The last letter of a condemned man is a sad thing; a last letter undelivered, is tragic.

There is something about someone’s final words, the last messages they leave before they die, that are uniquely poignant. For most of us they are the only windows into the mind of one immediately facing what comes to us all, death.

They are the insights into final thoughts, the most deeply and long-felt emotions; the last chances to set old wrongs right and send messages of love and comfort to those who will grieve. The last letter of a condemned man is a sad thing to behold, but a last letter undelivered, is tragic.  

This year the final letters of executed prisoners, Jimmy Melia from Dundalk and Thomas McKeown from Bellurgan, made their way back to Co Louth; but 90 years too late and their intended recipients, Melia's brother and McKeown’s mother, never got the words of comfort.

Patricia Marmion, a relation of Alphonsus Marmion who was to deliver the letters in 1923, travelled from America to bring them closer to their intended destinations. It is hoped that descendants of the families may come forward and the messages of Melia and McKeown will, in some respect, finally make their way to their families.

“I am as happy as when I was christened,” Melia wrote to his brother; McKeown told his mother he was only going on a “long journey"; words that could have brought solace to the families who would mourn them.

They were young men, well liked, caught-up in a civil war, and whose deaths caused widespread grief. Copies of the letters are on display in the Louth County Museum, but their origin is in January 1923, in an Italianate Gaol, where two men awaited execution and another was to go free.

Thomas McKeown's letter to his mother who never read it.

The journey that brought Melia and McKeown to pen their final letters in a dank cell in the Dundalk Gaol is sketchy with records lost, memories faded and some parts untold.  

For almost two years Civil War, caused by the Anglo Irish Treaty, tore Ireland apart and its legacy is still seen in Irish society today. Civil war is a cruel master: capital punishment was reintroduced by a provisional ‘Free State’ government in September 1922, the war not yet won. It was reserved for those who engaged in terrorist offences and would be handed down after trail by military tribunal.

Thomas McKeown, an anti-treaty man and thought to be a member of the Irregulars, was found in possession of firearms; 20 year-old James Melia was charged with a similar offence having been found with arms at Dowdalls Hill, Dundalk, Co Louth. The ‘terrorists’ were arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. These condemned men spent Christmas in jail, and on January 12 1923, four months before the war came to an end, Thomas McKeown was shot by firing squad. Ten days later on January 12, Melia met the same fate.

Their deaths caused much outrage and sorrow: “perhaps the most poignant feature of the executions at the time was that three of the lads were barely out of their teens. Besides, all of them had been extremely popular and their deaths under such circumstances, saddened everybody no matter what their political views were,” reads an article about the executed men.  (Dundalk Democrat October 18 1924)

The first to face the firing squad was Thomas McKeown. On the night before he was to be shot, Thomas wrote to his mother. He asks her not to be sorry for him as he will be with his father in heaven and promises to watch over her. "I suppose all who know me will feel sorry for me but poor little James I fear will feel it the most. I wish yous all the best of luck one and all of you," wrote Thomas. He didn’t spend the night in the dark after he'd finished writing, he asked for a gas light to be brought in so he could spend his last hours speaking with God. 

Six men were executed in Dundalk Gaol that January, Melia was among the last and would have heard the shots that took his friends. James Melia, Jimmy to those that knew him, wrote to his brother: “Well old sport, there is not much you can do for me only pay Joe Murray 2/- I owe him. Then I will clear with the world.”  

Jimmy Melia's letter to his Brother written January 21 1923

A young man with faith, Melia seems to have made peace with his fate: “please don’t worry for me. I received the Last Sacrament of the church and Fr Kerr was with me for a couple of hours and I am as happy as when I was Christened. I am only going on a long journey and I am only going to meet my poor mother & father & Sheila we will be able to be together in a happier land waiting for you and Paddy,” he wrote.

Both men spoke of their reconciliation with god, and promised they would be waiting for their loved ones in Heaven. The men wanted their families to know their souls were safe, and that they would see them all soon.

