Sean Breshnahan ✒‘They shall be spoken of among their people. The generations shall remember them, and call them blessed’ — Pádraig Pearse.

Volunteer Josie Connolly

The military record of the West Tyrone-East Donegal Irish Republican Army, across the most recent phase of the long war for Irish Independence, reveals a comprehensive and continuous assault on the fabric of British rule in this area — an assault on crown rule that left nowhere safe for the British forces. Indeed resistance to British rule in Ireland has here been maintained across many generations — even through the leanest of times in our struggle. Suffice to say that the occupation has never held West Tyrone absent contest.

Across a war sustained for full-on 25 years, throughout which the British were never at any point secure in position — not even while in their barracks — fourteen IRA Volunteers went to their graves before time. Among their number — among the rank of those who stood up to defend our people — was IRA Óglach James ‘Josie’ Connolly. Fatally wounded while on Active Service, at Drumquin, near Omagh, he died on this day in 1989. Volunteer soldier of the Irish Republic, we salute you.

A loving and caring son and brother, he had much to offer in his short young life, from his precocious ability in the boxing ring and on the field of St. Eugene’s GFC to his work with the youths in his local area, to help them fulfill their own sporting promise. The determined service he gave to the Army was a reflection of his trusty character as a man — his love for his country a mirror of that he held for his family and friends, as it ought to have been. A soldier of the people, Josie personified everything that is right and decent about our struggle.

His memory and ideals will forever remain in the hearts of the people of West Tyrone. His generosity of spirit, his dignity as a man and his selfless dedication to the cause of freedom stand tall. They endure and inspire us to keep moving forward, to carry the baton, to finish the task and win the Republic for which he gave his young life. May the time to hand speed the final demise of British colonialism, in all of its hideous manifestations in our country. In the memory of this fearless Irish soldier, let ours be the generation that sees the flag unfurled.

‘A true son of Ireland, so let it be said. We salute you Volunteer Josie Connolly.’


Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

Ar Son Saoirse — ‘Josie’ Connolly

Sean Breshnahan ✒‘They shall be spoken of among their people. The generations shall remember them, and call them blessed’ — Pádraig Pearse.

Volunteer Josie Connolly

The military record of the West Tyrone-East Donegal Irish Republican Army, across the most recent phase of the long war for Irish Independence, reveals a comprehensive and continuous assault on the fabric of British rule in this area — an assault on crown rule that left nowhere safe for the British forces. Indeed resistance to British rule in Ireland has here been maintained across many generations — even through the leanest of times in our struggle. Suffice to say that the occupation has never held West Tyrone absent contest.

Across a war sustained for full-on 25 years, throughout which the British were never at any point secure in position — not even while in their barracks — fourteen IRA Volunteers went to their graves before time. Among their number — among the rank of those who stood up to defend our people — was IRA Óglach James ‘Josie’ Connolly. Fatally wounded while on Active Service, at Drumquin, near Omagh, he died on this day in 1989. Volunteer soldier of the Irish Republic, we salute you.

A loving and caring son and brother, he had much to offer in his short young life, from his precocious ability in the boxing ring and on the field of St. Eugene’s GFC to his work with the youths in his local area, to help them fulfill their own sporting promise. The determined service he gave to the Army was a reflection of his trusty character as a man — his love for his country a mirror of that he held for his family and friends, as it ought to have been. A soldier of the people, Josie personified everything that is right and decent about our struggle.

His memory and ideals will forever remain in the hearts of the people of West Tyrone. His generosity of spirit, his dignity as a man and his selfless dedication to the cause of freedom stand tall. They endure and inspire us to keep moving forward, to carry the baton, to finish the task and win the Republic for which he gave his young life. May the time to hand speed the final demise of British colonialism, in all of its hideous manifestations in our country. In the memory of this fearless Irish soldier, let ours be the generation that sees the flag unfurled.

‘A true son of Ireland, so let it be said. We salute you Volunteer Josie Connolly.’


Sean Bresnahan is an independent Republican from Co. Tyrone who 
blogs @ Claidheamh Soluis. Follow Sean Bresnahan on Twitter @bres79

21 comments:

  1. Big brave man sticking a bomb under a car where it could have killed kids.

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    1. Exactly, Steve. Most of the "heroic" operations of West Tyrone PIRA were murders of part-tine or ex UDR or RUC reserve at their work places or farms in their squalid sectarian campaign.

