HMS Argenta

History
United States
Name	SS Argenta
Builder	National Shipbuilding Company, Orange, Texas
Yard number	245
Laid down	July 1917
Launched	May 1919
In service	1919
Out of service	1921 (cargo)
Fate	Sold, 1922
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Argenta
Acquired	1922
Out of service	1925
Fate	Scrapped 1925
General characteristics
Type	Cargo ship / Prison ship
Tonnage	3,500 grt

HMS Argenta (originally the American cargo ship SS Argenta) was a prison ship of the British Royal Navy.

Construction[]

The two deck steamer was laid down in July 1917 by the National Shipbuilding Company of Orange, Texas as Hull No. 245. Shortages of materials meant that she was wooden-hulled, with a steel keelson, 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 prison ship (a prison 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 Republicans as part of Britain's internment strategy following the events of "Bloody Sunday" in 1920.^[1]

By February 1923, under the 1922 Special Powers Act the British were detaining 263 men on the Argenta, which was moored in Belfast Lough. This was supplemented with internment at other land based sites, such as Larne workhouse, Belfast Prison and Derry Gaol. Together, both the ship and the workhouse alone held 542 men without trial at the highest internment population level during June 1923.^[2]

Conditions on the prison ship Argenta were "unbelievable" according to Denise Kleinrichert who wrote the hidden history of the 1920s' "floating gulag" in Republican Internment and the Prison Ship Argenta, 1922.

Cloistered below decks in cages which 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 strikes, including a major strike involving upwards of 150 men in the winter of 1923.^[2] In November 1923 IRA leader Seamus Woods 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 Argenta (17 April 1924). Woods was then served with a prohibition order which excluded him from Northern Ireland.^[3]

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; County Tyrone, Northern Ireland,) 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[]

^ Hopkinson, Michael (2004). The Irish War of Independence. ISBN 978-0-7171-3741-1.
^ ^a ^b Kleinrichert, Denise (2001). Republican internment and the prison ship Argenta 1922. Irish Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-7165-2683-4.
^ 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

External links[]

[1] Hopkinson, Michael (2004). The Irish War of Independence. ISBN 978-0-7171-3741-1.

[Kleinrichert,_Denise_2000-2] Kleinrichert, Denise (2001). Republican internment and the prison ship Argenta 1922. Irish Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-7165-2683-4.

[3] 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

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