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Ederney Village Stories and pictures of Ederney and surroundings where I grew up a few years ago. I am proud of having grown up there, and of my grandfather Adam Eves.

04/11/2026

July 13th 1916. SECOND LIEUTENANT NOEL D. TRIMBLE. THE LAST TIME SEEN ALIVE. A letter to Mr. Mercer, High Street, Enniskillen from his daughter Mrs. Jennings who gives assistance as a nurse in a military hospital in Bath states that two Inniskillings who had been in the 8th battalion are lying there wounded in number nine ward. They received their wounds at the same time as Mr. Noel Trimble of the 8th, and Private Divir of County Donegal stated to her, ‘Mr. Trimble fought like a man. At one time he was the only officer about and held them altogether.’ Another private of the same battalion who has been recently home on furlough at Ballinamallard said that ‘the last we saw of Mr. Trimble was his rushing bare headed along the trench rousing and warning the men to prepare for the gas attack; and he had not had his own mask at hand when the cloud came. He gave his own life for the rest.’ (Ed. Son of the owner and editor of the Impartial Reporter newspaper.) I.R.

July 13th 1916. A SOLEMN TIME. IN BELFAST on yesterday afternoon for 5 minutes the whole city ceased to move. All the tramcars, pedestrians, and machinery stopped for 5 minutes to permit relatives of soldiers and others to think of what all our brave boys at the war were doing for us at home. Blinds were drawn; policemen stood to attention, and many thousands uttered a prayer, till the hand of the clock relieved the mournful strain. I.R.

July 13th 1916. THE PASSING TRAIN. A TOUCHING INCIDENT. ARE WE DOWNHEARTED? A long Red Cross train, just filled from end to end from one of the hospital ships – casualties from the present offensive in France – was pulling slowly out of Southampton Docks for its run to London. Almost every window in all its great length served to frame an outward gazing soldier, officer or man, in ragged, bloodstained, khaki. These were the sitting up cases, nearly all with heads bandaged or arms and slings. Just near the dock gates the hospital train met another equally long train coming in and packed from end to end with fresh troops bound out for France from some English depot camp. Each of its windows framed not one or two or three men in khaki, sun browned faces looking out over the close cropped heads of their mates, full of eager curiosity and expectation. For 50 yards or so at a foot pace, the two contrasting trains of soldiers glided side by side in silence. No man spoke a word. Silent and inarticulate the men to be tried as they were carried past stared into the faces of the men who had been tried.
Suddenly the voice of a wounded soldier cried out ‘Are we downhearted’ and the tension snapped. All had wanted to give expression to the powerful emotions inspired by the chance juxtaposition of these two trains and no one had known how. Here was a way to and from the bottom of the heart under a sudden pressure of emotion that not one among them could analyse or explain shouted No! No! No! No! I.R.

"The Battle of the Somme". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2014. Web.
The Battle of the Somme started in July 1st 1916. It lasted until November 1916. For many people, the Battle of the Somme was the battle that symbolised the horrors of warfare in World War One; this one battle had a marked effect on overall casualty figures and seemed to epitomise the futility of trench warfare. For many years those who led the British campaign have received a lot of criticism for the way the Battle of the Somme was fought – especially Douglas Haig. This criticism was based on the appalling casualty figures suffered by the British and the French. By the end of the battle, the British Army had suffered 420,000 casualties including nearly 60,000 on the first day alone. The French lost 200,000 men and the Germans nearly 500,000. Ironically, going over the top at the Somme was the first taste of battle many of these men had, as many were part of "Kitchener’s Volunteer Army" persuaded to volunteer by posters showing Lord Kitchener himself summoning these men to arms to show their patriotism.
Why was the battle fought? For a number of months the French had been taking severe losses at Verdun – to the east of Paris. To relieve the French, the Allied High Command decided to attack the Germans to the north of Verdun therefore requiring the Germans to move some of their men away from the Verdun battlefield thus relieving the French. After the war, Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, explained what this strategy was: Remembering the dissatisfaction by ministers at the end of 1915, because the operations had not come up to their expectations, the General Staff took the precaution to make quite clear beforehand the nature of success which the Somme campaign might yield. The necessity of relieving pressure on the French Army at Verdun remains, and is more urgent than ever. This is, therefore, the first objective to be obtained by the combined British and French offensive. The second objective is to inflict as heavy losses as possible upon the German armies.
Ironically, the head of the French Army, General Foch, believed that the attack in the Somme would achieve little - this view was shared by some leading British commanders such as General Henry Rawlinson. However, orders from the army's political masters in London and Paris ensured that the battle would take place.

