Kilmichael 28/11/1920

Iscreamkone

There has been plenty of media coverage about Bloody Sunday recently- pages and pages in the media. Even a show on RTÉ. Very informative it was too. The Irish Examiner ran pages on the death of Tomás MacSwiney and I enjoyed all of it.
So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the Examiner this morning and it was as if Kilmichael never happened.
Kilmichael 28/11/1920 was where the war of independence was won!!!
The British realised that it was all over after this incident.
Are we ashamed of the Boys of Kilmichael?
Why no coverage?
I’m watching the 6-1 news now waiting for the 100 year anniversary to get a mention...

Fann Linn

Iscreamkone wrote: »

There has been plenty of media coverage about Bloody Sunday recently- pages and pages in the media. Even a show on RTÉ. Very informative it was too. The Irish Examiner ran pages on the death of Tomás MacSwiney and I enjoyed all of it.
So you can imagine my surprise when I opened the Examiner this morning and it was as if Kilmichael never happened.
Kilmichael 28/11/1920 was where the war of independence was won!!!
The British realised that it was all over after this incident.
Are we ashamed of the Boys of Kilmichael?
Why no coverage?
I’m watching the 6-1 news now waiting for the 100 year anniversary to get a mention...

Contemporary view is that we should all forgive and forget. Hence the calls previously this year to commemorate the perpetrators of Bloody Sunday and those who sacked Balbriggan and Cork.

Iscreamkone

100 year anniversary of Kilmichael 1920.
Not even a mention on the 6-1 news.
Is no news the next step after fake news.

In my opinion this omission is pitiful and embarrassing.

Water John

Then you should have watched the Nuacht ay 5.45 pm. also Nationwide RTE 1 and Guerrilla Days in Ireland TG4, all this week. This post is by a Kilmichael boy.

Iscreamkone

Water John wrote: »

Then you should have watched the Nuacht ay 5.45 pm. also Nationwide RTE 1 and Guerrilla Days in Ireland TG4, all this week. This post is by a Kilmichael boy.

I missed them - I’d have enjoyed them.
Still - in comparison to Bloody Sunday - very little in the newspapers today or the main evening news?

JeffKenna

Big article on the main page of rte.ie. Trending all day on twitter as well.

Iscreamkone

JeffKenna wrote: »

Big article on the main page of rte.ie. Trending all day on twitter as well.

I must get with twitter before the 200th anniversary

Cork county Council YouTube channel had a mini documentary on it, out this week

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cUo4vBsLkXQ

Water John

https://www.southernstar.ie/news/watch-kilmichael-and-crossbarry-commemoration-committee-mark-centenary-of-the-kilmichael-ambush-4215022

https://www.corkbeo.ie/news/history/cork-county-council-release-mini-19357774

https://www.coppeenheritage.com/kilmichael-ambush

These are 3, haven't watched them myself yet. The last one was released by the local historical society in Coppeen on Thursday.
The middle one is the one referenced by Mike above.

silverharp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JBQVOcoEYc

kildare lad

I wonder what them men would think of fine gael wanting a commemoration for the black and tans .

Water John

War is dirty, ugly and bloody, have no doubt about that.
Those who took part in many of the activities in both the War of Independence and Civil War rarely spoke of many of the things they did.

kildare lad

Tom Barry's " geurrilla days in Ireland " is a good book on the war in cork . Ernie o malleys , Raids and rallies is another good book on the flying columns .

SEPT 23 1989

It's not nice when the media and the tech giants go against you

silverharp

this is an interesting new documentary on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSmgXJh1MLg

spacet

When Fine Gael put an ex head of the BBC in control of RTE these critical events in Irish history are bound to be removed or negatively portrayed on the airwaves.

Similar to the subtle insults around the 1916 commemorations; right after the commemorations they showed British WW2 war and James Bond movies, while Virgin TV had the red arrows and Britain got talent ****e on repeat. They never take a day off.

gourcuff

agree with first post, quite surprised to see nothing on the news about such a crucial event...

whisky_galore

Iscreamkone wrote: »

Why no coverage?

Because it didn't happen in Dublin.

gourcuff

We all have to begrudgingly give Cork credit for their role in the WOI... fair play to them...

Montage of Feck

Considering that Tom Barry had little more than a hundred men who were meagerly resourced and up against the RIC, auxiliaries and a regiment of the British army, himself and the west cork brigade were extraordinarily effective.
In the later Crossbarry ambush they remarkably fought their way out of an encirclement by 1200 British troops.

Dyr

Is true Michéalín and Leo made it up to Enniskillen for Poppy day?

