Millstreet.ie

Speaking of 6 degree of separation it seems that we have a direct link between the late Princess Diana, nee “Spencer” and Millstreet. Maybe you guys could get her brother to visit someday.

Millstreet, 7 September 1884

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums
For the belted hero comes
Who rules the land with strong but gentle sway
Hide all traces of the Green
Let no crownless harps be seen
On your banners when they flout the sky today.

Let the maiden and the wife
And the child so new to life
The old man bent with labour and with years
And the young man brave and gay
Fill the happy streets today
And greet their foreign master with their cheers.

Let the widow lone and old
Mourning for the heart that’s cold
All her sorrow with her weeds cast aside
And the Widow-maker greet
As he prances down the street
With the smile that lit her lips as a bride.

At the beating of the drum
Let the childless mother come
And strew the brightest flowers upon his way
Let the orphans dry their tears
And with happy childish cheers
The Orphan-maker welcome here to-day.

Hark! I hear the ringing sound
As of hoofs upon the ground
And swords are gleaming brightly in the sun
Sound the trumpet, beat the drums
For the belted Earl comes
A more than royal welcome hath he won

*

But a silence like the grave
And the banners bright that wave
Display the golden harp without the crown
And beneath their folds of green
Must the Saxon pass, I ween
And with gloomy brow he passes through the town

And not a kindly word is said
But mutterings deep instead
And the wail of the widow for her son
Is there no one here to give
Shall our ruler not receive
The more than royal welcome that he hath won?

Lo! A door is opened wide
And a Saggarth stands inside
And he clasps the Castle Earl by the hand
And I thought of all those years
When the priest by Castle Peers
Was hunted like a wolf throughout the land

Ah! His only comrades then
Were the brave frieze-coated men
’Twas often on the rugged mountainside
That they watched his lone retreat
Sure they starved that he might eat
And for their Saggarth’s sake they gladly died.

But those years have passed away
And the priests are free to-day
Still on the peasant’s head the price is set
And, mavroon, we’ve lived to see -
Paha! ’tis only Canon G
The priests, thank God, are with the people yet.

(United Ireland, 13 September 1884)

The above poem was written about Millstreet on 5 August 1884 to celebrate how the town dealt with the visit of the then Lord Lieutenant, the Earl Spencer (an ancestor of Lady Diana). As the person responsible for many deaths, executions and the use of the law against the people generally he was given a unique reception in that the town closed down on the day of his visit and was festooned with banners and posters supporting the resistance to the government. This was regarded by the Home Rule leaders as the perfect type of demonstration, being effective and within the law. However, he was received by Canon Griffin with whom he dined. The poem opens with the kind of reception that the Earl would have expected, then the reception he got and contrasts Canon Griffin’s actions with the traditional relationship of the priests and the people.

The nationalist and Land League leader, William O’Brien M.P., used to refer to the Irish Times as the “Liarish Times.” He had good reason to do so as it was an inveterate opponent of national independence and the land struggle and consistently distorted and denigrated the aims and activities of both movements.

A classic example of this was its report of the visit of the Lord Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, to Millstreet on 7 September 1884. The Earl was an ancestor of Lady Diana. He unexpectedly visited the town and was accompanied by mounted and armed Hussars. The town had developed a reputation as a hotbed in the land war but this was only because the activities of the Land League had been highlighted by the local Parish Priest who uniquely among his peers was an inveterate opponent and used the media and the Unionist media in particular to promote his opposition over a number of years. He was articulate and well connected and also participated in various Government commissions to further his views. Millstreet was not much different from elsewhere but his media outpourings made it appear so and it gained a reputation for what was called lawlessness and the Irish Times report, naturally enough, lays this on with a trowel which is only to be expected from that quarter. Spencer had a reputation as a committed enforcer of coercion and executions were a regular feature of his regime. He visited Millstreet and other areas in the South to show ‘who was boss.’

But the extraordinary aspect of the Irish Times report is the downright distortion of the facts of the visit. It said that: “Here and there the people had mustered in knots of over half-a-dozen, and here and there the Lord Lieutenant acknowledged a salutation.” This is a joke. Spencer mistook some jeers for ‘salutations’ and was laughed at. He made an eejit of himself!

Then we are told that “The Lord Lieutenant during his two hours’ stay in Millstreet was the guest of the Rev. Canon Griffin, P.P., an ecclesiastic of broad views and cultured mind. In a few cases the shutters were put up on the shop windows. The instances in which this was done were, however, very few, and having regard to the external appearance of the places where it was done, the demonstration could not be considered other than an ignominious failure.”

There was in fact a total, spontaneous shutdown with posters and banners proclaiming support for Parnell, O’Brien and the League. The protest was such a success that the Earl and his ‘cordial reception’ in Millstreet became a source of ridicule even in the House of Commons.

The report went on to claim that the Earl visited the local school with Canon Griffin and that because it was “a half holiday, the children had been set free before the Lieutenant’s arrival.” This was another lie. The children had been kept at home in protest at this visit.

