By Christmas of 1922 it was clear that the Free State Government had all but won the war. They had executed 21 republican prisoners in jails and internment camps. Thousands of prisoners were held in both partition states. In the countryside and the few towns where they still held out, the IRA’s forces were dwindling and in retreat. Free article

The remarkable father and son story behind two books on the history of republican activism in Leitrim and Longford which have been updated and republished. Free article

The Curragh Camp in County Kildare was for decades the chief British military base in Ireland. It was handed over to the Free State army in May 1922 but it was shortly the scene of imprisonment and execution of some of the same republicans who had fought the British. Free article

Mary Lou McDonald, Castletown, Co. Wexford. Sunday, December 11, 2022 Free article

The new Irish Free State of 26 Counties officially came into existence on 6 December 1922. Two days later on 8 December its government committed an act that was to define its treacherous nature in the eyes of Republicans for many years - the execution of Liam Mellows, Rory O’Connor, Joe McKelvey and Richard Barrett in Mountjoy Jail. Free article

Sinn Féin’s European Representative Martina Anderson was in Glasgow last weekend speaking at an event to mark the 38th anniversary of Volunteer Seán McIlvenna, organised by the flute band named after the Belfast born republican. Free article

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