Striving for a world transformed by justice and peace - a TL from 1827

[pipisme]

The low level war in the north of Ireland and the Ulster Volunteers (UV) terrorist campaign continued throughout the rest of 1882. The UV targetted the British army, the police and civilians in bombings and shootings. There was some hope that the new leaderof the UV, Malcolm Andrew, would end their campaign of violence.

 

[pipisme]

Sian Owen, Aneurin Griffith's lover, gave birth to a baby son on Tuesday 21 November 1882 in their cottage in Oystermouth. Nye's wife, Maire, assisted at the birth. Nye waited until earlier that day before going home to Ferryside in the train to fetch his wife. When they got to the cottage, Sian's labour had started. Nye had not wanted to tell Maire that he was still cheating on her with Sian, and that Sian was about to give birth. But for the sake of Sian and their baby he had no choice but to tell her.

Sian and Nye named their new born son. David. He was a brother for Rhys, their other child..

 

[pipisme]

That night at home in Ferryside, Nye and Maire were sitting and talking in their living room after their children had gone to bed.

"You must choose between me and Sian." Maire told Nye.

"I love you, darling, and I am very sorry for cheating on you and lying to you. But I also
love Sian."

"I forgive you, Nye. But if you really love me, you must choose me, your wife."

"Because I love you, I will choose you rather than Sian." Nye said.

"You must never see Sian again. Because you are the father of Rhys and David, you must send money for them through the post to Sian."

"I promise I will never see her again, and I will send her money for Rhys and David."

"Because you have lied to me and betrayed me, I don't trust you to keep your word and stay away from Sian. I want us and our children to move to Fishguard. (1) I have read that it is a lovely seaside town surrounded by beautiful countryside, where we can go for walks hand in hand. There is a railway service between Fishguard and Swansea. If you don't get a job in Fishguard, you earn enough money from your poems, and we've got a fair amount of savings." Maire said.

"I don't want to move to Fishguard, but for the sake of you and our children I will. Let's go on the train to Fishguard on Saturday and look for houses to rent there." Nye suggested.

"That's a good idea, my darling."

That night they made love.

(1) Here is the Wikipedia entry for Fishguard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishguard.

 

[pipisme]

Maire had given birth to a baby girl on 8 October 1882. She and Aneurin named her Deirdre. She was their eighth child and fifth daughter.

 

[pipisme]

On the following Saturday 25 Novenber 1882, Maire and Aneurin travelled on a train from Ferryside to Fishguard. They took baby Deirdre with them. In Fishguard they bought a copy of the Pembrokeshire Herald newspaper to look for suitable houses advertised in it. They went to a restaurant where they had lunch and searched through the houses for rent advertisements in their newspaper. Also Maire discreetly breast fed Deirdre. After some searching, Nye finds a four bedroom terrace house for ten shillings a week advertised. . It was on a street called Pantycelin, overlooking the harbour.

The name and address of the landlord is in the advert, so they go round to see him. He takes them to the house and shows them round it. It is on two storeys with a kitchen and scullery, living room, four bedrooms, an outside toilet in tbe smallish back garden. After discussing it for a few minutes, Nye and Maire decided to take the house and told the landlord. Maire asked him when they could move in. He told her anytime. Nye gave him ten shilling for the first weeks rent.

Maire and Nye walked back to the railway station, with Deidre, and caught a train back to Ferryside.

 

[pipisme]

The house in Fishguard in which Aneurin and Maire Griffiths were going to live was furnished much like a typical Victorian house, similar to their house in Ferryside. See post #1,546 page #1. They more or less liked the furnishings in their new house, though with little enthusiasm. However moving into a furnished house had the advantage that they did not need to move their furniture from Ferryside to Fishguard.

Maire asked her youngest sister, Mairead O'Brien, if she would prefer to live with her and Nye, and their children, in Fishguard, or with her sisters in Swansea. She said she wanted to live with her in Fishguard, and was very much looking forward to living there. Mairead was a country lover and would much rather live in Fishguard than Swansea.

 

[pipisme]

There was extensive coverage in British and Irish newspapers of the attacks by the Ulster Volunteers (UV) on polling stations in the north of Ireland, on polling day, 6 October 1883, in which 57 people were killed. It soon became known as the election day massacre.

Two victims of the massacre were Frank Lawson and his wife Aoife (pronounced ee-fa). [1] They were killed in the UV attack on a polling station on the Falls Road in Belfast. It was the first election in which they had voted. Frank was 22 years old and a member of the Church of Ireland. Aoife was a Roman Catholic. They had been married for only four weeks. Photographs of them on their wedding day were published in Irish newspapers, except for those which supported the UK Conservative Party.

