Original upload date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Mon, 06 Dec 2021 02:01:58 GMT
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
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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. They were accorded the status of prisoners of war. It is a common misconception that Éamon de Valera was also imprisoned at Frongoch. [1] During this time de Valera was held at Dartmoor, Maidstone and Lewes prisons.
The camp became a fertile seeding ground for the spreading of the revolutionary gospel, with inspired organisers such as Michael Collins giving impromptu lessons in guerilla tactics. Later the camp became known as ollscoil na réabhlóide[2], the "University of Revolution" or sometimes "Sinn Féin University".
The camp was emptied in December 1916 when David Lloyd George replaced Asquith as Prime Minister
