January 2015
t-Ochtú Lá Dhéag de Eanáir
(The Pulse - 18th of January)
A Chairde (Friends),
January 19th - Members’ Meeting and Social Hour 8pm
This is our first Membership Meeting of the year and a good time to come and welcome
Tim Whalen to the officer ranks. Tim is our new Vice-President and co-chair of the
Social Committee. We will discuss the upcoming calendar and other aspects of our club. For the
hour before the meeting you are invited to come along to a social hour with other members.
Come down for some craic!
February 9th - Social Committee Meeting
The Social Committee will meet at The Playwright in Hamden at 7:30pm. This meeting is open to all members and is
the forum for planning and organizing the calendar of events. The Committee is Co-Chaired by our Vice-President, Tim Whalen,
and our Program Director, Siobhan Dacey. Please come down and give us your ideas for events and fundraising. This meeting is
very informal and often becomes more of a social gathering.
February 16th - Members’ Meeting 8pm
At The playwright with a Social Hour preceding.
March 14th/15th - Milford/New Haven Saint Patrick’s Day Parades
We are on the list to march again in Milford and New Haven. We hope you can join the club to proudly show your Irish
Heritage. We hope to have a new banner to march behind along with our National and Provincial flags. It’s a great time to see
old friends again and enjoy the approaching Spring with a good stretch of the legs. Spring can’t come soon enough!
April 10th, 11th, 12th - “The Seafarer”, Connecticut Irish Theater Troupe Drama Production
The Connecticut Irish Theater Troupe will be producing the Conor McPherson play, “The
Seafarer”, on April 10th, 11th and 12th, at 1253 Whitney Ave., Hamden.
“On Christmas Eve in North Dublin, Sharky reluctantly hosts old friends in his dingy house
that he shares with his brother. After a lot of booze and card playing, Sharky must face the grim
promise he made decades ago to one of these friends.”
The production is Directed by Geoffrey Herpok and Produced by Margaret Prendergast,
both veterans of many Gaelic Players productions. The cast is set and meetings and rehearsals are
under way.
Tickets are priced at $15 and will be available in February. We are working on a
combination ticket of Dinner and a Show. Dinner will be at The Playwright with a fixed menu. The
Dinner/Show price has yet to be announced. Sponsorship opportunities are available and you should
contact Geoff Herpok for more information ([email protected]). There are also advertizing
opportunities in the Playbill. A one page ad costs $50, a half page ad $25 and a booster line $10. Please consider using this
medium to promote your business and help the club out. There is always room for more helpers and workers so if you are
interested in drama and theater let us know.
Memberships Dues: It’s that time of year again. Membership dues should be paid before March 1st. Cost has remained the same as last year with a family membership costing $40 and an individual membership costing $25. Send your annual dues using the addressed envelope you have received in the mail. If you are not a member and would like to join up, you can
find information on our website icsa-home.org or contact Laurie Hawkes at [email protected] .
Irish Language:
Seanfhocal - Proverbs
English:
Irish:
Phonetic:
Many a time a man's mouth broke his
nose.
Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón.
Iss min-ick a vrish bay-al din-eh a
hrone.
Dress a goat in silk and he still
remains a goat.
Cuir síoda ar ghabhar ach is gabhar
i gcónaí é.
Kur shee-id-ah ar gow-er awch(k) is
gow-er i go-nee aye.
He who lies down with dogs, gets up
with fleas.
An té a luíonn le madaí, eiroidh sé le
dearnaid.
On tay a lee-on le maw-dee ayerogue shay le dar-nid.
There's not a wise man without fault.
Níl saoi gan locht.
Neel see gon luch(k)t.
The bad deed returns on the
bad-deed doer.
Filleann an feall ar an bhfeallaire.
Fill-an on fyal err on vyal-er-eh.
Life is strange.
Is ait an mac an saol.
Iss att on moc an say-ol.
It takes one to know one.
Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile.
Ah-hneen kee-rogue kee-rogue el-eh.
Irish Poets
Seamus Heaney
Blackberry-Picking
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our
boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
Poemhunter.com
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For the next 16 editions of An Ċuisle we will be presenting a historical look into the lives of the sixteen men
that were executed by the British following the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. This will take us to the one hundred
year anniversary of the Rising in April 2016.
