The Re-interment of Frank Stagg | Pet Hates

 

The Re-interment of Frank Stagg. 

Last week we remembered Frank Stagg who died on hungerstrike in an English prison in February 1976. 

Frank began his fourth and final hunger strike in December1975. He died 62 days later. He last request was "to be buriednext to my republican colleagues and my comrade, Michael Gaughan" whodied on hunger strike two years earlier. Michael had been buried in Ballinawith republican honours.

Faced with the prospect of another high-profile funeral of arepublican hunger striker the plane carrying Frank Stagg’s coffin wasdiverted by the Irish Government from Dublin, where the Stagg family andfriends were waiting, to Shannon. Frank’s body was hijacked and taken byhelicopter to Ballina, where it was buried. A 24-hour guard was put in placeand concrete was poured over it to prevent the family from exhuming the coffin.

Frank’s brother George later described how, when  hetook his mother to visit the grave, Special Branch officers tookphotographs of her as she knelt and prayed. 

Recently George explained to me what happened afterwards fora new book I am working on. The caretaker of the cemetery was Gerry Ginty, whowas a Sinn Féin councillor. His mother, Jane, also worked there, selling lotsand burial plots. George asked her one day,

‘Who bought that grave that Frank is in, who paid for it?’

Gerry said, nobody. George asked if he could buy it. He took out his cheque book to pay three pounds.

‘How much are you going to give me?’ said Jane.  ‘Threepounds.’ George replied.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Give me a fiver. For a fiver you can get “adouble”. That grave and the one next to it.’

‘Why?’ George asked.

And she said, “In case you ever have to dig down’.

So George bought both graves.  He got a headstoneerected on the empty plot which read:

‘Here in a grave dug by government agents lies thebody of Vol. Proinsias Stagg. His will required that he be buried in theRepublican Plot alongside his comrade in the IRA Vol. M. Gaughan. Having diedon hunger strike in an English jail his body was stolen and defiled by the proBritish Dublin government of the day. The truth for which he lived will blossomwhen his remains are reburied with the Republicans of Mayo. Erected by hisComrades and family.’

The Special Branch maintained a round-the-clock watch onFrank’s grave. But after about a year they realised that it was a waste ofGarda time and resources.

That summer, 1977, George got a call from Gerry Ginty, whohad already been hatching a plan for the removal of Frank remains. 

He said, ‘We can do this!’

They didn’t know if the concrete went down the sides of thegrave also, entombing the coffin and making it virtually impossible to breakinto the grave from the side without using machinery, which would attractattention. They reckoned they needed six trustworthy people in total for theoperation.

Gerry and George made two. Gerry got one other, Con Ryan,and George got the other three – his brother-in-law Jimmy Doyle, Sean Comiskeyfrom Trim, and Paul Stanley from Kildare.

Gerry chose the night carefully, November 5th, anight when there was no moon. It was very dark and a bitterly cold night,with continuous driving rain. They had two lookouts – one up the town, and theother down at the gates of the graveyard.

Four of them would carry out the digging. Two on, twooff.  They made good progress but were soon soaked through to the skin.There was hardly anyone out and about but at one stage the blue light of aGarda patrol car was flashing down near the gates and they thought they hadbeen spotted. They later learned that the driver stopped to offer a lift to arain-drenched pedestrian. Once or twice headlights from cars leaving a nearbyhouse swept across the cemetery and forced them to duck.

George goes on to describe how when they had dug about fourfoot down they came upon a massive rock. It was about five foot in diameter. Itmust have weighed about a quarter of a ton, George thought. They wereperplexed: this is it, they not going to be able to get this huge boulder outGeorge explained. But Gerry told them to keep trying. They sent for the lookoutto give a hand.

Two men were down in the hole and they got a rope around thebig stone and rolled it up the bank, inch by inch. It was a miracle. After theyremoved it they stopped digging down and began to dig sidewise into Frank’sgrave. Then they discovered there was no concrete down the sides. 

It wasn’t long afterwards that they struck the wood of thecoffin. Thankfully it was in fairly good shape. They had quite a bit of troublegetting it to move because it was stuck there by suction. But, again, Georgeexplains, Gerry was very clever. He just dug little holes over the coffin andto the back of it, until they were able to put the ropes through and gentlymove it outwards.

George felt very proud. He was fulfilling a great sense ofduty. He was very mindful of the words he said to the Garda superintendent atShannon airport when Frank’s coffin was seized on behalf of the state

‘I’m telling you now, I promise you. A day will come andI’ll have him back.’

That day had come. When his friends and comrades easedFranks coffin out of its resting place and brought it to the surface Georgeplaced his hands on his brother’s coffin and he whispered, ‘For you, Frank.We’re doing this for you, Frank.’

They placed the coffin on a sheet of plywood, in case itwould disintegrate while being moved. They carried it down to the RepublicanPlot and within a short time they had Frank’s remains reinterred beside hiscomrade Michael Gaughan. They said a prayer. Then standing beside the grave ofthe two republican heroes they saluted.  It was not yet dawn. They leftthe graveyard and each went his own way. George got in this car and headed backhome.

Later, he rang his mother to tell her it was done. He askedher to listen out for the news. She cried. And she thanked him. 

 

Pet Hates

It’s funny the things that annoy me. With everything elsethat’s happening in the world I do consider myself very lucky. So I try to putwee things which irritate me into perspective. All things are relative Itell myself. As you might expect, and as regular readers will know, I getreally annoyed, like many other people, at the way the people of Palestine aretreated. Or Donald Trump’s utterances – and actions. Other global issues upsetme. For example, human indifference to climate change – especially among thosewho cause the dangers to the environment. Litter annoys me. But a few Sundaysago when I tuned into RTE to watch the Rugby match I was reminded of one of mypet hates. The RTE notice which advises viewers who live in the North that ThisProgramme Is Not Available.

I usually came across it when I was trying to tune in forGaelic games coverage. That seems to have improved following a vigorous FairPlay For Gaels campaign. It’s still not as good as it should be but well doneto all involved.

However, when I turned to RTE for the rugby and  to getthe benefit of Irish commentators there was no fair play for Ireland rugby fansin our house. Just the Verbotten graphic. Why?  Why did I have to turn toBBC to watch us beating Scotland.

Funny enough someone told me that The Young Offenders wasalso out of bounds for Nordies. So I checked that out. And yes its true. ThisProgramme – about Cork langers- Is Not Available either. And don’t get mestarted about the weather maps, RTE Radio’s  Morning Ireland  trafficupdates or Late Late Show competitions. All cut off  at the border. Inthis era of global communications its long past the time that RTE dropped itspartitionist broadcasting.