Was the GPO in 1916 Looted?

jonniebgood1

MarchDub wrote: »

You beat me to it - I have the same questions.

I might also add to Jonniebgood that sarcasm like "Those darn nasty brits strike again" - does not add anything to a discussion.

I think you missed the point I was making, as explained in my last post.

jonniebgood1

Morlar wrote: »

I think you have placed the 'factual burden of proof' the wrong way around there.

My take on this is that you have a situation where the British forces are actively shelling Dublin city centre & fires break out. Due to the ongoing conflict the fire service do not attend to them and the fires spread.

Then along comes this new theory is that the fires were caused by looters for an unknown reason. Despite the fact that this would prevent future looting and seem to not be in the interests of the looters. Also the suggestion has been made that the rebels had an involvement in looting - which is groundless and seems to be dropped for now.

As I see it it would be up to the people putting forward this new theory (that looters caused fires) to provide some supportive evidence.

It is not up to the people who are sceptical about this new theory to disprove it. It would be something which goes against logic and is unsupported by anything presented so far other than vague accusation.

I have no interest in another pedantic argument with you as we have ruined many threads doing this.

jonniebgood1

Morlar wrote: »

Apparently the artist turned up at the scene of the shootings the next day. He saw and painted this newspaper seller /street trader girl laying a flower where one of the victims had fallen.

Was she linked to a victim or any other background info on the picture?

MarchDub

One of the reasons why the British army shot at civilians is that the soldiers were told that most of the rebels were not in uniform and that their number was possibly tens of thousands - and so innocent civilian men were often the targets. This, coupled with the fact that the troops were hurried into Dublin and were in a state of confusion - many Dubliners would later say that some of the soldiers actually thought that they were in France or Belgium on a WWI mission. But think of it, by mid week of Easter week there were 25,000 troops on the Dublin streets.

In 2001 PM Blair released secretly held documents that revealed almost 400 deaths of innocent civilians shot by the army during the Rising and the days following had been hidden and covered up with no investigation.

MarchDub

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I think you missed the point I was making, as explained in my last post.

I disagree - I don't think I missed a thing.

mattjack

Corsendonk wrote: »

I always heard a story in my family that a prominated business family in the area established its fortune by funding gained from the looting of gold in the GPO in 1916. 3 brothers took part. Is this Hogwash or was gold stored in the GPO? And did much looting occur in the Uprising?

heard that myself....family of buthchers

Morlar

Originally Posted by Morlar View Post
I think you have placed the 'factual burden of proof' the wrong way around there.

My take on this is that you have a situation where the British forces are actively shelling Dublin city centre & fires break out. Due to the ongoing conflict the fire service do not attend to them and the fires spread.

Then along comes this new theory is that the fires were caused by looters for an unknown reason. Despite the fact that this would prevent future looting and seem to not be in the interests of the looters. Also the suggestion has been made that the rebels had an involvement in looting - which is groundless and seems to be dropped for now.

As I see it it would be up to the people putting forward this new theory (that looters caused fires) to provide some supportive evidence.

It is not up to the people who are sceptical about this new theory to disprove it. It would be something which goes against logic and is unsupported by anything presented so far other than vague accusation.

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

I have no interest in another pedantic argument with you as we have ruined many threads doing this.

I have not seen a shred of evidence to the theory you seem to support that the looters caused a single fire in Dublin in 1916.

Perhaps if you were less ambigous in your posts, speak clearly and stand over what you say then such 'pedantic arguments' would not arise in the first place.

mattjack

mattjack wrote: »

heard that myself....family of buthchers

butchers ..even

Corsendonk

Morlar wrote: »

I have not seen a shred of evidence to the theory you seem to support that the looters caused a single fire in Dublin in 1916.

.

Pardon to butt into the hand bags swinging contest but the quotes I posted from the History of the Dublin Fire Brigade obviously are not evidence in your opinion seening thatthey mention looters starting fires?

Morlar

Corsendonk wrote: »

the quotes I posted from the History of the Dublin Fire Brigade obviously are not evidence in your opinion seening thatthey mention looters starting fires?

To be honest with you I had misread that. Apologies. I read down to :

The locations destroyed by fires, looters or bombardment by the military were given as: 68,900 square yards in O'Connell Street area; 29,140 in Linenhall;1,020 in Lower Bridge Street; 225 in Mount Street; 135 in St Stephens Green - a total of 99,420 square yards of the most prosperous areas of the city destroyed.