Roger Casement
Roger Casement (Irish: Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn) was born on the 1st of
September, 1864, near Dublin, living in very early childhood at Doyle's Cottage, Lawson
Terrace, Sandycove. His Protestant father, Captain Roger Casement of The King’s Own
Regiment of Dragoons, was the son of a bankrupt Belfast shipping merchant, Hugh
Casement. Roger Casement's mother, Anne Jephson of a Dublin Anglican family had him
rebaptised secretly in Rhyl, Wales as a Catholic when he reached the age of three,
after they had moved to England. The family lived in England in Worthing in a kind
of genteel poverty; their mother Anne died when Roger was nine. They returned to
Antrim in Ireland to live near relatives. By the time Casement was 13 years old, his
father was also dead, having ended his days in Ballymena dependent on the charity of
relatives.
After his father's death, Roger and his brother Tom were looked after by Protestant
paternal relatives, the Youngs of Galgorm Castle in Ballymena and the Casements
of Magherintemple. He was educated at the Diocesan School, Ballymena, later
the Ballymena Academy. He left school at the age of 16 and went to England for work. There he took a clerical job with Elder
Dempster, a Liverpool shipping company headed by Alfred Lewis Jones.
Casement went to the Congo in 1884, where he was working for Henry Morton Stanley and the African International
Association He worked on a survey to improve communication and began to recruit and supervise labor for construction of a
railroad to bypass the lower 220 miles of the Congo River. During his commercial work, Casement learned more than one
African language. Casement had become inspired by the idea that "European colonization would bring moral and social progress
to the continent and free its inhabitants “from slavery, paganism and other barbarities.” He would soon learn the gravity of his
error. In these formative years, he met Herbert Ward, and they became nearly lifelong friends.
Casement joined the Foreign Office (British Colonial Service), first serving as a clerk in British West Africa (which
later became the independent countries of The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Nigeria), before being appointed in August
1901 as British consul in the eastern part of French Congo. In 1903 the British government commissioned Casement, then the
British consul at Boma in the Congo Free State, to investigate the human-rights situation in that Belgian colony of Leopold II.
Using a private army, Leopold had squeezed revenue out of the people through a reign of terrorism in the harvesting and
export of rubber and other resources. Casement traveled for weeks in the upper Congo Basin to interview people throughout
the region, including workers, overseers and mercenaries. He delivered a long, detailed eyewitness report to the Crown that
exposed abuses: "the enslavement, mutilation, and torture of natives on the rubber plantations," (the Casement Report of
1904). Leopold had exploited the territory's natural resources as a private entrepreneur, not as king of the Belgians. Using
violence and murder he had decimated many native villages in the course of forcing the men to gather rubber and abusing them
to increase productivity. Casement's report provoked controversy, and some companies with a business interest in the Congo
rejected its findings. In the longer term, Casement's report would force Leopold in 1908 to relinquish his personal holdings in
Africa.
When the report was made public, the Belgian Parliament, pushed by Socialist leader Emile Vandervelde and other
critics of the king's Congolese policy, forced Léopold to set up an independent commission of inquiry. In 1905, despite
Léopold's efforts, it confirmed the essentials of Casement's report. On 15 November 1908, the parliament of Belgium took
over the Congo Free State from Léopold and organised its administration as the Belgian Congo.
In 1906 the Foreign Office sent Casement to Brazil: first as consul in Pará, then transferred to Santos, and lastly
promoted to consul-general in Rio de Janeiro. He was attached as a consular representative to a commission investigating
murderous rubber slavery by the Peruvian Amazon Company, a British registered company with a British board of directors and
stockholders. In September 1909 journalist Sidney Paternoster wrote in Truth, a British muckraking magazine, of abuses
against PAC workers and competing Colombians in the disputed region of the Peruvian Amazon. In addition, the British consul
at Iquitos had said that Barbadians (British Citizens) had been ill-treated while working for PAC, which gave the government a
reason to intervene.
Casement traveled to the Putumayo District, where the rubber was harvested deep in the Amazon Basin, and explored
the treatment of the local Indians of Peru. For years, the Indians had been forced into unpaid labor by field staff of the PAC,
who exerted absolute power over them and subjected them to near starvation, severe physical abuse, rape of women and girls
by the managers and overseers, branding and casual murder. Casement found conditions similarly inhumane as those in
the Congo. He interviewed both the Putumayo and men who had abused them, including three Barbadians who had also suffered
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from conditions of the company. When the report was publicized, there was public outrage in Britain over the abuses.
Casement made two lengthy visits to the region, the first in 1910 with a commission of investigators.