“Do not be sorry for me for I will soon be with my Father in heaven and I will watch over you while you live. The longest life is but short so you will soon be with me,” wrote Thomas McKeown.

Their families never read their final words, and for a time, they went without their bodies to bury too. The Government of the day only returned the men’s’ bodies to their families in October 1924.  Their burial was one of the most renowned events in local history, one that has been seen at many civil war funerals since.

An article from the Dundalk Democrat at the time describes “the scene as of the most extraordinary occurrence to which Dundalk was ever treated.” As the two men and four others were buried three volleys of shots were fired from revolvers as a gun salute, in response the nearby Military rushed the mourners with bayonets extended and a graveside gun-fight ensued, with hundreds caught in the crossfire.

As the men were laid to rest to the sound of gunfire and panic, their last letters, their calls for prayers and to fight on, the words of comfort for the families who stood by their graves were en route to America where they would stay for the next 88 years.

 20 years old Jimmy Meila bids a final farewell to his brother, Peter. 

Alphonsus Marmion was freed from Dundalk Gaol sometime after the men’s’ deaths and took the men’s letters with him. Here again, the story breaks down, little is known for certain and there is much room for guessing:

What is certain is before arriving in Dundalk Gaol, Alphonsus had been imprisoned in Newbridge, Co Kildare for 10 days. He had been found using a knife to make a ring out of a royal coin and was arrested for disfiguring the Kings Coin. He prized the instrument of his imprisonment dearly and passed it onto his son, Harry who also treasured it too, passing it back to a niece in Ireland not long before he died.

The descendants of the Marmion family gathered together to see the letters passed to Louth County Museum, but even with so many memories gathered, Alphonsus’s journey and the letters, is unclear.

Some of the family remember being told that Alpholnsus was associated with bombing of the Dundalk Gaol on July 26, 1922 by anti-treaty factions, freeing more than 100 of their comrades, including Frank Aiken. Many of the men had been recaptured. (Incidentally the bombing of Dundalk Gaol is an astonishing and gripping story in itself – more to come on this) Alphonsus’s name is not in the registry at Dundalk gaol at the time but it is still believed that he was in prison with the men when they were executed. Another thing is certain, that Alphonsus, who they knew would leave prison one day, was given Melia and McKeown’s letters with instructions to deliver them to their families.

Melia and McKeown were executed in January 1923 and it seems certain that Alphonsus had the letters from then to the day he left Ireland for Liverpool in 1924. The Civil War was over only in name, in the hearts of many it raged on and the scars of war were raw still. There may have been safety concerns, some of the family suggest he had gone into hiding in the area before fleeing for his safety. Nothing is known and the stories that have emerged are different and incomplete.

But what no one knows is why they were never delivered. Alphonsus did not disregard the letters; he kept them safe and secures all his life. He did not keep them secret either; his family who visited him in America knew of the letters, a few were allowed to see them, fewer again to handle them.

With his death, much of the story passed away with him. But his son, Harry, had the same reverence for the letters his father had and he too kept them safely. In 2008 Harry Marmion passed away, his wife, Patricia, thought that it was time the letters returned home. Patricia, their daughter, Elizabeth and granddaughter, Niamh, brought them back to Ireland, to Dundalk, home.  

Even with much of the descendants of the Marmion family in one place piecing the puzzle together, only snapshots of the past emerges and much of the story is supposed. These final words, unread by those that mattered most, are among the sorriest of letters to read, their story incomplete, but what is clear is that they are steeped in tragedy and saddest parts of their tail are yet  untold.

Thomas Mc Keown’s last letter the night before his execution

13^th January 1923

My Dear Mother,

Do not be sorry for me for I will soon be with my Father in heaven and I will watch over you while you live. The longest life is but short so you will soon be with me. All you can do now if to pray for me as my soul may be waiting at the gates of heaven for your prayers. I was at confession tonight and will be at holy mass in the morning and also will receive holy communion which will be offered by Rev Father McKeown Administrator Dundalk and Eamonn Donnellan P.P. H. Town for the welfare of my soul so I feel quite happy and fully reconciled to Gods holy will. Indeed I would not be better done for if I were at home. Father McKeown has obtained permission to have the gas lighted in my cell all night so I am not going to bed. Instead will spend the night speaking to god in whole presence I shall be before this time tomorrow.