Their parents, Thomas and Margaret Lawson, and Sean and Bridget Heaney, wrote to all the Irish newspapers about their idea of a peace crusade, (2) The newspapers published it in their issues dated 13 and 14 October 1883, with varying degrees of support and hostility. As expected the Commonwealth and Irish National papers were
most in favour, while the UK Conservative Party supporting press was hostile and contempuous.

During the warin the north of Ireland, newspapers changed from publishing advertisements on their front pages to publishing news and photographs. This was to show the importance of the news. Although The Times continued to publish advertisements on its front page. At the beginning of January 1881, the Commonwealth Party newspaper, the Beacon , changed from a weekly to a daily, and changed its name to the Daily Beacon .

(1 ) They are fictional characters.

(2) Fictional characters.

 

[pipisme]

Sean and Bridget Heaney had been married for 31 years since 1852. He was 54 years old and she was 52. They had seven children - four sons and three daughters - living on 5 October 1883. Aoife was their youngest daughter, and their second youngest chlld.

Sean and Bridget lived on their small farm in County Fermanagh from 1852. In 1878 they fell on hard times and sold their farm. They moved to Belfast, where Sean got a job at the Harland and Wolff shipyard, and Bridget a cleaning job.

Their eldest daughter, Sinead Heaney, was 25 years old, born in 1858. She wrote poetry and has had a book of poems published. Her poems were about life on her parents' farm and the Fermanagh countryside.

 

[pipisme]

The divisional commanders of the Ulster Volunteers (UV) met at a secret location in Belfast on Saturday 26 April 1884. They decided that they would target the Commonwealth Party, its allies and associates in Britain and Ireland, because it was the governing party of the UK.

On 2 May, UV threw bombs into the head office of the Commonwealth Women's Fellowship in central London. 17 women were killed and 29 injured. During the night of Sunday 4 May, UV threw bombs into the print works of the Daily Beacon in London. 13 men were killed and 25 injured. Printing of London editions of the newspaper was stopped, but not the regional, Scottish, Irish and Welsh editions.

On 5 May, UV bombers and gunmen forced their way into the head office of the Good To Wear (GTW) co-operative in central Manchester. The GTW had friendly links with the Commonwealth Party. They shouted 'kill the Commie bitches' and massacred the largely female workforce. They killed 21 women and five men. 44 women and 17 men were injured.

 

[pipisme]

The Peace Walk in Ireland in July 1884 culminated with a rally in a park in Armagh in the afternoon of Saturday 26 July. The Walk and the rally were organised by the executive committee of the Peace Crusade. The rally was addressed by Bridget Heaney and Thomas Lawson of the executive committee, and Sinead Heaney, the editor of Hope , the journal of the Crusade. There were an estimated fifty thousand people at the rally.

Tens of thousands of men and women walked to Armagh from towns and cities throughout Ireland. Many wore sashes in the Crusade's colours of green, orange and white. Where necessary the walkers stayed overnight in the homes of supporters, or camped out. Patrick and Sarah O'Neill walked from Belfast to Armagh. They wore green, orange and white sashes, Sarah's young siblings, stayed with neigbours. They returned home by train from Armagh.

The Walk and the rally were peaceful. Though the Ulster Volunteers denounced them as not being impartial, but propaganda for the Commonwealth and Irish National parties, they did not attack them.

 

[pipisme]

In late October and early November 1884, borough councils and county councils with populations of one hundred thousand or more, elected members of the House of Lords. Adjacent counties with populations of less than one hundred thousand combined to bring their total population up to that number. The number of elected peers were now as follows (after 1878 election):
Conservative : 118 (88)
Commonwealth: 94 (107)
Irish Nationalist: 25 (21)
Liberal: 25 (13)
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Total: 262 (229)
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The party allegiances of the hereditary peers were as follows:
Conservative: 109 (122)
Liberal; 85 (77)
Irish Conservative: 5 (n/a)
Commonwealth: 1 (1)
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Total: 200 (200
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The political composition of the House of Lords was as follows:
Conservative : 227 (210)
Liberal: 110 (90)
Commonwealth : 95 (108)
Irish Nationalist: 25 (21)
Independents : 25 (25)
Irish Conservative: 5 (5)
Law lords: 4 (4)
Archbishops and bishops: 26 (26)
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Total: 517 (484)
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Under the provisions of the Parliament Act 1860, the prime minister appointed the life peers. Their number was limited to twenty-five and they must not be a member of a political party.

 

[pipisme]

There were seven National Parks in Britain and two in Ireland. These were as follows, in chronological order of the dates on which they were designated:
Lake District (1875), Exmoor and Snowdonia (both 1877), Dartmoor (1878), Peak District and Wicklow Mountains (both 1880), Yorkshire Dales (1881), Gower Peninsula (1882), Mourne Mountains (1883). The National Parks in Ireland were the responsibility of the Irish government.

