Letter to Tim Healy from republican internees
Letter to Tim Healy from various republican internees asking him intercede in a dispute with prison authorities. The manuscript provides background to the dispute. The letter is in two distinctive hands and is (copy) signed by ‘Michael Staines, Head Leader; James Murphy, leader, no. 1 room; Edward A. Morkan, leader, no. 2 room; R.J. Mulcahy, leader, no. 3 room; Thomas D. Sinnott, Leader no. 4 Room’. The letter reads: ‘Recently the military authorities in charge of the Camp here have adopted such
Details
- Level of description
- Item
- Date
- 4 Oct. 1916
- Reference
- 5
- Extent and medium
- 9 pp; Manuscript
- Scope and content
- Letter to Tim Healy from various republican internees asking him intercede in a dispute with prison authorities. The manuscript provides background to the dispute. The letter is in two distinctive hands and is (copy) signed by ‘Michael Staines, Head Leader; James Murphy, leader, no. 1 room; Edward A. Morkan, leader, no. 2 room; R.J. Mulcahy, leader, no. 3 room; Thomas D. Sinnott, Leader no. 4 Room’. The letter reads: ‘Recently the military authorities in charge of the Camp here have adopted such an attitude of consistently vindictive injustice towards us that we are reluctantly compelled to believe that there must be some ulterior motive behind it. … We can do very little to help ourselves, cut off as we are from all the world, and strictly prohibited – officially – from sending out a single complaint’. In September 1917 Healy acted as counsel for the family of the dead Sinn Féin hunger striker Thomas Ashe. He was one of the few King’s Counsel to provide legal services to members of Sinn Féin in various legal proceedings in both Ireland and England after the 1916 Rising. This included acting for those illegally interned in 1916 in Frongoch in North Wales.
- Repository
- Irish Capuchin Archives
- Context
- Irish Capuchin Archives > Capuchin Papers relating to the Irish Revolution > The Papers of Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. > Correspondence > Correspondence with Republican Prisoners
Annotations
Rights
- Rights
- Copyright held by the respective institution. Contact the archive for reproduction permissions.
Related Items
Extracted Mentions
People, places, and terms identified via handwriting recognition and named entity recognition.
Sample passages
- Recently the Military Authorities in charge of the Camp here have adopted such an attitude of consistently violent injustice towards us that we are reluctantly Compelled to believe…
- In. Healy K. M.
- Recently the Military Authorities in charge of the Camp here have adopted such an attitude of consistently violent injustice towards us that we are reluctantly Compelled to believe…
Full Transcript (OCR, 1 pages)
Machine-generated OCR transcript. Handwritten material may contain recognition errors.
Page 1
Lo. Ind. Biomed. Internment Camp. In. Healy K. M. Foregood Wales, Oct 1916 Liv. Some time ago you were good enough to visit the above Camp, & this Convene with some of the Irish prisoners. We, the undersigned, being only elected Camp leaders, are aware that the prisoners is shown you said on that occasion laid before you a number of only veries Complaints concerning the insanitary & other most unsatisfactory Conditions under which we are interviewed here. We much expect to say that not only has there been no improvement in our Conditions of internment, but that they have gone steadily from had to worse - as a permishment, no doubt, for making these Complaints to you we do not has ever been removed to hearing Prisons. Recently the Military Authorities in charge of the Camp here have adopted such an attitude of consistently violent injustice towards us that we are reluctantly Compelled to believe that there must be some ulterior matter behind it. We fear that event counts may include the prisoners to a Course of action which may have disastrous results. We can do only little to help ourselves, except as we are from all the world, and strictly prohibited - Officially - from lending out a single Complaint. After mature deliberation we have decided to lay in detail before you two or three typical cases of birds - five injustice, and to ask you to let in the healthy light of publicity on them by Questions in Parliament. We have that if you take up the matter you will not allow permanently to be put off with every and struggled answers, but will probe the matter to the bottom; therefore we want you to feel assured that these Complaints are not most of irreprovisable individuals but are made on the authority of the Camp leaders, who are prepared to personally substantiate all our statements. And we, on our own part, will have to announce that the matter is being attended to by an indiscriminate, who, though he may differ from us on matters of national polity, is more than a both impartial and human. Towards the end of last