Old IRA Dublin Brigade

[Gary Deering]

Hi Dermo, yes he would have got a pension, he may not have got it till 1932/33 when Fianna Fail came into power for the first time, as the cosgrave goverment had blocked some pensions for men that took the anti treaty side.
Pensions Dept,
Department of Defence,
Áras an tSáile,
Renmore,
Galway

Or you could google a phone number & give then a ring I am sure they will help you out.

Gary

[myluck!]

I have received details from pension records for two anti-treaty people
Both were denied pensions but their records were still available
The staff in Galway were very helpful they were able to tell quite quickly if there were records but it took just over a year to receive the photocopied files

[dermo]

Gary and Myluck

Thanks for the information.  I will follow it up.

Regards

Dermo

[Gary Deering]

Hi My Luck, if you don't mind me asking, what detail was in the pension records.I have a Copy of my great uncles officer grant form, in which he details battalions etc also a very brief description of his actions in the war of independence.I have heard the pension stuff goes into a bit more detail ie people they where with when they did there actions ?

Gary

[myluck!]

What I received was a copy of each form filled out and any correspondence received or sent
Unfortunately my people were not very descriptive and therefore filled in the forms with statements such as "undertook duties as directed" etc. However they did need to give names of locations and people and they gave details of where they were and briefly what they did.
I have spoken to others more fortunate where the documents gave very detailed descriptions of all their activities.
The correspondence was poignant as one letter was signed "please believe in me" They were a husband and wife and neither received a pension. One died in 1947 disillusioned with the world by all accounts; his wife died in 1960 in relatively poor circumstances feeling all she did for the country was in vain

[Gary Deering]

My Luck thats seems to have been the attitude all round, My late great uncle used to say to his wife "No Country is worth dying for" & he told my granmother that he would never his sons get involved in anything like he did, his exact words where " I would break there bloody legs if they did what I did" .One thing I noticed was that alot of the men who where officers in the war of independence & civil war ended up in corporation houses around the Crumlin / Driminagh area, so they would not have been that well off. I am hoping we get something new from the pension dept,The forms I have here are army ones & he puts in as much as he can I noticed.I also have all his CO`s from each battalion/ section he was in as refs which is handy.

[Ms. Smokestoomuch]

It dawned on me reading the pension application form, that each section for each period was fill in with no space left for any other activities. My grandfather was by no means full time as a volunteer and yet he was running out of room on that form.
There's a chance that volunteers just put down the most important activities they were involved with. And at that, because of the lack of space on the form they ended up summarising way to much.
My Granda has "involved in Operation Nov. 21st." That does my head in.
One of the most violent days in our history, and I haven't a clue what he was up to.

He had to appeal the grade they gave him on the pension. He was successful but I'd say it was something that disillusioned him somewhat.

[myluck!]

I can relate:
I have "followed orders of..." "trained troops" etc.
What orders, WHO??

However I did find out that the wife was in Manchester when Dev escaped and according to her brief descriptions she could have been involved. She also stated she was in Belfast. I ahd only known her to have been in Kilkenny and Dublin. She also referred to a letter she was waiting for from New York that would help her case but it was not on the file. I don't know if it was ever received or if it was missed filed as there were items in her file that were not hers. As it happened I knew who the other lady was and sorted it out with the Pensions Office.

[Gary Deering]

There was an old IRA tradition of never admit to a killing & never say who did  a killing. John Pinkman mentions it in his book.In the form I have here he mentions the 3rd engineers & raids for arms? again who where the 3rd Engineers & what raids did they do? I put a post up here & no one seems to know anything about them . Also he calls the Squad the GHQ Guard I know the Dublin Guard was there later name. Was there not supposed to be a letter that went into the pension Dept that states all actions ? then they sent you the form ?