Book Review Reverent look at plight of Argenta internees

By Fr. Sean McManus

REPUBLICAN INTERNMENT AND THE PRISON SHIP ARGENTA 1922, by Denise Kleinrichert. Irish Academic Press, Dublin and Portland, Ore. 384 pp.

This book is a must-read for those who want to fill a vacuum in their knowledge about a key chapter of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

It is, extraordinarily, the only history ever written of the infamous Argenta — the prison ship (anchored on Belfast Lough and later on Larne Lough) on which 700 internees were kept from May 1922 to January 1924. At any given time the ship never held more than 400 internees.

The author, American-born Denise Kleinrichert, is the granddaughter of one of the internees on the Argenta — James Goodman of Fintona , Co. Tyrone. He was born on an 18-acre farm in 1893. In January 1922, he was arrested for attending an IRA meeting and sentenced retroactively to six months’ imprisonment and then immediately interned on the Argenta from July 29, 1922 to Jan. 24, 1924, during which time he did a 19-day hunger-strike, and in Larne prison until Nov. 25 1924. On his release, James emigrated to Canada, got married and had four children. He died on Sept. 30, 1936 at the age of 43 from complications to a leg-ulcer infection contracted aboard the Argenta.

James Goodman was a quiet, self-effacing man who did not leave too much personal information behind him. But we can gain a glimpse into his generous heart and heroic soul by his declaration: " No nation can ever be conquered whose sons love her better than their lives."

Denise Kleinrichert never knew her grandfather. Indeed, her mother hardly knew him. He died when Denise’s mother was only 7 years. Reflecting on the above quoted declaration, she writes: The touch, the exhilaration, the awe. I gazed at the carefully chosen words, handwritten on board the Argenta on the eve of the October 1923 hunger strike. My grandfather came to life before me through his words. He was enshrined within an aged album of autographs and poems that was generously posted from County Tyrone by a stranger who saw my letter to the editor in the regional newspaper. I was seeking my past. Savoring the feelings, honoring the moment which took seventy-two years to arrive."

Denise Kleinrichert writes — where needed — with the detachment of a professional historian, the eye of a trained researcher and the heart of a devoted granddaughter.

Unfortunately, the publishers, instead of giving the book the simple, evocative name "Argenta" titled it "Republican Internment and the Prison Ship Argenta 1922". This title is not only cumbersome, but misleading as well, contradicting a constant emphasis of the author: "As many as half the men were constitutionalists in their political philosophy and without political affiliation. Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and Sinn Fein adherents were a minority of those ‘lifted’ "

And again: "The internment was about an empowered Government confiscation of education, jobs, financial resources, security and personal freedom. Professional businessmen and Sinn Fein political leaders were in the group interned which interrupted the establishment of a nationalist presence to formulate policy related to the Boundary Commission."

A great strength of this book is that the author not only provides a strong historical/political /social contextual background but also sensitively tells the human story of the internees. She brings us aboard the Argenta and lets us see their ordeal: the overcrowding, the mistreatment, the unsanitary conditions, the lice-infections, the lack of food and the poor diet, the mean-spiritedness of the regime. (Often the internees’ mail was not delivered because the mailmen also moonlighted as B Specials.)

But the author does not hide from us the sense of humor and the abiding faith that kept the internees going.

The author’s research is so complete that she even managed to track down the Argenta’s bell: "Clang. Clear, distinct, resonant. After seventy-six years, I heard the tone of the Argenta bell. Polished. . . . Its presence brought me to my grandfather once again. He heard its inflection each day for eighteen months."

One needs not ask for whom that bells tolls. It tolls in reverence for Denise Kleinrichert and all the descendents of the internees of the Argenta. Peace and honor to them all.