Category: Ireland

Thomas Patrick Ashe (1885-1917)

Thomas Patrick Ashe

 Martyr Thomas Ashe
Thomas Patrick Ashe (Irish: Tomás Pádraig Ághas; 12 January 1885 – 25 September 1917)
A member of  the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and  founding member of the Irish Volunteers.
Born in the townland of Kinard East, Lispole, Dingle, County Kerry, Ireland, to Gregory Ashe, a farmer, and his wife Ellen Hanifin, on 12 January 1885,
Ashe started branches of the Gaelic League in Skerries and other neighbouring villages. According to his sister Nora he would get the children to march over a union jack.[5]
Ashe joined the Irish Volunteers upon its foundation in November 1913.
 Thomas Ashe Memorial in Cavan
Commanding the Fingal battalion (5th battalion) of the Irish Volunteers, Ashe took a major part in the 1916 Easter Rising outside the capital city.
On 8 May 1916, Ashe and Éamon de Valera were court-martialled and both were sentenced to death. The sentences were commuted to penal servitude for life. Ashe was imprisoned in Frongoch Internment camp and Lewes Prison in England. While in prison he wrote the poem “Let Me Carry Your Cross for Ireland, Lord”.
With the entry of the US into World War I in April 1917, the British government was put under more pressure to solve the ‘Irish problem’. De Valera, Ashe and Thomas Hunter led a prisoner hunger strike on 28 May 1917 to add to this pressure. With accounts of prison mistreatment appearing in the Irish press and mounting protests in Ireland, Ashe and the remaining prisoners were freed on 18 June 1917 by Lloyd George as part of a general amnesty.

Thomas Ashe was released from jail in June 1917 under the general amnesty which was given to republican prisoners. Upon release, Ashe returned to Ireland and began a series of speaking engagements. In August 1917, Ashe was arrested and charged with sedition for a speech that he made in Ballinalee, County Longford where Michael Collins had also been speaking. He went on the run but was captured in Dublin and detained at the Curragh but was then transferred to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin.

He was convicted and sentenced to two years hard labour. Ashe and other prisoners, including other Kerrymen Fionán Lynch and Austin Stack, demanded prisoner of war status. As this protest evolved Ashe again went on hunger strike on 20 September 1917. As this was a breach of prison discipline the authorities retaliated by taking away the prisoners’ beds, bedding and boots. After five or six days lying on a cold stone floor the prisoners were subjected to forcible feeding.

On 25 September, Fionan Lynch saw Ashe being carried away to receive this treatment and called out to him: ‘ Stick it Tom boy’. Ashe called back ‘I’ll stick it, Fin’. That was the last time they spoke to each other. Ashe was carried back, blue in the face and unconscious. He was removed to the Mater Misericordiae Hospital (which actually faces the prison) where he died within a few hours. “Tom Ashe’s body lay in state in the hospital morgue, dressed in his Volunteer Republican uniform, and 30,000 mourners filed by.[14]

At the inquest into his death, the jury condemned the staff at the prison for the “inhuman and dangerous operation performed on the prisoner, and other acts of unfeeling and barbaric conduct”.[15]

 Another Good Irishman Killed  by the British for His Fighting for His Country they invaded 800 years prior. Get Our Of my Country they said, rightfully. It finally happened in 1922. RIP.

KILMACTEIGE PARISH and CONNACHT GENEALOGY

 

Connacht

Kilmactiege (pronounced Kill-mac-tige) or spelled “Kilmactigue”, is in the Province of Connacht,:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connacht

Kilmacteige is a Parish in Ireland’s Northwest Province of Connacht.

The Flag is the Eagle and Sword (below) and formally described as “… a dimidiated (divided in half from top to bottom) eagle and armed hand. The arms are recorded as such on a map of Galway dated 1651, now in the library of Trinity College, Dublin….”.