 

[pipisme]

In the National Parks there were, and are, restuarants which serve good quality food and drink at low prices, visitor centres with information about the fauna and flora of the parks, footpaths, seats and shelters where people can sit, and if they want admire the view.

The Ulster Volunteers objected to the Mourne Mountains having being designated as a National Park by the Irish government, because it is in the north of Ireland. They killed several park officials who were employed by the Irish Department of Agriculture. But they did not attack visitors.

 

[pipisme]

When Catrin Davies, the eldest daughter of Rhiannon and John Davies, left school in July 1884, she got a job working full time in the Gower Peninsula National Park visitor information centre in Oxwich. (1) She was thirteen years old, having been born in March 1871. She loved walking in the Gower and enjoyed reading about it. A railway line from Swansea to Oxwich was opened in 1883, and Catrin travelled to and from work by train. The information centre sold books of poems by her uncle, Aneurin Griffiths. Rhiannon was the eldest daughter of Angharad Griffiths.

(1) For Oxwich see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxwich.

 

[pipisme]

A presidential election was held in the United States on Tuesday 4 November 1884. President John Sherman and Vice President James Blaine were the Liberty Party candidates. The Constitution Party candidates were Grover Cleveland, the Governor of New York, for President, and John Griffin Carlisle, member of the House of Representatives from the 6th district of Kentucky, and House Minority Leader, for Vice President.

The number of electoral votes won by each ticket was as follows (1880 election):
Sherman/Blaine: 205 (249)
Cleveland/Carlisle: 198 (122)
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Total: 403 (371)
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[pipisme]

in the 1884 US presidential elections, Sherman/Blaine won the following states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin. Total = 21.

These states were won by Cleveland/Carlisle: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, East Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia. Total = 18.

The percentage votes for each ticket were as follows:
Sherman/Blaine (Liberty Party): 48.9
Cleveland/Carlisle (Constitution Party) 48.6
Other candidates: 2.5
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Total: 100.0
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[pipisme]

In the congressional elections the Constitution Party gained control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the House the number of Representatives for each party elected were as follows [1882 election]:
Constitution Party: 168 [146]
Liberty Party: 157 [179]
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Total: 325
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In the Senate the number of Senators for each party were as follows:
Constitution Party: 40 [39]
Liberty Party: 38 [39]
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Total: 78
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[pipisme]

John Sherman appointed Belva Ann Lockwood as Attorney-General. (1) She was the first woman appointed to that post and the first woman in the US cabinet.

Corinne Roosevelt was elected to the New York Assembly for the Liberty Party in 1882 and re-elected in 1884. (2) New York State enfranchised women, and allowed them to be elected to public office in the state in 1881.

(1) Here is her entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belva_Ann_Lockwood.

(2) She is a fictional character. The ATL sister of Theodore Roosevelt.

 

[pipisme]

The colonial policy of Commonwealth Party governments from 1870, was that British colonies would advance at a steady pace, determined by their own particular circumstances, to independence within the British Empire. Only in 'exceptional circumstances' would new colonies be added to the Empire.

In 1871 a treaty of friendship was signed between the United Kingdom and the kingdom of Punjab, guaranteeing its independence. The Indian Councils Act 1885 increased the powers of the provincial councils, made them wholly elected, and gave membership to Indians. In February 1886, a treaty was signed between the UK and the Burmese Empire, which guaranteed the independence of Burma. In fact it was only Upper Burma. (1) The rest of Burma had been annexed by Britain at various times before 1870.

The Suez Canal was opened to shipping in 1869, as in OTL. However, unlike in OTL the British government did not purchase shares in the canal.

The Conservative Party strongly opposed the imperial policies of Commonwealth governments. They wanted the British Empire to expand. The Liberal Party was divided between a minority of ' Little Englanders' and a majority of imperialists. Their leader, Sir Charles Dilke, was an imperialist.

(1) It was northern and eastern Burma, See this map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Myanmar#/media/File:Burma_indo_china_1886.jpg. It was those areas not coloured pink which were part of the British Empire.

 

[pipisme]

Here is a list of the children of Aneurin and Maire Griffiths as at 22 November 1882 in descending order of age from eldest to youngest, with their dates of birth.

David: 27 February 1872
Eithne: 11 June 1873
Roisin: 21 August 1874
Orla: 24 August 1876
Thomas: 10 April 1878
Elisha: 12 October 1879. She was a girl.
Ifor: 6 May 1881
Deirdre: 8 October 1882.

The next day, 22 November, Maire and Nye told their four eldest children - David. Eithne, Roisin and Orla - that they would be going to live in Fishguard. They also told Mairead O'Brien, Maire's 16 year old youngest sibling who was living at home, and working as a maid in a Ferryside hotel.

In the following days Maire and Nye told their siblings, in-laws, and relatives. Nye told his mother, Angharad, and her partner, Helen Price.