On July 14th, 1914 the 50 foot pleasure yacht “Asgard” sailed into Howth harbor in Dublin with its cabin completely filled with arms. It has 900 Mauser 1871 rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition for the Irish Volunteers, and there is a crowd of a thousand people turned out to unload them – just daring the British authorities to try a crackdown. These rifles would ultimately become some of the most iconic weapons used in the 1916 Easter Rising.
Video on Ulster gunrunning:
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I venture to predict that this post will get a surfeit of replies, and that the majority of them will only tangentially address the rifle…
As a person with a sort-of Irish name of unknown provenance (no idea if the ancestors were actual Irish or the Scots who showed up to help with the raping of Ireland…) I am not going to touch the political end of this, but I am going to comment that it’s entirely on-brand for (some of) the Irish to have gleefully done in the man who got them these rifles, and who was an enthusiastic supporter of their cause. The Revolution always eats its own…
It’s also entirely on-brand for Ireland that when you go back and look at who was responsible for his execution, teasing out which side was which and all the ins and outs of the thing make your head spin. I’ve read some sources that say he was betrayed by the side he was on, supposedly so that they could make a martyr/shut him up/jealousy, and I’ve seen others that make it sound as if his death was a targeted political one, meant to eliminate a key figure on the “other side”, if you can figure out what side that was…
I think there were good reasons my ancestors left Ireland and came to the Americas when they did, washing their hands of the whole grabtastic mess. There are reasons that Ireland has never amounted to much, and likely never will: The local population.
It’ll be interesting to observe the effect in a few generations of all the “refugees” they’ve brought in. I predict that there’s going to be a self-inflicted nightmare era yet again, as the local population concludes out that their own government is engaged in an attempt at ethnic cleansing of their own people.
They didn’t leave to wash their hands of Ireland. They left to give in to the reality that the British rulers wanted Ireland depopulated of Catholics. Look at the sheer number who left. No normal government would give up most of its tax and labor base. The English believed the Irish were subhuman and unprofitable; Jonathan Swift (a conservative but sympathetic Anglo-Irish) summarized the English attitude in his satire “A Modest Proposal.”
My Great Grandad left Ireland “Outskirts of Dublin” for England just after the Civil War so he would have been about 20 his brother having been killed in WW1 fighting the Germans. He always said, as a proud Irishman that the country was backward “Retarded” because of the Church (Catholic church) Which to be honest, always made me feel somewhat ambivalent ideas about religion per se; ok, take now – Catholism is a club folk belong to, folk turn up at church still – Unlike in “Protestant” Church of England churches, in England, in the main; nobody goes unless forced, marriage, death, same sort of things etc… And perhaps, being a member of a club has benefits; Father Patrick might say don’t drink Whisky go to school or such & somebody might listen given he took the time to say it. However when you then think about them having real power from the state; forcing unmarried mothers into “Slavery” as such, well it does lead one to conclude folk might be right in regards being skeptical of religion. My own father was a typical example of this; he was clever naturally and benefitted from the Catholic church folk mentoring him, even lending him 20 quid or whatever when he was skint. But at the same time he as skeptical about the benefits gained from having an all powerfull state religion… In regards, I suppose a bit like Communism etc, if said persons in charge happen to be a bit rubbish, stupid/corrupt or whatever, when they have the power you are sort of stuck with them.
Now on the other side my Great Grandmother, who was unusually tall (Her husband got sank ramming a Germam U-Boat in WW2 near Greenland.) her brothers, all Irish Catholics, lots of them… Of the few that survived WW1 fighting Germans one was a Black & Tan who actively enjoyed terrorising his neighbours on behalf of the British; apparently his wasn’t a very nice person generally, and was that way inclined. Life…
He had probably “Murdered” legally, a number of Germans mind during WW1 so that possibly made him somewhat… Rude etc. Times, eh…
Austin she said was a big man, who wasn’t very nice; so maybe he had been that way before WW1 who knows.
Now if you are tall, that just goes to show to “keep it” seemingly, like dog breeding… You have to “boink” other tall folk, if you don’t… Well my great grandfather must have been a short ass (As I remember at 93 she was taller than all of us think she was 6’1 which for a girl especially in the 20/30’s was tall.) so, meh. Although food or something seems to make all the youth taller these days… Not great for APV design probably. We used to call her big gran.
Oh, and they were from Sligo the other side from Dublin and up a bit north. Point being both families ended up in England, Blackburn Lancashire @ the time an industrial hotspot. Different world.