Just how backward military thinking was then is shown by the fact that the British put a regiment of cavalry on standby when the attack started to exploit the hole that would be created by a devastating infantry attack. British military faith was still being placed on cavalry attacks in 1916 when the nature of war in the previous two years would have clearly indicated that cavalry was no longer viable. This shows how conservative military thinking was during this war. The battle at the Somme started with a weeklong artillery bombardment of the German lines. 1,738,000 shells were fired at the Germans. The logic behind this was so that the artillery guns would destroy the German trenches and barbed wire placed in front of the trenches. The use of artillery was heavily supported by Field Marshall Haig: The enemy's position to be attacked was of a very considerable character, situated on high, undulating tract of ground. (They had) deep trenches....bomb proof shelters......wire entanglements forty yards broad often as thick as a man's finger. Defences of this nature could only be attacked with the prospect of success after careful artillery preparation. In fact, the Germans had deep dugouts for their men and all they had to do when the bombardment started was to move these men into the relative safety of the deep dugouts. When the bombardment stopped, the Germans would have known that this would have been the signal for an infantry advance. They moved from the safety of their dugouts and manned their machine guns to face the British and French.

The British soldiers advanced across a 25-mile front. By the end of the battle, in November 1916, the Allied forces had advanced along a thirty-mile strip that was seven miles deep at its maximum. Lord Kitchener was a supporter of the theory of attrition - that eventually you would grind down your enemy and they would have to yield. He saw the military success of the battle as all-important. However, it did have dire political and social consequences in Britain. Many spoke of the "lost generation". Many people found it difficult to justify the near 88,000 Allied men lost for every one mile gained in the advance. However, during the battle, media information on the battle was less than accurate. This was written by John Irvine of the "Daily Express" on July 3rd 1916 - though his report would have been scrutinised by the British military and government and he could only have used what information the military gave him.
"A perceptible slackening of our fire soon after seven was the first indication given to us that our gallant soldiers were about to leap from their trenches and advance against the enemy. Non-combatants, of course, were not permitted to witness this spectacle, but I am informed that the vigour and eagerness of the first assault were worthy of the best tradition of the British Army. We had not to wait long for news, and it was wholly satisfactory and encouraging. The message received at ten o'clock ran something like this: "On a front of twenty miles north and south of the Somme, we and our French allies have advanced and taken the German first line of trenches. We are attacking vigorously Fricourt, la Boiselle and Mametz. German prisoners are surrendering freely, and a good many already fallen into our hands

03/11/2026

July 6th 1916. WHERE HE SHOULD NOT BE SO? A VERSE WITH THE MORAL. By 2629 Sargent C. Maguire force RI. Inniskilling Fusiliers.

Brave Father Pat and Parson Sloane
Went out to France together,
And in the muddy trenches there,
Faced wild and stormy weather
The men receive them with a smile,
For both despite their station,
Would always help a needy one
No matter his ‘Persuasion.’

For instance person Sloane would rush
Without regard to danger,
Across some bullet strewn ground
To help a Connaught Rangers,
And Father Pat himself was known
To stretch a helping hand
When the battle-roar was loudest
Just to save an Ulster man.

And thus we get the moral
As it rushes o’er the foam,
If Irishmen unite in France
Why not the same at home. I.R.

