Cork Republican Mick Buckley Passed Away On The 20th February 2015. February 27, 2015
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On Monday following the burial of Mick Buckley at St.Joseph’s Cemetery in Cork, I notified to friends of Mick, primarly those up the country who would have been unaware of his passing, the news of his death. I mentioned that Mick was the O.C. of IRA Operations in Armagh City on the 12th December 1956. Some days later he was arrested south of the border by Free State Forces, tried and sentenced to 6 months imprisonment in Mountjoy Prison. In later years he attended the 50th anniversary of Operation Harvest, as it became known as, in a hotel in Dublin. He joined myself and a few others who were involved in that campaign, in the following years for a meal near to the 12th Dec, to reminisce on the times of bygone years. I write again to spread the message of his death to all those who had republican involvement with Mick back in the 1950’s. By Jim Lane Cork.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Another friend and comrade gone. I was at that meet up in the Ashington Hotel. I was also at the 50th anniversary and it was quite noticeable that many of our comrades of the Operation Harvest had passed on. God grant Mick eternal rest.
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Jim Lane: Photo taken at the Central Hotel,Dublin in 2006. Left to Right – Gerry Higginbottom (Dublin), Mick Buckley (Cork), Jim Lane (Cork) and Brendan Sealy (Dublin) Took place on the 50th anniversary of the opening of the IRA ‘Operation Harvest’ on 12th December 1956.,
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Many thanks Jim, sad news.
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I know quite a few who were involved in the 56 campaign but as every year passes their numbers are depleting.Would 2016 not be a great chance (maybe the last chance) to bring them ALL together,no matter what faction they finished up with.Or would that be too much to ask?
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It’s a good idea.
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In 2006 when the 50th anniversary took place, it was organised by an independent committee of participants in that struggle. Republicans from all sides of a split movement and none, attended. Those Volunteers from the different groups involved and who were killed in action, were honoured, all of them.
Recently, when a plaque to Seán Sabhat was unveiled in Limerick, Republicans from all sides were present. In January, at a Dublin hotel where a group of about 60 or more such veteran Republicans gathered no problems surfaced. We mainly spoke of “the old days” and occasionally, ” what if”. So Roddy, why not?
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Jim, I would know people who went in different directions in the various splits but who “soldiered” together in 56.There is also surprisingly quite a few who went nowhere but home after operation harvest.An elderly relative of mine spent the 60s and several decades after it concentrating on his working life to the virtual exclusion of everything else.He devoted almost every hour to what would be called an SME and I would have termed him apolitical.However he eventually retired and began to socialise again with his relatives,visiting my father regularly which he never had done for decades.When my parents died he continued to visit my house in the late 90s and out of the blue one day he confided to me that he voted SF. I was totally surprised but heartened by this and from then on politics often were discussed.It emerged that he was very active during operation harvest and he gave me details of things that happened and again some very surprising people who were involved.This man is in his final years and will go to his grave with only a tiny minority of people ever knowing that he was an active Republican.
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That’s very true, a lot of people did go home after that campaign.There must be a wealth of information and insight from people like that to add to what is already known. My own father was a member of SF before and during that period but went to the UK and after a brief flirtation with the CPGB through his work in electrics never joined a party again though was a republican to the last.
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Sorry to hear of the passing of Mick Buckley, I met him at the 50th Anniversary of ‘Operation Harvest, and at the following meeting in Dublin, Roddy is right, we should continue in 2016. Alas there are few of us left, I myself continued on from the fifties to the present day, and yes some of us went different ways but we are bound together by our comradeship from the Campaign. RIP Mick.
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