IRELAND - IRISH DEFENCE FORCES, CIVIL WAR AND EMIGRATION

Album of approximately 200 photographs, photo postcards, pictorial cards and ephemera, [c.1922-1929]

Footnotes

A good album of private photographs and real photo postcards relating to the service of Private Dermot Foley, who joined the Army Signal Corps of the Irish Defence Force aged seventeen, in January 1923. Includes approximately 75 images relating to the Corps (groups including Foley, single portraits, scenes at Collins and Youghal Barracks, "Southern Command" - 17, captioned in the image, and Kilworth Training Camp, manoeuvres and kit inspections, etc.), and a soldier standing besides a Slievenamon armoured car (stamped 18 April 1924, by T.J. O'Brien of Cork, the photographer of many of the postcard photos).

Several images relate to the events of 1921-1922, including British "Black and Tan" search parties (these all stamped "Photo by Independent Newspaper Ltd., Dublin" on verso, 125 x 155mm.), General Michael Collins at Shanakiel hospital, troops at Passage, Co. Cork in August 1922, "firing squad - execution of a prisoner, Cork 1922", "Thomas Whelan before Execution" and "Republican prisoners, Cork County Jail 1922", a Rolls Royce armoured car on a demolished bridge at Kinsale, and "troops in possession of enemy post 1922". Approximately 25 images are commercial pictorial postcards, several relating to General Michael Collins, the majority of scenes at the Catholic Emancipation Centenary celebrations. An undated printed broadside is headed "The Will of the People or the Gun! Which is to Prevail?".

Amongst the printed and manuscript material is Foley's certificate of discharge from Collins Barracks on 15 March 1927, noting that his character was "very good". Two typed letters signed by the chaplain and Major Adjutant of the Southern Command recommend Foley ("honest, sober, and industrious... never in almshouse or prison...") to the American Consul in Dublin. Seemingly just five days after his discharge he emigrated to America aboard the White Star Liner H.M.S. Baltic (10 images show the boat, groups of passengers on deck, a last view of "Co. Dublin, 17th March 1927" seen from the deck), whereupon he established himself in Chicago working for the Bell Telephone Company, a life reflected in 26 images.

Provenance: "D. Foley, Army Signal Corps, Collins Bks, Cork, November 1923", inscription inside upper cover of album; by descent to the present owner.