THE OCCUPATION OF MAYO

Wellington Barracks
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I spent last evening in Wellington Barracks on Dublin's South Circular Road. You might think I was detained but I was there on the same terms as got me locked into a police cell overnight in Longford town many moons ago.

I had wangled my way into one of the monthly lectures of the Military History Society of Ireland, or as it said on the screen Société d'Histoire Militaire d'Irlande.

I did know the time of day, it was heading for eight o'clock pm, but in case I was in any doubt about the date, the screen informed me that it was 17 Frimaire 225 which made it very hard to figure out how many days were left for last Christmas posting. But I suppose if you were actually going by that calendar you wouldn't be paying any attention to Christmas in the first place.

Enough of the light stuff and down to business. The subject of the night was 1798: The French in Mayo, a case study in military occupation and the speaker was Dr Sylvie Kleinman.

Sylvie was the ideal speaker for this talk. She specialises in Irish-French interactions in this period and her command of the French language has enabled her to intensively and extensively interrogate French sources, including vast military archives, along with usual English language sources.

On the night, she was bringing the results of this research to bear on the structure and logistics of what we might broadly refer to as the civilian side of the occupation, or the occupation as it impacted on the civilian population.

General Humbert

The parameters were set by General Humbert, or rather by the orders under which he was operating. These enjoined him to give good example to the population by strictly abiding by the rules of war, such as those dealing with the taking of prisoners and their treatment, the provisioning of the army by appropriating only such food and livestock as was absolutely necessary, and avoiding uncontrolled and wanton killing of the local population. It was apparently made clear to the soldiery that anyone violating these rules would simply be shot out of hand.

You might think that all of that should go without saying, but the outcome of the French occupation was in starkly benign contrast to the subsequent retribution by British forces after the ultimate defeat of the French at Ballinamuck.

Implementation of these rules in Killala fell to Col (Capt ?) Charost, whom Humbert left in command there, and who turned out to be a decent skin, unlike his counterpart, Truck, in Ballina.

Humbert actually declared an Irish Republic and installed a civilian president, John Moore, of its Connaught Province.

French Military Archives, Vincennes

Sylvie relied heavily on the reports/memoirs of the Anglican Bishop Stock who became interpreter for the French and their liaison with the local population. The Bishop was in an invidious position, acting in some ways as a champion of the people and at the same time facilitator of the occupation. Fortunately Charost and Stock developed a mutually respectful relationship which facilitated a relatively smooth occupation, at least as far as Killala was concerned.

Bishop Stock's writings are known and published but Sylvie also accessed original manuscript sources from a range of participants some of which gave less restrained accounts than published versions where these latter existed.

It was a most interesting evening, but I must confess to not being able to assess what was new material or conclusions as most of the stuff was new to me.

My personal interest, and what bought me to the talk was twofold.

My father was from Ballyhaunis in Co. Mayo and I have relatives living in the county, including in Castlebar.

I have an interest in the period and particularly in attempted French invasions arising from my work on the defence of Killiney Bay in the Napoleonic period.

In fact, in looking at Sylvie's work generally, it struck me that she would have been the ideal person to have taken part with me in the Café Historique at the Alliance Française in 2015. I was dealing with the British government's efforts to defend the kingdom(s) and defeat the French régime with the help of disaffected royalists. Sylvie deals with French efforts to defeat the British with the help of the Irish revolutionaries. Perfect mirror images.

But it was not to be and I am still only partly along the way to understanding why.

And, finally, I should admit that Wellington Barracks is no more. It is now Griffith College.

Cold Revenge

German WWII Defences, La Corbière (MP2) Jersey (CI)
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Once upon a time, a long time ago (1961) when I was working in Jersey (CI) I became aware of the Nazi occupation of the island covering the period 1940-45. The signs of the occupation were to be seen along part of the coast in the form of the observation towers and gun batteries which were to provide a "ring of steel" around the island.

Although more had been planned, only three towers were constructed before the end of the occupation: No.2 at La Corbière (shown above); No.3 at the north-west most tip of the island; and No.1 at Noirmont Point, overlooking St. Brelade's Bay.

It was this last one I chose for my suggestion that it be turned into a German museum with a certain amount of bells and whistles. I made the suggestion in a letter to the Jersey Evening Post, the island's only newspaper, and one which came through the occupation in grand style.

My letter suggesting a museum,
and the put down by G C H LE COCQ

I was quickly put down by G C H LE COCQ who was very insulted by my suggestion, and there the matter rested.

My recent comment to the Jersey Evening Post
and C Le Verdic's reply

Jumping forward to today, the Post reported recently that an archeological dig at Grouville had turned up a ceramic plate with a swastika on it. I was reminded of my 1961 suggestion and drew the paper's attention to it anew in a comment on their piece (above).

This evoked a reply from C Le Verdic as follows:

What a superbly penned put down from G.C.H. Le Cocq (not De Dotteville, then?) and what superb revenge has been served cold by Noirmont eventually getting your museum and, as far as I know, Le Cocq not getting his cross.

P.S. Well done keeping the cuttings. I would have done the same!

So I checked it out, and sure enough

The bunker has been restored to a very high standard and provides a unique insight into the sheer scale and thoroughness of German military engineering.

I'm sure it lacks some of my suggested bells and whistles but it is a restoration.

It is said that revenge is a dish best served cold and it is none the less sweet for a wait of over half a century.

Jèrriworld

Philip Bailhache

This is the man who runs Jersey, Philip Bailhache, with a little help from a few others including the current Data Protection Commissioner, Emma Martins.

