Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

He allowed the Irish Republican Army to dwell in his orchard and sleep in the outhouses of Knocklofty House. He has gone to his eternal reward since and he was kidnapped in 1974 by a newer version of the republican movement but he was quickly released when the older people of my father's generation put pressure on, because he was a good man. He went to the House of Lords and spoke out against the atrocities the Black and Tans were carrying out against the Irish people. That is why his house was spared and untouched, until recent times when a cowboy bought it or got it, and by his own admission he paid one third of the price for it. It fell into disrepair even though it is a protected building and I have raised this countless times here and colleagues have raised it in the Seanad. A small grant was given by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage but the amount given would not have put shutters on the windows. There are 365 windows on it, and one window added for a leap year. There are great stories about Labhraid Loingseach and bhí cluasa capaill ag Labhraid Loingseach and the horse's ears and God knows what. Thankfully it is in receivership now and the last owner has finally been ousted. The house is wrecked. It was a wonderful hotel and I had people who wanted to make it into a nursing home but the planners did not want anything to do with it. It would have been a noble and majestic nursing home over the River Suir.

The last Act was not fit for purpose and this Bill will not be fit for purpose either because we have a lot of rich heritage to protect and secure. Deputy Shanahan is gone now but we straddle parish and county boundaries. He talked about some areas in the Déise and there are many fine period houses in the Déise that were untouched during the War of Independence because the lads from the Déise were not too proud of their Irish flag and they sat down and left the lords alone so they are still there. However, in south Tipperary every one of them was burned out, and for good reason. It was done to free our people of the oppressors we had. We had a great house in Newcastle which my father was asked about by Donncha Ó Dúlaing - Lord have mercy on him freisin - on a live programme one day. He asked my father who burned down the house - it was burned down in 1921 - and he said that they burned it. Donncha could not follow it up with another question and he said my father was the first man who ever admitted to a crime but it was not a crime. That was a noble job of patriotism and they had to get rid of Captain Perry and his people out of south Tipperary. However, that house has been demolished in recent years and it is a pity; is mór an trua é sin.

With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I will move on to the great IRA Chief of Staff, General Liam Lynch, whose lapel badge I wear and who was mortally wounded in the Civil War on the slopes of Crohan Mountain on 10 April 1923. The Civil War was to end some days later. He was making his way to a meeting in Araglin having left the Nire a few days beforehand, where he had been for a meeting. The war possibly would have ended there anyway because there was fatigue and they were outnumbered and there were lots of things that had happened.

We commemorate him every year since then and there was a committee of 12 people set up at that time. Tom Carrigan was chairman and the secretary was Hackett, whose first name eludes me. The joint treasurers were one Séamus MacCraith, m'athair, and Maurice O'Gorman. They set about building a noble round tower and I want to issue the Ceann Comhairle with an invitation to come and see it some time. It stands 60 ft tall and there is an Irish wolfhound on each of its four plinths, guarding it. The members of the committee had no money but they had spirit. My Dad happened to be clerk of works to it and the architect was a Mr. Doyle. They dug the foundations and they did it with their sweat, tears, blood and hands with ropes, pulleys, picks and shovels. They had no cranes or anything and it was done on the side of the mountain about 12 ft or 15 ft from the spot where Liam Lynch died, where they levelled out a place to build it. It is there now and it has been maintained and look after ever since. Unfortunately some groups are trying to claim that they own this monument. There were 12 people on that committee and the local men of Newcastle, Ardfinnan, Ballybacon and Grange built and maintained it, along with some people from Port Láirge.

In 1995, an all-party group came together. I was a proud member of that. We put on the wolfhounds because those who put up the monument ran out of money. The commemoration committee in Newcastle has letters. I salute that committee for the way it celebrated the 100th century. We had 26 members of Liam Lynch's family with us at the mass this year. We had a whole weekend of events. It turned out spectacularly. It was a fitting tribute to that local hero. As I said during last night's debate on the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022, Lynch wanted to marry his fiancée, Bridie, and go back to his farm in County Limerick but fate decided otherwise and he made the ultimate sacrifice.

Monuments like that need to be protected. We erected a sign for the weekend and it disappeared. There are groups that think they own the tricolour, the flag. They also want to claim they own monuments, commemorations and the dead in an effort to get into power themselves. However, the ancestors of the people who built that monument are looking after and preserving it and will continue to do so. We will not be intimidated, hunted off that mountain or have the honourable celebration of Lynch's ultimate sacrifice besmirched or in any way tainted.

