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Westport Remembers the MEN of 1916

Westport Remembers the MEN of 1916 Old I.R.A Veterans Warmly Applauded On Parade Route The rising sun on Easter Sunday morning leapt joyfully in full, brilliant radiance as Westport prepared to stage the County Commemorative Celebrations on the Golden Jubilee of the 1916 Rising. And at Westport Quay the bright, warm sun cast deep shadows […]

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Westport and the Irish Volunteers 1916 – Vincent Keane

Westport and the Irish Volunteers 1916 Vincent Keane By 1916 Westport was a well-established battalion in the Mayo Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. Westport was given Battalion status and the various outlying companies became attached to the battalion. Natural leaders were now coming to the fore and a true patriotic Irish-Ireland ethos was emerging. Names […]

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Major John MacBride – Owen Hughes

Major John MacBride Owen Hughes One of the first effects of the 1916 Rising was the creation of a political revolution which, under the Sinn Féin organisation, gave an overwhelming majority to nationalist Ireland in the General Election of 1918 for self-determination, which led to withdrawal from the British House of Commons and the setting […]

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Major John MacBride – A Review For 2016 by Anthony J. Jordan

Major John MacBride A Review For 2016 Anthony J. Jordan “The veracity of the charges against MacBride, has attracted some historiographical attention in recent years, largely as a result of the energetic writings of Anthony Jordan, The target of Jordan’s argument has been a number of biographies of W. B. Yeats, particularly Roy Foster’s… The […]

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‘How he died’   by Kevin Christopher Higgins

by Kevin Christopher Higgins  (courtesy of Una Higgins O’Malley)   I never was greatly a friend to John MacBride But he caught my heart in the end by the death he died,    Rich be his sleep and deep By Kilmainham side!   For when they called him out, the cold last tryst to abide, The […]

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Major John MacBride – A BALLAD

Hurrah for Major John MacBride, For him we give three cheers, For Ireland’s grand old cause he died, With the Dublin Volunteers. He fought the English ten to one, And tamed their Saxon pride, But now our gallant chief is gone, Brave Major MacBride. With Kruger and the fearless Boers, He fought for liberty, And […]

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