In 1911, the British government asked Casement to return to Iquitos and Putumayo to see if promised changes in
treatment had occurred. In a report to the British foreign secretary, dated 17 March 1911, Casement detailed the rubber
company's continued use of pillories to punish the Indians:
After his return to Britain, Casement repeated his extra-consular campaigning work by organizing Anti-Slavery
Society and Catholic mission interventions in the region. Some of the company men exposed as killers in his 1910 report were
charged by Peru, while most fled the region and were never captured. The scandal of the PAC caused major losses in business
to the company, and rubber demand began to be met by farmed rubber in other parts of the world. With the collapse of
business for PAC, most foreigners left Iquitos and it quickly returned to its former status as an isolated backwater.
Casement wrote extensively for his private record (as always) in those two years. He kept his diaries in London along
with the 1903 diary and other papers of the period, presumably so they could be consulted in his continuing work as "Congo
Casement" and as the saviour of the Putumayo Indians. In 1911 Casement received a knighthood for his efforts on behalf of
the Amazonian Indians, having been reluctantly appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1905
for his Congo work.
In Ireland on leave from Africa in 1904-05, in 1904 Casement joined the Gaelic League. It was established in 1893 to
preserve the Irish language. He later tried to learn Gaelic but had difficulty, despite his command of several languages and
gift for them. He also met with the leaders of the Home Rule Irish Parliamentary Party to lobby for his work in the Congo. He
did not support those proposing Home Rule, as he felt that the House of Lords would always veto their efforts. He was more
impressed by Arthur Griffith's new Sinn Féin party, which called for Irish independence by using a non-violent series of
strikes and boycotts, modeled on the policy of Ferenc Deák in Hungary, and he joined it in 1905.
Increasingly committed to the cause of Irish independence, Casement retired from the British consular service in the
summer of 1913. In November that year, he helped form the Irish Volunteers with Eoin MacNeill, later the organization's
chief of staff. They co-wrote the Volunteers' manifesto. In July 1914, Casement journeyed to the United States to promote
and raise money for the Volunteers among the large and numerous ethnic Irish communities. Through his friendship with men
such as Bulmer Hobson, who was a member of the Volunteers and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, Casement established
connections with exiled Irish nationalists, particularly in Clan na Gael.
Elements of the Clan did not trust him completely, as he was not a member of the IRB and held views considered by
many to be too moderate, although others such as John Quinn regarded him as extreme, John Devoy, who was initially hostile
to Casement for his part in conceding control of the Irish Volunteers to Redmond, in June was won over, and the more extreme
Clan leader Joseph McGarrity became and remained devoted to Casement. The Howth gun-running in late July 1914, which
Casement had helped to organize and finance, further enhanced his reputation.
In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Casement and John Devoy arranged a meeting in New York with the
Western Hemisphere’s top-ranking German diplomat, Count Bernstorff, to propose a mutually beneficial plan: if Germany would
sell guns to the Irish rebels and provide military leaders, the rebels would stage a revolt against England, diverting troops and
attention from the war on Germany. Bernstorff appeared sympathetic, but Casement and Devoy decided to send an envoy, Clan
na Gael president John Kenny, to present their plan personally. In October, Casement secretly sailed for Germany. He was
traveling in disguise and viewed himself as an ambassador of the Irish nation. While the journey was his idea, Clan na
Gael financed the expedition.
In Berlin Casement negotiated with Arthur Zimmermann, then Under Secretary of State in the Foreign Office,
and with the Imperial Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. In November 1914, Casement negotiated a declaration by
Germany which stated,
"The Imperial Government formally declares that under no circumstances would Germany invade Ireland with a view to
its conquest or the overthrow of any native institutions in that country. Should the fortune of this Great War, that was not of
Germany’s seeking, ever bring in its course German troops to the shores of Ireland, they would land there not as an army of
invaders to pillage and destroy but as the forces of a Government that is inspired by
goodwill towards a country and people for whom Germany desires only national prosperity
and national freedom".
Casement spent most of his time in Germany seeking to recruit an "Irish Brigade"
from among more than 2,000 Irish prisoners-of-war taken in the early months of the war
and held in the prison camp of Limburg an der Lahn. His plan was that they would be
trained to fight against Britain in the cause of Irish independence. The Irish plan failed.
All Irishmen fighting in the British army did so voluntarily. In addition to finding it
difficult to ally with the Germans while held as prisoners, potential recruits to Casement's
brigade knew they would be liable to the death penalty as traitors if Britain won the war.