Emma Martins

The Channel Islands were the only part of the "British Isles" to be occupied by the Nazis and some would say that the occupation in Jersey never ended, as the island is still governed by a small feudal clique. Emma's father, John Nettles (Bergerac), has just written a book on the occupation, which I hope to get my hands on soon. Meanwhile you might like to check out my review of an earlier book which attempted an objective look at that period of the island's history (1940-1945).

In case you have already got sort of smitten with the lovely uniform you can order the whole kit here.

Back to more pressing matters, namely the small matter of the Resistance. Currently this is being conducted by a group of brave bloggers, who are not only seeking more democratic and open government, but are also attempting to blow the top off the forty year cover-up of horrendous child sexual abuse on the island. The bloggers are on their own, as the mainstream media on the island are as complicit in the cover-up as the governing authorities themselves.

Putting your head above the blogging parapet in Jersey is a bit reminiscent of WWI trench warfare. You stand a good chance of getting it blown off.

Notches on the authorities big guns so far include: (i) sacking the Health Minister, Stuart Syvret, when he got too curious about the deficiencies in the the island's child protection services and official inaction in the face of abuse victim's/survivors' complaints; (ii) sacking the Police Chief, who refused to become involved in various political conspiracies; (iii) smearing the Chief Investigating Officer in charge of the major abuse enquiry, and subsequently closing down the inquiry (though there is supposed to be another one being set up at the moment); (iv) official harassment and imprisonment of the sacked Health Minister, including with the cooperation of the Data Protection Commissioner; (v) while we're talking about the Commissioner, she is alleged to have been involved in instigating and coordinating a recent perverse data protection prosecution of Stuart Syvret, involving some undesirable types and a supergag order; (vi) attempting to bankrupt an awkward parliamentarian/blogger by insulting him and his parliamentarian wife and then ensuring he lost the ensuing libel case and ended up in financial difficulties.

The recent data protection case is of historically mammoth proportions, not only for Jersey itself, but for the UK as a whole. Data protection legislation is designed to protect a person's personal data from release by a "data controller" to whom it is given in the course of official business. It is not designed to protect data in the public domain nor does it have any place in providing redress for people who are libelled. Data, by definition, is true. Libel deals with accusations which are held to be false. The trick here seems to have been that had those people, against whom Stuart Syvret made accusations on his blog, taken a libel action, they would have had to finance it themselves. If it could be construed as a data protection issue (which is a load of cobblers) then the State could finance the prosecution. And this is what happened. My feeling is that the Jersey authorities are now in deep shit as a result of this little stragem of theirs.

Anyway, back to the occupation. I worked in Jersey over the Summer of 1961 and saw many remaining signs of the occupation. There was a military hospital which has now been turned into a museum, and there are a number of concrete watchtowers around the coast.

The people with whom I stayed, in St. John, had been evacuated just before the occupation, but clearly had returned to Jersey after the war. I had a feeling that there was a certain resentment against such people, even still at the time I was there.

Just incidentally, one person who refused evacuation was Mauyen Keane, and Irish nurse who had come to Jersey not long before the outbreak of WWII. She stayed on and, in the course of the occupation, fell in love with a German soldier/doctor. She followed him to Germany and married him. When Germany was defeated, she shared in the deprivations of the ordinary German people and eventually made it back to Ireland where she wrote a book about her experiences. She is the mother of the well known Irish poet, Gabriel Rosenstock, and the aunt of Dermot Keane, with whom I worked in the Irish Finance Ministry.

Equally incidentally, Emma Martin's father, John Nettles was filming the TV series Bergerac, located at the now controversial children's centre, Haut de la Garenne, while there were still children on the premises. I was brought up short by a photo in a recent Daily Mail article on Nettle's book, taken from the centre and showing the port of Gorey and Mont Orgueil Castle in the background.

Below is a night shot of the castle which I took during my stay in 1961,

The castle has been a museum since 1929. In the period following the French Revolution the castle was the headquarters of Philippe d'Auvergne who was in charge of a network of Royalists bent on invading France and restoring the Monarchy. One of these was French Major La Chaussée who had surveyed Killiney Bay, south of Dublin city, in 1797 as part of the British defensive operations against an expected Napoleonic invation of Dublin. The major's work was subsumed in the construction of the Martello Towers in the bay in 1804.

I mention the castle as, for me, it is a conflicted symbol. It was originally built to defend Jersey but is part of the view from Haut de la Garenne, which institution is a monument to the betrayal of trust of huge proportions.

The Bloggers' Resistance: Stuart Syvret, Neil McMurray, Rico Sorda, Trevor Pitman, Bob Hill, Sam Mézec, and many others.

Update 10 April 2016
There have been a number of developments on the blogging front since the above was posted.

Stuart Syvret's blog was shut down by Blogger/Google at the request of the Jersey authorities. After a bit of cyber-travelling his original blog has been restored and newer posts can be read here. Stuart claims not to have any direct control over the current blog and, other than being a source for his earlier blog, where he posted extensively on devlopments in Jersey, he only submits the odd post on the new blog. But he does comment from time to time on Neil's blog.

Trevor Pitman's blog, linked above, is no longer active. Trevor was bankrupted by the Jersey authorities, which meant he was no longer qualified to sit in the States (Jersey parliament) and, as far as I know, his is no longer living on the island.

Bob Hill has recently had a massive stroke and is no longer blogging, but his blog remains up. Both Bob, just before his stroke, and Trevor gave evidence to the current Jersey Abuse Inquiry.

So, of the above blogs, only Neil, Rico and Sam are currently blogging consistently.
Just for the record, both Neil and Rico have also given evidence to the Inquiry.