I suppose all who know me will feel sorry for me but poor little James I fear will feel it the most. I wish yous all the best of luck one and all of you. I shall see you no more; But let none weep for me when I am gone for it is for Ireland and Ireland’s freedom I die. And it is also the holy will of god. And you my comrades, pray for me and remain true to the faith and to the I.R.A. And I will pray for you and Ireland in Heaven.

So now, Good night, and Good-bye

Forever.

Jimmy Melia’s Last Letter

Executed on Monday 22^nd January 1923 in Dundalk Prison,

Dear Brother,

Received your cigarettes sweets & oranges and I am very thankful for them. Well old sport, there is not much you can do for me only pay Joe Murray 2/- I owe him. Then I will clear with the world. Well Peter, please don’t worry me I received the Last Sacrament of the church and Fr Kerr was with me for a couple of hours and I am as happy as when I was Christened. I am only going on a long journey and I am only going to meet my poor mother & father & Sheila we will be able to be together in a happier land waiting for you and Paddy, Nellie, Maisey, Frank and James.

Well Peter I am thankful to almighty god for is kindness to me and my pals for giving us such a long time to prepare before we go to meet him.  Remember me. To all my old pals and give them my best regards and tell them to say a prayer now and again for me and don’t forget to say one yourself. Well Peter, I might to have saying that and know you will pray for me because you loved me as a brother as I loved you. Well Peter, I think  I shall come to an end trusting that they Almighty God in heaven will be good to us as I am sure he will and also to you and all my pals.

I am ending up now until we meet again in Heaven, So keep your heart and fight  for the old cause till it’s won.

For dearest of Brothers, your loving Brother

Jimmee  XXXXX

The classic benefits of the Classics

30/01/2013

By Niamh Kirk

Waves of modern publishing phenomenon like 50 Shades of Grey are adding more books to reading lists, but the growing virtues of Classic Literature could be set to topple the pile.

At first they may appear irrelevant and dull compared to some contemporary classics and modern bestsellers. They may bring back memories of school years spent grappling with antiquated language and Victorian etiquette which can be alien to a teenage mind.  But reading the pioneering novels of western literature is proving to be more beneficial to contemporary readers than their original audiences.

Classic literature helps boost brain-activity researchers from the Science and English Departments in Liverpool University have found.  The challenging prose of Shakespeare and Wordsworth triggers more electrical activity in the brain than the same texts written in modern language.

Using scanners, researchers observed the brain activity in volunteers reading the works of authors like The Bard and Thomas Hardy. The results showed that their brain lit-up when they encountered difficult phrases or unusual language. Prof. Philip Davis who worked on the research found that the syntax locks into, shifts and modifies established pathways in the brain. It triggers moments of refection and helps with self-understanding.

He says the research is still in process but is looking to the effects of authors like Charles Dickens who he believes have a similar effect.  Another phase of the research will look at their therapeutic benefits.

So, not only can the Classics help make us smarter, they could prove to make us happier too. And, there are also indications that the Classics really do make for a good read, they stimulate the brain and they encourage you to read on.

Despite being bumped further down the all-time bestsellers list by Da Vinci Codes and rampant 20-somethings they continue to top must-read lists the world over.  They retain captive audience whose brains are lighting-up, and reaping other rewards too.

For the past three years the Gutter Bookshop in Templebar hosts a monthly classics bookclub that has not only been full since its inception, but has a waiting list crammed with members eager to join. Getting involved encourages members to read the books they always meant to but never did. “Sometimes people need a little prompt to read the classics,” says owner Bob Johnston.

The group just took advantage of an extended Christmas beak to tackle Alexandre Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo. For Valentines’ Day they are reading Charlotte Bronte’s, Jane Eyre.   

“The themes are still relevant and capture your imagination. True love, or being hard done by, those themes carry; and mixed with a great story make a great read,” he says.

