the Italian city she was born in) many subjects that would not have been imparted in traditional education. We do not know about her sister but young Florence had no interest in the more ladylike activities of home making and needlework. She was more drawn to what was considered in the day as masculine pursuits of reading philosophy. It was not masculine or feminine pursuits that inspired Florence to realise her destiny it was a divine calling.

In her teens Florence felt that God had called her forth to help alleviate human suffering. To her this took on the form of caring for the sick. She may not have known what form that would take, but as a devout Unitarian she trusted the calling of the divine. As nursing was not a profession or indeed a job as such it must have perturbed her greatly. She persisted even if her parents were less than pleased at her proposed path in life. Even if her education was at the time ‘liberal’, society still expected a girl from her background to marry well.

Her father relented and permitted her to attend a school in Germany which taught basic nursing skills for a short time in 1850. She returned in 1851 for further training, increasing her skill base to correct patient observation and hospital management. From there she traveled to Paris, where she spent time training with the Sisters of Mercy. The order was founded by the Venerable Catherine McAuley, an Irishwoman, who like Florence had a calling to help the sick and poor.

In 1831 Catherine founded the Sisters of Mercy, a Religious Congregation largely involved in the care of the poor, the sick and educationally disadvantaged. In the early days, her work was mostly among the people of Dublin, but in time the Congregation spread and became one of the largest Congregations of women, not alone in Ireland, but in the world.

http://sistersofmercy.ie/catherine-mcauley/

Sources

Florence Nightingale – The Lady with the Lamp
Based on article by Mary Rose McCarthy
https://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/florence-nightingale-biography/
http://sistersofmercy.ie/catherine-mcauley/