Talk:Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

Atheism

What do you mean "there's some evidence" he was an athiest. Every book, article and paper written on him mentions that fact that he ws an athiest. This namby-pamby NPOV, weakly stated bollocks completely changes the charcteristic of the nature of his (or lack of) religious faith. The staement is almost as stupid as the earlier one identifying him as a Roman Catholic.

His 1911 census entry says under religion: "information refused", which suggests he wasn't interested. He had to be Catholic to study at UCD; around 1900, and was born to Catholic parents, but it wasn't a notable part of his not very notable life.78.16.86.228 (talk) 15:34, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

11th East Surrey Regiment?

The article refers to the "11th East Surrey Regiment". This is confusing. Does it mean 11th Battalion, the East Surrey Regiment? DuncanHill (talk) 14:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Bowen-Colthurst

There is some redundancy and somewhat POV language about him I cleared up. Also, the article referenced the North King St. Murders as part of his indictment, but wasn't that a separate incident entirely, one which he was not involved? Also, should he have his own article? We have enough reliable sources on him for a stub. Not sure if there's enough that isn;t already included here, however. -R. fiend (talk) 19:12, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Arrest and murder: when was he murdered?

I have read and re-read a few times the "Arrest and murder" section, and I just can't find at what point he was actually murdered. The section implies, somewhat loosely, that Bowen-Colthurst's raiding party was indeed attacked (as he perhaps hoped), and that Bowen-Colthurst himself then shot Sheehy-Skeffington. (When? Where?) The last paragraph of the section doesn't specifically say this; it indicates that Bowen-Colthurst shot several other people in an unrelated situation. Unfortunately, the only reference in this section is not available. Could someone with knowledge (and references!) clarify? HorsePunchKid (talk) 2009-03-11 03:17:06Z

This is from the Portobello, Dublin article, which contains references (the party was NOT attacked):

Also during the Easter Rising, members of the British 11th East Surrey Regiment at Portobello Bridge arrested the pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington on 25 April for no obvious reason, while returning to his home in Rathmines. He was taken to Portobello Barracks, where he was held as an enemy sympathizer. Later that evening, he was taken out as a hostage with a raiding party led by Captain J.C. Bowen-Colthurst to the home and shop of Alderman James Kelly, at the corner of Camden Street and Harcourt Road (from which the name "Kelly's Corner" derives). Mistaking the Alderman (a conservative) for a rebel, the soldiers destroyed the shop with grenades. On the way back to Rathmines, Skeffington was the witness to two murders committed by Bowen-Colthurst and his party on two unarmed civilians (one of them a 17-year-old boy from Mountpleasant Avenue returning from Rathmines church).

The following morning Bowen-Colthurst ordered his sergeant to organise a firing party to shoot dead Sheehy-Skeffington and two pro-British journalists—Thomas Dixon (a disabled Scotsman) and Patrick McIntyre—who were unlucky enough to have been in Kelly's shop when it was raided. The three were shot in the back as they walked towards a wall in the barracks yard. Hohenloh 03:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Bowen-Colthurst was clearly not at all mad, having arrested 2 rebel supporters out of 5. Killing all 5 was of course overly psychotic. FSS was well known as a radical and unfortunately was suspected of doing much more than he had.86.46.206.117 (talk) 18:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Inaccuracies and citation errors

Sadly there are still (30 March 2016) a number of inaccuracies and citation errors about Captain John Bowen-Colthurst in this article, but I am not technically competent enough to fix them. I would recommend more technically adept, prospective contributors read either Bryan Bacon's ebook A Terrible Duty or the forthcoming book by the historian, James Taylor, Guilty But Insane, before amending the article. CanK9 (talk) 00:52, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Re Captain John Bowen-Colthurst

My spouse suggests that even if I cannot add content to the article, I should at least spell out its possible errors, so that other more technically adept contributors could amend the article. So here goes:

The Simon Royal Commission limited itself to investigating the deaths of Jim Coade, Thomas Dickson, Patrick MacIntyre, and Francis Sheehy Skeffington.