They earned their place in the cannon due to their accessible and engaging narratives as well as their exposition of universal themes.  And because of this, most avid readers have at least one classic they hold close to their heart. ”Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorites,” says Christine Mullaney a TEFL teacher whose preoccupation is crime thrillers.

“It’s not stuffy; it’s about Female self worth, faith in personal beliefs, and overcoming societal requirements. Family ties, sisterly bonds, fatherly love, and of course the realisation that outward pride and conformity does not always mean inward conceit and unpleasantness.”That’s a lot of life-affirming messages from one novel published in 1813.

In libraries they are still in high demand as new generations joining find their way to the classics section. There are arguments that the Classics are not the best introduction to reading for younger people, but many libraries host additional classic sections specifically for teenagers and find they too are keen to gain the knowledge of the canon and escape to the foreign country that is the past.   

Younger people will take interest in the big literary sensations like Harry Potter and Hunger Games says Mr Murphy, Acquisitions Officer for the six libraries and two mobile libraries in County Louth. But this doesn’t distract from their literary heritage. These phenomena act as a gateway to the Classics. “People who read will come to the classics eventually,” he says.

But it is the older readers that cause the spikes in demand for a classic in libraries and bookshops. Brought on by the entertainment industry’s frequent revision of the past; the classics are mined for good and relevant story ideas for big and small screens and are ever-poised to reenter popular culture. And it is these adaptations, although not always as loyal as they could be, help keep classic literature alive and well.

So, while the Gutter's bookclub were in Marseille, 1815, following young Edmund Dantes and that accursed letter from Napoleon, cinema audiences were being transported to the same year, where only miles away convict Jean Valjean was meeting a Bishop.

The industry around ‘Les Mis’ the musical has sustained interest Victor Hugo’s classic but the release of director Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables spurred a surge in reprints and rising sales.

However, according to the County Louth librarians TV adaptations in particular stimulate a return to the original. The 2012 BBC version of pre-WW1 novel Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford being the most recent to lure viewers from screen to page. 

Referring to the Nineties adaptations of Jane Austin’s novels, Mr. Murphy, said that this is why she weathers so well. It helps dispel prejudices that the classics are drab. “When it’s on TV it reaches people who wouldn’t think of picking it up,” he says.

And despite being long deceased, the cultural gravitas of the authors can still send sales figures upward according to publishing industry ratings company, Nielsen Bookscan. “Dickens had a strong year in 2012 helped by all the media attention around the bicentenary of his birth,” says Nielsen BookScan researcher, David Wailte.     

Now new mediums are bringing the heroes and heroines of classic literature back to life. Graphic novelists are turning to the classics, giving them a whole new dimension and fresh perspectives.  Taking advantage of public domain books, authors from Bram Stoker and Mary Shelly to Leo Tolstoy and James Joyce have all been given a graphic makeover and gained legions of fans.

The Classics have even been 'zombiefied.' The parody novel, Pride Prejudice and Zombies, by Seth Grahame-Smith who credits Jane Austen as his co-author is also being made into a film.

When expensive copyright goes out, classics are in. As well as giving contemporary creative industries a free reign with the text, the Classics are also the cheapest books on the market, saving big readers small fortunes. There are hundreds of websites hosting freely downloadable copies of out-of-copyright novels.   Project Gutenberg was the first. Set up in 1971, the volunteer-led digital archive’s aim is to encourage distribution of their 44,000 free public domain literary works.

Tens of thousands of people visit the site daily to get a free read, and they are mostly going for the classics. In the past month alone more than 112,000 Charles Dickens, 92,000 Arthur Conan Doyle and 85,000 Mark Twain novels have been downloaded. Hugo’s Les Miserables is currently being downloaded more than 10,000 times daily. The project and its spin-offs get millions of hits daily. It is safe to say that the classics have secured their places on future digital bookshelves.

There is more going on between the covers of the works in the old literary canon than we might have supposed. And it might just be time to ignore the hype surrounding the next big literary release and put one of these free, brain-boosting, and beloved by many novels to the top of the pile. 