July 13th 1916. ULSTER MEN’S GALLANTRY A GLOWING TRIBUTE THAT WILL BE REMEMBERED AS LONG AS HISTORY IS READ. The Times special correspondent at the British Headquarters in a dispatch on the great offensive says – back on the high ground behind the enemy had massed an immense amount of artillery – guns ranging from 77 mm to 250 mm in size. At one point there was a mass of machine gun positions dug into the ground behind. Above this point were other machine guns. Against this front our men charged under a fire that cannot be described or imagined without one man faltering or turning back. It was as splendid as any action of human bravery could be. Above this point the Ulster troops behaved in a way that will be remembered as long as history is read or written. It is said that the Royal Irish Fusiliers were first out of the trenches. The Royal Irish Ri**es went through what was an absolute hell, went over the German parapets and killed the men in the machine gun emplacements with their bayonets. The Inniskillings rushed and cleared out certain positions in the enemy’s lines which had been named respectively as ‘Enniskillen’ ‘Omagh’ and ‘Strabane’ and it is said that they all went forward shouting ‘no surrender’ and ‘remember the Boyne.’ They were subject to a murderous crossfire. I.R.

July 13th 1916. ENNISKILLEN MAN’S ACCOUNT OF THE ULSTER DIVISION TO ATTACK. Lance Corporal J. Quinn, Royal Irish Ri**es (Ulster Division) writing to his father, Mr. Thomas Quinn, The Diamond, Enniskillen describing the great advance says: - I expect you had word from Willie. He was wounded in the arm during the attack. I got out all right but it was a proper hell. The machine guns mowed our fellows down like sheep. Poor George Geddes was killed beside us. Our Colonel was also killed and all our company officers either killed or wounded. We went in with over 200 men in the company and came back with 57 but we took four lines of the Allemandes’’ trenches. The – Battalion (Fermanagh and Donegal Regiment) got it pretty bad too. I saw a lot of them lying killed over the top. I did not come across Tommy Johnson (Drummee) and nobody can tell me anything about him. I saw William Nelson, son of Mrs. Nelson, East Bridge Street, Enniskillen. He was wounded in the foot and leg. You could not have but pity for the poor devils the Germans. They ran out to us with their hands up and begged for mercy. Some of them got the bayonet. One poor fellow had the two eyes blown out of his head and he was a frightful looking case. We took about 1,000 prisoners altogether. They never even showed fight when we tackled them, but they laid down their arms and begged for mercy. Our poor Colonel refused to stay behind. He led us into the charges and about halfway across got the head carried off him by a shell. Our fellows fairly went mad over it and showed the Allemande no mercy. We carried out all we were asked to do with honour. Our division has made a name for itself. Our troops are progressing splendidly now and have taken four or five villages. You need not worry about Willie as I saw him when he was getting his arm dressed. He got hit about the muscle of the arm by a machine gun bullet. I had some miraculous escapes myself. I was hit six times with pieces of shrapnel, but none did me any harm. Thank God we are both safe. F.T.

July 13th 1916. OBITUARY. The death of Admiral Sir St. George Caulfield D’Arcy-Irvine K.C.B. has taken place at Aixles-Bains. He was the third son of the Rev George Marcus Irvine and grandson of Major George Marcus Irvine of Castle Irvine. Born in 1833 he entered the Navy in 1845 and served in the River San Juan Expedition in Nicaragua and in the Black Sea and Baltic during the Crimean war; went up the Dardanelles during the Turco-Russian War of 1878 and commanded the Penelope at the bombardment of Alexandria. As Senior Lieutenant on the Doris he escorted King Edward as Prince of Wales during his tour in the East in 1862. He was second in command of the Channel Squadron in 1888/9. He married in 1868 the only daughter of Admiral Sir Horatio Austin. F.T.

July 13th 1916. LINE THINNED BUT UNWAVERING. BY AN EYEWITNESS. I am not an Ulsterman but on Saturday, the 1st of July as I followed their amazing attack I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. My position enabled me to watch the commencement of their attack from the wood in which they had formed up but which long prior to the hour of the assault was being overwhelmed with shell fire so that the trees were stripped, and the top half of the wood ceased to be anything but a slope of bare stumps with numerous shell holes peppered in the chalk. It looked as if nothing could live in the wood and indeed the losses were heavy, before they started two companies of one battalion being sadly reduced in the assembly trenches.

