1 When we think of Clongowes’s involvement in public events a century or more ago, what springs to mind is the involvement of Clongowes in the First World War. More than served – second only to St Andrew’s amongst Irish schools – with 95 fatalities, the most of any Irish school. A factor in this was the influence of the most famous Clongownian of the time, John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, in effect the leader of nationalist Ireland. Here is (top right) with his brother Willie and his son William Archer - all of them MPs - outside the castle on Centenary Day, 1914, when Redmond was at the height of his influence. When the war broke out, in return for Home Rule and because he still hoped to resolve difficulties with the Ulster unionists, Redmond urged Irish men to join the war effort by enlisting in the British army.
2 The Redmonds of course were Irish nationalists, but there were others, initially a small minority, who opposed Redmond’s call to enlist, not because they were pascifists, but because they espoused the more extreme doctrine of Wolfe Tone’s ideal of an Irish republic that was fully independent of Britain. (Tone is buried down the road at Bodenstown, just outside Sallins. His grave is the scene of annual pilgrimages by Irish republicans of different hues.) Ms Doyle, our excellent Clongowes archivist, has uncovered evidence that the debate about participation in the war even occurred in Clongowes, where it had to be stilled by the rector. The story of the Clongownians who took the republican side is less well known than those who fought in WW1, and while of course in no way disrespecting the memory of the latter, it is with the former group - the Clongownians that were involved in the struggle to establish an independent state - that we are concerned this morning. On the wider political scene in Ireland, the anti-war faction claimed, or reclaimed, the title of the Irish Volunteers from the Redmondites, and they prepared for an armed Rebellion, hoping in military terms to take advantage of Britain’s distraction by the war with Germany and in political terms to advance the cause of Wolfe Tone’s Irish republic. Irish Volunteer training camps were held to prepare for battle. Their chief instructor was Ginger O’Connell – he’s the one in the centre back row with the slouch hat. Ginger was a Clongownian, from Mayo, whose qualification for the
3 role of instructor was that he had served for two years in the famous Irish- American 69th New York reserve infantry regiment.
3 Then, in Easter week 1916 the planned Rising took place, but it was largely confined to Dublin, where the secret republican organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, ignored the order of the Volunteers commander, Eoin MacNeill, to postpone the Rising. Instead, they declared the Irish Republic – Clongowes owns one of the few surviving original copies of the proclamation, incidentally. (The scene inside the rebel headquarters in the GPO is shown on the left) There were Clongownians involved in the Rising. The best known was Michael O’Rahilly, (pictured right in his Volunteer uniform) who styled himself the O’Rahilly. He had obeyed MacNeill’s postponement order, but when he heard the Rising was taking his place, he drove into O’Connell Street and joined up. As an officer, he was in charge of the roof defence of the GPO, where one of the flags flown by the new republic was the green, white and orange tricolour the creation of another Clongownian, Thomas Francis Meagher (pictured on top), in 1848. O’Rahilly was killed in Moor Street in an attempted breakout as the rebellion neared its end at the end of the week. That’s the wreck of his car in O’Connell Street after the Rising.
4 As is well known, the leaders of the Rising - all but de Valera - were shot after summary court martials by the army in the days that followed their surrender. One of those executed was Joseph Mary Plunkett, an alumnus of both Stoneyhurst and Belvedere. He was however the son of a Clongownian. This was George Noble Count Plunkett. The two, father and son, are pictured on the right) who came from a wealthy background and was an extremely well-educated and cultured man – linguist, poet, art critic, scholar and antiquarian. His title of count had been granted by Pope Leo XIII in return for his endowment of a catholic nursing order. In 1907 he became director of the National Museum of Ireland. He held strong nationalist views as did his sons, and in 1916 he was sworn into the IRB by his son, Joseph. After the Rising, in which he was not directly involved, he was sacked by the Museum and exiled to Oxford. While still there, he accepted a nomination to run as the rebels’ candidate in a by-election in North Roscommon in 1917, where he was strongly supported by the famous republican priest Father O’Flanagan, and he won the seat with over 55% of the vote. That’s one of his election posters on the left. It was the first indication of political change in Ireland in the wake of 1916. It came as a surprise to most when he declared he would not be taking his seat in Westminster, thereby initiating the policy of abstentionism that Irish republicans still maintain.
5 And here is Plunkett with De Valera and Arthur Griffith. The occasion marks the merger in 1917 of Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Fein party with the Easter Rising veterans, all now brought together under de Valera, the surviving 1916 leader, as president and with Plunkett and Griffith, the party’s founder, as vice-presidents.
