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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

 Michael Feery: Croke Park, Bloody Sunday


Jervis

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36 minutes ago, doyle3 said:

@Jervis do you think you got everything you needed to answer your questions re Michael Feery?

 

Do you have any plans re the data collected re Feery?


Yes indeed I did. It wasn’t what I expected, but very interesting all the same to get an insight into the type of life Feery led. No plans on doing more with this info. 
 

Thanks for your help

 

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I started a thread for him a few minutes ago :)

 

 

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@doyle3

 

If you click on the three little dots on the top right of you post, you get a drop down menu, click "hide" on that and your post disappears

 

Before you do that copy and paste what you need into the new thread

Edited by corisande
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   A thank you to Jervis and all others for this thread.  For 2 reasons- 1) Having read the book "Dear Dirty Dublin" many years ago- about poverty and society in pre-1914 Dublin, then Feery and the details of his life put on GWF have walked straight out of the pages of the book.   2)  You have alerted me to the listings of Irish Petty Sessions on Ancestry- thats the good news. The bad news is that the man we think is my Great-Grandfather has several pages of references to him on this listing and  makes Feery, by comparison, look very well behaved.

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The bad news is that the man we think is my Great-Grandfather has several pages of references to him on this listing and  makes Feery, by comparison, look very well behaved.

 

“Der Apffel fellt nicht weit vom Baum.” - Hieronymus Megiser, 1605.

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25 minutes ago, IPT said:

 

“Der Apffel fellt nicht weit vom Baum.” - Hieronymus Megiser, 1605.

 

     Exactly- I will try to avoid  magistrates in Donegal for as long as I can.  If not,then I have "disturbed family background" lined up for mitigation,thanks to GWF and Ancestry.  There could be a new successor in all this to the Somerville and Ross-the Irish R.M. stories- if "the men in black" get me.:wub:

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   A thank you to Jervis and all others for this thread.  For 2 reasons- 1) Having read the book "Dear Dirty Dublin" many years ago- about poverty and society in pre-1914 Dublin, then Feery and the details of his life put on GWF have walked straight out of the pages of the book.   2)  You have alerted me to the listings of Irish Petty Sessions on Ancestry- thats the good news. The bad news is that the man we think is my Great-Grandfather has several pages of references to him on this listing and  makes Feery, by comparison, look very well behaved.

 

looking through the prison and workhouse records I'm expecting to see my Niland family who lived in the area. I'd not seen these records until another researcher found them on FindMypast. I'd assumed that having done apprenticeships and employed as coopers they would have been safe from the Workhouse and have stayed away from prison. So wrong.

 

https://irishamericancivilwar.com/2019/03/03/the-nilands-uncovering-a-19th-century-working-class-dublin-family-story-in-the-american-pension-files/

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Michael Feery features in this piece, which is not quite accurate. Good to know that my GWF colleagues have been more accurate and informative than the Beeb.

 

Feery's life history is a good example of how complex the War of Independence  actually was. And how a telling of it inevitably has to come to an oversimplification of what actually happened, There was clearly more to Feery than, the BBC have in a few lines

 

Another former soldier, Michael Feery, was among the GAA fans who died. He was still wearing British Army fatigues when he was taken to hospital.

 

We have detailed here how Feery was a very complex character and may well have been more than just an ex-soldier enjoying a day out a Croke Park. But we will never know

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2 minutes ago, corisande said:

We have detailed here how Feery was a very complex character and may well have been more than just an ex-soldier enjoying a day out a Croke Park. But we will never know

 

     And excellent work it was- the combined portrait of Feery and his background came across,to me at least, as showing a Dublin and a Dubliner straight out of Joyce-though 1920 not 1904. The BBC piece-which tried to be pretty neutral  does show that even the blandest of simplifications can alter the picture considerably. But lets see what else turns up for the centenary !!

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The BBC piece-which tried to be pretty neutral  does show that even the blandest of simplifications can alter the picture considerably.

 

Yes, that is exactly right. And indeed a profound thought. It is quite remarkable that bland simplifications can make a large change to history

 

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2 hours ago, corisande said:

 

We have detailed here how Feery was a very complex character and may well have been more than just an ex-soldier enjoying a day out a Croke Park. But we will never know


What makes you think there is more to it? 
 

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3 minutes ago, Jervis said:

What makes you think there is more to it? 

 

"we will never know" - I am not here to speculate :)

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2 minutes ago, Jervis said:

What makes you think there is more to it? 

 

   Probably not-in the sense of involvement in any of that day's activities across Dublin.  But a man so obviously down on his luck should stump up a shilling for a Gaelic football match?  I think the main point is that just because he had an army overcoat on does not mean that the most significant thing about him was that he was "ex-British Army"-  The overcoats were bought back or given out at the end of the war on demobilisation. Apart from signifying involvement with the military, they do have the odd side-effect of keeping people warm-which,on the evidence, seems to be the prime reason for his wearing it.

    A small oddity with Feery is that there appears to have been no adverse comments about his wearing a British military greatcoat-even to a GAA event. This must speak to something about the presence of so many men in Dublin who had seen service with the British military.

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25 minutes ago, corisande said:

 

"we will never know" - I am not here to speculate :)


but you have...

The chances of Feery being involved in the events of the morning or similar is virtually nill. As you you well know, Republicans are not shy about claiming their dead or actions - but in the 100 years since there has been no claims about Feery. Secondly, ignoring his ill health - his background, social class and age was not typical of an IRA man. While he was obviously a petty criminal like many slum dwellers, there is nothing to indicate he was doing anything other than watching a match. 

 

 

Edited by Jervis
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The RTE programme that has been shown on the link above, covers Feery

 

I found the track by "his" actor in the programme and listened to it. I have no idea on the truth nor the quality of the research behind the RTE rendering of the events at Croke Park, but the actor voices the thought that Feery was inside Croke Park because he was selling team scarves, had not managed to sell them before the match and wanted to clear his stock, so bought a ticket and went into the ground

 

Can anyone with more insight that I comment on the veracity of the scarf story , or is that just conjecture to try to explain why he was there

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