Then:

Commandant Brennan Whitmore of the Volunteers relates in his memoirs being sent by James Connolly to try to stop the looting in Talbot and North Earl streets areas. He maintained that he called thefire brigade who responded immediately on the first two days but were prevented from turning out by the military from then on.

:

When shelling began, houses and business premises were set alight by the bombardment, making fire fighting an altogether impossible task.

Then speedread the rest. On re-reading it now I would take that as evidence that some fires were indeed started by looters. I would stress the point that this appears isolated given the scale of the damage, specially regarding Sackville st. Also that the British army preventing access to the fire brigades probably increased the scale of the damage and it is unclear if they would actually have come under rebel fire so the motivation for the b.a. preventing the fire service attending is suspect in my view. However I accept there is evidence there that some looters did start some fires.

MarchDub

mattjack wrote: »

butchers ..even

That's very interesting - in Dublin there were a number of German butchers who came as refugees during WWI and opened up shops. There were two on Moore St near enough to the Post Office. I wonder was this a fabrication spread about because of possible local prejudice against the 'foreigners'?

Corsendonk

MarchDub wrote: »

That's very interesting - in Dublin there were a number of German butchers who came as refugees during WWI and opened up shops. There were two on Moore St near enough to the Post Office. I wonder was this a fabrication spread about because of possible local prejudice against the 'foreigners'?

Well the family in my story originally came from Rush(not german that i know) but moved to another North Co. Dublin town. Interesting to know were MattJack butchers were based do.

Was one of the German butchers Olhausen?

MarchDub

Corsendonk wrote: »

Well the family in my story originally came from Rush(not german that i know) but moved to another North Co. Dublin town. Interesting to know were ... butchers were based do.

Was one of the German butchers ...?

Given the context I don't think we ought to be mentioning actual names - just saying.

CDfm

There were some valuables in the GPO but I find it impossible to think that bars of gold were kept their unless there was a vault and anyway that seems to be a bank thing.

On the Saturday morning, the sun shone once again. At 10am, Mary Louisa Hamilton Norway wrote a letter. "If the main walls of the GPO remain standing it may be we shall find the safe in H's (her husband's) room still intact. It was built into the wall, and my jewel-case was in it, but all our silver, old engravings, and other valuables were stored in the great mahogany cupboards when we gave up our house in the autumn, as being the safest place in Dublin."

Could rebels or occupants of the surrounding area take valuables and recover them later.


Its possible.

The GPO was burnt out and empty, with its former occupiers continuing to burrow their way up the street. Among them was Joseph Sweeney, who was involved in a terrible incident on Moore Street. "The door of the house we were trying to get into was locked and we could hear people moving about inside. We asked them to open the door and they wouldn't. Then somebody shouted in to get out of the room and he put a gun up to the door and blew open the lock. When we got in we found it had killed an old boy inside."

http://www.irishtimes.com/focus/easterrising/saturday/


Really , its the surrounding areas - bombed out banks or hotels or shops would have the real pickings.



So the insurance and other compensation scheme payouts might give an idea.

Judgement Day

I think it's harsh/judgemental to refer to looters as criminals - there was, and still is, serious poverty in the inner city and it was only human nature to take advantage of their good luck.

mattjack

Corsendonk wrote: »

Well the family in my story originally came from Rush(not german that i know) but moved to another North Co. Dublin town. Interesting to know were MattJack butchers were based do.

Was one of the German butchers Olhausen?

My mothers family knows the family...and as a far as I know they are still in existence as butchers..well known butchers in Dublin..but you,ve got to wait till tomorrow and I ll ask my mother..my Mother is from the city centre and her story was that the brothers fought in the rising..and then took money from the GPO as the fighting was ending and escaped capture , but take grains of salt folks..Ill ask her over the weekend..

MarchDub

Judgement Day wrote: »

I think it's harsh/judgemental to refer to looters as criminals - there was, and still is, serious poverty in the inner city and it was only human nature to take advantage of their good luck.

