IN February 1952, An t-Éireannach Aontaithe/The United Irishman devoted half its front page to an inspiring article penned by a young student at the College of Surgeons in Dublin.The article was in large heavy black type and was surrounded by black borders. This panel was headed simply “The Dead of Ismailia”.
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In the autumn of 1951 the Egyptian government had publicly ordered the British occupation forces to leave the Canal Zone. It withdrew all Egyptian workers and services from these troops and proceeded to boycott everything British.
During January 1952 protests by the Egyptian population against the continued presence of British troops were met by savage repression. When the Egyptian police refused to act against their own people the inevitable happened.
The British forces attacked the local police in their barracks. In Ismailia they laid siege to the Egyptian police post but like Cathal Brugha in Dublin in 1916 and again in 1922 the Egyptians refused to surrender and as soldiers of freedom they took the consequences.
Massive and overwhelming British force was brought to bear. Shell force and heavily armoured tanks were used against Egyptian police armed only with rifles and hand guns. Still there was no surrender.
The British armour battered down the gates of the compound surrounding
the barracks and followed up on the shellfire by physically bulldozing
the entire post to the ground.
As was written about the Irish in Dublin at Easter 1916.
The world did gaze, with deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few,The world did observe what happened at Ismailia and the British were shamed internationally. The Egyptians had refused to act against their own people at the behest of the British, and on the world stage they paid the price but won a great victory. It was on the sands of the Egyptian desert and not in the Irish foggy dew that these men made their stand, but the cause was the same, the liberation of all humankind from imperialist exploitation.
Who bore the fight that Freedom’s light might shine through the Foggy Dew.
The world did take note and the defence of Ismailia fifty years ago marked the beginning of the end of the British armed presence in Egypt.
Young people across the globe were inspired and in his lodgings in Grove Park, just of Lower Rathmines Road in Dublin a young medical student from Belfast was moved to take pen in hand and write these words.
He did not put his name to the article but it was considered by the
Editor of the Republican paper to be sufficiently important to take pride
of place on the front page.
The modest young student’s name was Frank Gogarty later to qualify
as a dentist and later still to head up the Civil Rights Association in
the Six Counties. He was Chairperson in the late 1960s and early 1970s
and gave steady and unrelenting leadership in those critical years.
Here are his burning lines on The Dead of Ismailia:
“Empire of Hell when will thy cup of abominations be full?” Over one
hundred years ago, John Mitchel, captive on an English prison ship sailing
to the other side of the world, wrote these words:
Empire of Hell, when WILL thy cup of abominations be full? Your path to Empire has traced on the story of mankind a well defined track of human blood – hot, human blood gushing freely from the mangled bodies and torn arteries of your victims – good, rich, free-flowing blood that once coursed through the noblest veins in the world; blood of the White and Black; blood of the defenceless; blood of mother and child; sufficient innocent blood to deluge the world.
Ah! You noble Egyptians, you men of the Valley of the Nile, remember
now in your hour of sorrow these verses addressed by your poet to our dead
MacSwiney:
“In death there is no life, in death there is calmness, in death souls
are enobled and honoured. We of Egypt have known the English as you have
known them. They never change. In their law wrong is justified; in their
law justice is denied. What is the crime of Ireland—and what is the crime
of the Valley of the Nile? Yet the sword is made mighty and blood is shed.”
Blood is shed! Oh, what a terrible price the weak have to pay to be made strong and by your two score martyrs who died in Ismailia you, the weak have become strong. Your nation has now attained invincibility. You cannot be conquered, for that blood-stained patch, which was once a barracks, ensures the success of your struggle, guarantees the future of your race.
Ismailia! Cursed name that speaks forever of carnage and foul deeds. Ismailia! Blackest mark on a filthy record of oppression. Ismailia! The sound of your name will always break the hearts of your women and children whose husbands and fathers died in your blood-soaked dust and rubble.
But Ismailia! What pride will rise at your name. Blessed Ismailia; forever you will signify a holy thing. Ismailia! Brightest jewel of the East, your light will sparkle through all time. Ismailia! Were ever men braver than your dead sons – dying with their guns clasped tightly in their death-locked fingers. When some day, the history of human courage is written, it may well be entitled “From Thermopylae to Ismailia.”
Irish Republicans, we mourn for our brothers; for the men who died opposing
England in Egypt are as much our brothers as the men who died in Clonmult.
Sympathy and brotherhood stretch beyond political boundaries and suffering
Ireland goes on its knees to pray for suffering Egypt. You, mothers of
the lads who died on Ireland’s hillsides, pray for their comrades who died
in Egypt. You, comrades of our own noble dead, salute the bravest of the
brave, for they lie dead in Ismailia. (Ends).
And taught by their one-time masters, the English, so today do Israeli tanks, supplied by the Western Powers, level the homes of Palestinian families in the occupied areas.
Thermopylae is of course the location of the famous battle in 480BC when 300 Greeks fell at a strategic mountain pass resisting the Persian invaders of their homeland. The Spartan king Leonidas refused to submit and only one of the 300 managed to survive.
Thomas Davis in “A Nation Once Again” writes:
When boyhood fire was in my blood,Similarly, Clonmult was the scene of a slaughter in East Cork in February 1921 when a Flying Column was surrounded in a disused farmhouse. In the resulting gun battle twelve Volunteers were killed by British troops, some after surrender when the roof was set on fire.
I read of ancient freemen
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood
300 men and three men”.
Two survivors were later executed in Cork British Military Barracks. A British ex-serviceman was spotted the Column while out trapping rabbits had turned informer. He received £30 for his treachery and confessed his act of betrayal to the North East Column who executed him. A commemoration of the massacre is held each year on the anniversary.
Frank Gogarty wrote regularly in An t-Éireannach Aontaithe/The United Irishman after February 1952 under the non-de-plume of “P. MacGiolla Chruim”, (son of the servant of Crom).
Crom Cruach was a famous Druidic god in pre-Christian Ireland.
A Volunteers from Meath who shared the lodgings with Frank used to take his articles into the Republican paper. Less than 20 years later he was in a pivotal role in the ongoing struggle.
That this mild-mannered Irishman had a wide knowledge of Irish and world history is evident from his quotations from John Mitchel and the Egyptian poet, as well as his references to Clonmult and Thermopylae. His deep humanitarian feelings are also clear in the above article.
In the early 1970s when no longer chair of the Civil Rights Association he attended Dáil Uladh meetings in Monaghan. On one occasion he said that as CRA Chairperson in 1969 he had repeatedly warned Cathal Goulding, then Chief-of-Staff, of the imminence of physical attacks on the nationalist community. But his warnings were not heeded….
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.
(More next month. Ref. An t-Éireannach Aontaithe/The United
Irishman, Feabhra/February 1952 and Rebel Cork’s Fighting
Story, publ. Anvil Press, The Kerryman Ltd.n.d. [late 1950s].)
Web layout by SAOIRSE -- Irish Freedom February 11, 2002 Send links, events notifications, articles, comments etc, to the editor at: saoirse@iol.ie. |