[Dioluin]

Curious Journey - The 1916 Easter Rising


Recollections Of Nine Of Ireland's Bravest Veterans

In 1973, Kenneth Griffith, the renowned documentary maker, gathered together a group of veterans of the Irish Rising. Almost half a century after the terrible events they lived through, this highly diverse group - branded terrorists by the British in their youth and now highly respected citizens - gav etheir own vivid account of what it was like to live through thos turbulent times.

Reavealing, sometimes emotional, especially when reminiscing over old comrades who lost their lives in the struggle, and suprisingly conciliatory towards their Protestant countrymen, Courius Journey provides an important historic record for anyone interested in Irish history. It is also a powerful and heartfelt testament to nine brave men and women who risked their lives for their country.

Edit: Video Quality May Improve Later

[Morlar]

This is also available in this dvd boxset :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ireland-Peop...4314544&sr=1-1



Disc 5. Curious Journey - The 1916 Easter Rising 1 x 65:00 min
In 1973, Kenneth Griffith, the renowned documentary maker, gathered together a group of veterans of the Easter Rising. Almost half a century after those terrible events, this highly diverse group - branded terrorists by the British in their youth - gave their own account of what is was like to live through those turbulent times. It is a powerful and heartfelt testament to nine brave men and women who risked their lives for their country.

[walrusgumble]

You will be pleased to know that you can find that particular set of interviews, with people like Tom Barry, David Neligan and Joe Dohertry & Co in the History Video section in History & Heritage in these boards

[Dioluin]

@ Morlar - Thats where I got it from!

@ Walrusgumble - Is there more people other than the people on this DVD? I remember seeing black and white interviews of Veterans on an old video, like the one with Dan Breen. Is there any like that?

[Ash.J.Williams]

Watched this last night. brilliant stuff. I take it the bearded man is Mr. Walton of Waltons music shops?
There wasn't an ounce of sectarianism in any of those people. Something very fishy about dev.

[brennan1979]

It's a pity Nelligan was never interviewed about his actual record during the Civil War. He was famous for his brutal treatment of Republican prisoners and was involved in torturing suspects in Kerry. On the night of the Ballseedy Massacre he smashed one prisoners hands to pieces, using a hammer, during interrogation and selected the nine men who would be blown up by the land mine on the basis that none of them had relations in the clergy and therefore it was unlikely that there would be a major investigation into their deaths.

His role in the Ballyseedy incident was covered in RTÉ's Ballyseedy documentary in 1997.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx8WshBEoug

RTÉ's CSÍ, detailed his role in helping a member of Collins' squad escape the country after an anti - semitic murder in Potobello.

An interesting character who eventually ended up head of the detective branch in the Gardaí.

[Morlar]

Originally Posted by brennan1979

RTÉ's CSÍ, detailed his role in helping a member of Collins' squad escape the country after an anti - semitic murder in Potobello.

An interesting character who eventually ended up head of the detective branch in the Gardaí.

Wasn't that the shooting of Ernest Kahn ? There were 2 jewish people shot during the war of Independence (at a time when there were shootings in Dublin on a daily basis). One of them was a suspected, or I should say accused rapist, (the member of the squad had a woman friend who had accused the jewish man of attempted rape).

[brennan1979]

Yes it was Kahn that died but his friend survived. I can't remember off hand what the reason that was given for his murder but the programme seemed to imply it was financially motivated, although I haven't read enough about it one way or another.

[Morlar]

Originally Posted by brennan1979

Yes it was Kahn that died but his friend survived. I can' remember off hand what the reason that was given for his murder but the programme seemed to imply it was financially motivated, although I wouldn't be certain of this.

I believe there were 2 seperate shooting incidents, in the Kahn one 2 men were shot & one (Kahn) died. There was another incident too involving a Goldberg.

Read a book like 'The Squad; by T Ryle Dwyer and you will see there were shootings on a literally daily basis. There were incidents where Squad members were on their way home from a shooting incident when they then heard more gunshots a street over and kept going due to fatigue. At certain stages there were literally multiple shootings daily. If you read through the newspaper archives of this period this will bear it out. So to consider that throughout that entire timeframe 2 people were shot who were jewish this seems like quite the over-reaction to me,

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...ws-742679.html

"There was some information at the time that a Jewish dentist, whom a lady friend of James Conroy's had been attending as a patient, had attempted to assault her criminally, and that this lady had complained to Conroy. This was assigned as a motive for the private vendetta undertaken by Conroy against members of the Jewish community," says the files.

"The woman in the case was of unfortunate class with whom Conroy was associating at the time," according to a confidential memo on the murders written by Chief Superintendent G Brennan in July 1932.

