Talk:D. D. Sheehan/Archive 1

Why Sheehan left Cork ?

"In the changed political climate, D.D. Sheehan and his family found themselves forced to abruptly abandon their Cork city home and exile to England."
In 1926, after being assured that the threats made against him in Cork were now lifted, he was allowed to return to Dublin.
"These are allegations that have never been proved, according to "D D Sheehan: why he left Cork in 1918" available from www.aubane.org".

Family statement

The above pamphlet issued in 2003, contains an exchange of correspondence previously published in issues of the north Cork The Corkman newspaper, in which is said these incidents are unproven as they never appeared in any newspaper at the time. This is correct, as censorship had been imposed on newspapers by the authorities during the former period. The pamphlet also argues that as D.D. Sheehan had intended to stand for Labour in London from a latter date in 1918 he therefore must have been intending to continue to attend parliament there. This was never disputed except in the case of his home and family, which were to have remained in Cork. "Allegations" are neither being made nor implied.

In an interview given on the 13 May 2006, D.D. Sheehan's still surviving daughter Mona stated that "during those previous 18 years father was continually away from home, organising his movement, addressing meetings or electioneering, attending parliament, practising as barrister, then serving in the war. We were accustomed to him being away most of the year. Had he been re-elected nothing would have changed. Only that we were compelled to leave Cork there would have been absolutely no necessity for us children to leave home. It was very distressing for us being sent back and forth to boarding schools, we three girls to Loreto Convent Dalkey, where we were taken in as the "charity girls", father being unable to pay our fees, but he knew the Mother Superior."

She went on to say that "at the end of my days my greatest bitterness is that not just the Irish Government, but my fellow Irishmen give no recognition to the efforts and actions my father took to attain freedom for the whole of Ireland by peaceful constitutional means, but give all recognition to those who only got freedom for part of Ireland, using violence".

The circumstances of Sheehans leaving Cork needs to be seen in the historiographical context of that time, local groups often acting without central authorisation, recorded by several authors, Peter Hart in his 1998 work on Violence and Community in Cork (1916-1923) (ISBN 0-19-820806-5), or Desmond & Jean Bowen (2005) in "Heroic Option" (ISBN 1-84415-152-2) writing:

"Nothing showed the brooding unforgiving nationalist hatred of those who served the crown militarily as the campaign of terror against ex-servicemen who survived World War I and tried to return to Ireland. During the War of Independence Irish veterans of the war formed a major target for assassins, and almost a third of the civilians murdered in the first four months of 1921 were ex-soldiers. Out of the first draft of demobilised men who returned to Ireland in the Spring of 1919 eighty-two were murdered prior to the peace of 1921. The nationalist were intent upon harrying the ex-servicemen out of Ireland without mercy. As early after the end of European hostilities as 3 December, 1918 the Irish Independent denounced anyone who had served an "alien cause" as traitor to Ireland."

The pamphlet correspondence finalises with personal views and conclusions by its editor Jack Lane, the document is unbalanced in lacking a closing statement from the contra-correspondent. This was later sent to the editor (but never published) and should also be obtained from the referenced Niall O'Siochain, address in the pamphlet's letter correspondence.
Osioni 14:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Readers may be interested in the following article from 'Church and State' magazine.

A EUREKA MOMENT – thanks to Robin Bury

Eureka moments are rare and one of life’s little pleasures and should be savoured. I must thank Robin Bury for provoking Sean McGouran to follow up the claims made by Mr Bury that the records of the Irish Distress Committee in London prove his allegations of persecution of Protestants as Protestants before and after the War of Independence. (Church and State, No. 86, Autumn 2006). Sean’s initial researches threw up a little nugget that throws a torchlight on the type of "victims" that this Committee helped and why.

This was Sean’s reference to the fact that Captain D D Sheehan got support from this Committee to ease his alleged distress. D D Sheehan was not only Catholic but his family were real live Fenians. How and why did such a person apply and get support from this Committee that was allegedly only looking after Protestants? And how many more Sheehans were there at the receiving end of this Distress Committee, I wonder?

D D Sheehan was a MP for Mid-Cork for over 10 years, also a barrister, journalist, author and a Captain in the British Army during the War.

