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A CENTURIES OLD manuscript that records payments made by the British to informers in revolutionary Ireland is currently on display in Dublin.
The Secret Service Money Book records who British forces paid for information and how much they were paid.
It covers the restive period of August 1797 and to March 1804 during which there were two significant rebellions against British rule in Ireland, 1798 and 1803.
The latter rebellion was led of course by Robert Emmet and the book shows just how valuable his capture was to the British.
An entry in the book for 5 November 1803 is believed to show that £1,000 was paid for information on the capture of Emmet.
Emmet was captured on 25 August of that year and he was executed a month later.
Five years earlier Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a former British Army officer, who was an important figure in the United Irishmen revolutionary movement was also captured.
The betrayal that gave him away is also recorded in the Secret Service Money Book and shows that £1,000 was paid to Francis Higgins, proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal, for information on his capture.
Sophie Evans, a librarian working on behalf of the Royal Irish Academy, says that the book itself was held in Dublin Castle throughout the 19th century but is said to have stolen by a carpenter from the Record Tower in the castle.
It was subsequently sold to a grocer on Capel Street and extracts from it were first published by R. R. Madden in his work The United Irishmen: their lives and times (1842-6).
According to historians, Madden was concerned about publishing the contents of the book, fearing it was stolen, but was encouraged to do so by barrister and Irish political leader Daniel O’Connell.
The Secret Service Money Book is on display as part of the RIA’s Dublin documents exhibition in Academy House on Dawson Street. No booking is required.
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Cos that decisions not gonna cause any problems.
“A nonagenarian lawyer representing a Hindu deity “ ..well presumably the lawyer for the other side is also representing a fictitious deity?
This is a very dangerous development.
@Gary Sheahan: why?
When the gods start warring with each other it seems to go on forever .I wonder did ever hear about a Good Friday kind of thing and follow their poor mortals and come up with some sort of arrangement
Hmm, what could possibly go wrong?
India going out of their way to piss off the muslims
@Mr.Misery: yep the Danes and French caused mayhem with a couple of cartoons. What are the Indians thinking??
@Greg Daniel: PM Modi is a Hindu ethno-nationalist, he’s been whipping up anti-Muslim sentiment for ages in India as a means to get into and hold onto power-he is a dangerous individual who will end up formenting mass murder if he’s not careful
@Mr.Misery: What could India possibly have against the religion that killed as many as 80 million of their people?
@DJ François: Yep, definitely. Kashmir was only the start of it. Now this. Lots more to come
@Fifty Shades of Sé: 80 million Indians killed by Muslims? Where did you get that from?
@Fifty Shades of Sé: religion killed 80 million? Hope they caught it.
@DJ François: hate mongering at it’s worst
@Niall Carry: I’m a Hindu. I know what we have suffered at the hands of invaders since time immemorial
But that is what Islam does, look at all the Christian sites in Israel as they all had an Islamic site built on most of them. And Christians did the same to pagan sites and so on and so on…
have your say