When I saw that the men emerge through the smoke and form up as if on parade I could hardly believe my eyes. Then I saw them attack beginning at a slow walk over No Man’s Land and then suddenly let loose as they charged over the two front lines of the enemy trenches shouting, ‘no surrender boys!’ The enemy gunfire raked them from the left and machine guns in the village enfiladed them on the right but battalion after battalion came out of the awful wood as steadily as I have seen them at Ballykinlar, Clandeboys or Shane’s Castle. The enemy’s third line was soon taken and still the waves went on getting thinner and thinner but without hesitation. The enemy’s fourth line fell before these men who would not be stopped. There remained the fifth line.

Representatives of the neighbouring corps and division who could not withhold their praise that what they had seen said no human beings could get to it until the flanks of the Ulster division were cleared. This was recognized and the attack on the last German line was countermanded. The order arrived too late or perhaps the Ulsterman mindful that was the anniversary of the Boyne would not be denied but pressed on between three fires. I could only see a small portion of this advance but could watch our men work forward seemingly to escape the shell fire by a miracle and I saw for parties of them now much reduced indeed enter the fifth line of the enemy trenches our final objective. It could not be held as the division had advanced so that the Ulstermen were the target of the concentrated hostile guns and machine guns behind and both flanks though the enemy in front were vanquished and retreating. The order was given to retire but some preferred to die in the ground they had fifth won so hardly. As I write they still hold the German first two lines and occasionally batches of German prisoners are passed back over the deadly zone; over 500 have arrived but the Ulster men took many more who did not survive the fire of their own German guns. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts that witnessed. I.R.

02/11/2026

14-10-1933. Donegal Democrat.
THE BACHELOR’S CHRISTMAS FRIGHT.
By the late James Henderson, Diamond, Donegal.

The night was dark, ’was pitchy dark,
With never a star in the sky,
And the wind swept by a cottage door
With an awe-inspiring sigh ;
Where a bachelor sat in his easy chair
Reading his book, and around him
there
Was nothing of life, for he lived alone
Save a cricket that chirped on the old
hearthstone.

And the story he read was a sad, sad
tale
That would almost freeze your breath,:
Of a faithless swain and his true love,
A broken heart and a death ;
And how that her ghost would now and
again
Return to punish that faithless swain
For his cruel deeds and the evil part
He took in breaking that faithful heart.

As the clock was chiming the midnight
hour
In the old church down the lane,
He was startled to hear a cry
As of one in mortal pain.
And his heart flew up and stopped his
breath,
And his face grew the very picture of
death,
And his limbs grew weaker and quaked
with fear
As he heard that something drawing
near.

And he felt a chill as cold as ice
Ti**le through every vein,
And the clammy sweat from his clammy
brow
Fell down on his face like rain,
And he gazed through the window into
the night,
And there, sure enough, he saw something
white
That closer and closer came
Until it almost touched the window,
pane.

Five minutes are but a short, short time
But they seem as long as a year
To one who lives in the mortal dread,
And whose heart is smit with fear,
’Twas so with him on that awful nighty
As sopped in the bath of a midnight fright,
His deeds that fifty years to do
All passed by in that one review.

There was silence now, but there soon arose
A wail so sad and wild
As might smite the heart with fear and awe
Like the wail of a drowning child,
And his heart throbbed faster, and faster still
As something mounted the window-sill,
With eyes fixed on the place where he
Sat,
Oh horror of horrors---‘t was Cunningham’s oul cat.

