“As boy Liam Mellows offered his services to the…”

As a boy Liam Mellows offered his services to the publisher of Irish Freedom", Tom Clarke, who had served many years in English jails and who later signed the Easter Week proclamation with James Connolly and five other leaders.

Liam was the first organiser of Na Fianna Eireann, and Countess Markievicz could always rely on him. Then when Oglaigh na hEireann was founded he became organiser for Eoin McNeill. In 1915 Liam was ordered out of the country by the police and he ignored the order which led to his arrest for four mounths in Mountjoy Jail. On his release he took over the Galway Volounteers and was again arrested. and taken to England from where he escaped back to Dublin. He went straight to St. Endas, Rathfarnham to see P.H. Pearse and a week before the rising went to Galway by motor bike where he ordered all Volunteers to be ready for Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday evening he set about planning and the volunteers, many of whom were armed only with pikes, answered his call.

On Easter Monday Liam found that he had 36 riflemen and 30 men armed with martini enfield rifles. This was the main firepower his force had. Tuesday saw his force attack Gort and Oranmore police barracks. That evening New Inn police barracks was captured by Volunteers along with all the rifles and ammunition; Liam was delighted with this, and on Wednesday the British Navy sent a destroyer to shell the countryside over which Liam was now incommand. Ulster Protestant Volunteers poured into Galway to assist the police and military. The police at Athenry took some Ulster Protestant Volunteers with them to Moynode where a few Volunteers fired at them and chased them back to Athenry. The U.P.V. did not show their faces again. Thursday saw Liam's men attack Kinvars police barracks. A party of British troops were attacked at Moynode and they retreated. Clarenbridge police barracks was also attacked.

Learning that Dublin had surrendered, Liam disbanded his men and with two comrades took to the hills.

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While a religious man he was still a great socialist. (James Connolly knew this and paid tribute to him : from the G. P.O. which was then ; on fire). Working as a stoker he made his way to America where the Irish Americans would not help him. He contracted fever and his only friend took him into his house. The British put the American police on his track and while walking along the street one night a carload of F.B.I. men arrested him and took him to the Tombs Prison, New. York. They released him after a few days. At last Patrick McCartan from Carrickmore Co. Tyrone came to the U.S.A. and contacted Liam who was bitter against the Yanks for their treatment of the coloured and the poor. One coloured man had the .K.K.K. sign of the anti-black gangsters burned on his back while Liam was there. Incidents such as this made Liam vow if ever he got his chance the poor and the coloured would get their own back on the Yankee capitalists and the British Imperialists.

At last after giving a series of lectures on the fight then being carried on in Ireland against the Imperialists he came home and was immediately appointed on the Army Council of Oglaigh Na hEireann.

TREATY In 1921 when the Treaty was signed, Liam opposed it and started to organise relief for the Ulster Republicans, especially in Belfast where armed orange gangs, B. Specials and police were murdering nationalists by the hundred. In June 1922 he was captured by the Treaty Government after a gunbattle lasting three days. He was taken to Mountjoy military prison where he jotted down his plans for a socialist Ireland which would be on the lines of Connolly's Workers' Republic. Only three months before the Free State Army murdered him he urged that his comrades outside have the socialist programme embodied in the Declaration of Independence translated into something definite. He wrote: 'Under.the Republic all industry will be controlled by the State for the workers' benefit". Writing of the transport and banking system, he wrote, "All transport, canals and railways will be operated by the Republican state for the benefit of the workers. All banks will be operated by the state’ for the benefit of industry and agriculture - not for the purpose of profitmaking by loans and mortages etc. That the land of the aristocracy who support the British connection will be seized and divided amongst the people who can and will work it for the nation's benefit,”

At the end of August 1922 writing on the general situation he noted that the question of demesnes and ranches had been discussed during the period of the First Dail, 1919 -1920. Some action had been taken, but not enough to be effective ona wide scale. This was pointed out by Tom Johnson. O'Brien and and labour. ook Pi I tas’ Dubscr ption 30/- per Cathal O'Shannon when they visited Liam's G.H.Q. in May 1922. Of food he wrote that it would be a serious problem in time to come. The loss of the railways would be felt by the towns. Instead of people having to rely on Governments responsible for wretched economic situations they should be taught to rely on themselves and their own resources.

In a letter to Austin Stack (who later became President of Sinn Fein) dated September 11th 1922 Liam stated that those outside should use publicity to draw attention to the unemployment problem which resulted in starvation, as well as the get-tough tactics of employers to their underpaid workers who dared to go on strike. He also points out that a Republican Workers Government must see to it that it takes an interest in the complaint of each worker as sometimes even the Trade Unions can drown a man's voice, especially if he happens to be the only one of, say, fifty who are victimised. The situation created by all these must be utilised for the Republic. she position must be defined. Empire means capitalism and industr ism, Republic means workers This was the man the Staters told around 2a.m. on December 8th 1922 that he would face a firing squad of Stater soldiers at 8a.m. He did not fail or falter. When walking through the snow in Mountprison yard he shouted "the Republic still lives, our deaths make that certain". A few minutes later the Stater firing squad murdered him. He was a major loss to Irish and World freedom.

Had he been allowed to live he would have been delighted with the boys and girls of the Peoples Democracy and ail the work they did since 1968 to bring his hopes and wishes to reality. It is an organisation after his own heart.

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This article was received from a FREE CITIZEN reader in Strabane. FREE CITIZEN always welcomes articles from readers the same old story.

Police in anti-riot gear and wielding truncheons yesterday swept homeless Sicilian peasant demonstrators out of a ] makeshift encampment only 15 yards from the Chamber of Deputies in Rome. | ¥ The peasants had called for ithe reconstruction of their homes, destroyed by an earthquake in the Valle Del Belice region in January, 1968.