A soft-bound volume containing the the following pamphlets referring to the Irish Question: • Report of the Labour commission to Ireland. A pamphlet publishing the findings of British Labour Party-sponsored commission on the Irish troubles. The chairman of the commission was Arthur Henderson, MP (1863-1935). Physical description: iv, 119, [1] pp : illus. (incl. plan, facsims.) ; 25 cm. • The American Commission on conditions in Ireland: interim report. A pamphlet reporting the findings of an American Commission investigating the Irish troubles. The commission held public hearings in Washington, D.C., on 19-20 November, 9-23 December 1920 and on 13,14,19 and 21 January 1921. The chairman was noted as L. Hollingsworth. Published in London by Harding and Moore in 1921. Physical description: 72 pp. • Who burnt Cork City? a tale of arson, loot, and murder; the evidence of over seventy witnesses. 1921. A pamphlet published by the Irish Labour Party and Trades Union Congress in January 1921. The work drew upon eye-witness evidence assembled by Seamus Fitzgerald which argued that the fires which had devastated Cork city on the night of 11 December 1920 had been deliberately set by British forces. Members of the fire service testified that their attempts to contain the blaze were hampered by soldiers who fired on them and cut their hoses with bayonets. Physical description: 68 p. illus.
Sinn Féin. Tuairisc na Rúnaithe: Árd-Fheis, 1921. Includes Secretaries’ report and note on the accounts of the party. Printed in Dublin by Sinn Féin. Physical description: 10 pp; tables; 26 cm; With typescript report of the Hon. Treasurer at the Árd-Fheis, 27 Oct. 1921. The report notes that ‘in presenting the balance sheet of the most abnormal year the Sinn Fein Organisation has yet experienced, it is a matter for congratulation that thro’ all the stress and pressure of the greater portion of the time covered by the present balance sheet the Organisation continued to work steadily by keeping in touch with all its Comhairle Ceanntair …’. Includes a table titled ‘Receipts and disbursements from 1st October 1920 to 8 Oct. 1921’. Typescript signature of Siobhan Bean an Phaoraigh, Hon. Secretary.
Circular letter from Seosamh Mac Donnchadha (Joseph MacDonagh), Minister for Labour, Dáil Ėireann, to the Superiors of all Religious Houses in Ireland, enclosing a copy statement, written by a Belfast priest, detailing ‘the Orange atrocities committed on Catholic workers and others last July and August’. MacDonagh asks the Religious Superiors to use ‘their wide influence to assist in the rigid enforcement and maintenance of the Belfast Trade Boycott’. MacDonagh was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin MP for the Tipperary North constituency at the 1918 general election. He was Director of the ‘Belfast Boycott’, an attempt in 1920–21 to boycott goods from Ulster that were being imported into the south of Ireland. With a printed flier titled ‘Black list, Belfast Economic Boycott’ listing the principal firms acting as distributors for ‘Belfast goods’ in Dublin and in other parts of Ireland.
A collection of street ballad leaflets assembled by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. (1876-1965), a Capuchin friar, in 1921. The handbills relate to events in the War of Independence from 1919-21. This contentious period produced its share of controversial literature mainly in the form of leaflets, handbills, ballads and other forms of popular street literature. The treatment of prisoners during the War of Independence was the subject of political and social outrage and was reflected in popular ballads celebrating the lives of Kevin Barry, Patrick Moran, Thomas Traynor and other republican prisoners executed in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin and in other locations following courts martial from 1920-1. Most of the ballads recounted popular stories told in simple metre, and set to (mostly) traditional airs. The ballad titles include: 'Kevin Barry' 'The Bould Black & Tan' 'God Save the Peelers' 'Commandant McKeown' 'My Little Grey Home in Mountjoy' 'Thomas Traynor / Died for Ireland / Mountjoy Prison / April 26 '21' 'Brave sons of Granuaile' 'The Standard of Green, White & Gold / A Song of Truce' 'Latest Hit / If you're Irish We're goin' to Suppress you'
A pamphlet in the republican interest referring to those interned by British authorities in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising. Written by the Most Rev. Edward Thomas O’Dwyer (1842-1917), Bishop of Limerick. Published in Limerick, 1917.
A pamphlet dedicated by the author to Casement’s ‘dearest surviving friend on earth his loving sister Mrs Newman’. The text was written by John Clarke (1868-1934), a County Antrim-born nationalist and journalist who wrote numerous articles on Gaelic cultural revivalist subjects, frequently using the penname ‘Benmore’.
A report of speech by the Bishop of Limerick, a self-proclaimed nationalist and land-reformer, referring to contemporary political opinion. Alone of all the Irish Hierarchy, O’Dwyer was the only one to support the leaders of the 1916 Rising. A sentence beginning ‘Ireland will never be content as a province’ is underlined in the text. With 'Irish Emigrants and English Mobs / Letter from the Bishop of Limerick' (10 Nov. 1915).
