Galway republicans will remember and commemorate Liam Mellows on 4 December, in Athenry. This Galway Sinn Féin event will commence with a march from Athenry Community Park at 2pm by a piper-led procession walking past his former residence in the town to the 1916 Commemorative Garden. Free article

In ‘The Gates Flew Open’, Peadar O’Donnell’s inspirational memoir of his days as a Republican prisoner during the Civil War, Liam Mellows is described as “the richest mind our race had achieved for many a long day”. Others testified to the magnetism of his personality and his ability to motivate and to organise, as well as his deep thinking and profound commitment to the cause of the Irish Republic. Free article

This article first appeared in An Phoblacht in December 1932, ten years after the execution of Liam Mellows. Nora Connolly O’Brien, daughter of James Connolly and a revolutionary in her own right, was a close friend of Liam Mellows. She died in 1981 after a life of activism, including supporting the protesting Republican prisoners in the H-Blocks and Armagh Prison up to the time of her last illness. Free article

“It was Erskine’s sniff that got him shot.” So remarked one who “knew and loved him well”. And perhaps there is truth in such a devastating verdict. For Erskine Childers was often an outsider, even among friends. Free article

The execution of Erskine Childers 100 years ago on 24 November 1922 marked the culmination of the demonisation of this principled, committed and talented Republican activist by both the British and Free State governments. Free article

The Free State regime carried out the first prison executions under their new coercive legislation when four young men from the Liberties in the south city faced the firing squad in Kilmainham Jail, Dublin, on 17 November 1922. They were Volunteers Peter Cassidy, James Fisher, John Gaffney and Richard Twohig of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade. Free article

The centenary of the execution of Republican prisoners by the Free State government is to be marked with commemorative events around the country in November and December. The Free State government introduced Emergency Powers legislation which gave its Army authority to court-martial prisoners and sentence them to death for a range of offences including possession of weapons. That law of October 1922 was accompanied by a trenchant anti-IRA pastoral letter from the Catholic bishops. Free article

'Dogs out on Curragh after escape' was the lead headline on The Cork Examiner the day after an audacious jail break by seven republican POWs on Sunday 29 October 1972. The escape coincided with the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis which was taking place in Liberty Hall, Dublin the same day. Free article

Camden resident, writer, socialist, and Irish Republican, Pegeen O’Sullivan died in July this year aged 96 years old. Angie Birthill writes on Pegeen’s lifelong community activism. Free article

THE YEAR 1982 saw British Government strategy in Ireland in disarray. The Hunger Strike of the previous year, in which ten republican prisoners died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, had broken the British policy of criminalising the prisoners and, by extension, the struggle for Irish freedom. The world saw that Irish republicans had widespread community support among the nationalist population in the Six Counties. Free article

By mid-September 1922 the Republican forces were on the retreat throughout Ireland and were reverting to rural guerrilla tactics while the Free State controlled the cities and towns. Free article

The day after Michael Collins was shot, Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Staff of the Free State Army, sent a message to his soldiers. He urged them to “stand calmly by your posts” and said: “Let no cruel act of reprisal blemish your bright honour.” Yet in Dublin, within days of that message, and as the body of Michael Collins lay in state in City Hall, Free State forces carried out atrocities which up to recent times were largely forgotten. Free article

We are seeing a deluge of media coverage on the centenary of the death of Michael Collins. This is natural for such a towering figure in our history. It is unfortunate, though, that so much that is said and written about the Treaty and the Civil War is dominated by the figures of Collins and Dev, often to the exclusion of other key figures and usually glossing over the political issues involved. Free article

Arthur Griffith died 100 years ago as the Civil War escalated, a war brought about as a direct result of his decision to sign the Treaty. Griffith’s legacy will forever be defined by that one act. Free article

Arthur Joseph Griffith was born at 61 Upper Dominick Street, Dublin, son of Arthur Charles Griffith, printer, and Mary Whelan. He attended the local Christian Brothers school and began work as an office boy in Franklin Printing at 13. He was a voracious reader and studied for the rest of his years. He was deeply interested in Irish history, culture and language and was a member from his teens of many clubs such as Young Ireland League, the Celtic Literary Society and Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League). Free article