December
1923
|
Dec-03-23/1 |
Civic Guard Sergeant James Woods is shot dead
during an attack on the Civic Guard station in Castleisland, Co. Kerry. |
Power (2020), pg 111 |
|
Dec-05-23/1 |
Joe McGrath resigns from cabinet committee on
demobilisation when some officers whose cases he thinks should be considered
by the committee are demobilised. However, he resumes his membership
when he receives a guarantee from Cosgrave that recommendations made by the
committee on retention of pre-Truce officers would be binding on the Army
Council. See Jan-1924/2. |
Valiulis
(1985), pg 46 |
|
Dec-06-23/1 |
General election in United Kingdom of Britain
and NI. Only three constituencies are contested in
Northern Ireland. The two sitting nationalist MPs TJS Harbison and Cahir
Healy (an internee) are elected in the two-seater Fermanagh and Tyrone
constituency with large majorities over their unionist opponents. Unionists win the other eleven seats – nine of
them uncontested. (With regard to the only other contested
constituencies, in Belfast North, an independent unionist runs the sitting
Unionist MP close and similarly, in Belfast West, an independent Labour
candidate also runs the sitting Unionist MP close. Most nationalists
abstained.) However, viewed from London, the results in
Fermanagh and Tyrone inconveniently “complicated” matters as they showed once
again that in “Fermanagh and Tyrone there exists a
substantial majority” favouring inclusion in the Free State. In Britain, the number of Conservative MPs
dropped from 345 to 258. The Liberals
won 159 seats and Labour won 191 seats.
There was therefore a hung parliament at Westminster. See Jan-24/1. |
Phoenix (1994), pg
297; Walker (1992), pgs 15-16; Matthews (2004), pg 128 |
|
Dec-08-23/1 |
The farm workers strike in Waterford (see
Jun-01-23/1) comes to an end. As the
farm labourers were facing starvation they had no
option but capitulate. The ITGWU is broken (and would take years to recover
in Waterford). Individual workers are
taken back on pay and conditions dictated by the farmers. The pro-Treaty Special Infantry Corp were
decisive in breaking the strike. |
McCarthy (2015), pg
125 |
|
Dec-15-23/1 |
The body of Free State soldier, Joe Bergin, is
found in the Grand Canal near the Milltown Bridge in Co. Kildare. He was a guard at the Curragh Camp and
allegedly had helped prisoners to escape.
A CID captain, James Murray, was convicted of
his killing in 1925 and sentenced to death. An appeal failed but, four days
before he was due to be hung, his sentence was commuted to penal servitude
for life. He died in prison in 1929
from tuberculosis. |
Dorney (2017), pg
260 |
|
Dec-24-23/1 |
Anti-treaty prisoner, Joseph Lacey from
Wexford, dies in the Curragh Camp. |
Durney
(2011), pg 165 |