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Post by kieranglennon on Jun 23, 2011 8:22:42 GMT
Hi Tanya
Military Archives in Cathal Brugha will send you pdf's of whatever witness statements you want (within reason) at no charge. I have an index of all the statements that I got from the old version of their website - it's not on the new one - so if you send me a private message with your e-mail address I'll send it on to you. I can't praise the staff in Military Archives enough, they were incredibly helpful when I was tracing my granda's records, even dug out his old personnel file from when he was in the Free State army after the War of Independence.
One thing about the UK Archives - my brother lives in England so he went to their office in Kew to check the same reference numbers that Mary gave you, as our granda was also imprisoned in the Curragh by the British (though he escaped - can't keep a good man down!). The UK material isn't very well catalogued at all so for each of those reference numbers there's boxes and boxes of files all just thrown in together so it really is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Going by my own experience, your best bet is probably is to write to Veterans Admin (then wait!) and also go through the BMH witness statements. There was a book written about the War of Independence in Roscommon, dunno if it's still in print but I'll see if I can find the name of it.
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Post by kieranglennon on Jun 23, 2011 8:27:15 GMT
Sorry I should have clarified that Military Archives will send the statements to anyone once it's for genuine research. For any personal stuff about a particular person e.g. personnel files, you have to prove you're related to them - i.e. apply in writing with copies of your own and your father's birth certs - you can view that in their reading room but they don't send it out. For Veterans Admin, the same rules apply regarding having to prove your relationship to the person.
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Post by tanya on Jun 23, 2011 9:58:42 GMT
Thank you Kieran I actually got the book your speaking of from Eason's online www.eason.ie/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&item_type=Book&q=9780963356543That is the link if it can be of use to anyone else they are reasonably priced Amzon have it for £100 which is crazy but Eason's are €42 + €3.50 for postage it arrived within 3 working days. I have requested those records from Kew but specified that I was looking for just those relating to my Granddad they do tell you that it takes quiet a while but worth it in the end I HOPE. Also for anyone looking for similar info the castlebar library have all the microfilm from the papers at the time and these can be viewed at any time also copies can be made of anything of particular interest to you. I have been in contact with Military Archives and have to agree they are brilliant very very helpful. I have also sent my letter to the verterans admin so the wait begins. Kieran thank you for the offer and its one I will take you up on also have a look at the other threads here there is an autograph book that has a sketch of one of the escape attempts from the Curragh don't know exactly if it is your Granda but well worth a look Many thanks again Tanya
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Post by tanya on Jun 23, 2011 10:01:52 GMT
Topic: Rath Camp - Curragh 1921 - Sylvester Delahunt
This is the thread for the autograph book you'll find it listed under Curragh Historical Articles Very interesting to see the entries by Mr Delahunts inmates!
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Post by andybrennan on Jun 23, 2011 20:35:49 GMT
Hi ,
Great advice posted , and useful links, I will avail of them later as no doubt others will.
Thanks Kieran, Tanya and Mary F,
Andy
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Post by livenowpraylater on Jul 28, 2011 2:08:46 GMT
Andy hope your keeping well, Edward Nolan here,, just had e-mail from matt , he has put a photo of Mick on the site , and came across this site , see what i mean about finding out things all the time it's mind blowing, i thought this site was a right place for this query / information, back a good few years ago the post office decided to change our address and so we got our post from a different post office but in the same county, we are still in the same house it's our address thats changed. this difficulty was brought home to me a couple of weeks ago when trawling the web and see the site for IUNVA SITE 25 Fermoy i sent JOHN O'MAHONY a photo of Mick being brought back from the Congo to be interned in glassnevin and up until a few days ago they had not a clue as to when he was returned to Ireland or where he was buried, they also tried to make contact with the Nolan family with no luck until i contacted him via post 25 fermoy, it was reading TANYA'S post looking for info on her grandfather MICHAEL NOLAN which is also my grandfather's name , any one trying to get our address from past paper cuttings an the like would i think come up empty handed, a change of address before you were even born might lead you nowhere in ANY search, i don't know if there is a data base that has all that sort of information on it , if not why not, reading through some of the threads / post's you come across someone visiting towns only to find the streets has changed name but still the same old street. it wasn't until it affected me and came across Tany's post and see my old sparring partner's name that i decided to post my thought's. Andy , ihave done it again , a long winded post when 4 lines of text would do a more educated person. as always a pleasure to converse with you, an all who browse here. PS i only do it so that i might invoke a reply from you and other readers lol, even though this is slow going, these post's of mine reminds me of the letter the son wrote to his mother,
"Dear mother. i am writhing this letter slow because i know you cant read fast" regards, Edward Nolan.