He abandoned this effort after much time and money were wasted. The Germans were
Casement & John Devoy
skeptical of Casement but aware of the military advantage they could gain from an
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uprising in Ireland. In April 1916 they offered the Irish 20,000 rifles, ten machine guns and accompanying ammunition, but no
German officers; it was a fraction of the quantity of the arms Casement had hoped for, with no military support.
Casement did not learn about the Easter Rising until after the plan was fully developed. The IRB purposely kept him
in the dark, and tried to replace him. Casement may never have learned that it was not the Volunteers who were planning the
rising, but IRB members such as Patrick Pearse and Tom Clarke who were pulling the strings behind the scenes.
The German weapons were never landed in Ireland. The ship transporting them, a German cargo vessel called Libau,
was intercepted, although it had been thoroughly disguised as a Norwegian vessel, Aud-Norge. All the crew were German
sailors, but their clothes and effects, even the charts and books on the bridge, were Norwegian. The British had intercepted
German communications coming from Washington and knew there was going to be an attempt to land arms at Ireland, even if
the Royal Navy was not precisely aware of the location. The arms ship, under Captain Karl Spindler, was apprehended by
HMS Bluebell on the late afternoon of Good Friday. About to be escorted into Queenstown (Cobh), County Cork, on the
morning of Saturday, 22 April, after surrendering, the Aud Norge was scuttled by pre-set explosive charges. She lies at 40
metres depth. Her crew became prisoners of war.
Casement departed Germany with Robert Monteith and Sergeant Daniel Beverley of the Irish Brigade in a submarine,
initially the SM U-20, which developed engine trouble, and then the SM U-19, shortly after the Aud sailed. According to
Monteith, Casement believed that the Germans were toying with him from the start and providing inadequate aid that would
doom a rising to failure. He wanted to reach Ireland before the shipment of arms and convince Eoin MacNeill (whom he
believed was still in control) to cancel the rising. Casement sent John McGoey to advise of the military aid was coming from
Germany and when, but with Casement's orders "to get the Heads in Ireland to call off the rising and merely try to land the
arms and distribute them". McGoey did not reach Dublin, nor did his message. His fate was unknown until recently. He joined
the Royal Navy in 1916, survived the war, and later went to the United States, dying in 1925. Casement expected to be involved
in the rising if it went ahead.
In the early hours of 21 April 1916, three days before the rising began, Casement was taken by a German submarine
and was put ashore at Banna Strand in Tralee Bay, County Kerry. Too weak to travel, he was discovered at McKenna's Fort
in Rathoneen, Ardfert, and subsequently arrested on charges of treason, sabotage and espionage against the Crown. He was
taken straight to the Tower of London where he was imprisoned. He sent word to Dublin about the inadequate German
assistance. The Kerry Brigade of the Irish Volunteers might have tried to rescue him over the next three days, but was
ordered by its leadership in Dublin to "do nothing".
During the trial and appeal, the government secretly circulated excerpts of Casement's journals, revealed his
homosexuality and numerous explicit accounts of sexual activity, which became known as the Black Diaries, to influence those
notables of the day who might have intervened. Given societal views and the illegality of homosexuality at the time, support
for Casement declined among some readers.
Casement unsuccessfully appealed against the conviction and death sentence. Among the many people who pleaded for
clemency were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was acquainted with Casement through the work of the Congo Reform Association,
the Anglo-Irish poet W. B. Yeats, and the playwright George Bernard Shaw. Members of the Casement family in Antrim
contributed discreetly to the defense fund, although they had sons in the British Army and Navy.
On the day of his execution, Casement was received into the Catholic Church and was attended by two Catholic prison
chaplains, Dean Ring and Father Carey. The latter, also known as James McCarroll, said of
Casement that he was "a saint ... we should be praying to him [Casement] instead of for
him". Casement was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London on 3 August 1916, aged 51.
As was the custom at the time, Casement's body was buried in quicklime in the
prison cemetery at the rear of Pentonville Prison, where he was hanged. In 1965, his
remains were repatriated to the Republic of Ireland, which had gained effective
independence in 1922. Despite the withdrawal of his knighthood in 1916, the 1965 British
Cabinet record of the repatriation decision refers to him as Sir Roger Casement.
