09.04.2023 Child care project

Today was a chill day. It was raining so we couldn't really go outside for long. I checked by a nearby sportscenter if we could maybe play something inside but it was closed.

Most of the stores were closed since it was easter sunday. So I had a very restful day of nothing. Which was quite refreshing since it has been one active day after the other these past few weeks.

I did look at the walk route for the abandoned hotel, since we are planning to go there tomorrow.

During that I found some things about the hotels history. Apparently lord and lady donoughmore used to live there about 50years ago.

In 1974 they came home one evening and were ambushed by members of the IRA. The irish republican army, which was a group of rebels and terrorists.

They were taken to a dark cell with bindings over their eyes. Though they weren't kidnapped for ransom. In a prison in england members of the IRA were sentenced to two lifeterms. To protest they went on a hunger strike demanding that they would be transfered to a prison in Ireland.

But their demands were not heard.

So to increase the pressure on the irish government to do something about the situation, this group of the IRA decided to kidnap some random rich people.
However lord and lady donoughmore weren't the usual rich people. They weren't snobby or uppish at all but instead very easy going.

So the talked with their captors and were also treated very nicely. They had meals cooked and served, chips and steak, they complimented the chef. Lord Donoughmore was even asking if he could see the horse race results and the captors actually gave him the newspaper with the sport results.

They even did crossword puzzles together.

The rest of the IRA wasn't happy at all with what this group had done, since now the police and military were in full force looking for lord and lady donoughmore and making life very difficult for other IRA members.

Then 4 days later the hunger strike in england ended. So there wasn't any immediate danger for the prisoners in england and the rest of the IRA was also very unhappy with what this group had done.

So they released lord and lady donoughmore in a nearby park unharmed, well fed and top informed about the horse races.

They got quite famous and were treated as celebrities by the people in clonmel for the way they handled themselfs during the kidnapping.

Lord Donoughmore even refused to give exact information to the police because he didn't want his IRA kidnappers to be found.

It really seems like you could make a solid movie out of this story.