I have a personal interest in ‘D D’. I may not have existed without him. He effectively created and led the Land and Labour League in Munster 100 years ago and one of its enduring achievements was the building of forty thousand Labourers’ Cottages, or ‘Sheehan’s cottages’, dotted all over the Province and now ‘very desirable properties’ approaching a quarter of a million Euro on a good day. This movement was the basis for the rural Labour vote in Munster down to the present day. The cottages were perfect examples of one-off houses that transformed social life for a whole class of people – it has been calculated that at least a quarter of million people’s lives were transformed by this one achievement of the LLL.

Both my grandfathers supported D D and William O’Brien in politics and one of them got one of these cottages as a result. I suppose that by today’s Irish Times’ moral standards such a massive building of one-off houses and allocation by political selection would be about as corrupt a thing as anyone could imagine. There probably should be a Tribunal about it. Well, so be it, I exist because of this ‘corruption’ and I won’t complain about it. Sheehan’s League was the source of the rural labour vote in Munster down to when the Smart Alecs took over in the 60s and that vote then disappeared. They talked a lot but Sheehan and his movement built a lot.

He made a terrible misjudgement over the First World War. He recruited, fought in it, got shell shock, went AWOL and escaped the consequences of a court-martial by doing a deal to intensify his recruiting efforts – after 1916. He lost two sons in the war. But he never doubted that what he did was right and became a leading light in the British Legion in Ireland later on. He was effectively the Chief Whip for the British Labour Party MPs towards the end of the War and he wanted to continue in Westminster and stood for British Labour in the 1918 Election getting a good vote in Limehouse and though failing to get elected he created the base for Clem Attlee who won the seat and held from the next Election.

He did not believe that an independent Irish Republic could be established and Dominion Status was the most likely and desirable option with real power remaining in Westminster where he hoped to continue and thrive. Naturally enough he and his family left Cork when he choose to stand and represent a constituency in England. All this is perfectly understandable.

However, for as long as I can remember it is said he was driven out of Cork in 1918 and could not continue in politics there because of harassment and threats to his life and that he and his family’s lives were ruined because of these threats and obviously the blame is lain at the door of Republicans. Kevin Myers regaled us on a few occasions with lurid stories about this alleged incident in his hey day at the Irish Times, the last being on 16 Feb. 2001. Myers clearly did not have a clue as to who Sheehan was or what he stood for, and cared less, but the allegation that he was an early victim of Sinn Fein harassment was quite sufficient for Myers’s purposes.

Sheehan’s grandson. Niall O’Siocahain has almost made it his lifetime’s work to establish the case and now uses the Internet to put if forward. There he says: “In the changed political climate, D.D. Sheehan and his family found themselves forced to abruptly abandon their Cork city home and exile to England…. In 1926, after being assured that the threats made against him in Cork were now lifted, he was allowed to return to Dublin.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.D._Sheehan)

This is pure assertion. No evidence whatever is provided. I have spent many years looking for any evidence of this harassment and threats and none can be found. Sheehan never mentions it; the papers of the time in Ireland or England don’t mention it and no other contemporary source has ever been found for the allegation. The newspapers would have been more than delighted to have even the hint of any harassment of an MP by Sinn Feiners and the propaganda experts in Dublin Castle would have made hay with it.

Sheehan himself was no shrinking violet and it would have been totally out of character for him to have succumbed and remained silent when threatened. After all, he had plenty experience of street-fighting, for years, against the Molly Maguires and he was a front line commissioned officer in the war! Whatever his faults he was no physical or moral coward. He was also articulate, voluble, a well known journalist for a variety of newspapers and a Westminster MP who had plenty to say in Parliament when this is supposed to have happened to him. In other words, he had every opportunity to mention such harassment - yet not a word ever appeared by him or others at the time. How curious?