Six weeks after the Kahn shooting, police arrested Ralph Laffan of Oakley Road, Ranelagh, and Millar identified him in a line-up as one of the two gunmen who opened fire on himself and Kahn. Laffan was charged with the murder of Kahn and the wounding of Millar, but was found not guilty on the murder charge in the Central Criminal Court.

On bail while awaiting trial on the Millar shooting, Laffan absconded to Mexico, to join his brother Fred who had already fled the country. The jury had not convicted Laffan of Kahn's murder, because of statements he made voluntarily to Chief Superintendent David Neligan implicating his brother Fred and Conroy in the shooting.

At the time of the rising there had been a story doing the rounds which nowadays gets downplayed or dismissed. After the Francis sheehy Skeffington murder the Unionist Dublin Evening Mail was to claim that a Dublin Jew, Edelstein had been responsible for the arrest of the Loyalist editor and propagandist Thomas Dickson, who was to be among the murder victims [which included Francis Sheehy Skeffington] of Captain Bowen-Colthurst. Other than that any mention of the word 'pogrom' by jews in Ireland is cynically exaggerated in my view. I am not sure that kind of talk is 'playing to the home crowd'.

[CDfm]

My grandfather who was a veteran was very friendly with a Jewish Dentist in Cork City who emigrated to Israel.

I do not wish to dwell on it but Gerald Goldberg a Cork Solicitor and one-time Lord Mayor had problems debating in UCC which he could only do after one of the Terrence MCSweeney family offrd him support in the debating chamber.

[Morlar]

My point was in relation the the jewish aspect. For example if you look at the wiki page on 'The Squad' a full 15% of that page is given over to 2 jewish people who were shot during the war of Independence. Contrast that with the wiki page on Arthur Griffith, approx 20% of his page is given over to jewish issues. I believe this is blown out of all reasonable proportion and articles on Irish history are essentially hijacked, in my view - in order to advance & exaggerate claims of jewish victimhood which is a bias wiki has long been accused of (See also the zionist 'wiki editor promotion scandal', and the 'israeli settlers wiki editing course' posts).

Having said that I don't doubt for a second that Nelligan had an 'interesting' role in the Irish Civil War. I think there is a lot of what happened then (in terms of the behaviour of the Free State side and treatment of Republicans) which is shameful and still not properly covered (imo).

[Ash.J.Williams]

Originally Posted by brennan1979

It's a pity Nelligan was never interviewed about his actual record during the Civil War. He was famous for his brutal treatment of Republican prisoners and was involved in torturing suspects in Kerry. On the night of the Ballseedy Massacre he smashed one prisoners hands to pieces, using a hammer, during interrogation and selected the nine men who would be blown up by the land mine on the basis that none of them had relations in the clergy and therefore it was unlikely that there would be a major investigation into their deaths.

His role in the Ballyseedy incident was covered in RTÉ's Ballyseedy documentary in 1997.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx8WshBEoug

RTÉ's CSÍ, detailed his role in helping a member of Collins' squad escape the country after an anti - semitic murder in Potobello.

An interesting character who eventually ended up head of the detective branch in the Gardaí.

watched that last night...
really is unbelievable how close the free staters resembled the british at times..

[Morlar]

As an FYI Nelligan also features (but has no audio contribution) in another Kenneth Griffith production circa 1973 - 'Michael Collins'. One of the two documentaries featured in this boxed set (the other being the one from above):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Coll...1&sr=1-2-fkmr1

[Notorious97]

Originally Posted by Morlar

As an FYI Nelligan also features (but has no audio contribution) in another Kenneth Griffith production circa 1973 - 'Michael Collins'. One of the two documentaries featured in this boxed set (the other being the one from above):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Coll...1&sr=1-2-fkmr1

I was in HMV the other week and walked past this, it caught my eye, i hadn’t seen either before, i watched them the same night, both are good. I wish it was easy to find more interviews of people who had taken part in this period of our history, great to hear it straight from the people who took part.

If anybody knows any good documentaries feel free to point me in the right direction!!

[brennan1979]

Originally Posted by CDfm

My grandfather who was a veteran was very friendly with a Jewish Dentist in Cork City who emigrated to Israel.

I do not wish to dwell on it but Gerald Goldberg a Cork Solicitor and one-time Lord Mayor had problems debating in UCC which he could only do after one of the Terrence MCSweeney family offrd him support in the debating chamber.

I remember watching a documentary on RTÉ about Goldberg where he described the incident. Someone prevented him from speaking at a debate on the basis that they didn't allow 'Aliens' to participate.