SS Argenta: ‘The jail from which no man ever escaped’
Jonathan Smyth's latest Times Past column recalls the SS Argenta prison ship which had a Cavan prisoner on board in 1922...
Recently, Britain’s government passed a controversial migration bill to house asylum seekers on a barge and then in July 2023 the Bibi Stockholm arrived at Portland Harbour, off the South Coast of England. News of the asylum solution reminded me of another vessel used to intern unsentenced prisoners captured in the nascent six county jurisdiction in the early stages of the Civil War, in 1922.
A very well researched book telling the story of the internee's imprisonment was written by Denise Kleinrichert who is currently a professor with San Francisco State University. Research for her book, began in the mid 1990s when she appealed by letter to the Editor of the Fermanagh Herald for information and appealed for an opportunity to meet surviving internees or their descendants and furthermore, stated: ‘My grandfather James Goodman of County Tyrone was among the 450 or so internees who had been arrested in Ulster in 1922 and held on the ship until 1925.’
Another person who found himself amongst the large group of prisoners was Edward ‘Ted’ Brady from Belturbet. In 1961, the Leitrim Observer published an article calling the Argenta: ‘The Jail from which no man ever escaped.’
Floating prison
The signing in London of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921 split various allegiances back home in Ireland and initially led to pro and anti-Treaty IRA raids on six of the nine Ulster counties which under the London agreement were permitted to be governed in a separate jurisdiction, if that was what they chose to do. Within a 24-hour period, from around midnight on May 22, 1922, the arrest of 300 men of mainly ‘nationalist and pro-treaty’ sympathies was carried out across the six counties.
Described as an unseaworthy vessel, the Argenta docked in Belfast Lough. The 300 beds placed aboard her consisted of little more than straw paillasses, which an observer noted needed only a cigarette butt to set them up in flames. Sections of the boat were divided into cages with fifty-six beds per cage. Aside from being cramped, the stifling conditions meant the air quality was permanently foul. An article in the Ulster Herald from February 1975 recalled the whirring fans overhead to assist ventilation and in the words of one internee, most of them ‘awakened during the first night’ from ‘headaches and breathing difficulties’ caused by the stench. In the morning they were allowed to go up on deck to breathe clean oxygen and to observe the surrounding towns of Hollywood and Bangor.
Many of the men arrested had worked in excellent jobs, for example Thomas Corrigan, Rossdoney, Enniskillen, had been Secretary to Fermanagh County Council. Following his arrest and internment, ‘the commissioner’ smirkingly overruled the local authority and dismissed him for failure ‘to return to his duties'. In 1927, Corrigan was put forward as a possible candidate for the secretaryship in Cavan County Council.
Bishop of Kilmore
Edward ‘Ted’ Brady was described by this newspaper as ‘one of a highly respected family of seven, five boys and two girls'. His parents were Mr and Mrs Edward Brady, Cloghan, Belturbet; many people will have known Edward’s brother Barney Brady who lived at Cloghan, Belturbet. Another brother was Reverend J.P. Brady, PP, Mullies, Manorhamilton; the Brady siblings were nieces and nephews of the Most Reverend Dr. Patrick Finegan, Bishop of Kilmore. In his youth, Edward played gaelic football for Teemore Shamrock GFC.
Edward Brady enlisted with the IRA in 1916 and served initially with the Belturbet Battalion and thereafter was active in the West Cavan and South Fermanagh battalions and became a wanted man while on the run in an attempt to evade the Crown forces. During this period, he served as clerk of the Sinn Féin Courts and was amongst the men arrested by the ‘Specials and the British Military’ in May 1922.
Hunger strike
During his time on the Argenta, Edward took a leading role in coordinating hunger strikes aboard the ship where conditions were mostly unpleasant, especially for those who went on hunger strike. Dr Denise Kleinrichert discusses the effect it had upon the imprisoned men who following three days starvation experienced the setting in of ‘weakness’ in the limbs and ‘lying in bed was all they could manage … Intermittent episodes of pain and muscle rigidity plagued the strikers’ and others showed symptoms like spitting ‘up blood’ emitted from the lungs. Edward Brady was one of the men who coughed up large amounts of blood, with the Medical Officer recording ‘his concern’ in the ‘Medical Officer’s journal.’
Both Edward Brady and Seán Corr ended their hunger strike sooner than intended on health grounds. According to the Anglo-Celt report he was the last prisoner to have been freed from the Argenta in late 1925. An autograph album listing all the internees (including some Monaghan prisoners), remained in the possession of the Carton family of New York whose father J.J. Carton was prisoner aboard SS Argenta.
In later years, Mr Brady lived in Co Fermanagh and was postmaster at Aughalane sub-post-office from 1939 having succeeded his father who previously held the same job. Edward’s obituary described him as ‘an extremely popular figure’ who got on well with everybody regardless of ‘creed or class’ while discharging his post-master duties with courtesy and efficiency.
He died at the age of 73 years in the Erne Hospital, Enniskillen, and was laid to rest on April 8, 1967. An extensive collection of records known as the Frank Dolphin Archive may provide further information on the role played by Edward ‘Ted’ Brady in West Cavan during the revolutionary years from 1916 to 1922. For more on the SS Argenta, see: ‘Republican Internment and the Prison Ship Argenta, 1922’, by Denise Kleinrichert.
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