But why would the threat to him have arisen in 1918 in the first place? It is alleged that it happened because of him having recruited for the British Army. Naturally there was opposition to this but so did his party leader William O’Brien and there is no allegation that he was ever harassed or prevented from standing in the Election or continuing to live happily in Cork until he died years later. In fact O’Brien was asked to stand for Fianna Fail in 1927. Moreover, Sheehan, O’Brien and their Party, the All for Ireland League, explicitly supported Sinn Fein in the 1918 Election and issued a Manifesto in support and one of Sinn Fein’s posters was a quotation from D D Sheehan to make their case. In many parts of Cork Sheehan’s party essentially became the Sinn Fein Party.

In his book written in 1921 he is lavish in his praise for the IRA and Sinn Fein. He said: So far as Ireland is concerned the public mind is occupied at the moment of my writing with the question of "reprisals." Various efforts have been made to bring about peace. They have failed because, in my view, they have been reluctant to recognise and make allowance for certain essential facts. The whole blame for the existing state ….is thrown on the shoulders of the Irish Republican Army by those who take their ethical standard from Sir Hamar Greenwood. It is forgotten that for two or three years before the attacks on the Royal Irish Constabulary began there were no murders, no assassinations and no civil war in Ireland. There was, however, a campaign of gross provocation by Dublin Castle for two reasons: (1) by way of vengeance for their defeat on the Conscription issue; (2) as a retaliation on Sinn Fein, because it had succeeded in peacefully supplanting English rule by a system of Volunteer Police, Sinn Fein Courts, Sinn Fein Local Government, etc. The only pretext on which this provocation was pursued was on account of a mythical "German plot", which Lord Wimbourne never heard of, which Sir Bryan Mahon, Commander-in-Chief, told Lord French he flatly disbelieved in, and which, when, after more than two years, the documents are produced, proves to be a stale rehash of negotiations before the Easter Week Rising, with some sham "German Irish Society" in Berlin. On this pretext the Sinn Fein leaders, Messrs de Valera and Griffith (whom there is not a shadow of proof to connect with the German plot), were arrested and deported, with many hundreds of the most responsible leaders.

Furthermore, an endless series of prosecutions were instituted and savage sentences imposed for the most paltry charges-such as drilling, wearing uniform, singing "The Soldiers' Song", having portraits of Rebel leaders, taking part in the Arbitration Courts which had superseded the Petty Sessions Courts, and such like. All this, with suppression of newspapers and of all public meetings, went on for many months before Sinn Fein, deprived of its leaders, was goaded at last into attacking the Royal Irish Constabulary. Whatever the juridical status of the guerrilla warfare thus entered upon (which it is not improbable England would have applauded if employed against any other Empire than her own), it was conducted on honourable lines by the Sinn Feiners. The policemen and soldiers, including General Lewis, who surrendered, were treated with courtesy, and not one of them wounded or insulted. Their wives and children were also carefully preserved from danger until the police "reprisals" in the Thurles neighbourhood--the wrecking of villages and the savage murders of young men--ended by producing equally ruthless "reprisals" on the other side. In Dublin, since the Dublin Metropolitan Police declined to go about armed, not one of them has been fired upon.

(Ireland since Parnell by Captain D.D. Sheehan, 1921, Barrister-at- Law. Late M.P. for Mid-Cork).

Does this sound like a person who believed that his life had been threatened and ruined by Sinn Fein? Yet the allegations persist unhindered by any credible evidence whatever.

Sheehan’s political life was undoubtedly ruined after 1918 but it was of his own making, his own misjudgements. He was not alone in this. His personal financial life also appears to have serious problems in the years after the War like millions of others who were ruined by it.

He was made bankrupt as reported in The Times: “Bankruptcy of a former MP In the Bankruptcy Court yesterday, Mr Daniel Desmond Sheehan, formerly MP for Mid-Cork, attended before Mr. Register Mellor for public examination on the statement of his affairs in which he claimed a surplus in assets of £10,388 after payment of his liabilities, returned at £718. Mr V. Armstrong, Assistant Clerical Receiver, attended. Mr Kingham represented the debtor and Mr Barry Cohen was a trustee for the bankruptcy.