Colthurst was released from Broadmoor (under medical supervision) on 21 January 1918. He emigrated to Terrace, British Columbia in April 1919. Besides Terrace, he lived in Sooke (near Victoria) from 1929-1942, and in Naramata (near Penticton) from 1942 till his death in 1965.

There appears to be no mention of his obituary in either of the sources cited in the Wiki article. (It would be really helpful if Wiki articles when citing books,could include page numbers in their references.) CanK9 (talk) 03:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

In the 'Aftermath' section, it is stated that Bowen-Colthurst's obituary omitted mention of the Easter Rising. The citations given for this information are Dara Redmond's Irish Times 26 August 2006 article and Max Caulfield's book "The Easter Rebellion". Neither citation is correct.

Obituaries appeared in The Vancouver Sun, 15 December 1965 ("Warrior Dies") and in The Penticton Herald, 14 December 1965 ("Colorful Figure Dies, Was Original Socred"). The fact that The Vancouver Sun did not mention the Rising was noted in Bryan Bacon's book "A Terrible Duty: the Madness of Captain Bowen-Colthurst", which reproduced (with permission) the full Vancouver Sun obituary on its first page. CanK9 (talk) 21:07, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I have checked, and I can find no reference to Bowen-Colthurst's obituary either in the Irish Times article or in The Easter Rebellion. However, if the only obituaries were in local Canadian papers, then it's not of great significance anyway. I'm taking the sentence out. Scolaire (talk) 11:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I have reinstated the sentence, and cited it using the citations provided by CanK9. May I add as well that I had seen the Vancouver Sun obituary in an online photo of it, but in the chaos of my very thorough re-edit of this page, I had lost track of the accurate citation for that point. Many thanks to you CanK9 for retrieving the accurate citation.

With regard to user Scolaire's comment that the omission in Bowen-Colthurst's obituary is "not of great significance", I can only say: if a Nazi who died in Argentina after murdering innocent people, and whose murders had even been the subject of a public tribunal, were to receive no mention of these crimes in his obituaries by "local Argentinian papers", this omission would clearly be a fact worthy of note, because it would reveal that the man had not only not served time for his crimes, but had in fact been whitewashed of them as far as his community knew.Wwallacee (talk) 18:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

I have now added in the details about Bowen-Colthurst's later years, provided by user CanK9, into a footnote. And cited them as referenced by CanK9.Wwallacee (talk) 05:46, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Easter Rising section

The section on Sheehy-Skeffington's death and its aftermath now takes up two thirds of the article, making the article totally lopsided. I don't agree with the assertion recently added to the lead that he is principally remembered for his killing. He is notable as a suffragist, as a pacifist and as a nationalist. Possibly that section should be split off into a separate article, Death of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington. --Scolaire (talk) 14:18, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Agree on all points except creating a separate article on his death. Hohenloh ⁺ 20:30, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

What do you suggest, then? Just cut out the added content? Scolaire (talk) 21:16, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

"Just cut out the added content" - thanks a lot, a-holes, I actually put several days work into that added content that you speak so lightly of cutting. And the added content is most certainly relevant, given that the centennial of the Easter Rising has just occurred and is ongoing this year. May I ask what planet you are living on? If you're so concerned about balance with his suffragist work then why don't you ADD content to that section, instead of achieving balance by CUTTING good content??

Moreover - to pursue the argument for relevance - many accounts of S-S's death in the Easter Rising literature are very hagiographical and short on facts, and this article now assembles the relevant facts quite nicely.Wwallacee (talk) 17:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Death of Richard O'Carroll

Can anyone find further verification on the shooting of Richard O'Carroll by Bowen-Colthurst? This is not mentioned in the Royal Commission Report, but I have seen it cited in several sources. I will try to add some more citations. But none of these sources cites its own source.Wwallacee (talk) 18:50, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Neil Richardson in his "According to their lights: stories of Irishmen in the British Army, Easter 1916" gives an account of O'Carroll's death. Mr Richardson's source (unpublished) is Gerald Keatinge's "Some experiences of a cadet during the Irish Rebellion of Easter Week, 1916". Some of the details are a bit hazy (eg Who did the shooting?)but the account rings true. Timothy Healing raised the issue of O'Carroll's murder on the first day (August 23) of the Royal Commission, but Sir John Simon stopped him from reading the second half of Bowen-Colthurst's April 26 report which briefly described O'Carroll's capture and wounding (without naming O'Carroll). This information is from the discussion of the Simon Commission in Bryan Bacon's "A Terrible Duty: the Madness of Captain Bowen-Colthurst". Incidentally, this same source describes Lieutenant Wilson's recounting of Colthurst's prayer for Sheehy-Skeffington (Day 1 of Colthurst's court martial).CanK9 (talk) 04:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks CanK9, I have put all that in now. -Wwallacee (talk) 06:05, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Reliability of Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington's testimony