Interestingly, These arms VERY closely resemble those of the Schottenkloster or (Scots) Irish monastery founded in Regensburg, Bavaria, in the 11th century. However, it is unclear how the arms of the Schottenkloster — as it is located deep in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire — came to be associated with the province of Connacht in Ireland. It is something in need of research !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Connacht.svg

The province of Connacht has no official function for local government purposes, but it is an officially recognised subdivision of the Irish state.

Kilmacteige is in County Sligo, in the Southern part of the County Sligo, in the NW of Ireland. The nearest the Village is Aclare. Close communities also include Tourlestrane (Sligo), Tubbercurry (Sligo), Killasser (Mayo), Swinford (Mayo), Ballina (Mayo) and Foxford (Mayo). In South Sligo,  the Townlands of Knockbrack and Stonepark are those that We started concentrating on research .

These communities are on the slopes of the Ox Mountains (Sliabh Gamh,  in Irish), and also known as “St. Patrick’s Mountains” as the Saint is reputed to having built several Churches in the area, and some of the Named Wells there, or by St. Patrick’s contemporaries. The “Holy Mountain” Crough Patrick is in Mayo — the Curlews some miles South of Sligo –.

The Highest Peak in the Ox Mountains is Knockalongy (544 meters, or 1785 feet) and the range runs about forty miles from Ballysadare, ending near adjoining County Mayo.

The Great Hunger, or the Irish Potato Famine (“An Gorta Mor” happened roughly from 1845-52) and it decimated the Population in Ireland, particularly the Northwest of Ireland through Starvation, Emigration, and Evictions. The Irish Population, from close to Eight (8) Million in the early 1840,  went down to almost half that (4.5 million) in the mid 1850s. There is no list or “accounting” of the deaths vs. emigrations as the Administrators of Ireland, in their own Words, simply did not care how many died, they considered it not their Concern !!

Today (2017) the Population has still not recovered. Even today relics and ruins from the Famine times are commonly seen by visitors – as are ringforts dolmens from Thousands (1000s) of years ago, some  built well before the Pyramids in Egypt were built, so the People have inhabited  the area for a long time. Sadly, most written records are from the 1800s forward (but many older records exist so knowing Irish History is important if doing research on your Ancestors from Sligo). Sligo’s History is likewise interesting and long.

KILMACTEIGE.COM attempts to copy, or acquire (or link) ALL AVAILABLE Records for the Parish population back to, well, as far back as possible (below you find a map from 1685 for Kilmacteige Parish and the Ox Mountain area).

This would include (but not limited to) Church Records, Civil Recprds, Land (Ownership, Rentals or Cotters, and Leases (sometimes Leases were for “Two Lives” explained on other pages), Real Estate sales records (land registry records) which sometimes are good sources of information), as well as Gravestones in the two (2) main Kilmacteige Cemeteries – and Baptism, Marriage, and Death (BMD)  records – and any others as rental records are being recovered presently.

Civil Registration of Births only formally began by Government order in 1864 (however, many Church Records predate this for Baptisms). Tourlestrane Church was the main Roman Catholic Church in the area built in

The Irish did a National Censuses ever Ten (10) Years. Unfortunately, during the Anglo-Irish Civil War (1921-1922) mopst Census records were lost in the Four Courts fire (14 April 1922), which makes the surviving  1901/1911 Census precious indeed, and is nor freely available at the Ireland National Archives, and searchable electronic copy is online  of the 1901/1911 Irish Census at:See http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/help/about19011911census.html The next most important Records are: Griffiths Primary Valuation (“Griffiths”) http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/ And (3) rounding out the “top three” of Irish Population Records are  “Tithe Defaulters” http://titheapplotmentbooks.nationalarchives.ie/search/tab/home.jsp All are searchable and should form the Basis of any Genealogy Research including for Kilmactiege Parish (which is searchable by Surname, County, Townland, and others).   Prior to Modern Maps, the Map of 1685 was used: _wsb_507x788_1685+map

 

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