Internment Camp
An Internment camp was then built in Gormanston to house the vast numbers of Republican prisoners that were captured by the Free State. The Internment camp was under the command of Commandant Morken. The first prisoners to be interned in the camp arrived on September 9, 1922 and there were about 1,000 Republican prisoners interned there, the internees included Oscar Traynor who was made O/C by the prisoners, and famous names like Tom Barry who escaped on 28 September 1922, Sean T O'Kelly, Connie McNamara and author Frank O'Connor.
Although the Civil War ended on May 24, 1923, the Free State continued to hold over 12,000 Republican prisoners as hostages throughout Ireland to ensure hostilities did not break out again. A hunger strike was organised by Republican commandant Oscar Traynor in October 1923 to protest at conditions in the camp as well as continued internment. It was in December 1923 when the last prisoners left the camp.
Read more about this topic: Gormanston Camp
Famous quotes containing the word camp:
“When the weather is bad as it was yesterday, everybody, almost everybody, feels cross and gloomy. Our thin linen tents—about like a fish seine, the deep mud, the irregular mails, the never to-be-seen paymasters, and “the rest of mankind,” are growled about in “old-soldier” style. But a fine day like today has turned out brightens and cheers us all. We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)