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Connaught Rangers Mutiny in India

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Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 228 ✭✭Phil_Lives


    RTE archive recording from 1970 including interviews with some of those involved.
    http://rg.to/file/147df7b191859cda819311c4e0de83ca/RTE_Archive_recording.mp3.html


  • Registered Users Posts: 10 Dagshai


    Dazzler88 wrote: »
    It was actually my Great Grandfather so unforunately,I only met him once when I was a child but I have two interviews he done on CD,in the interviews he didnt seem bitter at all,his way of looking at it was they done what anyone in their postion would have done and doesnt see why they should be punished for fighting for the good of their own people.

    It always makes me smile when I think of the scene,of an Irish tri-colour blowing in the wind in the middle of a British war camp,thousands of miles from Irish soil.I think it has to be said we gave the British more hassel than any other nation and stories like the Indian Muntiny just prove how brave our ancestors were.

    My great grandfather too was one of the mutineers, Patrick Willis of Mullingar. It appears that he never spoke much of it and died and youngish man. I would be interested to know if he was mentioned in the interviews that your great grandfather gave. Many thanks!


  • Registered Users Posts: 514 ✭✭✭Dazzler88


    Dagshai wrote: »
    My great grandfather too was one of the mutineers, Patrick Willis of Mullingar. It appears that he never spoke much of it and died and youngish man. I would be interested to know if he was mentioned in the interviews that your great grandfather gave. Many thanks!
    No sorry no mention of him in any of the interviews. My Great Grandfather talked about James Daly and Smyth who was killed but didn't really mention any others.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10 Dagshai


    Dazzler88 wrote: »
    No sorry no mention of him in any of the interviews. My Great Grandfather talked about James Daly and Smyth who was killed but didn't really mention any others.

    Thank you


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    nuac wrote: »

    the interesting thing about the British time in India is why such a small amount of British troops, and their Indian Civil Service could control such a large subcontinent.

    Same way any colonial power subdues a country it wants to govern: get the natives to do it. Divide and rule. There are usually plenty of existing differences, divisions and animosities in any country. Find out what they are and exacerbate them. Recruit heavily from one faction and use them to keep the other in line.

    The British always did that very effectively. As indeed did the French. And the Germans.

    Look how the Americans are running Iraq from afar: getting the Kurds to do it.
    It's not going too well at the moment but you can see the intent.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    Daly was buried in a CWGC grave after execution and not as outlined in the article

    http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=1498907

    The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

    tac


  • Registered Users Posts: 372 ✭✭ChicagoJoe


    Same way any colonial power subdues a country it wants to govern: get the natives to do it. Divide and rule. There are usually plenty of existing differences, divisions and animosities in any country. Find out what they are and exacerbate them. Recruit heavily from one faction and use them to keep the other in line.

    The British always did that very effectively. As indeed did the French. And the Germans.

    Look how the Americans are running Iraq from afar: getting the Kurds to do it.
    It's not going too well at the moment but you can see the intent.
    Hitler actually was a big admirer of the British empire and copied aspects of it with the divide and rule tatics, concentration camps and so on. One of his favourite movies was “The Lives of a Bengal Lancer “ which he never ceased to be amazed at how as you say, with a small army and administration the Brits could control all of India. Fact.


    ( don’t anyone bother with the Godwin’s Law :rolleyes: )


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,504 ✭✭✭tac foley


    ChicagoJoe wrote: »
    concentration camps and so on.

    I know that a lot of posters here have less than a good word to say about the British and their odd little ways, but making a comparison between 'a temporary accommodation camp that concentrated people and resources into one location', and the likes of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Birkenau and so on, is a step too far.

    The end result of the Second Anglo-Boer war was not the total genocide of the Dutch and Huguenot population of South Africa, no matter how you put it.

    tac


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,123 ✭✭✭kabakuyu


    tac foley wrote: »
    The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

    tac


    Some of those who were shot at dawn were also interred in CWGC graves.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,252 ✭✭✭FTA69


    It's worth mentioning that Daly was only 21 when he was executed, for such a young age he was a man of extraordinary bravery and resilience.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 10 Dagshai


    FTA69 wrote: »
    It's worth mentioning that Daly was only 21 when he was executed, for such a young age he was a man of extraordinary bravery and resilience.

