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1923: Prison Ship Argenta collection including medals, autograph book and prisoner art

Currency:EUR Category:Collectibles Start Price:0.00 EUR Estimated At:2,000.00 - 3,000.00 EUR
1923: Prison Ship Argenta collection including medals, autograph book and prisoner art

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Auction Date:2012 Apr 21 @ 12:00 (UTC+1)
Location:38 Molesworth Street, Dublin, Dublin, ., Ireland





An extremely scarce collection of items relating to the internment ship H.M.S. Argenta awarded to and collected by John Patrick McBrien of County Fermanagh. Including Lough Derg (Prison Ship Argenta) medal. War of Independence medal in box of issue, with issuing slip and ribbon bar. Autograph book containing a total of 119 different verses and drawings with signatures and addresses, the first entry dated 2 January 1923, the last 4 April 1924. Four pieces of prisoner art including two bags with an accompanying letter from J. P. McBrien sent from the Internment Camp at Larne Workhouse to his family enclosing the bags. (8 items)During the 1920s, the Argenta, a former cargo vessel, condemned as unseaworthy, was used as a military base and prison ship for the internment without trial of suspected Irish Republicans by the British. By February 1923, under the 1922 Special Powers Act the British were detaining 263 men on the Argenta, which was moored in Belfast Lough.Conditions for those imprisoned on the ship were inhumane, as described by Denise Kleinrichert, in her book, Republican Internment and the Prison Ship "Argenta", 1922 (September 2000), Irish Academic Press Ltd.
John Patrick McBrien was born in Fermanagh in 1896 the son of Patrick McBrien a farmer from Kinawley. He was one of almost 900 men and women who between 1922 and 1925 were detained under the 1922 Special Powers Act, many of whom posed no threat whatsoever. A unique archive and an excellent record of this period of internment in Northern Ireland which is often overlooked, summed up by one of the autograph book entries "When I am dead and all my bones are rotten, this little book will tell my name when I am quite forgotten." During the 1920s, the Argenta, a former cargo vessel, condemned as unseaworthy, was used as a military base and prison ship for the internment without trial of suspected Irish Republicans by the British.
By February 1923, under the 1922 Special Powers Act the British were detaining 263 men on the Argenta, which was moored in Belfast Lough.Conditions for those imprisoned on the ship were inhumane, as described by Denise Kleinrichert, in her book, Republican Internment and the Prison Ship "Argenta", 1922 (September 2000), Irish Academic Press Ltd.