23 September 704 AD: Feast day of St Adhamhnán on this day. He passed away on the little island of Iona [above] off the western Scottish coast. He was one of the greatest scholars of his time and a member of the same family group as the founder of the monastic site, St Columba himself, as both were descended from the powerful Northern Uí Néill dynasty.

He became the 9th Abbot of Iona in 679 AD. He was involved in both religious and political affairs in Scotland, Ireland and in the English kingdom of Northumbria. In the year 687 he secured the release of some 60 important Irish prisoners being held by the Northumbrian King Aldfrith. Ten years later in 697 AD he was the chief instigator and author of Cáin Adomnáin (Law of Adhamhnán) also known as the Lex Innocentium (Law of Innocents) that was promulgated amongst a gathering of Irish, Dal Ríatan and Pictish notables at the Synod of Birr, Co Offaly. This set of laws were designed, among other things, to guarantee the safety and immunity of various types of non-combatants in War.

He is best known though as the biographer of St Columba in the Vita Columba [Life of Columba], a hagiography based on the stories on the Saints' life passed down from those who knew him. This work is one of the most important religious and political sources for Ireland and Scotland that we have that is still extant. Adhamhnán also wrote poetry as well as a work called De Locus Sanctis, which was a study on the Christian Holy Places of Pilgrimage in Palestine.

Adamnán, abbot of Í, rests in the 77th year of his age.

Annals of Ulster 704 AD

 

22 September 1920: The Rineen Ambush on this day. The 4th Battalion of the Clare IRA under Commandant O’Neill ambushed a party of Black and Tans and killed six of them without loss to themselves. They then had a lucky escape as quite unexpectedly a large party of British Military arrived on the scene by chance but in the confusion all the men of the ambush party successfully got away. Men from the ambush part are pictured above on the anniversary of the encounter in 1957.

On September 22, 1920, one of the most remarkable encounters of the War of Independence took place at Dromin Hill, Rineen. The purpose of the act was to get revenge for the murder of Martin Devitt, an Irish soldier who was shot dead in an ambush in February of that year in the locality. A secondary function was to get arms for the poorly equipped volunteers in the area.

Men from several battalions took part in the ambush. The companies in question were Ennistymon, Lahinch, Inagh, Moy, Glendline, Miltown Malbay and Letterkelly. Most of these, however, were unarmed because of the lack of ammunition. The entire lot of arms consisted of 60 rounds of ammunition, eight rifles, two bombs, two revolvers and 16 shotguns.

All the RIC men in the tender were killed. The RIC men killed were an RIC Sergeant (Michael Hynes), along with five other constables (Reginald Hardman, Michael Harte, John Hodnett, Michael Kelly and John Maguire).

'The ambush was carried out by men from the 4th Battalion, Mid-Clare brigade led by Ignatius O’Neill, Battalion O/C and ex-soldier with the Irish Guards, British Army.

There were about 60 in the ambushing party but only nine had rifles. Among the men who took part were Seamus Hennessy, Peter Vaughan, Dan (Dave?) Kennelly, Steve Gallagher, Michael O’Dwyer, Michael Curtin, Pat Lehane, Sean Burke, Pake Lehane, Dan Lehane, Patso Kerin, Anthony Malone, John Joe Neylon, Owen Nestor, Tom Burke, Alphonsus O’Neill and Ned Hynes.

Thomas Moroney was in charge of the scouts, one of whom was John Clune, who cycled into Miltown Malbay to check when the tender would return. After the attack on the tender, the IRA had not fully withdrawn when the British military, consisting of about 150 soldiers, arrived on the scene. They were on their way to the site of the capture of RM Lendrum. A running pursuit followed with no deaths on either side but O’Neill and Curtin were wounded.'

http://www.clarechampion.ie

 

21 September 1795: ‘The Battle of the Diamond’ on this day. This deadly encounter took place at a little crossroads in north County Armagh between the Protestant ‘Peep O Day Boys’ and the Catholic ‘Defenders’, both of which were semi paramilitary groups fighting for power in the County at that time. While there was always tension between the adherents of both religions this was exacerbated by the situation in Armagh where the Linen industry was the economic powerhouse of the County and indeed one of the major industries in Ireland at that time. Both sides wanted a cut of the economic benefits that ensued from this lucrative industry, but the Protestants viewed the steady encroachment of the Catholics into an Industry they saw as ‘theirs’ as something to be stamped out.