    From reading witness statements and listening to the radio program posted previously, indeed he was and a personal hero to many but specifically, in my opinion, to Joseph Hawes.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5 Connell research


    My Great Uncle, Simon Connell was also a mutineer at Jullunder, he was serving under his brothers name James Connell as he was too young when he first joined the army and his mother got him out. I have found that the ex mutineers were treated pretty badly by the Free State, even though they had all the information, ex mutineers had to provide British army discharge papers etc to get a pension. I hope there is some memorial remembrance service with the descendants/relatives in 5 years time! I have read Joseph Hawes account of the mutiny and feel it is as good a record as you will get. I am trying to trace what happened to Gt Uncle Simon as the family know nothing and he seems to disappear after 1937.
    Paul.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10 Dagshai


    My Great Uncle, Simon Connell was also a mutineer at Jullunder, he was serving under his brothers name James Connell as he was too young when he first joined the army and his mother got him out. I have found that the ex mutineers were treated pretty badly by the Free State, even though they had all the information, ex mutineers had to provide British army discharge papers etc to get a pension. I hope there is some memorial remembrance service with the descendants/relatives in 5 years time! I have read Joseph Hawes account of the mutiny and feel it is as good a record as you will get. I am trying to trace what happened to Gt Uncle Simon as the family know nothing and he seems to disappear after 1937.
    Paul.

    I presume then that you have seen this...


  • Registered Users Posts: 10 Dagshai


    My Great Uncle, Simon Connell was also a mutineer at Jullunder, he was serving under his brothers name James Connell as he was too young when he first joined the army and his mother got him out. I have found that the ex mutineers were treated pretty badly by the Free State, even though they had all the information, ex mutineers had to provide British army discharge papers etc to get a pension. I hope there is some memorial remembrance service with the descendants/relatives in 5 years time! I have read Joseph Hawes account of the mutiny and feel it is as good a record as you will get. I am trying to trace what happened to Gt Uncle Simon as the family know nothing and he seems to disappear after 1937.
    Paul.

    I presume then that you have seen the records in the military service pensions collection?


  • Registered Users Posts: 5 Connell research


    Yes thanks, I have his own application and he is also mentioned in documents concerning all the men, he joined the Free State Army after his release from prison for several years, so I also managed to get his Irish service record, I have over 100 pages of info on a man we knew hardly anything about. I have a search going on now to try and find when he died.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3 barleyfield


    Did he continue using James`name or revert back to Simon? Perhaps went to America?


  • Registered Users Posts: 5 Connell research


    He always used the name Simon after that, I think it caused him that much hassle explaining why he signed up under his brothers name when claiming his pension, he wouldn't do it again! On the last pension records he was living in Manchester, I have also found that another ex ranger was living there and wondered if they were near each other. He was using a Manchester based solicitor to help him with the pension claim, however when the pension department tried to contact him in 1940 the solicitor stated he had left the district. After reading all his pension application details think he just thought, "stuff it, this is more hassle than its worth" and just disappeared into obscurity. I did try looking on emigration records with no luck, he was married to a Mary Flynn in 1924, but I cant find any children. The only good thing is the name Simon Connell is very uncommon, which does help.
    I do think these brave men need some sort of remembrance service when its the hundredth anniversary of the mutiny. I'm sure I will have found him by then!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 3 barleyfield


    found a Simon Connell marriage in Finglas or St. Margaret, Dublin - 1st November, 1894. His father James Connell and mother Bigid Flood. Spouse is Margt Emmett. Spouse father is Peter Emmett, spouse mother is Jane Neille. Presume this is your Simon`s father`s marriage - but its bringing you back not forward!


  • Registered Users Posts: 5 Connell research


    Yes that's the one barleyfield, my Grandfather was Simon's older brother James, he died in 1923, he was in the Free State Air Corps.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2 glencar 22


    hi there just a few lines about one of the rangers mutiny in india charles kerrigan who i should know well, when he got out of maidstone jail and made his way home to sligo ,, he then had the long walk to glencar leitrim about 9 miles ,, when he got near his home it was about 11 pm
    and as he was walking up the rd he overtook a man on the rd, it was pitch dark and they said goodnight, when he realised it was his father who said to him is it thomas, who was another son
    and charles brother, who was shot dead in the first world war in france,, his dad was coming from a rambling house as they did in those days, so the two of them went home and there was no party or anything like that maybe a mug of tea and a cut of bread ,,charles did not have a penny in his pocket, later one of his neighbors arranged to have a dance in his honor and they collected about £10 for charles..so there you are things were hard in ireland at that time


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