Thank you! I was thinking the same all day. I can remember when I was a child in the 1950s/early 60s there was still a lot of poverty in the city - it was not unusual to see children with shoes tied on with rags to keep them on. Kids frequently wore coats crudely cut down from adult size. Women wore dresses for years without getting anything new. City children had no toys - none at all. They played with ropes tied around lamp posts and old tyres that they raced up and down the roads pushing them with sticks. My grandfather worked in a Catholic charity and I used to go around with him as he delivered help in small monies and I witnessed poverty on a level not known nowadays. Whole families living in one room.

When I read of the looting I only thought - who can blame them, many of the looters were kids taking toys and women taking clothes that they hadn't got a snowball's chance in hell of ever owning.

CDfm

Judgement Day wrote: »

I think it's harsh/judgemental to refer to looters as criminals - there was, and still is, serious poverty in the inner city and it was only human nature to take advantage of their good luck.

JD the land of saints and scholars and all that. Looters , criminals -its all semantics.

& MD -everybody was poor -its relative and the area my Dad grew up in was poor & decimated by TB - we should not let excuses get in the way of the facts.

How did so many civilians get killed and injured & how come no explanations have ever been forthcoming.

How bout this -people saw & took the opportunity -the rebels saw them got mad and shot em - even the soldiers could have taken loot as victors spoils and everybody kept schtum.

Or false insurance claims by owners, managers and claimants.

Isn't Hill 16 built with the rubble of 1916.

Lock & load gentlemen. :pac:

MarchDub

Not offering excuses - just relaying how people lived. I never point fingers at those who have to scrounge around to live, or even survive. Saw New Orleans a few years go - no blame there either. People reduced to nothing have my sympathy. And not everyone in Dublin was at the level of poverty that I described.

It's pointless to speculate on the shootings that are not documented - without evidence we can even surmise that martians came down and shot at looters or civilians. Without evidence we can invent our own bogeymen to blame - but it still remains invention.

Corsendonk

MarchDub wrote: »

Given the context I don't think we ought to be mentioning actual names - just saying.

As explained if I can use the pun I think your german immigrants theory is "tripe":D but I just wished to know if they were one of the butchers in the area you mentioned. Considering the GPO was occupied by the rebels it would have to be the rebels who "took" anything unless workers who cleared debris found something in the ruins. Is there a list of who fought in the GPO? Or a partial list?

mattjack

Corsendonk wrote: »

As explained if I can use the pun I think your german immigrants theory is "tripe":D but I just wished to know if they were one of the butchers in the area you mentioned. Considering the GPO was occupied by the rebels it would have to be the rebels who "took" anything unless workers who cleared debris found something in the ruins. Is there a list of who fought in the GPO? Or a partial list?

there are lists of who fought where in 1916...I,ve seen them recently online

mattjack

Corsendonk wrote: »

As explained if I can use the pun I think your german immigrants theory is "tripe":D but I just wished to know if they were one of the butchers in the area you mentioned. Considering the GPO was occupied by the rebels it would have to be the rebels who "took" anything unless workers who cleared debris found something in the ruins. Is there a list of who fought in the GPO? Or a partial list?

actually there are lists of casualties on both sides ..injured and fatalities..

brianthebard

CDfm wrote: »

James Stephens the writer wrote that "small boys were killed"



http://www.irishtimes.com/focus/easterrising/wednesday/

I'm fairly certain that James Stephens was not in Dublin when the rising happened and there are a multitude of inaccuracies or 'poetic license' in his piece on the insurrection.

MarchDub wrote: »

Edit: Worse, McGarry does not even give a reference or source for this statement anyway.

It is commonly held that someone, possibly Michael Mallin shot a lorry driver at Stephens green but I'm not sure there is an official source for this, it could be received wisdom from Desmond Greaves who did not necessarily provide footnotes for all his claims. That is the only reference that I know of to the rebels shooting civilians.

JohnFalstaff

Daithí O Corráin, a lecturer in the history department of St. Pat's, is currently finishing a work which purports to cover every casualty of the Easter Rising. It is provisionally titled The Dead of the Irish Revolution 1916-1921. It's a topic that is long overdue examination.

As regards the looters, I agree with Judgement Day. There is no way we can compare the condition of Dublin inner city housing during the 1960's and 1970's to those of the early decades of the 1900's. I feel the only true equivalent would be a similar slum in a third world city such as Mumbai. The description that Ernie O' Malley gives in On Another Man's Wound sums up the anarchy and abandon that the 1916 looters must have enjoyed:

"I heard the noise of firing; random shots in the distance. People from the slums had looted some of the shops. Boys walked around with a bright yellow shoe on one foot, the other bare; women carried apronsful of footwear, stopping at intervals to sit on the curb and try on a pair of satin shoes; then, dissatisfied, fling them away and fit on another and different variety.

