Clongownians and the First Dail

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’.

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