And she had “photos” of Crimean war relatives who had been in the British Army from Ireland, so it is a complicated history. The latest bout, I think was very cold war; which personally I think was played down on purpose. But, meh… Peace is better, wherever in the world you are.
Riddle of the Sands is also considered the first true spy novel. I read it a few years ago and it is a cracking good book.
I read it as a young man and agree. Especially good on sailing details. Interesting that the main British traitor is a mere RN Lieutenant — no ranking gentleman could betray his country!
You might look at Compton Mackenzie’s post-WWI fiction “The Three Couriers,” the first bureaucratically realistic (and funny) spy story.
a couple of notes.
Howth is a scenic and very expensive village at the end of the headland at the north end of Dublin Bay
Getting cops to the village in any numbers would not have been a quick process, especially in 1914.
Pronunciation of Irish place names has little to do with the spelling, and the emphasis can differ widely from an English equivalent, for example the Midlands in England would be pronounced as though it was one word without definite emphasis, in Ireland, the Midlands would be pronounced as two words with definite emphasis.
fortunately they don’t have anything as extreme as Featherstone Haugh, or Milngavie.
The OW in Howth is pronounced like the O in garden Hoe.
The GH at the end of Curragh, home of the Irish army, normally seems to be silent.
Irish history, my goodness!
Monty Pythons “life of Brian” is probably a good generalisation of any activist movement:p
In the case of the 28 southern counties of Ireland, as soon as Michael Collins returned from negotiating, the republican movement split along the lines of those who wanted a free state and were willing to pay the price of partition to get that started
and those who wanted to continue fighting until all 32 counties were in the Republic
the resulting civil war was far more deadly than the war for self rule, and even Michael Collins was killed.
It was against the background of the civil war, that the death penalty for possession of a firearm was introduced and enforced.
Ultimately the pro agreement side won the civil war, but such bitterness and animosity had been created, that many on the losing side, left the country for Britain and America.
I’d be say that I’m not aware of having any Irish ancestry, and didn’t visit Ireland until I was in my 30s, but have lived an worked there for a few years.
I gather that the high trust society that I experienced there, is now destroyed.
Peoples popular front of Judea, splitter!
I highly suspect that someone is going to say that rabble with black powder single shot rifles would never win against the modern British Army at the start of the 20th Century. Here’s the problem back in 1916: the Irish Republican Army is NOT planning on fighting the British Army in open fields where everyone can see everyone and shoot straight like it was Waterloo. They are likely planning ambushes and arson attacks in cramped places where “superior marksmanship” gives way to the objective of simply “not dying”. After all, when a British soldier is escaping a burning building, he isn’t exactly aiming his rifle at angry Irishmen while he’s trying to put out the flames that have somehow lit on his trousers. At that point, BANG, the soldier is riddled with bullet holes and the rebels steal what’s left of his gear. I could be wrong.
You have to factor in the number of veterans spread across Ireland, who’d had service in the British forces. They knew how to fight; they knew the British Army intimately.
The attempt to fit bayonets to these rifles tells us that said Irish veterans were not planning on sniping from cover with them.
Of course, the usual syndromes probably apply: Idiot civilians with no military experience influencing things with their outdated and outmoded personal perceptions vs. what realistic military input would have told them.
Of course, a disarmed populace will pretty much glom onto whatever it can get, weapons-wise. The Revolutionary War here in the US saw people suggesting both the bow and the pike be brought back into use…
Lesson there, for the lackwitted sort who propose civilian disarmament. Nobody, ever, has had your best interests at heart when they propose that you give up your weapons…
Pikes might not have been a bad idea then, on certain occasions.
29,000 rounds/900 rifles = 32 RpG.
I’d be inclined to suspect that either (1) they were anticipating doing a considerable amount of ad hoc “sniping” (which at MOBUA ranges, averaging under 50 meters, would probably come pretty close to one enemy KIA for each 2 rounds expended per rifleman) or else (2) there was already one Hell of a lot of German 11 x 60mmR Mauser stashed here and there in the counties.
BTW, I’m Welsh borderer by extraction, just FYI.
cheers
eon
The fates of the suppliers of guns to Ireland was grim indeed. Bruno (Benny) Spiro who supplied rifles to the UVF ‘committed suicide’ on 29 September 1936 while imprisoned in the concentration camp at Fuhlsbüttel near Hamburg. The supplier of the Howth guns was Moritz Magnus of Hamburg. On 5 April 1944 he was sent to Auschwitz. His daughter and granddaughters followed on 28 October 1944. He was an old man. They were children, but they were murdered anyway.
Asgard still exists and is displayed in the old Royal Barracks museum.