And they not able to organise a single commemoration for the men of 1820

gourcuff

Montage of Feck wrote: »

Considering that Tom Barry had little more than a hundred men who were meagerly resourced and up against the RIC, auxiliaries and a regiment of the British army, himself and the west cork brigade were extraordinarily effective.
In the later Crossbarry ambush they remarkably fought their way out of an encirclement by 1200 British troops.

Crossbarry was incredible, faced with complete annihilation... they survived and inflicted casualties..

Hamsterchops

Bambi wrote: »

Is true Michéalín and Leo made it up to Enniskillen for Poppy day?

And they not able to organise a single commemoration for the men of 1820

1820, just five years after the battle of Waterloo.

As a mark of respect for the ten's of thousands of Irish men who died in the Great War & WWII Leo & Michael did indeed attend remembrance ceremonies, as did our President.

Different strands, different tribes, different colours on this little island all need to be recognised when marking this centenery of events 1914-1922.

Getting back to the ambush, who exactly were the casualties on the day? Auxiliaries or Black & Tans or what?

Dyr

Hamsterchops wrote: »

As a mark of respect for the ten's of thousands of Irish men who died in the Great War & WWII Leo & Michael did indeed attend remembrance ceremonies, as did our President.

Different strands, different tribes, different colours on this little island all need to be recognised when marking this centenery of events 1914-1922.

Getting back to the ambush, who exactly were the casualties on the day? Auxiliaries or Black & Tans or what?

And yet they cancelled other commemorations this year for the men who created the nation that the provides them with the trough they bury their heads in. Recognition you say

Why are you asking about an ambushes casualties on here when google has a search function?

Hamsterchops

Bambi wrote: »

Why are you asking about an ambushes casualties on here when google has a search function?

I couldn't remember if it was one group or the other who were ambushed, I'll Google it like you suggest .........

gourcuff

Hamsterchops wrote: »

I couldn't remember if it was one group or the other who were ambushed, I'll Google it like you suggest .........

this piece from RTE is a pretty good summary...

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/1128/1180962-kilmichael-this-means-war/

mariaalice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionism_(Ireland)

It always a case of my truth, your truth, and the truth.

Stovepipe

Correct. Tom Barry was economical with the truth when it suited him.

Samsonsmasher

Ahem..the War of Independence so called was a British victory. It was arguably actually an Irish civil war. Remember before the Irish Revolution the majority of the RIC were Irish and the majority of British troops in Ireland had traditionally been Irishmen. Collins a former Royal Mail clerk and his faction capitulated to Lloyd George's naked threats of renewed immediate and terrible war and formed the puppet Free State to save their skins. The National Army recruited former British Army officers and WW1 veterans to fill out its ranks supplied with British artillery armoured cars machine guns Crossley tenders rifles and ammunition. The anti Treaty IRA saw both the National Army " the Green and Tans" and the Garda as simply a renamed British Army and RIC. The colour of flags and letterboxes had changed and a crown had been swapped with a harp and no more. Collins and his side were poachers turned gamekeepers.
As far as the anti Treaty IRA were concerned the Irish Civil War was merely a continuation of the independence struggle fighting against turncoats.
Indeed many IRA never recognized the Free State until the day they died.

Stovepipe

Some accurate points here and some not; while most RIC were Irish, their senior leadership was mostly drawn from UK sources. Most of the British Army in Ireland were British born and deliberately kept that way as their leadership felt that they might hand over weapons to the Irish or even desert and join them in the fight. The decision to keep British weapons and vehicles as standard for the National Army was a practical one; the men were familiar with the Lee-Enfield rifle and other British weapons, all battle proven from WW1 and the British Government were happy to hand them over and continue to supply spares. My grandfather had served in the IRA and joined the new Army when it was formed and they had a huge collection of German, American, British and European weapons, handed over or captured from the IRA, so they had multiple calibres to deal with and many of the weapons were in bad condition or were so old as to be very obsolete so they standardised on the .303 cartridge for rifles and machine guns and scrapped the rest. Some were kept for training, testing and intelligence purposes. what also mattered was the national dependence on remittances from Irishmen serving in the British forces and pensions earned from those who had served the Crown in Ireland and abroad. The Free State knew full well that the nation depended heavily on that income,as remittances from the USA and Canada were not enough. If the British had stopped or even slowed down pension payments, Ireland would have been in serious trouble.

whisky_galore

mariaalice wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revisionism_(Ireland)

It always a case of my truth, your truth, and the truth.

Revisionism is always bad when it doesn't suit your outlook.