File under, “Irish inventions that sound
stupid till you find out they actually worked”:
On 3 February, 1919, Michael Collins[1]
and Harry Boland[2] broke
Eamon de Valera[3] out
of Lincoln Gaol in England.
Exactly how
did Harry and the Big Fellow manage it, to whisk the leader of Ireland’s rebel government
away from His Majesty’s boarding-house? They used files and a duplicate key, of
course.
Files and a duplicate key they had smuggled
into the prison ahead of time . . . baked inside four cakes.
Not exactly a submarine with a screen-door,
now, is it?
[1]1890–1922:
Legendary figure of the Irish War of Independence; signatory to the Anglo-Irish
Treaty (6 December, 1921); head of the first Irish Free-State Government. Ambushed
by anti-Treaty guerrillas and killed in the ensuing fire-fight, 22 August,
1922.
[2]Collins’
friend and collaborator; joint party-secretary, Sinn Fein, and president of
Irish Republican Brotherhood (1918); minister in rebel Irish cabinet. Sided
with de Valera against Collins, joining Republican MPs who walked out of the
Dail (Irish Parliament) in protest against the Treaty. Killed fighting against
government forces in the opening days of the Civil War, 31 July, 1922.
[3]1882–1975:
Statesman and revolutionary. Born in New York of a Spanish artist father and
Irish mother; raised in Ireland by his grandmother and an uncle.
Commanded a battalion of Irish National Volunteers in
the doomed Easter Rising (Dublin, 1916); the only commander to escape execution,
thanks to his American birth; rose to prominence in the rising’s aftermath.
President of Ireland during War of Independence;
resigned in protest when the Dail approved the Anglo-Irish Treaty; fought
against the provisional government in the Civil War (1922–3).
After defeat in the war formed Fianna Fail party (1926),
taking most Sinn Fein supporters with him; head of Irish government, 1932–48,
1951–4, and 1957–9. In 1937 promulgated a new constitution establishing the
Republic of Eire.
President of Eire, 1959–73.
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