The sentries were mostly over-age for war work. They carried shotguns. At night you could hear them call out each hour:
‘Number One. All is well!’
History
Frongach, Wales: internment
It was, of course, at Frongach Internment Camp, Wales that Michael Collins made his preparations for the coming campaign, disciplining his men, plotting and planning the War of Independence that would inevitably follow. Rankin was to take his part. In his memoirs however, he does not detail this, closing with his final release and return to Newry.
James Joyce as Clint Eastwood
Meanwhile, other incidents of greater or lesser import were being enacted across the city of Dublin and elsewhere.
To Frongach, Wales: 1916
We had a black market going inside prison, thanks to corrupt warders. Our men would give two shillings to a warder, and he would smuggle in one shilling’s worth of food etc. I didn’t get to share in this bonanza until our solitary confinement (i.e. that of we fourteen ‘pilgrims’) was over …
Black bread and cocoa
While we were in solitary confinement, our breakfast, consisting of cocoa and one small piece of dark bread, was served at 7.30 am by our own volunteers.
Newry Navvy
However we may come to know it, the Newry Navvy now stands on Sugar Island as a reminder of all the local workmen who not only laboured in the construction of the first summit-level canal in these islands, but also the local navvies who went out to construct further canals, railroads and bridges, and indeed buildings throughout the world!
Robbing Staff Sergeant (1916)
Stafford prison was a jail for English military during the Great War. All the prisoners were put in solitary confinement for four weeks …
“G” men : Easter 1916
Detectives were busy all the time trying to take fingerprints from prisoners …
Prisoners of the British
When we appeared at Island Bridge Barracks, things got worse for us. Dublin’s nastiest were let loose from the stockades and the women were by far the worst. They looked like those who had been around during the French Revolution!