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

[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]

The Access to Mountains Act 1884 gave people the right to walk on mountains in Britain. The Planning Act 1885 restricted the ability of developers to build where they wanted in rural and urban areas in Britain. These acts did not apply to Ireland.

 

[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]

Caitlin Kelly, a younger sister of Maire Griffiths, gave birth to a baby son on 10 May 1882, and to a baby daughter on 26 September 1884. Caitrin and her husband, Stephen, named them Ifor and Helen respectively. They now had five children - three sons and two daughters. Their other children were as follows:
Gwyneth - born 22 September 1876
Roderick - born 18 March 1878
Thomas - born 11 September 1880.

They all lived in a three bedroom council house in Swansea. Stephen worked at the White Rock Copperworks in Swansea.

 

[pipisme]

The Irish gpvernment banned the annual Orange Order parades in July 1884 and 1885. Responsibility for the police in Ireland was transferred from the British to the Irish government in 1883. However the ban could not be enforced, and the parades took place anyway. The Ulster Volunteers were prominent in them, and a large amount of money was collected for the UV. The war in Ireland continued throughout 1884 and 1885, with shootings and bombings by the UV.

 

[pipisme]

Siobhan Aherne (nee O'Brien) gave birth to a baby son on Sunday 24 August 1884. She and her husband, Martin, named him Tadgh (pronounced Tige, like Tiger without the r). The name means 'poet'. He was a younger brother for Liam. Maire's friend, Elizabeth Kelly, was the midwife. Maire was also with her sister at the birth, and gave Tadgh water baptism in the Celtic tradition. (1). Tadgh was baptised in St. David's Priory Catholic Church in Swansea, the following Sunday, 31 August.

The Ahernes were still living in a privately rented one bedroom ground floor flat in Swansea, and Martin was working in an iron works in Swansea.

(1) For water baptism see post # 1527 on page 77.

 

[pipisme]

In September 1885, Padraig O'Brien, Maire's younger brother, was appointed a priest at the Jesuit church of St. Francis Xavier in Liverpool. [1] He was thirty years old, having been born in May 1855. He had completed the studies required to become a Jesuit, that is a member of the Society of Jesus.

He and Maire and their siblings were in regular correspondence, and they exchanged birthday cards and Christmas cards. He had also stayed with Maire and Nye when on holiday. Maire had told Padriag about her husband's adultery with Sian Owen. Although he disapproved, he advised her to show compassionate and not condemnation to Nye and Sian.

[1] For the church see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Francis_Xavier_Church,_Liverpool.

 

[pipisme]

The UK government was responsible for postal and telegraph services in Ireland, and would be responsible for the proposed national telephone service in that country. I have edited posts which stated that postal, telegraph, and telephone services were the responsibilty of the Irish government.

The British and Irish Telephones Bill, which provided for the establishment of British and Irish telephones, passed through the House of Commons, but was rejected by the House of Lords in March 1885. Conservative and Liberal Peers objected to the telephone service being in public ownership. Under the terms of the Parliament Act 1860, if a bill is passed by the House of Commons in three sessions of the same parliament, the House of Lords cannot reject it. However the Lords has the right to veto bills which would change the constitution of the United Kingdom. Also they cannot delay money bills. But there was only the 1885-86 session before the next general election which must be held in April 1886,

After the House of Lords had rejected the British and Irish Telephones Bill, the Prime Minister, Robert Applegarth, made a statement in the House of Commons. He said that the government would not reintroduce the bill in the current parliament, but would if it won the next general election. He accused the Tories and Liberals of depriving the people of Britain and Ireland of the benefits of a comprehensive telephone service. Opposition speakers said that they wanted private companies to provide and be responsible for a telephone service in Britain and Ireland.

 

[pipisme]

Nia Price gave birth to a baby girl on 27 September 1882. She and her husband, Tom, nsmed her Rhiannon after her elder sister. On 29 July 1884, Nia gave birth to a another girl. She and Tom named her Lowri. They now had five daughters and four sons. They all lived in a five bedroom council house in Swansea. That was the maximum number of bedrooms in council houses. The allocation of the bedrooms in the Price family was as follows:
1) Nia, Tom and Lowri
2) The two oldest girls - Myfanwy and Tegan
3) The two younger girls - Cerys and Rhiannon
4) The two oldest boys - Aled and Steffan
5) The two youngest boys - Gwynfor and Rhys.