6 The end of the First World War in 1918 caused a general election to be called. In it, with help of the first-past-the-post British electoral system, the Irish parliamentary party of John Redmond (now dead) was all but wiped out and superseded by Sinn Fein, which won 73 seats, only 6 remaining with the IPP. The Sinn Fein constituencies are shown in dark green; the IPP in light green and the UP in blue. It was a sweeping political victory, for which some credit must go to the Sinn Fein director of elections. And he was a Clongownian from Limerick, named James O’Mara, pictured on the right) who was himself returned for south Kilkenny.
7 The Sinn Fein majority now followed Count Plunkett’s abstentionist policy, as they had promised in their election manifesto. So instead of going to Westminster, they met in Dublin in January 1919 at the Mansion House, where they constituted themselves the First Dail. They invited all those elected in 1919 to attend, although only Sinn Fein did so. Their opening session to decide procedures and so on was held in private, and it was chaired by Count Plunkett, who was again returned for North Roscommon. He also took the chair at the start of the first public session, before handing over to Cathal Brugha, who in turn was succeeded by de Valera after his escape from Lincoln Jail. The Dail continued to meet until September 1919, when it was suppressed by the British government. Thereafter it met in secret. In all there were twenty-one sessions. A large crowd of well-wishers attended the opening sessions together with representatives of the foreign and local press.
8 As above on slide There was no formal oath applied to members until August 1919, when all members were obliged to swear to support and defend the Irish Republic and the Government of the Irish Republic, which is Dáil Eireann, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
9 10 And here is a picture of the first TDs, Mention VIPs in front row Four of the Clongownians are marked and the fifth inset. (point out). It’s worthy taking a closer look at the careers of each of these men.
11 First, Pierce McCann. He is a tragic figure. He was in gaol in Gloucester when he was elected, and he never took his seat in the Dáil, because while still in prison, he died in the Asian ‘flu epidemic of 1919. McCan was a substantial farmer, who resided at Ballyowen House, near Cashel in County Tipperary, where he was a member of the Tipperary Hunt. He was also a founder member of Sinn Féin in 1905, and became president of its East Tipperary branch. He was, a member of the Gaelic League and of the Irish Volunteers from 1914 onwards. He played a leading role in establishing these organisations in Co. Tipperary. He opposed Irish participation in World War I, during which he was involved in an abortive plot to free 2,000 German prisoners of war from Templemore Barracks. The police reported at the time that he was ‘intimately acquainted with PH Pearse, the O’Rahilly, Thomas McDonagh, the Plunketts and other extremists’. In 1916 he obeyed MacNeill’s order cancelling the planned rebellion, but when he heard that a Rising had taken place in Dublin, he tried to organize some sort of action in Tipperary. This came to nothing, but it led to his internment in Dublin and later in England. Released, he was re-arrested in 1918 and imprisoned in Gloucester Jail, where he died. He was known to have been a very patriotic and deeply religious man, with a great love for the Kerry Gaeltacht. 10,000 people attended his funeral in Thurles. Cathal Brugha told the next dáil session that McCan’s ‘death was for the cause for which he would have lived, and that his memory will ever be cherished in the hearts of the comrades who knew him, and will be honoured
12 by succeeding generations of his countrymen with that of the other martyrs of our holy cause’. McCan Barracks in Templemore, now the Garda Síochána College, is named after him.
12 James O’Mara, as we saw was Sinn Fein’s election agent. He was a native of Limerick, where his father owned the local bacon company. James took over Donnelly’s Bacon factory in Dublin. He proved a shrewd and successful businessman, and became extremely wealthy. In 1900 he was elected to parliament for Kilkenny South as a Nationalist. In 1903 he introduced the bill that made Saint Patrick's Day a national holiday. However, by 1907 having grown disillusioned with the lack of progress towards Home Rule, he resigned his seat to join Sinn Féin, to which he became a generous benefactor. In 1918 he was their director of elections, and his formidable administrative skills made a major contribution to the party’s comprehensive victory in the general election of that year. He regained his old South Kilkenny seat by a large majority. He became a trustee of Dáil funds, and travelled to the United States to support de Valera in a fund-raising drive. Again, his administrative skills proved highly successful, and the campaign raised over $3million. But when differences arose between him and de Valera, he resigned his trusteeship and his Dáil seat in 1921. He was replaced as fund-raiser and special envoy to America by his younger brother, Stephen (OC 1902-03), who remained close to de Valera, although James and Dev were forever estranged.