Tension had been building in the area for days and attempts at mediation had met with a certain level of success. The Protestants though were clearly being reinforced with weaponry as numbers of ‘off duty’ members of the Crown Forces arrived on the scene, which gave them a considerable advantage over their opponents in anything other than a melee. By the morning of Monday 21 September it looked like the situation had calmed down enough that hundreds of men from both sides who had gathered on the hills around the area would depart and bloodshed would be avoided.

But as dawn broke the Defenders, egged on by men who had marched for miles to help them, descended onto the crossroads itself and seized the homestead of Dan Winter, a local Protestant. Daniel Winter and his sons defended their property as long as possible, having to retreat to the Diamond Hill when the thatch was fired. This was the trigger for the engagement to begin in earnest. The Protestants lined up their musket men along the brow of the hill and proceeded to open fire on the Catholics gathered around the Diamond. 

From this position, they gained three crucial advantages: the ability to comfortably rest their muskets, allowing for more accurate shooting; and a steep up-hill location which made it hard for any attackers to scale; and a direct line-of-sight to Winter's cottage which the Defenders made their rallying point. It was all over very fast with the Defenders been cut down in droves in what in effect was a Massacre. Perhaps as many as 30 Catholics lay dead and many scores more were wounded. The Defenders then fled taking as many of their injured men with them as they could carry.

In the aftermath of the ‘battle’, the Peep o' Day Boys retired to James Sloans inn in Loughgall, and it was here that James Wilson, Dan Winter, and James Sloan would found the Orange Order with the stated aim of ‘defending the King and his heirs so long as he supported the Protestant Ascendancy’. 

In the months that followed and through the winter of 1795-1796 hundreds of Catholic houses were attacked, people killed and injured and their linen looms destroyed in what became known as the 'Armagh Outrages’. It is estimated that over 7,000 Catholic men, women and children were driven from their homes in an orgy of violence - never to return. The effects of that fateful encounter at the Diamond in County Armagh are still with us to this day.

 

20 September 1911: Anna Catherine Parnell [above] died on this day. She was the estranged sister of Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish Parliamentary Leader who tried so hard to gain Home Rule for Ireland.

When her brother was campaigning in America for the Land League in 1879/1880 she and her feisty older sister Fanny Parnell [below] used their own vehicle to help the peasants of Ireland in their fight to break the power of the Landlords of Ireland. This was the New York Ladies’ Land League that Fanny had set up in the USA to help her brother’s fund raising campaign over there. This was used in a successful campaign which raised thousands of dollars for transmission to Ireland.

On Anna’s return to Dublin in late 1880 and at the suggestion of Michael Davitt it was decided to set up a similar structure back Home. Thus on 31 January 1881 the Ladies’ Irish National Land League was founded, with Anna Parnell as its effective leader. Not everyone was happy about this or its usefulness to the Cause.  However they grew rapidly, with more than five hundred branches of the Ladies’ Land League throughout Ireland by the beginning of 1882.

But things changed radically in October 1881 when Parnell was arrested and imprisoned in Kilmainham jail Dublin. With most of the male leaders imprisoned or on the run the LLL took over what effective help could be given to the hard pressed followers of the League’s programme, namely that of securing ‘the land of Ireland for the people of Ireland’ by a programme of peaceful and constitutional action.

With the Leadership behind bars the shadow of 'Captain Moonlight' was soon felt in the fields and villages of Ireland as Agrarian agitation took hold. This was the field that Anna and her League pushed to the limits without going over the line. To some though their tactics were just a bit  too radical for some people’s liking. Some rejected them and some protected them. It is true that they spent money profusely to push as hard as they could to force the hand of the British Government to relent - and break the grip of the Landlords to the ownership of so much of the Land of Ireland. But under the circumstances where time was of the essence they might have felt justified in doing so.

When Charles S Parnell was released in May 1882 under the terms of the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ the Ladies League felt somewhat betrayed by its terms. Charles had never really felt comfortable with the idea of women being involved in politics - then an exclusively male affair. He examined the books kept by Anna of the records of her organisation and found them wanting. The LLL had run up debts of some £40,000! Charles then made his sister an offer she could not refuse: In return for paying off its debts the League was to be wound up and disbanded. Anna had no choice but to agree. But she never forgave her brother.

