Capt. Uillean Macdha Ó Lomasna

Captain William Mackey Lomasney was one of most courageous Irish soldiers to emerge during the Fenian era. He was involved in countless operations from the time of the Fenian insurrection in 1867 until his capture in February 1868. After his release from prison he worked tirelessly for the Fenian Brotherhood in the US, eventually being killed while on active service in England in 1884. It was in the county of Cork he gained most of his notoriety, especially after his attack on Ballyknockane Police Barracks in Tipperary and his raid on a Martello tower at Fota island, outside Cork City.

Captain Mackey Lomasney was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1841 to Irish parents William Lomasney and Susan Mackey. His parents had immigration from Castlelyons near Fermoy in Cork, a place where his grandfather was hanged for his role in the 1798 rebellion after been betrayed by an informer. His father had maintained the national spirit within the family and proudly passed it on to his sons while in exile in the US. His parents moved to Detroit Michigan to run a Catholic Bookstore in 1844; and both Mackey and his father fought in the American Civil War. It was here Mackey was promoted to Captain, a title he was known ever after for.

When the American Civil War ended Captain Mackey took the place of his father and volunteered to travel to Ireland to help with preparations for the planned insurrection of 1865. As many as 400 Fenian officers all with frontline battle experience travelled with Captain Mackey to Ireland, while a further 120,000 Fenian soldiers awaited for the call-to-arms in the US. The English establishment wary of the large number of Fenian commanders arriving in Ireland, made a swoop on the IRB HQ at the offices of the newspaper the ‘Irish People’, arresting many of the Fenian commanders and any known nationalists leaders in Ireland; thus temporarily thwarting the Fenian Rising for nearly two years. Captain Mackey along with his close friend Captain John Mac Cafferty were both exiled back to the US, where Mackey remained training soldiers in the Fenian Brotherhood till 1867.

At the start of 1867 Captain Mackey Lomasney returned again to Ireland in preparation for the planned rising of March 6th, and became a central figure throughout the county, being Head Centre for the Fermoy area. On March 6th he led the Fenian raid on Ballyknockane barrack in Tipperary, capturing the station and relieving the English garrison of their weaponry. When the rising failed to gain momentum across the country, especially after the informer Corydon compromised the huge arms raid at Chester in England, Captain Mackey resorted to guerrilla warfare in command of a dedicated unit of Fenian soldiers comprised mainly of Cork men and New York men. Throughout the summer months Mackey’s flying column dug up railway tracks, cut telegraph wires and attacked the homes of planter landlords in incidents that seriously embarrassed the English government in Ireland.

On November 28th 1867 Captain Mackey Lomasney carried out a raid on a gunsmiths premises in Patrick Street, Cork City, capturing over 120 revolvers and at least 8 Snider rifles. He did it so skilfully that no trace of either the weapons or the raiding party could be uncovered in the follow up search. A month later Captain Mackey Lomasney captured the Martello tower at Fota island, making prisoners of the gunners on guard duty, while capturing 300lbs of gun-powder, a quantity of fuse and other military stores along with several rifles. The ingenious and daring feats of the Fenian party under Captain Mackey was reverend right across the island, while the English establishment failed to track the whereabouts of Mackey’s flying column even with huge rewards being offered.

Four days later the Fenian ‘collectors of arms’ travelled into the heart of Cork City again, at nine in the morning and entered the gun-shop of Henry Allport in Patrick Street. The Fenian party consisting of eight men produced revolvers and cleaned out the shop of at least 72 revolvers and a large number of rifles; five of the men carried away the weaponry, with two returning to help empty the shop of its entire ammunition supply; then calmly strolled off before the alarm could be raised to the local constabulary. While the English press raged over the seemingly unstoppable Fenian group who were strongly supported by a huge Fenian network throughout Cork, three days later the flying column struck again in Ballincollig, carrying out a raid on the largest Gun Powder Magazine in Ireland, which was stationed right next to a British Army barrack. The Fenian party seized so much gun-powder in the raid, it was reported that they had even difficulty carrying away their spoils-of-war, vanishing into the countryside with absolutely no trace of their whereabouts being discovered.