02/11/2026

July 6th 1916. DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON EDWARD ARCHDALE. Amongst all sections of the community throughout Fermanagh the announcement of the death of the Right Hon Edward Archdale, P.C., Castle Archdale will be read with unfeigned regret. He had been ailing for a short time and in the doctor’s hands, but no person suspected that the end was near so that the news when it became known on Tuesday created somewhat of a shock among his many friends. Being the head of the Archdale family in Fermanagh he was held in universal respect by people of all religions and political persuasion. In 1908 he married Mrs. Elizabeth Clark, daughter of the late Nicholas Harwood, H.M. Dockyard, Pembroke and widow of Captain Wingfield Clark, Leicestershire Regiment. Prior to 1880 he had been engaged as a civil engineer laying submarine cables in various parts of the world. When the Wyndham Land Act came into operation in 1903 he was the first landlord in Ireland to give his tenants the advantages of that measure and sold to them on very reasonable terms which were afterwards quoted and taken as a standard for all the rest of the country. In religious matters the late Mr. Archdale was an earnest and enthusiastic member of the Church of Ireland and some years ago build and presented to the Parish of Castle Archdale at his own expense one of the most beautiful little churches in Ireland. F.T.

July 6th 1916. MILITARY NOTES. The Winnipeg Telegram announces that Brigadier General L. J. Lipsett of Winnipeg who belongs to an old Ballyshannon family has been promoted to be commander of the Third Canadian Division to succeed Major General Mercer who was killed a few weeks ago. General Lipsett at the present is in command of a brigade at the front. Formerly a captain in the British Regular Army, General Lipsett was lent to the Canadian Militia Department for the purpose of assisting in military organization. After war broke out he was appointed to command the Nineteenth Regiment afterwards the 8th Battalion which unit under his leadership won undying fame in the great fight at Ypres.

Mr. Matthew McManus, Gubrawooly, Swanlinbar has had the misfortune to lose three sons in the war. Private James McManus, Royal Munster Fusiliers; Private Thomas McManus, Royal Munster Fusiliers and Private Patrick McManus, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers have all died of wounds. A fourth son is serving in the Irish Guards and a fifth has just volunteered for service.

Captain Sir Basil S Brooke, Bart 10th Royal Hussars of Colebrooke, County Fermanagh has had the honour of being received at Buckingham Palace and decorated with the Military Cross awarded to him on the occasion of the King’s birthday, in recognition of his gallantry and devotion to duty in the field. F.T.

July 6th 1916. SOME STRIKING GAINS. TACTICAL POINT CAPTURED. EIGHT VILLAGES ARE TAKEN. On a front of 25 miles the Allies on the west front commenced the expected great offensive on the extreme right of the British line and left of the French and on both sides of the Somme early on Saturday morning. The artillery preparation by the British for the subsequent infantry assault is described as altogether unparalleled. 7 miles of trenches have been captured by the British on a front of about 20 miles north of the Somme. I.R.

July 6th 1916. A PRUSSIAN BATTALION SURRENDERS. On Monday an entire battalion of the 186th Regiment of the Prussian Infantry surrendered to the British near Fricourt. The Battalion had been rushed up to replace very heavy casualties. On detraining it was at once moved into the trenches. After a short show of resistance 20 officers and 600 men of the Prussian Battalion left the trenches and came towards the British taking signs of surrender. The battalion was chiefly drawn from the Upper Rhine. I.R.

July 6th 1916. TRIBUTE TO ULSTER DIVISION. MAGNIFICENT IN ATTACK. General Sir George Richardson, K.C.B. commanding the UVF has received a letter dated 30th of June from Major General Nugent commanding the Ulster Division in which the following passage occurs. ‘Before you get this we shall have put the banner of the Ulster Division to the supreme test. I have no fear of the result. I am certain no general in the army out here has a finer Division, fitter and cleaner. I am certain they will be magnificent in attack, and we could hardly have had a better date calculated to inspire our men of the north. It makes me very sad to think what the price may be, but I am certain the officers and men reckon nothing of that. (General Nugent’s reference is to the 1st of July.) (Ed. The original date of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.) I.R.

