mountjoy

www.google.com.au/search?q=%22we+have+%27Em%22+Irish+hung...

Like a publicity shot for a tobacco company. Look forward to their identity being revealed.

If you scroll down through this page www.rollofhonourirl.com/more-photos.php you will see a Volunteer named William O'Shaughnessy, executed in Ennis, and he bears a strong resemblance to the man on second from the left, back row.

I would suspect these are Civil War hunger-strikers (~Oct 1923) rather than War of Independence hunger-strikers (~1920). I base this mainly on the attire, the demeanor, and the fact that the image was taken at all (less likely a "behind walls" propaganda photo like this would've been tolerated during the Tan War). Somewhat oxymoronically I suspect it's the Civil War precisely because we do not know who these men were. I suggest the latter because, while hunger strikes were not uncommon during the independence movement (~1916-~1920), most undertaken in that period often involved higher-profile names. Like Ashe (1917) or MacSwiney (1920). That we do not know these men in itself suggests to me that we are post civil war here. When many thousands protested their continued post-war detention via hunger strike. (>460 men participated in Mountjoy, >70 in Cork jail, >3000 in the Curragh camps, >1700 in Newbridge, etc. Cumann na mBan members also participated. In a near two-month period Oct-Nov 1923). An article from the 1930s described it as the "biggest hunger strike in history", and several men died, including Denis Barry and Andrew Sullivan. Both in late November 1923. No concessions were forthcoming however, and the anti-treaty leadership called a halt to the 1923 strike after a little more than 40 days. (While it wouldn't do to trivialise these things, this summary includes a quote attributed to one prisoner: "“Be cripes” [...] We bate Christ by a day!"). If this is the 1923 strike, then I doubt the image is from the Curragh/Tintown. I would guess it's Mountjoy. The NLI catalogue has a (partial?) list of names from Dublin who participated. Many interned in Mountjoy.

guliolopez The background does look a bit like a photo I found yesterday of a different set of hunger strikers from October 1919. It was also taken by Keogh. So I'd agree that it is probably Mountjoy, but it still may be an earlier hunger strike.

Whelan and Moran in wikipedia.

streetview of their plot in Glasnevin, where they are buried with Kevin Barry, Frank Flood, Thomas Traynor, Patrick Doyle, Thomas Bryan, Bernard Ryan, and Edmond Foley.

Whelan was aged 13 in the 1911 census,. Here are the Morans in 1901, but Patrick has moved out by 1911.

What sad stories. I was wondering why they look so happy, including the soldier. From Thomas Whelan's wiki - His mother, Bridget, saw him before his execution, and waited outside with the praying crowd holding candles. She told a reporter that she had left her son "so happy and cheerful you would almost imagine he was going to see a football match".

Some of Moran's last letters are photographed in the archive

Could be the 'Mountjoy' and Phoenix' which were sent to break the boom.

O Mac The British Library has a similar version calling it the Mountjoy at the Boom all right.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Derry says "HMS Dartmouth fires at shore batteries while Mountjoy rams through the boom." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Mountjoy_at_the_boom.jpg "... on 28 July 1689, Kirke sent four ships to the mouth of the River Foyle to try to bring food into Derry. These were HMS Dartmouth and three merchant ships: Mountjoy from Londonderry, and Phoenix from Coleraine, and Jerusalem, Dartmouth, under Captain John Leake, engaged the shore batteries, while Mountjoy, commanded by her Master Michael Browning, rammed and breached the boom, whereupon Mountjoy and Phoenix sailed up to Derry, unloading many tons of food. ..." - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Derry#The_relief_of_the_city

Sharon Corbet Your ships seem to have an uphill struggle.

O Mac Boom, boom!