Casement's last wish, to be buried at Murlough Bay on the North Antrim coast, may never
be satisfied. Prime Minister Harold Wilson's government released the remains only on
condition that they not be brought into Northern Ireland, as "the government feared that
a reburial there could provoke Catholic celebrations and Protestant reactions." Casement's
remains lay in state at Arbour Hill for five days, during which time an estimated half a
million people filed past his coffin. After a state funeral, the remains were buried with
full military honors in the Republican section with other national heroes in Glasnevin
Cemetery in Dublin. The President of Ireland, Éamon de Valera, who in his mid-eighties
was the last surviving leader of the Easter Rising, defied the advice of his doctors and
attended the ceremony, along with an estimated 30,000 Irish citizens.
Source: wikipedia.com, irishvolunteers.org, history.org
Casement’s final resting place at
Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
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President's Message:
Sásta bhliain nua do gach duine (Happy New Year to everyone).
Most members should have received their membership renewal letters in the mail in the last few days. There are still
a few to go out after address confirmations. Please send in your dues at your convenience using the addressed envelope
enclosed with your letter. A family membership costs $40 and an individual membership costs $25. Thanks in advance for
keeping your membership and supporting the Irish Cultural & Sports Association.
I hope you enjoy the beginning of our sixteen part look at the lives of the men executed by the British following the
1916 Easter Rising. Each edition will look at the life of one of these men and delve into the circumstances that put them in the
position of fighting during the Rising. The last edition will coincide with the one hundred year anniversary of the Rising, in
April 2016. This month we have started with a look at the remarkable life of Roger Casement and the events that brought him
to Ireland in 1916.
Our drama group, The Connecticut Irish Theater Troupe, is well into the rehearsal program for the production of
Conor McPherson’s “The Seafarer”. Details are in this edition of An Ċuisle regarding ticketing and sponsorship. Please help out
and bring some advertisers to us for the Playbill. You can also purchase a space for a message yourself, either a page, half
page or a booster line. We always need folks to help out too so if you can give some time please contact our Director, Geoff
Herpok, or our Producer, Margaret Prendergast.
Shameless Plug: One of the best Irish traditional groups over the last 15-20 years has been Altan. They will be
playing at the Edgerton Center at Sacred Heart University, on the 2nd of March. Tickets are $25 and you can find more
information at www.edgertoncenter.org .
I am still looking for input for the Recipe Book project. Please take some time to put your favorite 5 or 10 recipes in
an email and send them off to me at [email protected]. I need your help on this one.
Ba mhaith liom tú an chuid is fearr mo chaired (I wish you the best my friends)
Shaun.
● PLEASE! HELP! Send your recipes! We are compiling a cook book of favorite recipes from
members and friends. Please, if you have a favorite recipe or five or ten, ship them off to
[email protected] with the subject line "Cook Book". When the book has been completed we will
make it available to members and friends for a nominal fee. Thanks in advance for your support.
A Club Fundraising Opportunity!
Don’t forget to use the Amazon Smile portal and then list the Irish Cultural & Sports
Association as your non-profit of choice, when shopping on-line this Holiday season. The link to Amazon Smile is on our web
page at www.icsa-home.org.
* Irish Language Classes * Wednesdays @ 7pm and 8pm - Classes are free to ICSA members and are also open to
non-members for a nominal fee so you can try it out and see how you like it. Classes take place every Wednesday night in North
Haven with beginners class at 7pm and the Advanced Beginners class is at 8pm. Sign up details are available on the club
website or contact Cultural Director, Rich Regan at [email protected].
Irish Radio Show: Echoes of Erin. We encourage you to listen to our friends and club supporters at Echoes of Erin Radio
show (88.7FM), broadcasting live every Sunday from 12 to 2 p.m. and Monday from 6 to 8 p.m. from the University of New
Haven in West Haven CT and over the internet at http://www.wnhu.net/ This is your source for Irish music, news, sports and
community events. Hosted by Pat and Joan Kennedy, Mike McGrath, Pat Hosey and Siobhan Dacey.
Irish Radio Show: Ceol na nGael. Club member Molly Monahan used to host this show on Fordham Radio (90.7FM). Now she is
part of the production team. Listen in on Sundays from noon to 4pm. You can also listen to archive shows at WFUV.org.
Go raibh mile maith agaibh (Thank You)
Irish Cultural and Sports Association
http://icsa-home.org/
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2015 Officers
President - Shaun Donnelly [email protected]
Vice President - Tim Whalen [email protected]
Secretary - Mary Williams [email protected]
Treasurer - Margaret Prendergast [email protected]
Financial Secretary - Laurie Hawkes [email protected]
Cultural Director - Rich Regan [email protected]
Program Director - Siobhan Dacey [email protected]
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