There are, therefore, at least three blatant lies in this report – there were no salutations for the Earl, the school was closed in protest at his visit and the protest was a total success. The fact is that these are lies is not based simply on some false folk memory. One need only looks at, and compare, the London Times’ report which ran as follows:

“Killarney, September 7.

His Excellency, the Lord Lieutenant visited Millstreet, county Cork, on Saturday. He was accompanied by an escort of Hussars, and rode through the town. He was greeted with derisive banter expressing sentiments of a popular character, and on his way through cheers for Parnell were given at various points. His Excellency made a singular mistake, having on his first appearance lifted his hat to a Land League banner, supposing it to be a token of popular welcome. Such devices as “God save Ireland,” “Ireland loves William O’Brien,” and “The Land for the People,” were displayed generally. The Viceroy was entertained by Canon Griffin, P.P., and visited the convent schools, where the children abstained from attending on account of the visit. He rode in the evening to Killarney where he is visiting Lord Kenmare.”

(The Times, London, 8 September 1884)

The London Times also presented some facts about Canon Griffin that gave a pretty accurate and objective account of his relationship with his parishioners. It reported on some of the Canon’s experiences in his church when he attempted to lecture the congregation on their politics. For example, he was forced to stop his sermon by an outbreak of mass (sic) coughing (30/8/1881), he was called a liar by a member of the congregation in the church (7/4/1885) and a local man won a libel case against him (4/8/1874). All this from a people we are often assured were helplessly and hopelessly priest- ridden. Religion from Rome and politics from home were indeed the order of the day.

The Irish Times has the cheek nowadays to describe itself as a journal of record. The London Times is a genuine journal of record. By comparison the Irish Times was and remains a propaganda tract. The reports of this visit illustrates the difference cery clearly.

To support this claim of being a journal of record the Irish Times has a ‘From the Archives’ section every day with reprints from past issues and presented as if they were all a full record of events. On 8 September 2010 it reproduced the original report of the visit to Millstreet, but cut out one of the lies – about the children having a holiday. It retained the others. I brought the inaccuracies of this report to the attention of Madam Editor but I was wasting my time and was not surprised that she ignored my efforts to correct her ‘journal of record.’
All this would not matter that much but there is the fact that the Irish taxpayer, i.e., you, are supporting this so-called journal of record. On the 28th June, 2006, Dick Roche, T.D., Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government signed a contract with The Irish Times Ltd. Under the terms of this contract his department agreed to contribute half a million Euro to a joint fund to digitise the back-file of The Irish Times covering the period 1859 to 2004. The project was called “Times of Our Lives” and The Irish Times Ltd. also contributed half a million Euro towards the overall cost of one million Euros. The project was completed in early 2008.
At the time of the announcement Dick Roche is quoted as saying that the project would “bring history to life” and that “as the paper of national record, The Irish Times archive is a rich resource. When the project is complete. . .we will be able to search for any location, for example our place of birth, or where we live, and all articles about it will be listed. We can then select an article, read it and print it.” He further claimed that “Times of our Lives, which will be available free of charge to the public and to students in Irish Public Libraries and in schools through the Ask About Ireland website, will bring to the public and to school children, online access and indexes of the entire archive of The Irish Times from 1859 to 2004.”
Maeve Donovan, then Managing Director of The Irish Times Ltd., described the project as an example of the extraordinary potential of computer technology to serve the needs of education and research.
Another “stakeholder” in the Project is the Library Council of Ireland, An Comhairle Leabharlanna, and the Assistant Director of that body, Annette Kelly, claimed that the digitised back-file represented the “most important source of content in relation to the history of Ireland for schools and the general public.”
The question that needs to be asked is whether the Government should be co-funding a project that essentially provides an alien view of Irish history. In certain circumstances this could be acceptable. Providing for instance that there was a counter-balancing project which ensured a more authentic account of the past for researchers, schools and public libraries. There’s enough alternative sources out there on which half a million Euro could usefully be spent. The problem is that the “Times of our Lives” project ensures a virtual monopoly, in the context of online access, for the unionist view of Irish history.
But it is worse than that. In the light of Minister Roche’s description of the Irish Times as “the paper of national record” and the Assistant Director of the Library Council’s claim that the back-file of the paper represented the “most important source of content in relation to the history of Ireland for schools and the general public” it can only be concluded that it is a widely held view in Government that the Irish Times account of Irish history has now become the accepted national interpretation of our past. Not only is a Government department providing funds to ensure a monopoly of online access to a unionist view of Irish history but such a view is described by the Minister of that department as one that embraces the national record. It is an irrefutable fact that The Irish Times was the willing partner in the attempts by British Imperialism to counter the development of Irish nationalism during the 19th century and to destroy the emerging Irish state in the early 20th century by performing the role of Dublin Castle mouthpiece during 1916 and the War of Independence. Pity the poor students who will rely of this as a source of historical fact and pity the taxpayer who is contributing to the deception.

Jack Lane