The debtor, examined by Mr Armstrong, said that he was formerly a journalist. In 1901 he was elected MP for Mid-Cork, which he represented until 1918. In 1911 he became a member of the Irish Bar and until the outbreak of the War he served in the Munster Circuit. He was afterwards engaged in a recruiting campaign in Munster, and in January 1915 he obtained a commission in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, but he resigned three years later because of ill-health. In the meantime he had become interested in certain mineral rights in Achill Island, and has since been trying to raise capital to develop the property. Should a company be formed to acquire and work the rights, he became entitled to a half-share – £2,500 at least – of the vendor’s profit.

Mr Registrar Mellor ordered the examination to be concluded. (31 October 1923). The Times reported in its obituary of DD that “After the reduction of his pension he was adjudged bankrupt in 1923, but was discharged during the course of the next year” (29/11/1948).

This was in clear conflict with the reasons given at the hearing above. Moreover, in November 1924 when he actually succeeded in having the bankruptcy order lifted he came up with yet another reason for his bankruptcy:

Mr Vernon Armstrong, Official Receiver reported that the bankrupt failed in October, 1922, with liabilities of £934, and assets which were expected to realise £11,106, but which had only yielded £9. The applicant attributed his insolvency to the political unrest in Ireland during the last few years. His Honour granted a discharge, subject to a suspension of three months (The Times, 24 November 1924).

Ah ha! Had D D come up at last with the magic formula for explaining away all his problems and being the perfect victim? One wonders if is there a record somewhere of how exactly the ‘unrest’ in Ireland caused him to go bankrupt from a business failure in Achill, or how it caused his pension to be reduced? Sinn Fein were not in charge of British Army pensions, as far as I know! I am sure there is not such a document as it would be too absurd for him to actually declare something like this. But there was really no need to do so. Only the impression had to be created that he was a victim of the change of state in Ireland. Any ex MP, journalist and barrister could easily string the necessary ‘case’ together and put it in the appropriate sympathetic ears. Sean McGouran has established that the terms of reference of the Committee were very broad and flexible and no doubt Captain Sheehan was well known to the people concerned. They knew a friend down on his luck who had served them well and gave him a helping hand - and he could be of future use.

Until it is proved otherwise this is the only credible origin of the yarn about D D Sheehan’s persecution. The origin must lie in his appeal to this Committee and it clears up what has hitherto been something of a mystery. Can I thank Mr Bury for pointing us in right direction in this matter – or should the thanks go to the eminence grise in the background, Dr. Fitzpatrick? Thank you all in any case and keep up the good work.

The incident also speaks volumes about the type of people this Committee helped and one thing it proves absolutely is that religion had noting to do with it. There were more important factors at work. Loyalty and Loyalism is what mattered. And people like Bury who see religion in it are only declaring their own fixations and simple-mindedness about religion and the issues of the day. Sean McGouran indicates that its behaviour would not be acceptable if it all saw the light of day, hence the destruction of papers, that it was essentially a bit of a racket. But also a racket with a purpose.

It is easy to forget these days that 1920s Ireland was an unstable place – just like many other places in the world because of the anarchy created by Britain’s launching of WWI and its ‘peace to end all peace’ at Versailles.

The future was not at all predicable and there were many who had realistic hopes of reversing recent developments - not least in Ireland. After all Mr. Bury sincerely believes that such developments can still be reversed in Ireland and is give many reasons to feel hopeful. So imagine the confidence of those in the 1920s who sought a reversal of fortunes.

Jack Lane, 22 May 2007. Church and State, No. 87, Winer 2006-7

Eureka II

Transcript of a November 1926 document in D. D. Sheehan's own handwriting which proves he had been forced to leave the country in 1919, together with relevant comments on the above, is in preparation. Osioni 18:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Final correspondence

The above exposition, apart from citations, is Jack Lane’s personal point of view (POV). Click here for an understanding of objectivity. His statements are nevertheless in keeping with the Millstreet Aubane Historical Society’s relentless vendetta and Jack Lane’s crusade of denunciation against D. D. Sheehan’s later life, originating from his involvement 1914 to 1917 in the Great War.

• The question is "Why Sheehan left Cork ?". Going down the road of an unfortunate bankruptcy when Sheehan attempted to finance a mineral mining project on Achill (where he electioneered in 1910 for O’Brien’s AfIL in co.Mayo) has nothing whatsoever to do with Sheehan leaving Cork.