July 6th 1916. 250 German dead. A British soldier wounded in the course of one of our raids into the enemy’s territory says that when he and his comrades invaded the German trenches they counted 250 dead. The reconnoitring party pushed ahead to the second line without meeting any resistance. There they found a few of the enemy who had survived the bombardment and gas attacks. They surrendered without hesitation. The party took back to the British lines 60 prisoners, two machine guns, and one bomb thrower. The methodical destruction of the enemies defence works is proceeding according to schedule, the bombardment intended to level the German trenches being particularly active on that section of the front line between Ypres and Albert, (where our 11th Battalion have been.) In one of their more daring raids on the 1st the men repulsed a counterattack in the open and got as far as the last line of enemy trenches. The corpses their all gave evidence of the efficacy of the gas sent forward from the British lines. Saturday was an excellent day for Sir Douglas Haig’s forces and the Duke of Wurttemberg, and the Crown Prince of Bavarian are not likely to forget the losses inflicted on them by our heavy cannon, field guns and trench mortars. The French military experts assert that the ‘Tommies’ are marvellous. They feel confident knowing that there is no scarcity of mu****on. I.R.

01/11/2026

June 22nd 1916. SPHAGNUM MOSS DRESSINGS. The manufacture of Sphagnum Moss Dressings in Ulster for the use of our wounded soldiers has grown since the outbreak of the war until it is now an enterprise of the greatest importance, the dressings having been found to be of the highest value in the treatment of wounds. The matter of the regulation of the supply of moss and the coordination of the various working parties has been before the Director General of Voluntary Organisation and he has authorised the setting of a Provincial Association for this purpose. Meanwhile the Fermanagh War Guild under the presidency of Mrs. Archdale of Riversdale has been gathering quantities of it in this country; and we learn from letters of Mr. G. A. Millihan of the Sphagnum Moss Depot that their fortnightly supplies to the War Hospitals Supply Committee is particularly good and well picked. There is a good moss and inferior moss and the Fermanagh Guild have been particular to send only the best quality well picked. I.R.

June 22nd 1916. WHAT WILL THE CLERGY DO? A great deal will depend in the National Conference in Belfast on tomorrow on the action of the clergy. Of these about 150 will be present and the complaint is already made that more than one priest will not be admitted from one parish, when all the Nationalist District Councillors are being admitted. If the clergy and the officials of the Hibernians and the Foresters were of one mind they could carry the meeting. The Ulster Roman Catholic Bishops have according to Dr. McHugh of Derry decided against the proposals; and if this be so, we may expect that all the clergy will be hostile. The fear with them is that education may pass out of the hands of the clergy into lay hands in the six counties under the new condition of things which is a purely imaginary grievance as there will not be a separate Ulster Government; and it is much more likely to come into operation at an early date under an Irish Parliament in Dublin, for no secret has been made of the intention of Irish laymen to take the control of education out of the hands of clerical managers and place it on a new basis. I.R.

Fermanagh Herald June 24th 1916. PENAL SERVITUDE FOR NATIONALIST ULSTER. This weekend will witness the spirit of Irish Freedom triumphant, and the gallant province of Ulster declared to be an integral part of Ireland, or it will witness the prostate and bleeding form of our motherland trampled under by “the horse, foot and artillery” of British opportunist politicians and the historic province which we have had the honour to serve smashed in pieces and torn from her side. Ulster Nationalists and Catholics will proclaim to the earth that they are worthy of freedom, or they will be consigned to an Egypt bo***ge that nobody alive is in a position to say will passed away in this generation or the next. It is said that it is better to get the thin end of the wage in and have a home rule in operation for 26 counties with the prospect of getting Ulster “in” some time, but, as we said before, this is only gambling on the future. As journalists who have consistently supported the Irish Parliamentary Party and done much to save it from its enemies, many of whom, since the hosting of the Exclusionist banner, have become suddenly friendly towards it, we declare with a full sense of the responsibility involved that we will prefer to see our country struggling on for many weary years than to ….. again, and the principal of 1910 holds as good today as then.

The Exclusionists argue that half a loaf is better than no bread, but in famine times there were people who preferred to starve than sell “their souls for penny rowls, for soup and hairy bacon”; and what we are asked to do now is nothing less than sell the soul of our country. We state positively, and with the full knowledge of the facts, that had the Irish Parliamentary Party demanded the full loaf they would have got it. Instead of meeting Mr. Lloyd George as the fearless representative of a fearless nation they allowed themselves to be used by him as clay in the hands of the potter, and though they asserted when his scheme for “settling” Ireland was first disclosed that they had not committed themselves to it, they have since left scarcely any means untried to force the country to swallow it.

