"MAJOR" M'BRIDE

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume XII, Issue 583, 25 July 1916, Page 7

"MAJOR" M'BRIDE

John M'Bride, who w&s sentenced to death and shot, was put forward as parliamentary candidate for South Mayo when Mr Davitt resigned, and when he was nominated he „ was fighting for the Boers m South Africa. The nomination was, however, subsequently withdrawn, fie. was born at "Westport, County Mayo, m 1868, and educated at the Christian Brothers' School there and at Belfast. In 1897 he went to the Transvaal and worked as a sampler and assayer at the Robinson mines. When the South African War broke out he organised the Irish Transvaal Brigade, and accepted the offer of the rank of major. During part of the campaign he led the brigade and took part m the capture of the British guns at Oolenso. In after years, speaking of the brigade, he said it was organised for the purpose of paying back part of the debt which Ireland* owed to England. There were some Ameri- . cans and Irish-Americans m it, but the bulk of it was composed o^pure-blooded Irishmen. The proudest time m their lives was when they were fighting the British. They lost over 40 per cent, m killed, wounded, and prisoners, and though the sword had fallen from their hands they hoped to pick it up again, and they would not stop until they had swept away every vestige of that Empire of Hell. He knew that the British generals were incompetent, and that their Army was rotten, and he was sorry to say that it was the Irish troops alone that saved the English from destruction. They had m Ireland several movements for the purpose of bringing life into the country, and one of these was a movement to prevent recruiting for the British Army, Navy, and police forces* The success of these movements would do more to hurt England than centuries of constitutional agitation. They should strike how they might and when they might against the Throne and the cursed British Empire, and for the freedom of Ireland. After the war he returned to Europe and for a time lived m Paris, where he waited upon President Kruger as one of the Irish Transvaal Committee. He there met his future wife, Miss Maud Gonne, who was well known m the French capital as a lecturer on Irish grievances. Later she applied for a divorce on the ground that, he was " a drunkard and, rake," but only obtained a separation order. M'Bride returned to Ireland m 1909, and two years later was given an official post, at £150 a year, by the Dublin Corporation. He looked forward to the possibility of a ■German landing m Dublin, and referred to his son as the "future President of Ireland."