Boys wore silk hats perched on their noses or backwards at a drunken angle. Three of them have cut slits in their hats and placed them over their faces. Water pistols in hands, they were Kelly the Bush Ranger and his gang, with their bullet-proof, bucket helmets.

Pickets from the GPO fired at the looters, but they fired in the air. Clery's store, a large one, was like an ant heap. Men, women and children swarmed about, carrying off furniture, silks, satins; pushing baby carriages filled with sheets, stockings, garters, curtains.

Trails, winding and twisting, showed what they had discarded. Pickets were strengthened, looters were fired on, the shots were lower. The looters dropped their armful and scampered away, cursing the armed men. 'You dirty bowsies, wait till the Tommies bate your bloody heads off'."

CDfm

Here is a list of the civilian dead

http://irishmedals.org/gpage47.html

You can also find volunteer & army casualties here.

http://irishmedals.org/index.html

The civilian dead outnumbered the army & volunteer dead.

Dionysus

Two very informative posts above. Thanks. There's a very surprising number of women on those lists. I had always thought Markievicz was some sort of token female. Far from it. Where are the female inheritors of this radical republican tradition today (or, more specifically, yesterday!).

Corsendonk

AH have decided to give this thread their special treatment:eek:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056253982

PatsytheNazi

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Certainly not trying to be funny- apologies if my sentiment was unclear:
My response was basically saying that this is not a clear black and white situation. i.e. to say that looters during easter 1916 would only nick stuff but not criminally damage the property they were looting is not factually proven. Its entirely possible that people damaging/ looting property could cause fires, etc.

Yes just as it'ss entirely possible that Dev was a British spy, the Rebels shot civilians and blamed it on the Brits etc :rolleyes:

My reference to 'interesting sources' is the book links about the looting. I had no idea of the extent of this looting and the ? was asking if these links were also doubted (in same way as fire damage by looters). Its not a straightforward bad brits story which was what Patsys post implied to me.

Patsy never replied to you regarding the fires, it was to Corsendonk in post #10 Bozo :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

brianthebard

If you can't say anything nice don't say anything nice at all Patzy.

jonniebgood1

Post 10:

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

The looters took goods away only, the fires were mainly started by the British artillery etc hitting the buildings and igniting fires as one of the effects of an explosion is to cause intense heat.

Simples.

Yet

Corsendonk wrote: »

The Dublin Fire Brigade: a history of the brigade, the fires and the emergenciesBy Tom Geraghty, Trevor Whitehead

The first fire calls were from the North Ear Street area where a fire was started by looters. By Tuesday morning looting of shops had spread and further fires were started. Commandant Brennan Whitmore of the Volunteers relates in his memoirs being sent by James Connolly to try to stop the looting in Talbot and North Earl streets areas. He maintained that he called thefire brigade who responded immediately on the first two days but were prevented from turning out by the military from then on.

When shelling began, houses and business premises were set alight by the bombardment, making fire fighting an altogether impossible task. However during lulls, the fire engines responded and attacked the fires that were then occurring on an ever more widespread basis. When shelling recommenced the firemen withdrew to adjacent streeta awaiting the next lull so they could get to work again. As the week went on so the fighting, shooting and shelling increased. Fires caused by the incendiary shells were relatively small but, if they were not tackled quickly, they spread until they merged with other fires, finally becoming a conflagration which would radiate to any inflammables in the vicinity and eventually shower burning debris over a wide area. On occasions when the military informed the brigade that they had ceased to bombard an area the fire engines were able to get in and try to extinguish the fire.


Next morning a fire at 32 Sackville Street was fought , to be followed in the evening by three fires in the same street. As already indicated, these early fires were caused by looters who had ransacked the premises. By Wednesday the looting and the firing had extended to more of Sackville Street and into Henry Street where firemen were actually accosted by the looters as they tried to tackle the growing flames. Mores fires occurred asthe intensity of the fighting grew worse and because all of Sackville Street was now under gunfire, the brigade ceased to attend fires within that street. Similarly, the brigade was prevented from attacking a large blaze in Clanwilliam Place owing to the fact that the military were shelling houses in the immediate vicinity.