• Apart from the mentioned interview Sheehan’s still living daughter Mona gave to the Irish Times in 2001, she and her sister Christine (died 2002) often vividly described how when living in their Cork Victoria Road home, shots which blew the plaster off the living room walls continued until the family was evacuated from the boarded-up house in an army tender and put on a train to "Kingstown" (now Dun Laoghaire). There a renewed attack compelled them to move to London.

• D. D. Sheehan, after his return in 1926 to Dublin (and NOT to Cork), in the course a declaration to his circumstances made the following statement in his own handwriting:

As a consequence of my war services, and especially because of my successful recruiting activities it was impossible for me to return to Ireland and resume my career there at the close of the war in 1918. Meanwhile my wife was obliged on this account to sell out our home in Cork. After leaving Cork she had a furnished flat in Kingstown (co. Dublin) for some time. I went to visit her there (1919), was recognised, stopped in Kingstown, Main Street, by two young men who stated they were members of the Republican Army. They ordered me out of the country. I promptly left. Shortly afterwards the room my wife was sitting in at 1 Windsor Terrace, Kingstown, was fired into late at night, making her further residence in the country impossible.

Sheehan further on in the document then stated:

I do claim that all the losses and hardships I have suffered were occasioned by my allegiance to the Government of the United Kingdom because:-
(1) My War Service (for the reasons mentioned) rendered it impossible for me to return to Ireland at the termination of the War.
(2) My home was broken up and my family and myself compelled to take refuge in England because of my successful recruiting activities.
(3) I have been for twelve years unable to practice as a Barrister owing to my compulsory exclusion from Ireland.

I certify that the foregoing particulars are correct (pre-printed)
Date: 1st November 1926. Signed: D. D. Sheehan. Capt.

• Sheehan’s demise from Ireland was never reported in any newspaper for reasons Jack Lane is well aware of. From 1917 dual censorship existed on all publications in Ireland, firstly by the government and secondly the newspaper printing staffs were by then in Sinn Fein hands. That Sheehan did not go public on his situation had obvious reasons: his politics were always conciliatory; he acknowledged the price he paid for adhering to his convictions and honourably stood by and supported ex-servicemen’s organisations as a consequence.

• It is time Jack Lane accepts history as history was and not use Sheehan as a platform for historical white-washing and wide-ranging rounds of re-milled personal POV. To finalise and herewith close the endless correspondence on "Why Sheehan left Cork", a copy of the above extracts in Sheehan’s easily discernible handwriting (the complete document as such is of no relevance to the matter in question) has been posted to Jack Lane’s private residential address in London N16, Great Britain.

Niall O’Siochain, 1. June 2007.

REPLY

I am very grateful to Niall for producing more information and another document about his grandfather. It’s a great pity however that Niall has not provided us with the whole document he quotes from and its context. Peter Hart is one of his authorities and one hopes he has not copied Peter’s infamous methodology of selective quoting whereby the opposite can be claimed instead of what is actually stated in a source. Let’s hope that Niall will decide to let us have the full document along with the other very informative and voluminous amount of material he distributes. I hope he will accept that I am interested in everything, absolutely everything, that D D did and said and I am grateful to him for the material he has supplied over the years. But he should explain why he will not send me the whole of this new document or publish it? Surely it is for me and readers to decide if the “the complete document as such is of no relevance to the matter in question”?

The original problem remains. Where is the contemporary evidence that D D was driven out of Cork in 1918? His daughter’s recollections to Kevin Myers are referred to again but these are the recollections of a child of a few years more than 80 years after the event. Would they stand up in court? Nothing is actually recorded of D D being attacked or expelled. Were the children fully aware of what was going on? They had to leave the only house they knew and no doubt loved. They had to have a good reason given them. They could hardly be expected to easily understand that Daddy may have decided to get a job in another country and that they should follow him. Was Kevin Myers concerned with getting the full picture? In the interview he and Mona has the IRA doing things before it ever existed and he mixes up D D’s career with that of one of his sons. Accuracy was never Kevin’s strong point. Were the child witnesses relying more on what they were told than what they actually experienced? Were they open to suggestion as children? Who knows?