That year was to bring more heartbreak as her beloved sister Fanny passed away at an early age in the USA. Anna and Fanny shared with Charles a keen interest in Irish nationalism, and at the age of sixteen Fanny published her first poems in the Fenian newspaper, The Irish People. She became a prolific author of verse, much of it on patriotic themes, and her most famous poem, ‘Hold the harvest’, published in 1880, was described as the ‘Marseillaise of the Irish peasant.’ However, her health was poor and, though politically committed, much of her short life was spent out of Ireland.

But when Fanny died  her spirit was broken and she drifted away from Ireland and Irish politics. Charles tried at a reconciliation but she was having none of it and indeed cut him when once their paths afterwards inadvertently crossed. She did though publicly defend her brother's political reputation in the wake of the Kitty O’Shea divorce scandal and his subsequent Downfall and death in 1891. She forayed briefly into an Irish bye election in Longford in 1908 but was disillusioned  with the way she was treated.

She drifted from place to place in England under a multitude of assumed names and lived in a state of genteel poverty for much of it. She engaged in intermittent correspondence with political sympathisers back home but she became something of a Recluse. Very few of her acquaintances in the towns of England had a clue who she was and her relationship to Ireland’s fight for justice. She was however moved to write her own account of her role in the momentous events of the early 1880s that she had such a prominent but brief role in shaping. It was called The Tale of a Great Sham. However try as she might she could never find a publisher willing to cover the costs of publishing it. Indeed it was only in 1986 that a long lost copy was found and finally saw print.

After many moves in 1910 she re-located to the picturesque north Devon town of Ilfracombe where she went under the name of ‘Cerisa Palmer’. She had an early interest in art and indeed had been a painter of some merit in her early years. Perhaps that was why she moved to this spot to see out her last years. Her end came on a beach there on 20 September 1911 when she was drowned while swimming in the sea. She was 59 years old. A few days later she was buried in a local churchyard not as Anna Parnell but under her assumed name of ‘Cerisa Palmer’.

Katherine Tynan the Irish novelist and writer wrote of her a few years later, ‘her life ought to have been written, for she was a great woman, and yet I think that she herself would have preferred that her name be writ in water.’ 

And indeed while Anna was largely written out of Irish History it can hardly be denied that she played a part in  her virtual disappearance from its pages.

 

18 September 1851: The death of Ann Devlin – Patriot - on this day. Her role in Irish History was a brief one and entirely sub ordinary to that of greater players on the stage than her. But while others have faded away with the passage of time her name is still remembered and admired to this day by those who are familiar with the events of 1803 in Ireland.

She was born circa 1780 into a farming family near Rathdrum Co Wicklow. Her father Bryan Devlin was committed to Ireland becoming an Independent Nation and raised his family to be the same determination. When the Rising of 1798 came he became a suspect in the eyes of Dublin Castle and was imprisoned in Wicklow Jail. He was released in 1800 and moved his family to the Dublin village of Rathfarnham. It was here that Fate played a part that placed Anne at the centre of the momentous events of 1803 and her place in Irish History.

Her father was still involved in the struggle for Irish Freedom and became acquainted with Robert Emmet who was planning another Uprising. To give cover to his designs a veneer of normality was essential and Mr. Devlin suggested that one of his daughters could play the role of ‘Housekeeper’ and convey messages across the City without arousing the suspicion. Eventually Anne was chosen for the role and she moved into the Emmet Household.

Eventually the Revolt kicked off pre-maturely on 27 July 1803 but quickly turned into a Fiasco and Emmet fled to the Wicklow mountains. He was eventually captured and executed. The Devlin family knew that sooner or later they would be implicated and they were tracked down and arrested. Ann herself was seized at the Emmet household at Butterfield Lane.

When the others came down she was examined. She said she knew nothing in the world about the gentleman, except that she was the servant maid, where they came from, and where they went to, she knew nothing about, and so long as her wages were paid she cared to know nothing else about them…The magistrate pressed her to tell the truth, he threatened her with death if she did not tell; she persisted in asserting her total ignorance of Mr. Ellis’s [Emmet’s] acts and movements, and of those of all the other gentlemen. At length the magistrate gave the word to hang her, and she was dragged into the court yard to be executed. There was a common car there, they tilted up the shafts and fixed a rope from the back band that goes across the shafts, and while these preparations were making for her execution, the yeomen kept her standing against the wall of the house, prodding her with their bayonets in the arms and shoulders, till she was all over covered with blood … and saying to her at every thrust of the bayonet, ‘Will you confess now; will you tell now where is Mr. Ellis?’ Her constant answer was ‘I have nothing to tell, I will tell nothing!!!’