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  2. As time goes on and more comes to the fore about the past, it is easier for people of today's generation to understand what it was that Josie Connolly's IRA generation was pitched against. For all the wrongs of the IRA campaign it now seems indisputable that it was locked in a battle with British state terrorism.

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  3. Sean
    Shame on you for writing such utter ballix.
    "The generations shall remember them, and call them blessed." No they won't, they will remember a young man dying while judasing his workmate. Planting a bomb which he had no idea who would be its victim. He could have killed anybody, even a child walking by when it detonated. In the end he took his own life. A life lost at 20 years old in such a sad and futile way. Yet you mention none of this, just the tired rhetoric of a failed movement desperately trying to justify the unjustifiable.

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    1. Peter - this is the challenge posed by memory. Many will remember him in the way Sean said they would. Many will also remember him in the way you said. There is no one way of remembering people and nobody can speak in a general sense for the generations.

      I recall the daughter of a prison officer killed by the IRA writing to me once to complain that I had depicted her father in a wholly wrong way and that her memory of him was very positive. I experienced him as a brutal thug, she experienced him as a loving dad.

      The past will never be agreed upon. Truth as reconciliation does not work. In fact it might polarise more than it can ever reconcile. It should be recovered for its own sake rather than as part of some overarching political project.

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    2. Peter,

      That's the real tragedy. 20 year old kid blown to bits trying to murder someone else. 20 year old. Not much older than my son. I feel nothing but sympathy for his parents although I would not share their politics.

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  4. The oral history of members of 8 UDR gives an interesting insight into this era. One UDR man said that the Tyrone (IRA) "boys" weren't as ruthless as the Fermanagh ones.

    The other thing that I found incredible was that the IRA personally knew the UDR men, and vise versa. Then UDR captain Ken Maginnis gave evidence in court against IRA men who tried to kill him, and refused to do so with any sort of disguise. He said he knew the man who tried to kill him, and that he lived two miles away from him, and a disguise was of no use to him.

    @ Barry - I don't think the Tyrone PIRA's attacks on the RUC/UDR could be described as sectarian, at least not in the same way as, say, the Belfast UDA's campaign against Catholics was. Teebane was arguably a sectarian action, but what I think there existed in parts of Tyrone a war of attrition between the IRA and the UDR/RUC (UVF elements of course attacked politically uninvolved Catholics as per normal loyalist praxis). I have read that some of the Tyrone UVF was largely comprised of UDR men, and of a comparatively higher calibre than the rank and file, and they were responsible for the deaths of a few IRA men. This was later on in the conflict.

    @ Steve R

    The single act of putting a bomb under a car isn't in and of itself overly brave, though it could be potentially lethal. But to put one's head above the parapet in Tyrone and become involved in the attacking and killing of a heavily armed, largely legally unaccountable locally recruited militia arguably could be. I extend the same compliment to the men of 8 UDR, many of whom did display considerable bravery.

    One point I'm exploring is that in terms of attrition, the UDR legally and officially did very little to hinder the IRA, and arguably just provided many targets for them. Illegally and unofficially, the UDR harassed, intimidated, tormented, robbed, and murdered members of the Catholic civilian population (and a few IRA men).

    Overall, the UDR was a strategic win for the IRA, I would argue. Their sectarianism inspired support and recruits for the IRA, and their inability to investigate and convict IRA members meant that they never significantly hindered republicans. Unofficially, and illegally, some UDR men killed a few IRA men, and Ed Moloney argues that in Tyrone in particular this caused morale to be damaged. Former Para Tony Gegaghty contests this, and I am sceptical. But it is at least worth exploring,

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    1. Brandon,

      Hindsight is always 20/20. It would be impossible for any locally raised Army detachments to remain neutral when they were living among those who wished them dead. Themmuns like us are only human after all.

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  5. AM
    True, but I find this broad brush eulogising without any sense of honesty or reality to be particularly distasteful. This incident, like so many, is profoundly sad on many levels. A young life lost in an act of treachery for no good reason at all, yet Sean's eulogy does not reflect the reality of this loss. Anyone reading it would think he was killed in combat. Pathetic.