The ghosts of protest past haunt the Irish Press

17/04/2012

On a busy weekday afternoon Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton visited the Marshes Shopping Centre, Dundalk, County Louth to launch a jobs fair. As she began her speech a group of gathered protesters began to heckle and jeer growing so loud and disruptive the seasoned politician abandoned her speech and left, protesters in tow.

Afterward Minister Burton said that the protesters had given Dundalk a “bad image,” fellow Labour Party member, Colm Keaveney TD described them as “Neanderthals.” In turn, the protesters were forced to defend their choice to use the event to stage a demonstration arguing that Ministerial visits are so few that they are often the only times dissatisfaction with the government can be openly displayed.  

There has been much questioning of why the Irish did not get caught up in the waves of public demonstrations that seemed to sweep the globe in 2011. Commentators were perplexed as to why the Irish did not take to the streets and cause civil unrest in the face of an apparent loss of sovereignty and the introduction of controversial austerity policies. The main explanations that emerged focused on the residue of Victorian values in society, or the apathy that a decade of luxury has installed in the national psyche. 

There are without a doubt a whole host of inter-related and inter-disciplinary causes that contributed to the Irish being largely passive viewers as the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, Los Ingndatos, and Greek’s took to the streets in waves of public demonstrations. However, the true root of Ireland's 'failure to launch' is down to its fractured relationship with a violent history and a weariness from decades of trouble in the North which can be seen most acutely in Ireland's media

Ireland stands today having unsuccessfully swept its past under the carpet; it is a nation uneasy with its turbulent history of civil unrest and troublesome neighbors in Northern Ireland; and it is in this broad context that the people of Ireland choose the mechanisms by which they confront their government. The Irish are predisposed to avoiding methods of protest that have been tainted by historical revision and a fear of association with violent republicanism. 

When choosing how to protest the ghosts of troubles past and present guide the way.    

Think Tank

Collective memory is a complex, social process in which instrumental and symbolic struggles by different groups in the collective wrestle over definitions of the past (Prager) the purpose being to bind the individual members together- strengthening the collective. Because of this preoccupation, the past comes to impose itself on the present. It exists as a sort of haunting presence and it finds expression in the cultural practices of the day. But Ireland has lost the facet of protesting and causing disquiet from its cultural expression and leaves the population without a powerful tool in driving cultural and social change.

On the surface of it Irish history is punctuated with great examples of how outspoken heroes stood up to foreign and domestic oppressors for the good of the many–The Flight of the Earls, The Easter Rising, and the Suffragettes etc. But the vestiges of pride and appreciation for these aspects of our history of disruption have been sullied by Civil War, Partition and decades of unrest in our estranged sibling up North.

The Revisionists of Irish History, in their efforts to reveal the truths of our past, perpetrated a negative view of nationalism and all that is seen to embody it. When the resurgence of protests began in Northern Ireland in the 60’s, the response of the Republic’s government was to reconcile the nation’s violent history and outspoken origins with its struggle with the growing militant-nationalism in the North. A state-formation narrative emerged, which facilitated a ‘statist-histography' (Regan)

Herbert Adams describes the process: “In their eagerness to prevent the gruesome past from haunting their future, well meaning social engineers seek to create ‘a common history’ between hostile groups.” The assimilation of southern nationalist identity with the state was a political achievement, in that it culturally ostracized the more unruly factions in society and delegitimized their policies and principles.

This leaves the modern-day Irish population with very little by way of current celebrated revolutionaries, positive protesting role models or events commemorative of the achievements of Ireland’s politically assertive past. There is an element of the post-colonial syndrome of apology and shame for this type of behavior. French philosopher Ernest Renan noted “for national communities as for individuals there can be no identity without remembering.” Memories however, are malleable and affected by the trappings of the post-colonial personality and revisionists. These are the historical legacies that help shape current attitude to large-scale political demonstrations.

The Good Friday effect

The signing of the Good Friday Agreement marked a real opportunity for Ireland to emerge from its murky past, a chance to put it behind them and move on. But the form that this New Ireland would take was not unaffected by its recent turbulent history. While forgetting, or historical error as it was for Ernest Renan, can be vital in the maintenance of communal solidarity, the effect of a recent traumatic past can overshadow the present and install a need to respond to it.