It was not until the 7th of February 1868 that Captain Mackey Lomasney was eventually captured, while holding a meeting in the grocery/spirit shop of Mr. Cronin in Market Street, Cork. The building was surrounded by RIC constables who eventually rushed the door trying to capture the occupants of the building. One of the constables of a very strong build wrestled for almost twenty minutes trying to bring Mackey Lomasney to the ground. The sergeant eventually drew his gun on Mackey saying “dead or alive, I’ll take you”, whereupon Mackey replied “I have but one life to lose, and if it goes, so be it”. He drew his gun at the same time and shot the constable in the leg, inflicting a serious wound, of which the officer died a few days later. Mackey was taken prisoner and charged with murder on the 10th March at a sitting of a court in Cork. He was acquitted of the murder charge and sentenced to 12 years penal servitude in Portland prison England for his raid on Ballyknockane barrack’s and the Martello tower in Cobh. Eventually he was freed under the prisoner amnesty three years later and exiled for life to the US.

For the next few years Captain Mackey Lomasney worked tirelessly for the Fenian Brotherhood and Clan na nGael and had several children with his wife Susan O’ Connell. He remained in close contact with all the various factions of the Fenian Brotherhood, being a close friend of both John Devoy and Ó Donnabháin Rossa. He volunteered for the Dynamite campaign in England and travelled as part of a small unit that comprised of his brother James Lomasney and John Fleming. He was linked to an attack on the Mansion House in London and also several attacks on the Metropolitan railway line, one a few days before his tragic death. On the 13th December he hired a small boat with his brother James and John Fleming and the three of them carried out an unsuccessful bomb attack on London Bridge in the dead of night. The explosives went off prematurely instantly killing all three of the Fenian dynamiters - with their bodies being washed downstream in the fast flowing tide; so vanishing them from mortal existence.

So secret were the group of Fenians connected to Captain Mackey Lomasney, that it took almost three years before definite accounts of his death could be confirmed to his grieving family and friends back home in Detroit. He will always be remembered as a fearless, courageous and true son of Ireland; and a martyr that stood firm to the cause of Irish freedom till his dying hour.

Fianna Code

Mac Lughach was the great grandson of the hero Finn. The youth had been a year in the Fianna, but had shown little prowess. A young man of many faults, he would beat his hounds and his servants. The Fianna complained to their chief, Finn, who called Mac Lughach to him and gave him counsel, as follows; afterwards Mac Lughach became the most Chivalorous of the Fianna.

Mac Lughach! Says Finn,
If armed service by thy design,
In a great man’s household be quiet,
Be surly in the rugged pass.
Without a fault of his
Beat not thy hound;
Until thou ascertain her guilt
Bring not a charge against thy wife;
In battle meddle not with a buffoon,
For, O Mac Lughach, he is but a fool.
Censure not any if he be of grave repute;
Stand not up to take part in a brawl;
Neither have anything to do with
Either a mad man or a wicked one.
Two-thirds of thy gentleness be shewn
To women and to children on the floor,
Likewise to men of art that make the duans;
And be not violent to the common people.
With thy familiars, with them that are of thy counsel,
Hasten not to be the first into bed;
Perverse alliance shun, and all that is prohibited;
Yield not thy reverence to all.Utter not swaggering speech,
Nor say that thou wilt not render the thing that is right;
For a shameful thing it is to speak too stiffly
Unless that it be possible to carry out thy words.
So long as in the universe thou shalt exist,
Thy lord forsake not;
Neither for gold nor for other earthly valuables
Abandon thou thy guarantee.
To a chief utter not harsh criticism of his people;
For it is not a ‘god man’s occupation
To abuse a great lord’s people to their chief.
Be not a frequenter of the drinking-house,
Nor given to carping at an ancient man;
The conduct thou hearest recommended, that is the right;
Meddle not with a man of mean estate.
Deal not in refusing of thy meat,
And any that is penurious have not for a familiar;
Force not thyself upon a chief,
Nor give a chief lord occasion to speak ill of thee.
Stick to thy raiment,Hold fast to thine armature,
Until the stern with its weapon-glitter be well ended;
Never renounce to back thy luck,
Yet follow after gentleness, Mac Lughach.

