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The Mccartan Documents, 1916 Author(S): F Clogher Historical Society The McCartan Documents, 1916 Author(s): F. X. Martin Source: Clogher Record, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1966), pp. 5-65 Published by: Clogher Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27695579 . Accessed: 30/03/2013 10:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Clogher Historical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Clogher Record. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 86.174.204.174 on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:05:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The McCartan Documents, 1916 by Professor Rev. F. X. Martin, O.S.A. A police report written at Omagh, county Tyrone, on 23 May 1916, in the aftermath of the Easter Rising, declared: perhaps in no other county in Ireland had stronger or more insidious influences been at work than in this county, since the outbreak of the War, to undermine the loyalty of the people and spread the insurrectionary movement. A principal reason why strenuous efforts were made to form this county into a centre of disaffection was the his toric associations of Tyrone. It was the county of the O'Neills who were so long the irreconcilable opponents of British rule in Ireland and it was also "the cradle of the Volunteer move ment". The report comments in sober official language, but with an obvious undertone of strong feeling, that Dr Patrick McCartan, the dispensary doctor at Gortin, was a a dangerous I.R.B. suspect.... not only local leader in the rebellion movement but.was a leader in the higher councils of the Dublin rebels. He had a controlling influence in all the rebel newspapers such as Sinn Fein, Irish Freedom (of which he was the founder and first editor) and others. He had control of large funds from America for propa ganda work. Large sums were spent in this county in gain ing adherents to the rebel cause, and I have evidence of large payments made by him to such men as T. C. Clarke of Dublin, who has since been shot, and to Professor McNeill and others connected with the Sinn Fein movement. McCartan was, in fact, one of the eleven members of the a most stroke Supreme Council of the I.R.B., and by fortunate of luck a series of his letters, written immediately after the time. rising, has come to light and is here published for the first one of the They were written to Joe McGarrity at Philadelphia, three directors of the Clan na Gael organization which had un The reservedly encouraged and partly financed the rebellion. one the letters not only express the feelings and beliefs of of of the republican leaders but they reveal something closely council which and guarded secret policy of the military planned 5 This content downloaded from 86.174.204.174 on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:05:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions executed the rising. The value of the documents is obvious: they were written in the white-heat of feeling, while executions and imprisonments were still the order of the day. No other I.R.B. leader has left a similar record of those days. Good luck, like bad fortune, multiplies itself. The advantage of having the McCartan documents is capped by the discovery among his papers of a copy of a confidential police report on the events which took place in Tyrone during Easter Week. Thus we can also see, through the eyes of the local British agents, what was happening in the Omagh district of Tyrone. The police re port is published below. Dr Patrick McCartan Patrick McCartan was born on 13 March 1878 at Carrick more, in the parish of Termonmaguirk, co. Tyrone. His father had a modest but prosperous farm which allowed him to send Patrick, after his primary education at Tanderagee National School, first for two years to a local "latin school", then in suc cession for two years to St Patrick's, Armagh, one year to St Macartan's, Monaghan, and finally to St Malachy's, Belfast, for his matriculation year, followed by another year for the First Arts university examination. There was no obvious republican tradition in the McCartan home, but during the year at St Macartan's the national cele brations for the centenary of the '98 rebellion first stirred pat riotism in the lad's blood, and a vivid impression was made on his mind when youthful he chanced to read Alice Milligan's Wolfe Tone. the Although McCartan family had a happy normal home, on work the farm was not congenial to Pat; wanderlust seized him, and this spirit of adventure was to remain with him all his life. He ran to the away U.S.A. in 1900, taking ship from Derry to New thence York, making his way to Philadelphia to John McGarrity, with whose brother, Peter, he had been at school in St Patrick's, Armagh. It was thus in 1901 that he struck up his life-long friendship with Joe, brother of John and Peter. McCar tan worked as a barman in a succession of saloons for five years, laying aside most of his earnings for university studies. He returned to Ireland in 1905, with the intention of becoming a doctor, and though he lacked sufficient money of his own for medical studies he was backed financially by Joe McGarrity. his in During time the U.S.A. he had become a republican. In 1901 John McGarrity induced him to join Camp 428 of Clan na and Gael, by the time of his return to Ireland four years later 6 This content downloaded from 86.174.204.174 on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:05:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions he held the rank of Senior Guardian of the Camp. The Clan was the American equivalent of the I.R.B. in Ireland, but was an open organization, working to achieve the independence of Ire land by welding the Irish in the U.S.A. into a political force, by collecting money for the Irish cause, and by maintaining a pub licity campaign to keep the Irish Question before the eyes of the world. When McCartan was returning to Ireland in 1905 Joe McGarrity travelled with him as far as New York, and there in troduced him to John Devoy and Tom Clarke. Devoy wrote to P. T. Daly, a member of the Supreme Council of the I.R.B. and a well-known figure in Dublin Corporation politics, arranging for McCartan to be transferred from the Clan to the I.R.B. McCartan was placed in the Dublin Teeling Circle which included Sean T. O'Kelly, Ernest Blythe, John O'Byrne, and Sean O'Casey. McCartan inscribed himself as a student in the Medical School of University College at Cecilia Street, and though busy with his medical studies rapidly became prominent in political affairs. He was elected to the national executive of Sinn Fein at the first convention held in the Rotunda in November 1905. He quickly won the confidence of the small but active group of republicans in Belfast, led by Denis McCullough, Bulmer Hob son and Sean MacDermott, and with them toured the northern counties, speaking at public meetings on behalf of an Irish re public. He openly organized a Dungannon Club among the uni versity students in Dublin, and secretly recruited a number of them for the I.R.B. He was a close friend of Bulmer Hobson, was friendly with Countess Markievicz, and was associated with Fianna Eireann from the time of its foundation in August 1909. He was president, and for many years the leading light, of the Students' National Literary Society, and attempted with some success to have its proceedings conducted in Irish. He had strong views in favour of the revival of the Irish language, and in 1909 when an effort was being made to have Irish accepted as an essential subject for the matriculation ex amination of the National University he was one of the principal speakers at a students' meeting in the Dublin Mansion House, at which Douglas Hyde also spoke. To put backbone into the cam a paign he founded The Student in May 1910, but after short time, in deference to the wishes of An Claidheamh Soluis, he voluntarily suspended publication. As a result of his clashes with the authorities of University College, Dublin, on the language issue he transferred to the College of Surgeons. While still a student in 1908 he was elected a Sinn Fein 7 This content downloaded from 86.174.204.174 on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:05:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions member of the Dublin Corporation for the Rotunda Ward, large ly through I.R.B. influence. About this time also he developed an active interest in journalism, as a fairly regular contributor to Devoy's Gaelic American. At the suggestion of Bulmer Hobson a weekly newspaper, Irish Freedom, was founded at Dublin in November 1910, with the secret backing of the I.R.B.
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