The rope was at length put about her neck; she was dragged to the place where the car was converted into a gallows; she was placed over it, and the end of the rope was passed over the back-band. … She had just time to say, ‘The Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul,’ when a tremendous shout was raised by the yeomen: the rope was pulled by all of them, except those who held down the back part of the car, and in an instant, she was suspended by the neck. After she had been thus suspended for two or three minutes, her feet touched the ground, and a savage yell of laughter recalled her to her senses. The rope around her neck was loosened, and her life was spared: she was let off with a half hanging’

The life and times of Robert Emmet, Esq (1847) by R.R. Madden

Ann and her family were then incarcerated in the notorious Kilmainham Jail in Dublin where they were subjected to further interrogations and deprivations. They were released in 1806 when they were no longer considered a danger to British Rule. She quickly faded into obscurity.

It was only years later that Dr. Madden, the Historian of the United Irishmen, tracked her down to a tenement in the Liberties of Dublin that her story was told. She had married a man called Campbell, had children and records show she probably had a good job as the Laundress in St Patrick’s Hospital but she eventually lost the position when new management were appointed. She fell on hard times and Dr. Madden found her living the life of a ‘Common Washerwoman’ taking in dirty laundry to clean. When she died she was buried in a pauper’s grave in Glasnevin cemetery Dublin. Afterwards Dr. Madden had her remains moved to a more desirable part of the cemetery. He also paid for the erection of a headstone which was later replaced by a large Celtic cross. [above]

 

18 September 1961: Some 150 Irish soldiers quartered near the town of Jadotville Congo were led away into captivity on this day. They had been besieged for five  days in their isolated position and their CO - Commandant Patrick Quinlan - had concluded that their position was hopeless. The night before  he had agreed with the besiegers to lay down arms and accept their offer of ‘protection’. As dawn broke that morning the men of ‘A’ Company awoke to a new reality, rather than been respected Peacekeepers of the United Nations they were effectively POWS of the breakaway Congolese province of Katanga.

It was a sorry saga and one that should never have happened. Reports had reached UN Headquarters in Elizabethville in early September that the White population in Jadotville were been subjected to harassment and molestation. It was decided to despatch a Company of UN soldiers to maintain order there and keep the peace - a mission that fell to ‘A’ Company of the Irish Army to carry out. However on arrival Comdt. Quinn was told by both Black and White residents that their presence was not required - as there was no trouble there to subdue. But the situation was tense - very tense. They were clearly not wanted there and they were refused entry to the town and their position was encircled by the Katangese forces.

Then un-beknownest to the Irish garrison the UN HQ in Elizabethville had decided to engage in what turned out to be a ham fisted attempt - Operation Morthor - to  disband and disarm the Katangese rebel government of Mr Tshombe in that city. Retaliation was swift and brutal. The first the Irish in Jadotville knew that things and gone from tense to outright warfare was when on the morning of Wednesday 13th September as Mass was being heard the Katangese Gendarmie launched a series of attacks on their positions.

For the next five days the Irish held their ground even though they were surrounded by thousands of their enemies. If they had one factor in their favour it was that the Katangese Gendarmie were not a professional fighting force but a heavily armed police one. Still they had enough weaponry in machine guns, mortars and the assistance of a jet fighter-bomber to make the Irish know that they were a lethal threat to them. They also had the assistance of White officer mercenaries. But the biggest factor that made the situation hopeless if they were not promptly relieved was a very simple one - WATER! For without that no man can last more than a few days and expect to survive. In the heat of the Congo that was even more so. The besiegers cut the mains into the camp and after that it could only be a matter of time.

Relief attempts were soon organised from Elizabethville but the problem was there was only one road that led from there to Jadotville. Progress was made along it until the relief column reached the bridge over the river Lufira. Here the Katangese had blocked the bridge and lined up men along the riverbank to stop any force from breaking through. The Irish along with allied troops from the Indian and Swedish armies did all they could to storm the bridge but each attempt was beaten back. By Sunday it was obvious that the bridge could not be taken with the forces available. Rescue by air was out of the question as the enemy had air superiority in that they had one aircraft and the UN had none!

Serious negotiations began on Saturday when the Mayor of Jadotville Mr Munongo proposed terms. There would be a Ceasefire & joint patrols, the water would be turned back on, the jet would be grounded and the UN allowed to patrol the town. But it quickly became clear that the terms were not going to be kept.

