HMS ''Argenta'' (originally the American cargo ship SS ''Argenta'') was a

prison ship A prison ship, often more accurately described as a prison hulk, is a current or former seagoing vessel that has been modified to become a place of substantive detention for convicts, prisoners of war or civilian internees. While many nat ...

of the British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

Construction

The two deck steamer was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

in July 1917 by the National Shipbuilding Company of

Orange, Texas Orange is a city and the county seat of Orange County, Texas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 19,324. It is the easternmost city in Texas, located on the Sabine River at the border with Louisiana, and is from Hous ...

as Hull No. 245. Shortages of materials meant that

she She most commonly refers to: *She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English. She or S.H.E. may also refer to: Literature and films *'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagga ...

was wooden-hulled, with a steel

keelson The keelson or kelson is a reinforcing structural member on top of the keel in the hull of a wooden vessel. In part V of “Song of Myself”, American poet Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an Ame ...

, stem and stern posts of oak, and timbers largely of yellow pine. This was due to shortages of metals. SS ''Argenta'' was launched in May 1919.

Cargo ship

''Argenta''s career as a cargo ship was short. As early as November 1919, there were some signs of leakage, and the ship was out of service from late 1921. Condemned and declared unseaworthy in May 1922, she was then sold for use as a

(a prison

hulk The Hulk is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in the debut issue of ''The Incredible Hulk (comic book), The Incredible Hulk' ...

) by the British Royal Navy.

Prison ship

During the 1920s, the vessel was used by the British government as a military base and prison ship for holding

Irish Republican Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate. The developm ...

s as part of Britain's

internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simp ...

strategy following the events of "Bloody Sunday" in 1920. In the spring of 1922 the

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various paramilitary organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dedicated to irredentism through Irish republicanism, the belief th ...

(IRA) launched an offensive in Northern Ireland (see The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922)) resulting in the internment of many Irish Republicans on the Argenta.

Dawson Bates Sir Richard Dawson Bates, 1st Baronet (23 November 1876 – 10 June 1949), known as Dawson Bates, was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland. He was born in Strandtown, Belfast, the son of Richard Da ...

, the 1st Northern Ireland Minister for Home Affairs introduced the 1922 Special Powers Act. Internment was introduced and by May 1922 up to 700 Irish Republicans had been arrested. By February 1923, 263 men interned on the Argenta, which was moored in

Belfast Lough Belfast Lough is a large, intertidal sea inlet on the east coast of Northern Ireland. At its head is the city and port of Belfast, which sits at the mouth of the River Lagan. The lough opens into the North Channel and connects Belfast to ...

. This location was supplemented with internments at other land based sites, such as

Larne Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight roll-on roll-off port. Larne is administered by Mid a ...

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

, Belfast Prison and Derry Gaol. Together, both the ship and the workhouses held 542 men without trial at the highest internment population level (June 1923). Conditions on the ''Argenta'' were "unbelievable", according to Denise Kleinrichert who wrote the hidden history of the 1920s' "floating

gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...

" in ''Republican Internment and the Prison Ship ''Argenta'', 1922.'' Cloistered below decks in cages which each held 50 internees, the prisoners were forced to use broken toilets, which overflowed frequently into their communal area. Deprived of tables, the already weakened men ate off the floor, frequently succumbing to disease and illness as a result. There were several

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

s, including a major strike involving upwards of 150 men in the winter of 1923 (see 1923 Irish hunger strikes). In November 1923 IRA leader

Seamus Woods Seamus Woods commanded a division of the Irish Republican Army during a period of intense conflict and was a senior leader of the newly formed Irish Free State army. Northern IRA leadership Seamus Woods was born in Ballyhornan, County Down, in mod ...

was arrested and charged with the assassination of a member of the new Northern Parliament ( W.J. Twaddell - May 22, 1922) and held on the ''Argenta''. Although Woods was found innocent of the Twaddell murder charge he continued to be held and was the last prisoner to be released from the ship (17 April 1924). Woods was then served with a prohibition order which excluded him from Northern Ireland.Thorne Kathleen, (2014) ''Echoes of Their Footsteps, The Irish Civil War 1922-1924'', Vol II, Generation Organization, Newberg, OR, pg 257, ISBN 978-0-692-245-13-2 In 2011 a rare and unusual autograph book from the ''Argenta'', with a large number of signatures of prisoners, almost all with Northern Ireland addresses, mostly late 1922, was auctioned by Mealys Rare Books Limited. Signatures include Mícheál mac Eochaidh, W. Quillan, Packie Murphy, J.P. Kearns, Michael Carraher, Charlie Magee, Peter Rafferty, Mick McIlhatton, Frankie Corr, Owen (Montague) Teague (

Patrilineality Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritan ...

;

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an administrative division for local government but retai ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

,) John Grimes, John Bell, Joseph McKenny, Michael O'Neill, Liam Ua Donngaile, Art Mac Partolon (quoting Shakespeare), F.G. Duffy, Jim Rooney, Seosamh O Cianain and Patrick Gormley. An inscription from the book is: ‘When you are on some lonely road, Waiting some friends to see, Let your thoughts turn towards the Argenta, And sometimes think of me ..’ — Frankie Corr As a result of author Denise Kleinrichert's lobbying efforts, the files of all the internees — most of them named in an appendix to her book — are now available for viewing at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI).

References

External links

Abandoned on the Argenta — US author's tribute to prison ship victims

Irish Census 1911; Owen (Teague) Montague, County, Tyrone
{{DEFAULTSORT:Argenta 1919 ships Defunct prisons in Northern Ireland Prison ships History of Belfast Internment camps Internment camps in the United Kingdom

Construction

Cargo ship

Prison ship

See also

References

Further reading

External links