Nia and Tom did not use contraception. They believed it was immoral and was against their Christian religious values. That children were gifts from God. Also they believed that sexual intercourse was necessary for the physical and mental health of married couples. They enjoyed love making and Nia usually had an orgasm.

There was widespread opposition to contraception in the Commonwealth Party. Its advocates, like the Malthusian League founded in 1877, wanted to limit working class families. They were mostly Conservative and Liberal supporters, who argued that poverty was due to uncontrolled breeding by the working class, rather than capitalism, and that welfare encouraged this breeding.

 

[pipisme]

The Elementary Education (Handicapped Children) Act 1885 made provision for schools in Britain for children who were deaf, blind, or had learning difficulties. It did not apply to Ireland.

Carwen Griffiths was the youngest child of Angharad Griffiths. He was born on 2 December 1859. He was on the autism spectrum, though autism was unknown then. He worked as a gardener in Swansea and lived at home with his mother. In the summer of 1883, he met a young woman called Eluned Richards. She was also a gardener. She was 26 years old, having been born on 15 March 1857. She was fairly short and rather plump with black hair and brown eyes, homely looking, not pretty. Eluned was kind, compassionate, outgoing, patient and the right woman for Carwen. She lived at home with her parents.

They became friends. They both loved nature and walking in the countryside and by the seaside. They fell in love and got engaged. Carwen and Eluned got married in the Congregational Church in Swansea on Saturday 6 September 1884. At the wedding were Angharad and her wife, Helen Price, his brother Aneurin and his wife Maire, his sisters Nia and Rhiannon and their husbands, his sister Megan and her partner Esther Jenkins. Eluned's parents and siblings were also there.

 

[pipisme]

After the wedding, Carwen and Eluned got a train to the seaside town of Oystermouth, south-west of Swansea, where they spent their honeymoon. They stayed in a hotel for five days until the morning of Thursday 11 September.

On their wedding night Carwen told Eluned that he was very anxious and nervous about having sexual intercourse with her. He said it was his first time. She reassured him, saying that it was her first time, but because she loved him very much she wanted him to shag her. It would be alright. They made love passionately and tenderly twice that night. Eluned orgasmed both times. They made love every night of their honeymoon. During the day they walked hand in hand in the beautiful countryside and along the seashore of their beloved Gower.

 

[pipisme]

After their honeymoon, Carwen and Eluned moved into a privately rented two bedroom house, with a good size back garden, in Swansea for which they paid nine shillings and three pence a week in rent. They worked as gardeners for Swansea Borough Council, in the municipal parks and gardens. They were each paid the same wage of 18 shillings and 8 pence a year, which was £48 10 shillings and four pence a week. This was in accordance with the Commonwealth Party controlled Swansea council policy of equal pay for all their employees.

As the months passed Carwen became very anxious that Eluned did not become pregnant, in spite of them having sexual intercourse nearly every night. He expected her to conceive within a few days at the most after them getting married. Eluned reaasured him and told him that sometimes wives did not become pregnant for months, or even years, after getting married. They were both very happy when Eluned discovered in January 1885 that she was pregnant.

Eluned gave birth at home to a baby girl on Saturday 12 September 1885. She and Carwen named her Bronwen. Maire Griffiths' friend, Elizabeth Kelly, was the midwife. Maire was also there. Two weeks previously, Eluned had resigned her job, as was usual with mothers shortly before they were due to give birth.

 

[pipisme]

On Sunday 20 September 1885, Eluned was baptised in the Congregational Church in Swansea. Maire was there, though she was a devout Catholic and the Church forbade Catholics from attending services of another religion or Christian denomination. In her spiritual diary she wrote that she went because this expression of love for her niece, and her brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, took precedence over narrow religious legalism. This was bitterly condemned by traditionalist Catholics when her spiritual diaries were published, after Pope John XXIII declared her a Servant of God in 2012.