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    1. But we get so little detached reflection. People memorialise because they have some sort of emotional investment in the act otherwise they might not observe. Sober and distanced reflection in such circumstances is rare whether from those who remember or those who despise the fact that remembrance is taking place. Poppy Day never mentions the war crimes of Bomber Command. I think we just have to be philosophical about how others commemorate. I am laid back about it so long as it is not in our faces and we are not obligated to join in. People remember the Paras killed at Narrow Water while others desecrate the memorial wreaths. I prefer letting people remember to the desecration of memorials. If I don't approve I walk on by. I don't spit.

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  6. AM
    So why run it on your blog?

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    1. You shouldn't have to ask why it would run on the blog. I would have thought it was pretty clear by this stage what type of blog it is. It is open to all manner of ideas.

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    2. Peter,
      So why run it on your blog?

      If you open this link and read Anthony's reply to Sean and you'll understand why....

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  7. It was a war, people unfortunately get killed in wars. Ask the people of Manchester, Liverpool and London who were bombed, indiscriminately, by the Luftwaffe during the blitz of WW11. Ask the poor souls of Dresden, a German city of no military importance, who were also indiscriminately blasted from above by the RAF and USAF and they will tell you it was not nice. There are still some around from those dark days, very old people now. The tragedies of war are all around us, even now in the Ukraine we are all living on edge. Possible nuclear destruction awaits, if we leave it to the imbeciles in charge. The war in the six counties was no different and no less regretable. It takes two to fight a war, yet Peter, Barry and Steve critisise only one set of combatants. Roll on the day, looking less likely but we live in hope, when wars, all wars, are consigned to the dustbin of history.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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    1. Caoimhin?

      What the fuck are you talking about? I'm never shy of critiquing Unionists, Evangelical Prods and calling a massacre a massacre regardless of what flag you chose to be buried under. I've said before, moral authority is immediately lost when the first drop of innocent blood is spilled.

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  8. Caoimhin

    "Peter, Barry and Steve critisise only one set of combatants. "

    I have frequently condemned on this blog violence from all the "combatants" in the
    Northern Ireland conflict be they Republican and Loyalist armed groups and security force agencies.

    Also there is no way in which the NI conflict can be compared to World War II or the putative Ukraine-Russia conflict in terms of scale or the belligerency status of the parties involved. But that's a debate for another day.

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  9. Caoimhin
    It wasn't a war. Maybe it was at the start of the 70's in some areas, but by the 80's it had long ceased to be a war. And to be a "combatant" involves actual combat.

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    1. It was always a war - a guerilla war which encompassed armed action against state terrorism. Wares are never neat, tidy things. Nor are they always superior to other forms of violence. But they are different. The British war in Ireland was unjust. The IRA's war was unjust. Society deserved better. On reflection it was a war better not fought. But these are things that come with hindsight rather than foresight. Few would deny Bobby Sands, for example, the status of combatant. Despite the the IRA failings it fought a state globally steeped in war crimes, the perpetrators of which are still commemorated rather than pilloried. There is simply no one way of looking at the North's conflict and meaningless to seek to impose a united perspective. It doesn't exist.

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  10. Incredibly rude and disrespectful comments. Can we not allow people to remember and honor their dead without snide commentary. I'd never go on a blog and disparage any loyalist or British army member killed in the conflict who was being remembered. If he had grown up in a normal society he'd still be alive and only 51 probably living a normal life with a wife and kids/grandkids.

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  11. Peter, Barry.....

    Open up and read Sowing Dragons Teeth, it's a paper prepared for the meetings of the UK Political Studies Association, London School of Economics and Political Science, 10-13 April 2000. Scroll until you see Aggregate Patterns of Violence and read until you see the line......

    By any standards, what Ulster people euphemistically call the Troubles is, in fact, a war.

    One you have read it come back and explain to the world why both of you say "It wasn't a war.....Also there is no way in which the NI conflict can be compared to World War II....."

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  12. Frankie, not in scale perhaps in fact definately not, but no war can, and hopefully never will, match or be compared with the scale of WW11. That said like all wars, including the Second World War, involves bombs, guns, bullets, combatants and death. All these factors were as present in the war in the six counties as they were in North Africa, Stalingrad or any other battle of note between 1939 and 1945.

    Caoimhin O'Muraile

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