GPO : Wednesday: Easter Week ’16

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It was Wednesday of Easter Week and the Rising in Dublin was in full progress.

I walked down Innisfallen Parade to Dorset Street and on to Gardiner Row. I had to detour as Royal Irish Rifles soldiers were clearing the people from Dorset Street from north to south.

Rankin Newry Memoirs 6

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 As I said, I left Newry via the Dromalane Road and Kate Linnegan’s Loanan which took me out near where Cloughogue new chapel stands.


The Brennans

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The best traditional sessions are now in Rostrevor (weren’t they always?) and we had a great time last night in the Corner House in the company of Alfie and Mary Corr, Liam Farrell and Matthew and Claire McGrath. There were a few singers from the floor, as always. Quiet night.

Rankin’s Newry Memoirs 5

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Preparations were being made for an uprising and the IRB, the Volunteers under Eoin Mac Neill and the Citizens Army were to be involved. On the Friday night before Easter John Southwell and I cycled to Dundalk to report progress.

Newry Nuns of Yesteryear

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I was reliably informed that there are literally dozens (70+) of retired nuns resident in the new Poor Clares Convent in Ashgrove Avenue. I will ask the next one I see out walking and confirm with you.


Rankin Memoirs 3

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Early in January 1914 I informed the Irish Club that I was going home to Ireland and they gave me a letter to deliver to John Devoy in New York (my point of embarkation).


Newry Vintners …

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There was a time when several dozen local bar owners and their spouses attended the annual Vintners night-out in Newry.


Rankin Memoirs 2

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After a month in Philadelphia in 1914, I joined the state’s National Guard. The Irish friends I had made at the Irish Club would not hear of joining, claiming that it was composed of the worst elements in the city. But I wanted military experience for the future. Also I wanted to acquire some ammunition.


Carlingford: Lewis 1837

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‘Carlingford is beautifully situated on the south-west side of the spacious lough or bay to which it gives its name, and immediately at the base of an extensive range of mountains which terminate at this point. 

Hector: in Penny Apples

On Santanta’s instigation I took another look recently at Bill Cullen’s ‘It’s a Long Way from Penny Apples’.  A decade old now, it feels as if it’s of another age. And it tells of another earlier age, the 40s and 50s in working-class Dublin.

 

Thomas Davis, Young Irelander

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In my youth, my role model patriots were James Larkin (mainly because of his strong working-class credentials as well as the fact that his parents hailed from here) James Connolly and John Mitchel. Where repression, discrimination and exclusion dominate, one tends towards the extremes.