But why D D’s contemporary silence and that of all other adults at the time? Niall says it was because of the dual censorship of Sinn Fein and the British Authorities. This is a new concept in the history of the period. Did they both agree on what to censor while at war with each other? Let’s try to picture the scene on Niall’s reasoning. A report comes in of a horrific attack on a famous Irish MP and his family by Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein printers/supporters dominate all printing houses and suppress it and the owners agree. And it never sees the light of day. The Irish Times, The Cork Constitution, The Freeman’s Journal, The Belfast Telegraph, all the London Tory papers also suppress it because Sinn Fein stops them in their printing houses - in Fleet St. and everywhere else? Believable?

If there was this dual censorship, this early ‘power-sharing’, by Sinn Fein and the Official Censor there would really be nothing left worth reading in the papers. Not even basic things like deaths and funerals could be properly reported as many would be prime sources of disputes.

But let’s suppose all this dual censorship did actually operate - why should it stop D D speaking out? He was an M P and therefore beyond the reach of the censorship and he was not backward in coming forward in the House of Commons at the time. And he was an author, barrister and journalist to boot. Yet total silence from him.

Let’s look at the selected extracts from the new document. Here we have an alleged later threat in Dublin by the very newly formed IRA if indeed it was not before they were actually formed as we have no date - and he ‘promptly left.’ A surprising reaction from someone with his record.

Then the documents adopts an unusual new tone “I do claim…. etc.etc” and it emphasises all he did for the government and his suffering in its cause in Ireland. But in his enthusiasm to show his loyalty and his oppression he loses the run of himself when he says that “ I have been for twelve years unable to practice as a Barrister owing to my compulsory exclusion from Ireland.” So he was excluded from Ireland from 1914 onwards! But how did he do the war recruiting there that he was boasting of earlier in the document? There is ample evidence that he was active in Ireland from 1914 to 1918. So why the fabrication?

This part of the document has all the signs of being effectively an application form for claiming money as compensation for specific grievances over a period of time and D D seems to be stretching the truth to maximise his claim for compensation..

And he does this in a “pre-printed letter”? That indicates a standard format or formula for making a case. But Niall tells us the document is in his own handwriting. An oddity that needs explaining.

And what was going on in 1926 that might have provoked such a formal “I do claim” statement and his first mention of his alleged expulsion a full 8 years previously. Readers of the original article by Sean McGouran in the autumn 2006 ‘Church and State’ will know the answers. This was when the Irish Distress/Grants Committee was doling out money to those who stayed loyal to England in Ireland. And who might be of future use to the cause.

The obvious truth is what I suggested in the last article. The yarn of D D’s expulsion from the country originates with the need for him to make a case for getting money from the authorities via this Committee – it is effectively the preamble to his claim, the mood music.

In his anxiety to provide some tangible evidence that D D was literally expelled Niall has helped fill in the full picture of the background to this yarn. The full document may complete it even more. But is this the very reason Niall will not divulge it?

I am grateful therefore to Niall for another Eureka moment and confirming what I had suspected. The full picture is slowly emerging and regretfully for D D it is not a pretty sight.

Many years ago I advised Niall not to make an issue of D D in the War and afterwards. He was most indignant at the suggestion. I was accused of wanting to suppress the great man’s story. I suggested that DD had 40,000 beautiful monuments to commemorate him in the form of the Labourers’ cottages he helped create. They would be better monuments to him than horrible, morbid war memorials to death and destruction. Niall knew better but D D’s stature has not grown as a result of Niall’s efforts to highlight this part of his life.

In the area where he was a pre–war hero they tried to forget and forgive him his mistakes. He was honoured at his funeral by his successor Labour TDs and they did so despite their total disagreement with his war and post- war activities. They looked on his life as a great tragedy and honoured him as such.

Niall has ensured he is remembered as something else and it will not be honourable.

