PROFILE SEÁN MAC DIARMADA Inspiring the next generation

Donal Fallon on the boy from Leitrim who was happy that his martyrdom would reinvigorate a sleeping nation

EÁN MURPHY, an active precluded Catholics from the most member of the Irish Republican prestigious shipyard trades.” Brotherhood who participated Work for Mac Diarmada came in the in the Easter Rising, recalled form of tram conductor, a position he took speaking to a dejected Seán up in November 1905, though by July of SMac Diarmada while a prisoner the following year he had lost the position, in Richmond Barracks. Murphy as a result of “smoking on the platform was taken aback by Mac Diarmada’s words of his tram”. Yet if the lure of Belfast that “the cause is lost if some of us are not was employment for many men, for Mac shot”. Murphy told him that “surely to God Diarmada it seems the political life of the you do not mean that, Seán. Aren’t things city was more intriguing. bad enough?” To this, Mac Diarmada He actively involved himself in the replied that: “They are so bad that if what Ancient Order of Hibernians, a Catholic I say does not come true they will be very fraternal organisation which was closely much worse.” The martyrdom did come, and Donal Fallon. DAMIEN EAGERS aligned to the Irish Parliamentary Party the cause wasn’t lost. Mac Diarmada was in the city, yet quickly moved towards shot by firing squad on 12 May 1916. from the west of Ireland. Many travelled more radical separatist politics, joining Seán Mac Diarmada was born John to the northern city seeking employment, a Dungannon Club in 1905. On paper a McDermott in January 1883, the eighth often following family. In Mac Diarmada’s cultural nationalist society, the clubs have ideology plain and simple for readers: “The child of carpenter Donald McDermott case, he was following in the footsteps of his been described as an “open front” for the Irish attitude to England is war yesterday, and his wife Mary. An obituary published brother Dan, who was working in McGlade’s Irish Republican Brotherhood. Indeed, war today, war tomorrow. Peace after the in 1913 at the time of his father’s passing bar in North Street. the two central figures behind the clubs, final battle.” It was not a voice of moderation in the radical newspaper Irish Freedom Yet Belfast’s draw also lay in the fact it Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough, or reformism; on the eve of a Royal Visit in claimed that Donald was not only a veteran was a thriving industrial city, the beating were the driving forces behind the IRB in 1911, Mac Diarmada argued that “Ireland of the Land League, but that he “was one economic heart of the island. Despite Belfast. Hobson remembered that “about wants no concession from England. We of Ireland’s true sons and one of those men this, as Kyle Hughes has noted, it was a the end of 1906 I started a small fund, want what is ours; that is our country, and who, guided by high principles and an city firmly divided on sectarian lines, as mostly subscribed to by men who could by the Lord we mean to have it, come what ardent love of his country, took his place in “Belfast Catholics were significantly under- only afford a few pence per week, and made may.” the ranks of the IRB.” represented in all of the heavy-engineering McDermott the whole-time organiser for the Beyond politics, Mac Diarmada battled Brian Feeney, Mac Diarmada’s trades where a combination of sectarianism Dungannon Club. He established a number with poliomyelitis, which struck him down biographer, has noted that while tantalising, and a restrictive apprenticeship system of Clubs in various parts of Ulster.” in the autumn of 1911, and which left him “there is nothing else to indicate that the The Dungannon Clubs introduced reliant on a walking stick, an obstacle for a McDermott family was involved in agrarian SNAPSHOT Mac Diarmada to the politics of the man who prided himself on his abilities as politics or could have set an example that SEÁN MAC IRB, an organisation into which he a national organiser. He was present at the John McDermott followed.” was sworn in 1906. He rapidly rose establishment of the Irish Volunteers in the While he was born in the west of Ireland, DIARMADA through the ranks of the secretive body, Rotunda Rink in November 1913, and spoke at Corranmore, near to Kiltyclogher in Born: 27 benefiting from the overhaul Hobson on that occasion. Leitrim, his political education came January 1883, and McCullough were embarking upon. Hobson remembered that, “In addition to primarily from time spent in the province of Kiltyclogher, He was co-opted onto the Supreme the 4,000 people inside the hall a crowd of Ulster. Following a brief period working in Co Leitrim Council of the IRB in 1908, and about 3,000 were unable to gain admission. Edinburgh as a young man, Mac Diarmada appointed national organiser. The path from Cavendish Row down to the received an education in Tullynamoyle, Educated: Given his ascent in the IRB, and the entrance of the hall was a steep slope and Cavan from October 1904 to March 1905, Corracloona NS; trust both Hobson and McCullough we were much afraid that the pressure of studying the Irish language and book- Tullinamoyle had in him, it is not surprising he was people would smash in the doors which had keeping under the guidance of Patrick night school, appointed manager of the newspaper been closed.” McGauran, who kept a night school there. Co Cavan Irish Freedom in 1910. Based in Dublin, Mac Diarmada, along with others such In his recollections of the young Mac he became particularly close to Thomas as Hobson and Clarke, believed that the Diarmada, McGauran remembered that he Affiliation: IRB/Irish Volunteers Clarke, the veteran Fenian who had been Volunteer movement could be controlled by was “anything but a book-worm”, but that he Career: Newspaper imprisoned for his involvement in the the IRB. Indeed, Liam Walsh, a member of did keep a greyhound named Kruger, a nod manager, activist dynamite campaign of the 1880s. the Volunteers, remembered Mac Diarmada towards the Boer President Paul Kruger. Irish Freedom sought to advance and telling him that “if it came to a showdown, Mac Diarmada arrived in Belfast in 1905, Died: 12 May 1916, promote the political aspirations of the the backbone of the fighters would come a not uncommon journey for a young man Kilmainham Jail IRB. The first issue of the paper laid out its from the IRB.” When the movement split