Éire Gaelach - Gaelic Ireland

Ireland is not merely a nation with its own language, customs, literature and art. It is also a nation with its own society and institutions. Looking at the society and institutions in place in the south of Ireland today, one would be forgiven for thinking that the Irish/English nations are near identical. In fact, the institutions used by the Irish state are merely English ones transplanted to Ireland. They may have been given Gaelic names: the Irish parliament may be called the Dáil (as was the National Assembly of 1919), and the Prime Minister may be called Taoiseach, but English institutions in Ireland may be said to act the same no matter who controls them.

Gaelic society survived in one form or another up to the Cromwellian settlement of the 1640s, though the policy of Henry the Eight some 110 years previously as well as the "Flight of the Earls" in 1607 both had a huge impact on the Gaelic state, bringing it close to death. The Gaelic system of government centred around small units called tuaithe. Each tuatha was an area of land with its own Rí, a word often translated as King, though the power of the Ríg did not reflect the strong power given to foreign Kings. For the Gaels, their tuatha was the centre of all their social and public life. Though today an Irishman looks to one city as the centre of Irish public life, the Gael need only look as far as his own tuatha. In the 700 years or so leading up to the coming of the Normans from England in 1169, there were probably never less than 150 Ríg of various grades at any one time.

The hierarchy of the time meant that a tuath was part of a mór-tuath (three or four tuaithe), which in turned joined together to form a cóiced, each cóiced (Munster, Ulster, Connaught, Leinster and Meath) forming Ireland as a whole unit. Every tuath, mór-tuath and cóiced had its own Rí, though no matter what grade of Rí they were, they ultimately were still the leader of one small tuatha aswell. Despite this hierarchy, decisions and power still lay largely close to the Gaelic people, decision making seeping upwards only in small amounts to the higher ranking Ríg, the mirror image of our modern system where power is held at the top and only seeps down to the Irish people in small amounts. Although a local Rí may be subservient to the Rí of Caiseal or Teamhair (Tara) for example, this made little difference to the ordinary Gaels who looked to their own Rí for leadership.

The Rí did not inherit his position from his father as the eldest male in the family, as is often the case for Kings. The Gaels elected their leader democratically. Canditates were drawn from the Fine (roughly translated as extended family, a large family group from which the King could be chosen), and were voted upon by all the freemen of the tuath, from the small farmer up. To again show that the Rí was no simple King, contrast Gaelic Ireland with their English neighbours: there, sovereignty was given to one man, the King, for him to use to rule his subjects. On the other hand, the Gaelic Rí only had such powers as the Commander General of the tuatha's warriors in times of war, and only as the political leader in times of emergency such as plague. More often, decisions were made at the tuatha's Óenach, where the local freemen got together to make decisions, trade, have sporting contests and the craic generally. Although the Rí presided over the Óenach, he could only ratify those decisions made by his electors. The Rí did have power to negotiate with neighbouring Ríg aswell, but it is obvious that in Gaelic Ireland, power rested largely in the hands of the Irish people, certainly not in any distant individual leader.

The Rí was often obliged to make war alongside the mór-rí of his mór-tuatha, and also to give him tributes. Despite this, a tuatha's practical independence was rarely interfered with from above. It is amazing how all Ireland was able to split into these relatively autonomous tuatha's, while preserving such cultural oneness. Ireland had at that time a class of men call the Aés Dana, or men of arts, Gaelic Ireland's educated poets, druids, bards and chroniclers. These men passed down the Gaelic way of life and traditions throughout centuries, until they were finally exterminated in the 1600s. In such high esteem were they held, that the highest ranking of them, the Ollam, was equal in rank to the Rí himself. The laws passed down by this group was call Fénechas, what we know as Brehon laws.

Darrell Figgis, who wrote in the 1910s on the need to create an Irish constitution on Gaelic lines, noted that the Fénechas laws were not dreamt up by politicians bargaining and compromising in a parliament, or even by some prince's dictatorial whim. The laws came from years of decisions reached by the Brehons on cases which were brought before them, and so gave practical remedial solution to problems of both a criminal and civic nature, and to the satisfaction of all involved. Figgis believed strongly in a Gaelic Ireland for the modern age, but could not use his influential position on the committee which drafted the Freestate constitution to do so. 'Ireland has fought,' he wrote, 'long against England with no other hope than to make another England of Ireland. That is only to break a political union to make a union of ideals.' It begs the question today: Is Ireland more English today (due to 'a union of ideals') than it was under political union?