Jack Lane

Church and State, Summer 2007)

Notability

This article appears to be a biography of the grandfather of Niall O'Siochain (User:osioni). While the subject is notable in some respects, the detail (including a poem and the subject's family tree) is excessive for a person of this stature. It is my belief that this article should be edited down to reflect the subject's true notability, and that the question of whether or not the family were "forced to abruptly abandon their Cork city home" should be pursued elsewhere. This is an encyclopedia, not a soap-box. Scolaire 19:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with that.--padraig3uk 22:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Reply:

It is deeply ironic to read a self-styled Irish Scholar advocating a limitation to the information available on Wikipedia. It is an insult to the name ‘Scholar’ and to the great Gaelic tradition which ‘Scoláire’ brings to mind. Please don’t abuse the term and what it signifies. If you are not interested please don’t bother reading this site.

The “Wikipedia: Simplified Ruleset” begins “Wikipedia is a continuous, endless process…” and that is its great attraction. No Wikipedia rules have been broken in this discussion and it is of interest to a number of people. Clearly there are worlds outside Scoláire’s interests and we cannot all be limited to his. He should not try to limit ours.

I detect the mentality of a new version of the proverbial Parish Priest, and his curate 'Pádraig3uk', breathing down my neck.

Jack Lane

Jack Lane, if there is no evidence to prove the claim that he and his family was forced to abruptly abandon their Cork home, then the claim should be removed.--padraig3uk 12:08, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

In fact, Jack, I found the article very interesting. I'm very glad I found it. But it is not encyclopaedic. There must be web sites where people can publish their family histories, and this would make an excellent addition to such a site. Neither have I any axe to grind on the question of his being forced from his home (and I am at a loss to understand what "parish priest" signifies in this context), but Wikipedia is not a soapbox — that is in the rules.

As for my user-name, I mean it only in the sense that I am continually learning about Wikipedia, and learning through Wikipedia. I lay no claim to scholarship. But tell me this, Jack — why do you not have a user-name? Why must you post anonymously? Scolaire 19:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Padraig,

I agree with you that it should be removed but that is for the author, Niall, to do as he would, I assume, be able to re-assert it if he is not convinced otherwise.

Also, I have an aversion to acting as censor even if it is the right thing to do.

Re Scolaire's points, I think it is more than a family history and Niall treats it as much more than that. It is part of a particular view of Irish history that seeks to feed the revisionist agenda. He has much more on Wikipedia that elaborates this view.

I am at a loss about the anonymous posting - I am Jack Lane and nobody else! Why should I be? Is it not you who is being anonymous? I am a bit confused.

Jack Lane

Jack, what Scolaire is referring to is that you post under a anonymous IP address, rather then as a registered user. I think that unless Niall can provide references then the claims should and will be removed, the article is good with the exception of this and the trival family info.--padraig3uk 20:43, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

For more details on registering as a user and why you might want to do so see Wikipedia:Why create an account? Autarch 16:43, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Athol Books on notability

A good booklet published by Athol Books in 1984 entitled Cork Free Press, An Account Of Ireland’s Only Democratic Anti-Partition Movement, edited and introduced by Brendan Clifford, opens as follows:

The Cork Free Press was the newspaper of the All-for-Ireland League. It was published daily from June 1910 until 1915, and weekly in 1915-16.

The All-for-Ireland League (AFIL) contested two general elections (January and December 1910), and won eight of the nine seats in Cork city and county away from Redmond’s Home Rule Party. The most eminent figures associated with the Cork Free Press and the AFIL were Canon Sheehan, William O'Brien and D. D. Sheehan. None of them is well known in Ireland today. Most history books which deal with the period makes no mention at all of either of the Sheehans, and make purely token mention of O’Brien. But in an age in which social history is supposed to be of great importance, these people should be the best known figures of the past century. (end of extract).

That much said to notability. When in the nineties Brendan gave me his booklet it spurned me to delve deeper into a quarter-century of pre-1915 Irish history, indeed stirring and eventful history, kept largely hidden for specific reasons under a traditional Irish veil of silence. Resulting on my part in countless pages of contributions to the Wikipedia nationalist period, Sheehan a fraction of this input.

However the assessment rating of the Sheehan biography above gives reason to review it and where necessary shape it for reassessment to a "GA rating". Thank you for the prompts. Alias Osioni 22:15, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking that Jack Lane is associated with Athol Books? Autarch 16:24, 10 August 2007 (UTC)