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4 unusual facts about Frongoch internment camp


Frongoch internment camp

Frongoch internment camp at Frongoch in Merionethshire, Wales was a makeshift place of imprisonment during the First World War.

Until 1916 it housed German prisoners of war in an abandoned distillery and crude huts, but in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, the German prisoners were moved and it was used as a place of internment for approximately 1,800 Irish prisoners, among them such notables as Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith.

William O'Brien's Cork Free Press was one of the first papers he suppressed under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 (DORA regulations) after its republican editor, Frank Gallagher, accused the British authorities of lying about the conditions and situation of republican prisoners in the internment camp.

West Cork by-election, 1916

2Healy was imprisoned in Frongoch internment camp for supposedly being associated with Sinn Féin, but Sinn Féin repudiated his candidacy for not revoking to take his seat at Westminster, instead had been supported by William O'Brien, who was leader of the All-for-Ireland League.


Ardscoil Éanna

It was established in 1939 by James J. O’Byrne, who had been interned in Frongoch in Wales for his role in the Easter Rising in 1916, and Margaret Pearse, sister of Pádraig Mac Piarais who had established Scoil Éanna in Ranelagh in 1908.


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