In Figgis' mind, Ireland was worthy of, and deserved, its uniquely Gaelic Irish institutions of state. To make a new Gaelic Ireland (rather than merely aping the Westminster model of parliament) was 'to construct an Irish state out of the practical experience of life, and to oppose English civilisation …with a distinctive Irish concept of civilisation that has some hope for the future of Irishmen.

Other nationalists of the time all believed in the need for the Gaelic state, such as Æ (George Russell), and James Connolly. Connolly, a socialist, often made enemies in socialist circles for his nationalist views, and famously when he defended both religion and the role of the family against America's leading socialist, Daniel de Leon. Connolly saw in Ireland's Gaelic past a new Gaelic future, and famously wrote that even 'if you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle" it would be of no use unless the Irish were willing to employ the principles 'which underlay the social structure of Ancient Erin.

Connolly could not view those Irishmen who claimed to be nationalists, but who depended on England or an English system for their wealth, wealth gained at the expense of the poorest of their Irish countrymen. That English system depended on the extinction of the Gaelic system, and by upholding that English system, the so-called nationalists were injuring both Irishmen and women, and the Gaelic way of life.

Ancient Ireland had many glories and riches which we have inherited in music, art, stories and customs. Her Gaelic institutions should too be placed among those treasures for us to study, preserve and cultivate. I have only given here the very bones of the institutions of Gaelic Ireland, and have been forced to ignore many features which further reading will uncover to you. By studying how our ancestors ran the nation, so too can we find a manner in which to revitalize Gaelic life in Ireland. Currently, Gaelic culture can only survive as long as it is profitable for the economic and political system. Ireland has a choice: use the systems of other western countries and become western; or, use the Gaelic system and become Gaelic. It is up to us to study our Gaelic traditions, and Gaelic ways, to ensure their survival.

Commandant Ó Rathaile

Michael (The) Ó Rathaile was one of the co-founders of the Irish Volunteers and was the only 1916 leader to die during the fighting of Easter week. He was born at Ballylongford on the 22nd April 1875 and from an early age was a strong Irish nationalist changing his name to the old Gaelic spelling in the summer of 1901. He wrote for Arthur Griffith’s newspaper the United Irishman and became involved with the Irish Home Rule party while living in Brighton. In 1911 he started using the title ‘The’ believing ‘he christened himself with the blood’ of the Gael, in helping to revive the old clanship of his ancestors. As part of the Executive Committee of the Gaelic League he was involved in the translations of the street names in Baile Átha Cliath into Irish in 1912. He submitted articles to the Irish Freedom paper and took over the Gaelic League’s paper An Claidheamh Soluis bringing out a new edition in 1913.

Upon the founding of the Oglaigh na hÉireann, he became its first treasurer. He was Director of Arms for the Irish Volunteers during the Howth gun-running and while never a member of the IRB, he remained loyal to the Volunteers after a split was caused by the pro-British Redmondites; who desired to fight for England during the First World War. During the Easter Rising he was assigned as aide de camp to Pádraic mac Phiarais at the GPO HQ. While initially against the 1916 Rising (as he believed the army was still at preparation level) and working in partnership with Ó Neill to have the rising stopped, once Mac Phiarais had given the mobilisation order to his troops, Ó Rathaile committed himself to fighting with the men he had trained.

While taking a command-section of his soldiers up Moore Street on an offensive assault, he was put under heavy machine-gun fire from a British barricade. Ó Rathaile was badly hit, but managed to pull himself in Sackville Lane where he wrote his dying letter to his wife on the night of Friday 28th April. Just before he died he dipped his finger into his bleeding wound and with his own blood wrote his name upon a doorway, at just 41 years of age. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery beside O’Donovan Rossa, being one of the first to be buried in what became known as the Republican Plot. He was survived by his wife and his four sons. He died fighting to revive a Gaelic Ireland and will always be cherished in the hearts of the Irish people. Éire Saor, Éire Gaelach.