13 James Aloysius Burke, or Seamus de Burca, was returned for Mid-Tipperary, where his family were substantial farmers outside Roscrea. He joined the Irish Volunteers and organised Sinn Féin clubs. Arrested for drilling Volunteer units, he was imprisoned in Belfast in 1918. Later that year he was elected unopposed in the general election to represent the Mid-Tipperary constituency for Sinn Féin. He played an active role in the independence struggle, during which the press dubbed him ‘the most hunted man in Ireland’. He was smuggled to America, where he raised over a million dollars for Sinn Féin. He was a Trinity graduate and a barrister, although he never practiced. Not the least exotic facet of his career was his marriage to a Russian émigré named Zenaide Bashkiroff. She was the daughter of an officer in the imperial guards, and a cousin of Prince Felix Yousoupoff, the killer of Rasputin. Her published memoir of the Russian revolution Nights are longest there I can recommend as an excellent read. Zenaide was also a noted ceramic artist, and the cat in the centre of the picture is a work of hers.
14 The fifth Clongownian elected to the First Dail is probably the best-known of all. This was Kevin O’Higgins the son of a doctor from Stradbally, who was returned as Sinn Fein MP for Queen’s County, or Laois as we would now say. His ability quickly lifted him to prominence, although his wedding in 1921 prevented his attendance at the London treaty talks that ended the war of independence. The wedding photograph shows de Valera on the left, and the best man - O’Higgins’s fellow Clongownian - Rory O’Connor on the right.
15 Now a word about the unsuccessful Clongownian Sinn Fein candidates. The only seat outside Ulster held by the Irish parliamentary party was Waterford City, where as we heard last year Captain William Archer Redmond, John Redmond’s son, was victorious, with the very active support of the Waterford Pig Dealers association. What neither Dr MacCarthy nor I realised was that Dr Vincent White, Redmond’s unsuccessful Sinn Fein opponent in Waterford, was also a Clongownian.
16 Paddy MacGilligan was eventually elected to the Dail in 1923 and went on to have a distinguished career as minister for industry and commerce and finance in Fine Gael. Paddy Little on the other hand was a founding member of Fianna Fail. He was elected a TD in 1927, and later appointed minister for posts and telegraphs before becoming first director of the arts council. His firm Little, O’ Huadaigh and Proud were also Dev’s solicitors.
17 The same day that the First Dail met in Dublin in January 1919, the war of independence broke out with the murder of two policemen in Tipperary. Outside Dublin the most effective units of the IRA were the Flying columns of mobile full- time volunteers. (this is Sean Keating’s famous studio picture of the West Cork flying column)
18 Clongownians were active in these operations, notably James Hogan in East Clare and Michael Rynne in Wicklow.
19 Military operations were more or less directed from Dublin by the general staff of the IRA, as the Irish Volunteers were by now called. . Here is Leo Whelan’s picture of the general staff, commissioned by the chief of staff, Dick Mulcahy, who is sitting second left, beside Michael Collins, the director of intelligence, sitting extreme left. And it may surprise you to know that at the end of hostilities, when this picture was done, no less than two of the IRA general staff were Clongownians: Ginger O’Connell (standing on the left who was director of training) and Rory O’Connor (sitting fourth from the right), the director of engineering and, as we saw, Kevin O’Higgins’s best man. Michael Collins (intelligence), Richard Mulcahy (chief-of-staff), Gearóid O’Sullivan (adjutant-general), Eamon Price (organisation), Rory O’Connor (engineering & OC Britain), Eóin O’Duffy (assistant chief-of-staff), Seán Russell (munitions), and Seán McMahon (quartermaster-general). Standing: J. J. O’Connell (training), Emmet Dalton (operational training), Seán Donovan (chemicals), Liam Mellowes (purchases), and Piaras Beaslai (publicity).
20 There were also Clongownians active on the fringes: here are two well-known supporters of the independence movement. On the left is the Kilkenny-born Jesuit, Father William Hackett, a close friend of Michael Collins: on one occasion a raid by government forces failed to find a rifle hidden up the chimney in his bedroom in the Jesuit House in Limerick. He took the republican side in the civil war. Probably as a result he was sent to Australia, where he was befriended by the nationalist-minded Archbishop Mannix of Melbourne.
And on the right is Oliver St John Gogarty, the famous writer and surgeon, who was a founder member of Sinn Fein. During the troubles the Sinn Fein headquarters files were kept in his house, which was also a safe house for IRA men ‘in the run’, including Michael Collins.
21 In 1920, the British government passed the Government of Ireland Act, providing for two subordinate Irish parliaments and administrations, one in the north and one in the south. The 1921 election in the south was uncontested and most of the members were Sinn Feiners, who refused to attend the new subordinate Irish parliament and formed instead the Second Dail. The Anglo-Irish treaty was signed at the end of 1921. It provided for a 26-county free state, an outcome that fell short of a 32-county republic, and it proved very divisive. The Dail only ratified the treaty by a slim majority (64/57), de Valera (pictured in the middle) and his supporters rejected it and walked out. Those that accepted the treaty then formed a provisional government.
Like the rest of the country the Clongownians were divided.
