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I am trying to find out what happened to Robert Harrison Stanley, born Liverpool 1903,after he signed off from being a waiter on the Gripsholme when it stopped in Belfast en route to New York in 1944.

I can follow his life as far as 1944 and him leaving his ship in Belfast, he appears to have stayed in Northern Ireland, but I cannot get any further with him. Can anyone please Help?

He had siblings Arthur Andrew Stanley, 1892-1969,Laura Louise Stanley 1895, & Florence Elizabeth Stanley 1901 who married Ernest Smith in 1927 Toronto


Robert Harrison Stanley was born on 10/12/1903, baptised on 14/2/1904, Mossley Hill, St Barnabas, Liverpool, to David & Mary Elizabeth, he a commission agent of 15 Nicander Road.

At 10 City Road Walton Liverpool, Elizabeth Stanley,41, furniture broker , married 20 years, 7 children, 3 dead, with Laura 15, Florence 9 and Robert 7.

1921. 25/9/1921 Robert Stanley, 17, was Asst Steward on board the Finland, sailing from New York to Antwerp, Plymouth & Cherbourg. Again on the Finland on 7/1/1921

1922. 6/2/1922 Robert Stanley, 18, was Asst Steward on board the Finland, sailing from New York to Antwerp, via Nova Scotia, Plymouth & Cherbourg

1922. Robert Stanley, steward, from New York, enters Canada, on 9/4/1922, to stay with his brother Arthur at 195 Croyne Avenue Toronto. Reason given: to visit & ? reunion . His last entry to US was on 6/4/1922 on the ??Victoria?/

1923. Crew on the Musarge?- name very blurred!

1930. Robert Stanley, 25, thus b. ~1905, , b. Liverpool. crossing into Canada at Bridgeburg, Ontario  , to stay at 195 Croyne Avenue, Toronto,  to join brother Arthur Stanley on 20/3/1930   His trade in his own country was marine engineer but he intended being a steward in Canada . He had previously been living in Atlantic Heights N J. He had $165 in his possession

1939 . Robert Stanley, 36, 15 years of service, was a family Steward on board the Aquitania, sailing from Southampton to New York on 16/9/1939

1944. Robert Harrison Stanley was a waiter on the Gripsholme sailing from Barcelona, via Algiers & Belfast to New York. But he signed off in Belfast

There was an Auxiliary police detachment stationed at Ballybunion in 1921, and I am trying to find where they were billeted. Or indeed anything about their presence there.

1921 Mar 12. A train left Tralee for Listowel carrying wages for this detachment. The money was handed over at Listowel station, and the train returned to Tralee. It was ambushed at Tubrid on the way back . I have full details of the ambush.

Can anyone help with what was going on in Ballybunion with the Auxiliaries?

One of the most successful British agents in War of Independence was a man called Bryan Fergus Molloy who was shot by Collins Squad in Dublin in 1920

My notes on Molloy - click

However he was a man with no past, no birth, no census records, no war record, and the assumption is that this was not his real name

I have now come across 2 Witness Statements (Bur Mil History in Dublin, and available online) placing him from Foxford, Mayo.

Can anyone add to this

• WS0400 by Richard Walsh TD of Mayo, claims that Molloy was operating with the IRA in Mayo before he went to Dublin. Walsh claims that Molloy was born in USA (a western state) of Irish parents, his father being from Foxford, Mayo.
• WS0638 indicates that the author, Patrick Caldwell, thought Molloy's real name was Bernie McNulty of Foxford, Mayo

I am trying to find out more about this quite bizarre raid  on the mail on 11 Sep 1920

Raid on mail bags in Kilkenny Post office. At 2.30 a.m., in the middle of the night, the mail van taking mail from the railway station to Kilkenny Post Office was held up by armed and masked men at the post office yard. The driver was "beaten, tied and gagged" and the postman and clerk waiting to received the mail were also boud and gagged. The mail car was later recovered, some of the bags were returned and some just dumped in a river.

It turns out that the raid was by a group of Auxiliaries pretending to be IRA men (for once this spin is actually true)

E.C. Bruce of ADRIC took part in the Kilkenny Mail Bag robbery, an "official" raid under Major Tottenham, chief ADRIC Intelligence Officer at that time. In his second appeal against his conviction for theft Bruce said "I believe that Mr Tottenham had worked on the fears of the authorities by saying that I had told him that "it seemed a damned dirty game" when I found him writing "Censored by IRA" on the envelopes [picked up in Kilkenny mail robbery by Auxiliaries] and his pointing out that I left the force a few days later and was the only person outside the force who knew the story of the raid. Now it is rumoured that a large sum of money, between £700 and £1100 was missing when the mailbags were returned and I knew in whose hands they were in from the time the seals were broken until they were returned" Crozier was later to clam that this raid was not sanctioned by either him nor the A Coy commander, Col Kirkwood. A party of ADRIC disguised themselves as IRA Volunteers, bound and gagged the sorters, and took the mail bags back to A Coy base at Innistiogue for examination. An unknown amount of money appears to have ben stolen and some mail returned and some dumped in a river. Leeson in "Black & Tans" notes that Tottenham was ADRIC Chief Intelligence Officer at that time.

I have the very short Irish Times reports on 13 and 14 Sept 1920 - on this link click - but cannot find anything else about this mailbag theft

Can anyone help