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Post by andybrennan on Jul 28, 2011 7:01:09 GMT
Hi Edward,
Aye the changing of the old address's, place names and street names can and do cause awkwardness, as can the change or alteration of Christian or Surnames as attested in the Census.
I note Fermoy in your post are you a Corkconian?
I had reason to visit Glasnevin myself quite a few family members, I discovered are interred there, The Glasnevin Site is a very good one, it has a genealogy section and it can lead to the location of a loved ones grave and also indicates how many are in it.
Roots.ie my favourite, a simple one to search and the cost decreases depending on the amount of people associated with a particular search
Time and patience are the secret, also Forums are a wealth of information, you would not believe the amount of people out there who know more about me then I do my self, and to cap it all off they are extremely generous with sharing that information.
There are good forums and bad ones, The good ones stay good because of the time spent policing them as Matt does here, a sharp eye he keeps on it.
Like you I could have put this in a smaller note but hey, a bit of time n my hands, and always a pleasure to reply to anyone on the forum.
Oops I nearly omitted the Military as a source of information, from it I have obtained under the freedom of information the records of my family's military careers.
As for the education bit you are up there with the rest of us, primary school in my day then off to work, and continuation of education in the college of life, the real world.
Now time to rest my one digit don't want to wear it out as I like to share my thoughts with the others on the site, this finger is highly trained to find its way around the key board and if it were not for spell check I would oft give out to it for mis spelling, better to blame the finger then the mind.
Andy
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Post by livenowpraylater on Jul 28, 2011 12:46:08 GMT
thanks for the reply andy i would like to ad a short note (honest i promise) remember the old saying "a slip of the hand is no fault of the mind" now for posterity. "a slip of the digit is no fault of the mind"
more to do with a poor spell checker
regards Edward Nolan
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Post by livenowpraylater on Aug 11, 2011 2:47:47 GMT
Hi all . Question when do the Irish goverment/military have to release records under the freedom of information act. can they censor them before release . in other words do they have to release the truth.
Regards Edward Nolan.
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Post by livenowpraylater on Sept 14, 2011 12:15:44 GMT
hi Andy. As regards getting information from the army, i wouldn't put too much store of faith in them. Or it could be that someone isn't telling the truth. I think i owe the readers of this post an explanation. when the book "Missing In Action" was being researched and the army was asked if Cpl Michael "Mick" Nolan, RIP, had any family the answer was that he was an "ORPHAN"?. I wonder is that because there were only 5 boys and 8 girls in the Nolan family.
What i find even more odd, Ralph Riegal who works for The Irish Independent and has all the information at his fingertips through the news papers archive's, couldn't be bothered his a*%$e to do his own research. The same goes for John O' Mahony, in his piece about his friend, Tpr Pat Mullins RIP, Fermoyireland.50megs.com/memories_by John O' Mahony. and i quote,
"we made many friends from other units who joined us to make up the Armored Group of the 35th Battalion. Among them we got to know Cpl Michael Nolan from Wexford who was to die in the same engagement along with Paddy".
Cpl Micheal Nolan was not from Wexford he was from Wicklow.
And if the authors of the book had bothered their backside to do the research they would have seen the news paper article from the herald of 1962. [Matt kindly published these on the site]they would have seen that MICK had a Mother - Brothers and Sisters, were at the airport to see his remains being returned along with Tpr Brown for interment in glassveven. [Our Father Michael Nolan passed away on the 19th July 1954 aged 49 he was being taken to Baltinglass Hospital by a neighbor and died going over baltinglass bridge CO Wicklow. That's the reason there was no mention of our father at Mick's internment.] i was 9 years old when he passed away. That is the reason for sending the two paper clippings to Matt, one to show who was at the funeral's and the other to show what paper it was in and the date. so there would be no confusion. perhaps I'm wrong ,maybe the news papers don't have an archive? [ I'm sure someone will let me know] the family have heard so many stories over the years that it's hard to tell fact from fiction no matter what quarter it comes from. perhaps truth has no place in a good story.
