Memoirs of Connie Francis Neenan 1916-1920s, 1939-1940

with the visitors from Ireland acting as chairman. To the astonishment [Belt No. 8 Page 2] of the old members - not one of them was ever allowed to attend the meeting. But at the meeting, instead, were gathered many people who had never, at any time, associated themselves with the Irish Nationalistic Movement, coming in from Chicago and a number of other places. Joe McGarrity mentioned the matter to me, asking HOW was it possible to happen, all the more so since many of the older members were particularly close friends of his. At a later meeting, held in New York, I asked the late Michael Quill to attend that meeting and to give all his moral and financial support necessary to help and cement the organization at home and abroad; and also, to prevent, if possible any "wild-cat" schemes, such as the Bombings in England, etc. Michael Quill attended one of these meetings and in trying to help out and support matters, he was abruptly and rudely interrupted in his speech- a fact which greatly annoyed him as also many of the members present. Because in this respect the Transport Workers had been one of our stoutest supporters in the US. all down the line. Practically most of our members had been or were employed in that Union and, in many cases, held very prominent positions. Unfortunately, for the Clan-na-Gael, Joe McGarrity was not in the best of health as a matter of fact he seemed to be failing day by day. He was, therefore, unable to take any real active part and try to right matters in every possible way. All of this would have so extremely important because of the many dissention and personal feuds going on at that time among the members. Even at this time some of the clan did not hesitate, in asking my cooperation to [Belt No. 8 Page 3] visit Judge Jim McGrannery (long since deceased.) in Washington in connection with the Sean Russell Bond case. All of which was kept secret by the then members of the Clan who controlled, chiefly, New York City. Quite apparently, they made it their business to slander myself and several others. However, this did not last long when I was summoned to a meeting in New York and many of the members there were shocked to hear the truth with the result that they quit the Clan then and there never to rejoin. One of these mal-contents who was mainly instrumental by the introduction of the resolution barring all pensioners from the Clan-na-Gael, resigned from the Clan, at that time on the grounds that “it did not follow its constitution”. However, and very fortunately so, members present accused him of leaving the Clan for the sole purpose of accepting an IRA pension for himself. This bit of information he had evidently mentioned at that time, and these members had heard of it. From thereon, matters were often in such a mess that nobody really knew who was who and what was what in the Clan. During the War years I was contacted by a seaman on an incoming ship through a friend of mine in Philadelphia. To locate this man I had to travel to Brooklyn, N.Y. where the ship was berthed and I had great difficulty to get on either the Pier or the ship in my effort to contact this man, a man I had never met, had no idea what he looked like, and thus could not even describe. The guard on the Pier was very friendly and suddenly said to me! “Here, now, comes on of the men who is on that Irish ship”. With that I went right over to the sailor asking him if he would be [Belt No. 8 Page 4] kind enough and bring out my friend. I also asked him to first describe me to my friend as I had never met him, explaining that I was a cousin of his but that had not seen each other for many, many years. The sailor willingly helped, “my cousin” appeared and we adjourned to a restaurant. At the time this man was looking for a small radio which was not very difficult for me to obtain for him. However, and more important, he had a written dispatch from Stephen Hayes who was then the Chief of Staff of the IRA. In this dispatch Hayes asked for 40,000 rounds of ammunition for Thompson guns. This letter was written in long hand and it puzzled me a great lot whether it was a trap or not, quite apart from the fact that, at that particular time, it was completely impossible to transmit anything in the line or type of the request out of the United States, and over to Ireland. However, it was that man's responsibility and it has nothing to do with the petty squabbles of the Clan at that time. So, I took the dispatch, brought it to Philadelphia, and at the Irish-American Club I arranged a meeting with the late Harry McKearney, William Parkle (?) and Michael McGane (??) all prominent members of the Clan-na-Gael. I Just handed Hayes' letter to them stating that it was not my responsibility but theirs that it was up to them to decide what to do about it, and that I had no intention whatever to pursue the matter any further. All three of them were painfully concerned and said that they did not want to have anything to do with the matter either! However, I refused to take back the letter and then suggested to them that they place it on record and hold it for further investigation. I never heard anymore [Belt No. 8 page 5] about the whole thing, except that Stephen Hayes was arrested by his own comrades in the IRA shortly afterwards. Later, the Clan-na-Gael in New York had republished the story of an alleged Stephen Hayes confession, which, in my estimation was an outrageous document to

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