In responding to a difficult past a culture can either define itself in relation/response to the past or by insisting on its irrelevance. Some have embarked on the politics of forgetting, of ignoring parts of its history that it is uncomfortable with, the consequence of which is a limitation in the historical cultural practices that have been a feature of a society for a long time, which are carried on into the future. 

In his dealing with the macro post-war Europe, Tony Judt was concerned with the price that was paid for the deliberate and sudden disconcert for the immediate past.  He offered this a one of the major consequences: “One was the ways in which the memory of that experience was distorted, sublimated and appropriated bequeathed to the post war era an identity that was fundamentally false; dependent on the erection of an unnatural and unsustainable frontier between the past and present.”

The Good Friday’s Agreement and the peace it brought was celebrated, as was the opportunity to sweep the troubles under the carpet. But this ‘false identity’ is untenable as Ireland is still a nation that has failed to truly be comfortable with its own history of civil disorder and was compounded by the desire to be seen as different to those who instigated it. So what happens when the facade crumbles in the face of these junctures?

With all this in mind one would imagine that when protests do occur, this fear of the social unrest seeping in from the North would materalise, and it does. One example of this came in 2010 when Gardaí expressed fears that republicans would infiltrate economic protest groups and subvert them and turn them to the perpetrators of civil unrest. A headline in the Irish Independent read ‘Gardaí fear terror groups will recruit economic protesters.’ What this, and other examples like it demonstrates is the presence of an endemic fear that protest of any kind is vulnerable to being hijacked by the violent republican cause.

Shadow of a gunman

Another manifestation of Ireland’s discomfort with its recent past coming into the spotlight was during the Presidential Elections in 2011. Sinn Fein member and former IRA leader, Martin McGuinness’s bid for the Presidency meant the Irish electorate could no longer ignore its recent past. During the campaign it is arguable that the hostility shown to him by many was reflective of a nation trying to put civil disorder behind it but suddenly confronted with one of its living icons.

Despite ambiguity about the length of his IRA membership and the degree of his militant participation, he was considered to be a credible candidate and placed third on the final count, but his campaign was dogged by his association with the turbulent North. McGuinness was endowed with a great degree of influence and credibility in the wake of the peace process. It was acknowledged that he undertook the position of peace-broker at much personal risk. He has formidable reputation as a peace-maker, he has received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, and he was celebrated for taking the first steps toward power sharing.  However it was his murky past that overshadowed his achievements in the end. Everyone remembers the bad things.  

One snapshot of this cultural tension was manifest during Miriam O’Callaghan’s interview with McGuinness during the presidential debates. O’Callaghan challenged him on his religious faith asking how he could reconcile this with having been involved in the murder of so many people. Whether you agreed with it or not, the aggressive and confrontational line of questioning and the controversy it caused, was not reflective of a country at peace with its past or one that had moved on once peace descended. There is still very much a chip on the national shoulder and is reflective of a nation at still at pains with its history of unrest.

The relationship Irish people have with their recent history has an effect on the choice of methods selected when attempting to protest against domestic political issues. They display an aversion to association with civil disorder when selecting these methods. Ireland has a fractured relationship with its history and it is within this collective psychological turmoil the reaction to the decades of protest, leading to violence, perpetrated by those who call themselves Irish and acting in Ireland's interests, cultivated this aversion to engaging in similar activities.

Because of this aversion the Irish were predisposed to shy away from the mass protests that occurred in the summer of 2011. Whether the continued success of smaller protests, such as the student protests and those against the septic charges, coupled with the coming Centenary of the 1916 will stimulate a rise in nationalistic pride, and thereafter action remains to be seen. 

But for now, when protesters will take the opportunities they can get to voice their anger and even a small group in a local shopping centre, will meet with criticism and scorn. Unless Ireland clears the debris from protests past, public demonstrations will continue to be an uncomfortable reminder and for many will continue to create a 'bad image.'