We are not hostile critics of their Party; time and again we have not only extol their virtues but overlooked their faults, but the time has come when we must put country before party and declare that the partition of Ireland is a greater crime than any ever attempted by Cromwell or Pitt. For all Ireland it means weakness and dishonour, and for Nationalist Ulster it means interminable penal servitude. Should the worst happen we will have the consolation of knowing in the black night that lies before us that we fought the good fight, that we kept the faith, and with the banner of Irish Nationality flying above us that we struck out to the last against the attempt to impose on us the “Northern Land” the most hateful form of slavery imaginable. If there is any honest Nationalists in Ulster who is entitled to attend the Conference in Belfast on Friday next and who is in any doubt as to the side he should take, for or against the acceptance of Lloyd George’s proposals, we would suggest to him that he should carefully read the Bishop of Derry’s letter which we publish in this issue and then make up his mind as to the side on which he would give his voice and vote. We have no doubt his conscience would tell them that they should without hesitation reject the proposals as an insult to Ireland.

Fermanagh Herald June 24th 1916. NORTHERN BISHOPS AND EXCLUSION. Since the conference of the Ulster Bishops with Mr. John Redmond in Dublin on Friday last numerous enquiries have been made as to the attitude the Bishops concerned adopted with regard to the Lloyd George proposals. We are glad, therefore, to be in a position to publish the following letter which his lordship most Rev. Dr. McHugh, Bishop of Derry, has addressed to Alderman James McCarron who presided at the recent conference of Derry Nationalists in St., Columb’s Hall: -
Spa Hotel, Lucan, June 19th, 1916.
Dear Alderman McCarron, - In reply to your enquiry about the opinions of the Bishops in regard to the exclusion of the six counties, I am happy to say that the Bishops whose jurisdiction extends over the area in question are absolutely unanimous in their opposition to the Lloyd George proposals, and that the they adopt without reservation the view of his Eminence Cardinal Logue that it would be infinitely better to remain as we are for 50 years to come under English rule than to accept these proposals. As Irishmen, the Bishops cannot but regard with feelings of deep regret the admission of the principle of a divided Ireland, and the desertion of that high ideal which through weal and woe has served as a bond of union between north and south, between the sons of Ireland at home and abroad.

Fermanagh Herald July 1st 1916. TYRONE, FERMANAGH, AND DERRY CITY. 265 of the delegates who attended the Conference in Belfast on Friday last registered their votes against the ill-conceived and preposterous proposal to exclude six Ulster counties from the operation of the Home Rule Act, and thus proved to the world that the spirit of Irish Nationality is indestructible. By a majority of 210 the delegates consented to the proposal to cut up Ireland into fragments, but the vast majority of the men of Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry City stood out resolutely against the Lloyd-Georgian scheme and showed that no influence, no matter how strong, or no argument no matter how eloquent, could lessen the intensity of their devotion to the National ideal – the right of the Irish people to full self-government. In another column we published an analysis of the voting, from which it will be seen that 52 Tyrone delegates voted for exclusion and 102 against, that 28 Fermanagh delegates voted for and 51 against, and that only seven of the delegates of Derry City voted for the proposal, when 30 declared against it. By a majority of 96 the delegates of the land of the O’Neill’s and the Maguires and of the brave and historic City of Derry have emphatically condemned the attempt which is being made to deprive them of their National rights.

Fermanagh Herald July 1st 1916. OUR IRISH DAY. SUCCESS OF FERMANAGH FEIS. KEEN COMPETITIONS. HUGE ATTENDANCE. The Committee have every reason to feel proud for the eighth annual Fermanagh Feis was concomitant with many good things all of which were essential for the success of the function. There was, firstly and most importantly magnificent entries, which were an increase on last year. The attendance was enormous, the weather ideal, while subscriptions, to quote the words of the secretary, Mr. Frank O’Duffy, were larger and more representative than on former occasions. This last item should be a good augury for the future welfare of the Feis. Each year the Feis is growing in popularity and this year it was bigger and brighter and more Irish than ever.

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