Pro-treaty were: KEVIN O’HIGGINS SEAMUS DE BURCA JAMES O’MARA GINGER O’CONNELL JAMES HOGAN PADDY MCGILLIGAN VINCENT WHITE MICHAEL RYNNE OLIVER ST JOHN GOGARTY
22 A number of Clongownians played a prominent role in the tragedy that followed. The first act of the Anti-treatyites in Dublin was to occupy the Four Courts. They were led by Rory O’Connor, and Paddy Little was one of the occupying garrison. A third Clongownian in the building was Ginger O’Connell. He supported the treaty, and was walking past the Four Courts in his new army uniform, when he was kidnapped and brought inside where he had to endure the full siege, but was unscathed. The garrison was eventually overcome by the new pro-Treaty Free State army, using 18-pounder field guns borrowed from the departing British. The building was very badly damaged and the Public Record Office behind it blew up with the terrible loss of 700 years of state records. Some of the garrison evaded arrest, but Rory O’Connor did not. Held in Mountjoy, he was shot together with other prisoners in reprisal for the murder of TD Sean Hales on his way to the Dáil. After Michael Collins’s death, Kevin O’Higgins emerged as the strong man of the new government. He was apparently the last of the cabinet to agree to O’Connor’s shooting. He said of it in the Dáil ‘Personal spite? Great heavens! Vindictiveness? Why one of these men was a friend of mine’. Shooting prisoners is a war crime nowadays, and it was pretty distasteful even in 1922. 77 prisoners were shot altogether. The tough policy was intended to halt the slide into a guerilla–type civil war; it may have had a positive role in doing so, but these events led to the murder of Kevin O’Higgins’s own father in 1923 and to his own murder in 1927, when he was shot on his way to mass at the
23 early age of thirty-five. But he had considerable achievements to his name. He played a major role in the successful establishment of the new state, the suppression of its opponents, the placing of its army under civilian control, the establishment of its courts and of an unarmed police force; and the creation of a foreign policy. Although he had an affair with Lady Lavery, he was generally of a conservative frame of mind, and he influenced the conservative character of the new state in such areas as divorce, film and book censorship and the subordinate position of women.
23 What of the other Sinn Fein members of the First Dáil? James O’Mara strongly supported the Treaty, but he was deeply affected by the civil war. He was not a candidate in the 1922 election, but was appointed first Irish ambassador to the United States, serving only briefly. He returned to politics as TD for Dublin South from 1924 to 1927, when he declined a cabinet post in WT Cosgrave’s government. He retired from business in the 1930s, dying at his Killiney home in 1948. Seamus de Burca was re-elected to the dáil, successively for Sinn Féin, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fine Gael, at every subsequent election until his defeat in 1938. He was the only Tipperary TD to support the Anglo-Irish treaty. In retaliation, his house was burned down by the anti-treatyites. He served as minister for local government and public health in 1923-7, reorganising local authorities, abolishing workhouses and initiating the national trunk-road system. He was in charge of public works in 1927-32, where his principal achievement was the enactment of the state’s national monuments legislation. He was one of the first directors of the Irish National Insurance Company. In 1952 he moved permanently to the south of England with Zenaide and their only child. He was the author of at least three books on Irish politics and sociology. And finally Count Plunkett, the oldest but the most radical and tenacious republican of them all. In the Second Dail he was minister for fine arts, but he never accepted the Treaty, nor was he prepared to join de Valera in Fianna Fail and enter the Dail. He remained with Sinn Fein and fought unsuccessfully a
24 number of elections on an abstentionist platform. Finally in 1938, with the remaining abtentionist TDs from the Second Dail – the last legitimate all-Ireland assembly as they saw it - he transferred republican sovereignty to the IRA army council from which modern extremists, such as Rory Brady’s republican Sinn Fein and the New IRA, claim legitimacy. I suppose if my son was put against a wall and shot, I wouldn’t feel much like compromise either!
24 Here is a photograph of Clongowes Jesuits in 1904. They must have known many of the men we have talked about. In conclusion, I would say just this. Clongownians did not dominate the Irish independence movement, but their role in it was nonetheless a very prominent one. And I think that it has been overshadowed by the Redmondite connection and Clongowes involvement in World War 1. It is a facet of Clongowes history which deserves more emphasis.
Clongownians played a significant role in the foundation of Sinn Fein, in the Irish Volunteers, in the First Dáil particularly, in the war of independence, in the foundation of the state and even in the opposition to the form it took. Their involvement in the new state was immense: I didn’t have time to go into it.
Finally if the personalities I mentioned have something in common it seems to me that it is this: high principle, great determination and conviction, and a refusal to compromise with what they believed to be right, even if it cost them their lives.
‘To give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to labour and not to seek reward…’
St Ignatius could hardly have disapproved of these men.
25