Last Sunday, we celebrated the 175th anniversary of the Model School in Clonmel. It was a wonderful celebration of a lovely building, beautifully restored by the board of works. Some board of works people asked me about a matter and I might as well raise it here. The test centre in Clonmel was based in that building for decades. I did my test from there. Covid was seen as a great excuse to run the centre out of there and to move it into a hotel. People are turning up for the tests at the Clonmel Park Hotel, now the Talbot Hotel, and cannot find the centre and so miss their test. That building is empty. Why does the testing service not go back there? Why is the Department of Transport renting space in a hotel? The service should go back to support that building. It is a lovely wonderful school building, established by the Protestant denomination although many people of all faiths went there. It has a wonderful rich heritage and I salute the principal, the board of management and everybody involved with that celebration. As the Minister of State will know, there were model schools all over England and Northern Ireland. They were grammar schools and so on. They had lovely beautiful architecture.

To get back to the monument, there should be some latitude for the likes of a board of works to take over ownership, although not to have them all walled in and locked. We have the Main Guard in Clonmel, the wonderful Swiss Cottage in Cahir, the Rock of Castle, Cahir Castle, the Butler castles in Kilsheelan, Carrick-on-Suir and all the way up in Thurles, Farney Castle, which is in private ownership and being looked after, Nenagh Castle and other sites all over Tipperary. We have a very rich heritage of replacing the regime of British tyranny and having things looked after by the Irish. The Main Guard was wonderfully restored but people cannot get access to it. They cannot get in to play music in front of it, to have a prayer meeting or to hold the many other events people want to hold there. It has been covered in a lovely way and the old design has been restored. We do not want it to be a place that is only open so many days of the year like the tourist office and Swiss Cottage. There should be some kind of hybrid ownership between a local committee and a body like the board of works. I do not have a model to propose but that should be explored. Latitude should be provided in this Bill to allow a situation like that to be explored to allow monuments to be preserved. I am proud to say that many of my family members, including my daughters, are involved with the committee and meet with administrators. However, these memories must be kept alive when they are gone. We cannot bring what is the finest monument in the country, this 60 ft round tower, with us.

The original group ran out of money. It got letters from America that came with one or two shillings or a tuppenny bit. Appeals went to America from the treasurers. These were carried in the New York papers and money came home from America to build this monument. I am talking about small donations. Donations came from some good Limerick men too. Con Scanlan, the creamery manager in Newcastle, was a Limerick man. The Minister of State might know his clann. Donations came from all over the country, when people did not have anything, to put that monument there. We made another appeal, raised £10,000 and put on the wolfhounds. Uinseann MacEoin was the architect that time. Pauline O'Connell was the wonderful sculptor. I collected the wolfhounds from her premises here in Dublin. The wolfhounds are bronze and were put on in 1996. It is finished. Wolfhounds were put on at the time of the official opening in 1935 but they were only made of sand and limestone, because the committee did not have the money, and were taken off when they got weather-beaten. We got the money some 60 years later and finished it, thank God. However, it must be protected, along with many other monuments.

Liam Lynch was taken down the mountain by the Free State soldiers. I compliment them as well. They made a stretcher out of their rifles and trench coats and carried him down the mountain in awful pain. They met a farmer with a jennet and a turf barrow with solid wheels. It was an uncomfortable ride but they brought him to Newcastle. He then lay in the pub in Newcastle. I compliment Rosaleen Nugent and David Condon for preserving the couch he lay on. As she said on a recent "Nationwide" programme, it is obviously 100 years old because his 100th anniversary was a month ago. However, the couch had probably been there for 50 years before that. She has preserved it as a miniature museum. People come from all over the world to see it. We put a plaque on the wall of the public house this year as part of the commemoration. I want to thank an Teachta Ó Cuív, who I thought would be here today, for travelling and giving an excellent oration on the day. I also thank the many thousands who came to the organised walks. We also had a bus tour. John Foley has made a film, "The Dying Days". It is a fabulous film recounting Liam Lynch's last movements and dying days in County Waterford and County Tipperary. Gerard Shannon has written a book which, as I have said, is flying off the shelves. It is a wonderful account. Only three books were ever written about Lynch, and only one in the past 20 years. The man has not got his rightful place in history as far as I am concerned. We want to enhance and nurture that history. The interest in it is amazing. We made a commemorative calendar and a memorabilia book. They have gone all over the world online. There is great interest. There is talk about reprints. The badges flew off the shelves. More will have to be made. There is a reawakening of interest among young people.

When I was going to school, there was no talk of recent history. I am sure it was the same for the Minister of State. We were not taught about it. We had history up until the Famine but little after that. It was hidden. I am glad that-----

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