ira

NLI, I don't think this is suitable for public distribution . . . The way the world is today. Too many wannabe martyrs . . . I mean nitwits without any other purpose in life.

Taken from the link below:

"James O’Donovan was the primary ‘chemist/inventor’ of explosives for the IRA, and the person most responsible for developing and establishing Irish-centered explosive manufacturing. He was a post-graduate chemistry student at UCD and worked directly for Collins.

He began producing fulminate of mercury explosives in 1918 – a notoriously unstable compound. In 1919 Collins directed O’Donovan to develop an explosive that was more powerful, but that ‘men with no technical skill could produce it in a farmhouse kitchen… They have to be fairly foolproof because we can’t have people all over the country having their heads blown off!’

Irish War Flour was O’Donovan’s first original explosive, named after its appearance: it was a nitrated resin using the ingredients of resin, flour, acid and potassium chlorate. Irish War Flour was quite unstable and didn’t have the explosive power he wanted so he kept experimenting.

He called his second explosive compound Irish Cheddar, again named because of its looks. This was his nickname for a form of cheddite, an explosive used quite extensively in the early 20th century. Its ingredients were paraffin, potassium chlorate, nitrobenzene and castor oil."

www.irishcentral.com

Nicknames of the explosives ...

“Warflour”: Warflour was a nitrated resin, using the ingredients of resin, flour, acid and potassium chlorate.
“Irish Cheddar”: This was the nickname for a form of cheddite, an explosive used quite extensively in the early 20th century, its ingredients being potassium chlorate, nitrobenzene and castor oil. Some sources suggest that “Cheddar” included home made DNT.

Also "Paxo" a while later. See - www.standingwellback.com , which also has ...

The IRA also developed its own detonators at the time, and I won’t describe them here other than to say that interestingly they were non-metallic and quite an effective design.
In terms of IEDs, and further to my earlier post, the IRA of the time made several thousand grenades, mostly under the Dublin Bicycle shop at 198 Parnell St and latterly at other facilities. It appears that the design of these were copied from the German “Egg” grenade of WW1. These were essentially quite a simple design,small and preferred because they were easier to conceal than a larger grenade. They used the standard sort of fuze with a spring-loaded fly-off lever. Occasionally larger improvised grenades were used – this is a diagram of one of them, made by an IRA engineer involved in their manufacture.

CASSIDY PHOTOGRAPHY I really do take your point, Mr Cassidy, but I would suggest that people with harmful intentions and access to the internet can very quickly and easily find far more effective instructions, including step-by-step videos, than this sketch. It is a part of revolutionary Irish history, just like the gun carrier on a bicycle that we featured a while back, so we considered it worth including. Mary.

The bicycle shop Lawless and Heron was raided in December 1920 -
www.museum.ie

Read All About It ! via Trove - trove.nla.gov.au

It was only built in 1897 so the photo's after that. Unfortunately, it no longer exists as it was blown up in the 1970's.

There's a 1936 photo with some of the history: This club house was opened in 1898 by Mrs W J Pirrie, wife of the managing director of Harland and Wolff; among the well-wishers was Mr Gustav Wolff, also representing Belfast craft of a larger size. The club was 23 years old, and had 300 members to share 'the delightful pastime of rowing'. The lower dock could accommodate the club's 'fleet' of 24 pleasure boats, but racing boats had to tie up at St John's Wharf. A speaker appealed to Belfast Council to complete the scene by building a dock in the Ormeau Park where it bordered the river. The band of the North Staffords provided the music, and the view shows that music was part of the arrangements in 1936.

A picture of the boathouse after the bombing.

The boat club is still here, without this Boat House, on Lockview road. You can see oarsmen at work in this Bing aerial view.

The DIA says it was destroyed by fire and replaced in 1912.

I saw a documentary on Dan Breen over the weekend on TV4. Breen was involved in this ambush and was badly wounded. His views on killing were stark. see youtu.be/ty_U6U8iiTg

The ambush was at Ashtown crossroads near the Halway House (then Kellys), but the whole area has been rebuilt. Even the crossroads is a big roundabout now.

the Ambush was 19th December 1919. I would think this photo is dated very soon after that.

Irish Times 20th December 1919

Martin Savage was killed during the ambush, here is a report of his funeral from the Irish Times 24th December 1919.