We played a delaying game as long as we could on that Sunday, hoping against hope that reinforcements would arrive as we negotiated a definite ceasefire. I hoped that we would get a written ceasefire but soon Munongo was demanding surrender and only surrender terms, otherwise the final onslaught would begin. I  realised that our situation had become hopeless and that there was no prospect of relief arriving in time. I knew too that if I continued my men would be massacred by a vastly superior force so I agreed to the terms.

Commandant Patrick Quinlan

Under the Blue Flag by Raymond Smith

Thus ended the ‘Siege of Jadotville’ where the Irish Army held off thousands of enemies for five long days. The men were held in captivity until 25 October when they were handed back to the UN in a prisoner exchange. Their conditions of captivity ranged from good to fair to bad and sometimes to the point that their lives were in immediate danger - but they all made it out alive.

However surrender and captivity is never an easy burden for any soldier or Army to bear and when the men returned home there was a stigma attached to them by some - none more so on the head of Commandant Patrick Quinlan. He had been put in an impossible situation by UN HQ and was effectively ‘up the creek without a paddle’ in Jadotville. There is no doubt his career suffered as a result and it is only in recent years that it is accepted that the decision he had to take was the correct one. For at the end of the day all the men he led in battle made it back home. There are now only a few survivors left of those events so long ago but finally their grit, courage and determination has at last been recognised for their heroic stand at Jadotville back in 1961.

 

14 September 1955: Doctor Kathleen Florence Lynn died on this day. Dr Lynn was Chief Medical Officer of the Irish Citizen Army garrison that seized Dublin City Hall on 24 April 1916.

She was born in Killala, Co Mayo on 28 January 1874. She was the daughter of a Church of Ireland rector and at a young age decided to become a Doctor. She studied for her Degree at Royal University of Ireland in Dublin. After spending some years in the USA she returned home and after much trying secured a place with the Royal Eye & Ear hospital becoming the first female doctor to be taken on there. She also ran a private practice from her home at 9 Belgrave Road, Rathmines. It was through her contacts there that she became involved in Revolutionary politics. She supported the workers during the Dublin Lockout in 1913, and became a friend and supporter of James Connolly.

During Easter Week she was taken prisoner by the British but they were at a loss what to do with her as she did not fit the typical profile of an Irish ‘Rebel’. After a few weeks of captivity she was deported to England and sent to work with a Doctor in Bath. By the end of the year, she was back at her home in Rathmines, re-establishing her practice.

In 1917, she became one of four women members of the national executive committee of Sinn Fein. She campaigned for Constance Markievicz in the general election of 1918 and was one of five women elected to the Dáil in 1923 but as an abstentionist in opposition to the Treaty, she did not take her seat. She was a member of Rathmines Urban District Council and vice-president of the Irish Women Workers' Union.

But perhaps her greatest contribution was in the work of dedicated and professional care for very young sick infants. In 1919 Lynn together with Madeleine ffrench-Mullen (her life long companion) and a number of other politically-active medical women founded St. Ultan’s Hospital for Infants in Charlemont Street, Dublin. At that time in Dublin, infant mortality was 150 per 1,000 births and there was extensive malnutrition among the general populace.

The initial focus of the hospital was on treating those suffering from malnutrition and syphilitic infants due to an epidemic of that disease amongst the poorest of working class Dubliners - probably spread by returning soldiers disbanded after the end of the First World War. They started with a Capital of some $200 and Then we worked – and worked. By 1925 they had a hospital with 25 beds where babies could be treated and had set up what was practically a dispensary to teach mothers how to care for their babies at home.

Today her hospital is now long gone, closing back in the 1980s. But she was a lifelong campaigner for women’s and workers’ rights. Kathleen Lynn has been described as one of the great Irish humanitarians of the 20th Century. Her influence extended throughout Irish society with her work in hospital medicine, her fight against poverty and disease, her career as a politician and as a lifelong social revolutionary. From 1916 she kept extensive diaries of her life and work which are now housed in the archives of Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.

On her death she was given a full military funeral as befitted one who had fought for Irish Freedom in 1916. That and her work in the years thereafter to alleviate the sufferings of the little children from the streets of Dublin means that she deserves her place in the Pantheon of 20th Century Irish Women who strove to make Ireland a better place for her People.