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Richard Mulcahy and Min Ryan, Mac Diarmada’s former partner. Min Ryan, the woman who ‘would have been my wife’

EAN MAC DIARMADA’S they had been burnt out of the last letter to his brothers Post Office, the insults hurled and sisters contains at them by the most ‘civilised’ Sa poignant aside. He of armies when they had laid tells them that if he has any down their arms… more messages for them, he “He preferred to talk of will convey them through all sorts of casual matters, “Miss Ryan, she who in all asking about different people probability, had I lived, would we knew, referring to various have been my wife.” happy events of the past and Mary Josephine (Min) Ryan enjoying little jokes and jests was from a prosperous family almost as naturally as if we had who farmed at Tomcoole, been in Bewley’s.” near Taghmon, Co Wexford. A Mac Diarmada cut buttons founder member of Cumann na from his jacket and scratched mBan, she and several of her his name upon them and some 11 brothers and sisters were coins to pass on to friends as active in the Rising and the keepsakes. in 1914 in the aftermath of John Redmond GPO alive.” According to Tannam, Clarke Above: Tour conflicts that followed. “As one looked at his encouraging Irishmen to enlist in the was adamant that he would stay, and even guide Paul During the Rising Min and beautiful head bent over his British war effort, Mac Diarmada’s rhetoric “go down with the building”. It was Mac Gibson with Phyllis acted as couriers to the work in the dim candlelight, in Irish Freedom only became more hard- Diarmada who convinced him to leave. pupils from GPO garrison. one could scarcely keep one’s line. In the chaos of the evacuation of the GPO, Kiltyclogher In July 1916 Min Ryan wrote feelings from surging over He was central to the organising of a as the rebels attempted to enter a row of National about her last visit to the at the thought that beautiful meeting in the Gaelic League library at houses on Moore Street, Mac Diarmada School, man with whom she had been head would be battered by four Parnell Square in September 1914, where a was present at a moment of great tragedy. visiting the romantically involved for less bullets…” decision to mount a rebellion during the war Unable to open a locked door, a Volunteer the birth than a year. “At 3 o’clock, on the arrival of was reached. To Seán T. O’Kelly, one of those burst a lock by firing upon it. place of It was reproduced in Erins’s the Prison Chaplain, we bade present in the room and later President of When the door opened, a child lay dead Seán Mac Tragic Easter: the Irish Rebellion farewell to Seán and left him to Ireland, this meeting had brought together on the other side. Joe Good, a member of Diarmada in of 1916 and its Martyrs, edited by spend his last three-quarters “all shades of advanced nationalist political the GPO garrison, recalled Mac Diarmada Kiltyclogher, Maurice Joy: of an hour in prayer and in thought in Ireland”. limping into the house demanding to know Co Leitrim. “The last time I saw Seán preparation for a more lovely Despite secretly discussing the prospect who had fired the shot, but that “the woman McDermott was in a prison cell world.” of insurrection, Mac Diarmada remained a of the house herself was insisting that it was PHOTOGRAPH: at Kilmainham Jail at 3 o’clock In 1919 Min married Richard JAMES public voice, and he was imprisoned under an accident and the Volunteers were not to CONNOLLY on the morning of May 12th. Mulcahy, who took command the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) in be blamed”. This incident brought home the He was shot at 3.45 the same of the pro-Treaty forces in the May 1915 following a passionate speech in suffering of the civilian population to Mac Opposite morning… Civil War after the killing of Tuam, Galway, which encouraged Irishmen Diarmada, Pearse and other leaders present. page, inset “The cell was small, black Michael Collins. He was leader to seize upon England’s difficulty as Did Mac Diarmada believe that the Easter top: A portrait and white were the colours... of Fine Gael 1944–48. Ireland’s opportunity. Upon his release from Rising could succeed? From reading his of Mac As he came to the door with Her elder sister Kit — a prison, he became a part of the secretive departing letters, it seems he believed that Diarmada by both hands extended to lecturer in French at UCD Military Council that set about turning the the achievement of the Rising would be in Irish artist welcome us, with a smile on his — married another 1916 Rising into a reality. its inspiring another generation to fight. Brian O’Neill. face that seemed to transcend veteran and future President On Easter Monday 1916, Mac Diarmada, Writing to the veteran Fenian John Daly, this brutal place, one felt of Ireland, Seán T O’Kelly now heavily dependent upon his stick, he outlined his belief that “our blood will fortitude and confidence in who, after her death in 1934, was unable to take part in the combined rebaptise and reinvigorate the old land. oneself once more and a strong wed her sister, Phyllis. Yet march of Volunteer and Citizen Army forces Knowing this it is superfluous to say how desire to show no surprise at another, Agnes, married Denis from Liberty Hall to the GPO. Limping, happy I feel.” this unusual scene. McCullough, President of the he travelled ahead by car and waited with “We sat on the plank bed IRB. Their brother, James was a Tom Clarke on the men to arrive. By Friday, Donal Fallon is an author and historian, beside Seán. We discussed minister for almost 30 years. when the roof of the GPO was ablaze, Liam currently researching republican many of the events of the Min Ryan died, aged 92, in Tannam remembered that: “I heard Tom commemoration and memory at UCD revolution. He told us of what 1977. Clarke declare that he would never leave the School of History had happened to them after Gerard Siggins

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