Another thing i find hard to believe is when the book was being researched, i was told that they had no information about where Mick's body was, or that it was brought home, or that it was buried in glassneven, that from his comrades who served with Mick in the Congo.
Forgive me readers if i seem bitter or cynical but it don't add up, don't you think that in a case as important as this that that more should have been done to get the story right as far as possiable. Someone is telling porkies an telling lies where the truth dont fit. And to be a good liar you have to have a good memory.
Edward Nolan.
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Post by johnnykelly on Sept 14, 2011 14:05:22 GMT
Re:Military Records Hi Edward I must agree with your assumption that the papers never tell the truth and will never refuse ink in 1968 as i was a young recruit i had not been home for a couple of days (lived in quarters just up the road)and was on a spot of CB at the time. when there was a tragic accident in Newbridge and a case of mistaken id happened. the first i knew was when a reporter came into the barracks to do a background story on the young soldier that had passed away and he asked MEwhat kind of a chap was Pte Kelly so i told him that Pte Kelly was talking to him he was lived as He had just come from my house looking for a story so you can imagine what my Parents were going through.and it was only shortly after when My Father came down to the barracks to see the adjudant to go into Naas hospital to id my body that he saw me and burst out crying. sorry to bother you with all of this but even overseas they can fabricate the truth a plenty as we often read in the home papers (we got them sometimes 3/4 days lat) that there was terrible troubles where we were working but no one told us. bye for now Johnny
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Post by livenowpraylater on Sept 14, 2011 15:51:26 GMT
Jonny.
There was a McNamara transport company in swords, i had the occasion to go to his office a few times, when i told my friend he said did he bend down to get something from a bottom drawer of the desk next to him, i said don't know ,never noticed, why is it important, well no he said , he must have liked you because if he didn't there is a few words written on the wall behind his back that says. "I'm a good bull$#/tter myself, but occasionally i like to listen to the experts.
Edward.
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Post by livenowpraylater on Sept 14, 2011 20:28:25 GMT
Jonny . that must have been a scary time for your poor parents. do you know i bet at the time it didn't register the implication of it, when you are young it don't seem such a big deal , you think to yourself someones made a mistake an you leave it at that. as time goes on an you have children of your own, every sneeze -cough -sniffle has you worried , and when they have to go to the doctor it fills you with panic , to be told that your son has been killed it must be their worst nightmare.
Jonny when i first came onto this form an started to read the post's. I came across the story about the Lavery's, an what they were told. i had all the sympathy for them, because the same thing happened to us, first we were told that Mick had been killed in the Congo. A few days later we were told that he was in hospital but was ok. Another few days later we were told that it was a mistake that he was dead and it was a reporter by the same name Micheal Nolan who was in hospital.
The only reporter i see was a Michael Nolan working for the UN as a translator , he is mentioned in the book Battle For Jadoville, he is mentioned at the end of the book.
When i first posted here on the forum i stupidly thought that i would get plenty of replies to my request for anyone that knew Mick to get in touch, slowly it dawned on me Mick was killed 50 years ago and most of his comrades had passed away, this was brought home to me as i found the IUNVA sites and seen the amount of Congo vet's in the obituary columns.
There is still some Congo vet's alive who have a tale or two to tell. i don't know if they are still sworn to secrecy, we might be told more in a will or two when them in the know leave this world. who knows, all i can say is God bless them all and long may they live.
Edward.
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Post by gaul on Dec 26, 2011 11:54:42 GMT
A very happy Christmas to all members of the forum, again well done to Matt on such an excellent site. Maybe someone could clear up a confusion which I have. What is the connexion with military records and selling Spanish soccer "camisetas" ??
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Post by donaldux on Feb 4, 2018 15:03:54 GMT
hi every body or some one could help me on this one.I was sent to the Curragh camp to do my training when I joined the army in 1977my army num was 838047 , I'm looking for a photo of my passing out parade from 1977 between April or may of that year. Some names in my platoon- Murt Power from Kilkenny, Mandingo, Smithy and Buster MacNamara from Limerick, donal mahoney from cork .the barracks was McDonagh barracks my passing out parade took pleace in the gym. there was 52 in my platoon would be really greatful if anybody could help.
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