October
1923
|
Oct-12-23/1 |
A strong protest is made by Cardinal Logue and
the six Roman Catholic northern bishops on the treatment of the Catholic
minority by the Government of Northern Ireland. “It is doubtful whether
in modern times any parallel can be found for the way in which the Catholic
minority in the north of Ireland is being systematically wronged under the
laws of the northern parliament.” They focused on four areas: (1) the
abolition of Proportional Representation and the gerrymandering of
constituencies; (2) the Education Act under which they say Catholic schools
are starved unless they go under control of northern state; (3) the
imposition of an oath of allegiance on teachers and (4) the Boundary
question. |
Phoenix (1994), pg 292 |
|
Oct-13-23/1 |
A hunger strike by anti-Treaty prisoners
begins in Mountjoy and soon spreads to other prisons and camps.
Anti-Treatyites claim that at one stage 8,000 are on strike. (About
12,000 interned at this point - Ó Ruairc says 15,000.) Ferriter says that 7,003 went on strike but
this dropped to 3,067 by early November and to 317 by mid-November. See Nov-23-23/1. |
O'Farrell P (1997), pg xxiv; McCarthy (2015), pg 132; Ó Ruairc (2009),
pg 322; Power
(2020), pg 139; Ferriter (2021), pgs 116-117 |
|
Oct-13-23/2 |
Noel Lemass, Captain in anti-Treaty army (and
brother of Sean Lemass) is found dead near Glencree in the Dublin mountains.
He had been arrested by a man in plainclothes in July (See Jul-03-23/1) from
his workplace in Dublin Corporation.
(Main suspect in his killing is James Murray, a captain in the CID.) See Dec-15-23/1. |
Litton (1995) pg 135; Dorney (2017), pgs
259-260 |
|
Oct-19-23/1 |
A CID driver, Thomas Fitzgerald, is killed
following an armed robbery in Castleknock, Dublin. A Free State soldier, William Downes, is
later hanged for the killing of Fitzgerald. |
Dorney (2017), pg 261 |
|
Oct-20-23/1 |
Three anti-Treaty prisoners (Sean MacBride,
Michael Price and Daithi O’Donnoghue) escape when being transferred from
Mountjoy Hospital to St Bricin’s Hospital. |
O’Sullivan Greene (2020), pg 174 |
|
Oct-25-23/1 |
British Prime Minister, Stanley Balwin,
announces that he was staking his party’s fortunes to tariff reform. This gives rise to a major political storm
in Britain which results in another UK general election. See Dec-06-23/1. |
Matthews (2004), pg 123 |
|
Oct-29-23/1 |
Meeting by border nationalists in Omagh calls,
inter alia, for the setting up of the Boundary Commission as soon as
possible. Similar meetings take place along the border in the following
period. |
Phoenix (1994), pg 293 |
|
Oct-30-23/1 |
In a speech, Kevin O’Higgins expressed the
hope that the forthcoming conference (between Cosgrave and Craig) might
result in a better outcome for the whole country than the operation of the
Treaty provisions. (But Cosgrave had not yet announced that he would attend –
See Nov-03-23/1.) |
Phoenix (1994), pgs 294-295 |
|
Oct-31-23/1 |
Sir John Anderson, representing the British
Government in Dublin reports that ‘The belief is prevalent that the [Free
State] Government is abandoning all claims’. |
Hopkinson (1988), pg 251 |
|
Oct-31-23/2 |
A Jewish man, Bernard Goldberg, is shot dead
on St Stephens Green, Dublin and his brother, Samuel, is also shot but
manages to escape. A second Jewish man
is shot on November 14th – see Nov-14-23/1 for more detail. |
Dorney (2017), pg 263 |
|
Oct-1923/1 |
Philip Cosgrave
(brother of Liam, TD for Dublin North West and Military Governor of Mountjoy
Prison) dies suddenly at the age of thirty-eight. Ferriter says that
“The civil war had crushed him personally, especially the executions … he
sought solace in drink”. |
Ferriter (2021), pg 92 |
|
Oct-1923/2 |
After Macroom Rural
District Council wrote to Ernst Blythe, Minister for Local Government in the
Free State cabinet, saying that it would refuse to function until all
anti-Treaty prisoners were released, an official from the Department replied
“I am directed by Mr. Blythe to state that from his knowledge of the work
done by [the Macroom Rural District Council], he does not consider that any
important public interests will suffer as a result of its refusal to
function”. |
Garvin (1996), pg 87 |