As I read Hanna's lecture "British Militarism", I am increasingly realising that many details of Francis's last hours in their various versions are probably traceable to this document. However, the document presents significant problems as a reliable source, not least of which the fact that Hanna herself did not witness many of the events she describes (e.g. Bowen-Colthurst's alleged prayers on Francis's behalf, and his saying "You'll be next."). Moreover the document shows Hanna to have been very politically motivated in her retelling of the events. The problems with this source would seem then to contaminate many other accounts of the story, including Barry and the Irish Times article.Wwallacee (talk) 07:50, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

In 1921, Hanna told the story of Francis' death to the American writer, Hayden Talbot. Talbot included the account as Chapter XI of his book, 'Michael Collins' own story'. Chapter XI has many errors, starting with its first paragraph, which gives the wrong date for Francis' murder.

Another example of Talbot's unreliability is the account of Francis' burial. According to Talbot/(Hanna), General Maxwell ignored the May 5th order to arrest Colthurst (he didn't) but prior to the burial on May 8, he had supposedly made a deal with Francis' father, Dr Joseph Skeffington, to hand over Francis' body for re-burial, provided that the funeral be early in the morning and that Dr Skeffington not inform Hanna. In return, Maxwell assured Dr Skeffington that Colthurst would be tried and punished as a murderer.

Moreover, the military enquiry into Colthurst's actions did not take place until May 9 and Colthurst was not charged with murder until after this date.

Given the general unreliability of Talbot's account, the strange agreement between Maxwell and Skeffington (with its implausible chronology) seems doubtful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CanK9 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Difference between Francis and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington's response to the Easter Rising

I have reinstated (with corrections) some text about the difference between Francis and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington's response to the violence of Easter 1916. It is clear that Hanna actively sympathized with the rebels while Francis did not. Francis's first act was to go to the rescue of an English soldier; his next was to try to stop looting by inner-city paupers. He at no point offered to help the insurrectionists. Hanna, in contrast, did help the insurrectionists. Hanna revealed in a later comment that she deemed the looters to be "British sympathizers" (see Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, British Militarism as I have known it, a lecture given during a lecture tour of America). This remark which casts significant light on her own views! The looters were nothing more than inner city paupers who were greedy and apolitical.Wwallacee (talk) 05:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

She remained very political as the grieving widow, and was impractical from the 1918 NYC convention onwards. Her memoir was Agitprop and excludes itself from Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. Had there been less Irish militarism in 1916, Francis would have lived, and as a progressive he would most likely have been an unhappy gadfly in the 1920s Irish Free State. A fascinating couple.78.16.27.75 (talk) 07:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

"You'll be next!"

CanK9, you who know all - is there a good source for the detail that Sheehy-Skeffington protested against the shooting of James Coade, and Bowen-Colthurst then turned to him and said: "You'll be next!" ?? -Wwallacee (talk) 06:16, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I haven't come across any first-hand account of Colthurst making this threat.CanK9 (talk) 19:22, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

CanK, I'm going to "comment out" that sentence then, pending some source we could rely on. The sentence will still be visible in the code for the page should anyone wish to restore it. -Wwallacee (talk) 10:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Debate with Countess Markievicz?

@User Talk:CanK9, can you source anything on whether a debate actually occurred between FSS and Countess M? This would seem to be a highly entertaining possibility to imagine. - Wwallacee (talk) 10:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC) I don't know about whether the debate occurred or not. My apologies for not responding sooner to the question. I only just discovered it.CanK9 (talk) 04:31, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

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