The Murder of Francis Sheehy Skeffington and the Search for Truth

Published by Century Ireland, Sept 2016 ‘Shot like a dog’: the murder of Francis Sheehy Skeffington and the search for truth By Ed Mulhall ‘I wish to appear for myself, I am the father of the murdered man, Mr. Sheehy Skeffington’.1 J.B. Skeffington stood up before a crowded Court of Appeal in the Four Courts Dublin on 23 August 1916 at the opening of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the death of his son Francis and two others, Patrick McIntyre and Thomas Dickson. In the court room were his son’s wife Hanna, her sister Mary Kettle (whose husband Tom was with the Irish regiments at the Somme), their father David Sheehy MP and other members of their family and the families of the other deceased. Another MP Tim Healy represented Hanna and the Skeffington family but J.B. was determined to represent himself. He alone of the family had seen Francis’s body after his death, having witnessed its exhumation from the prison plot and re-internment in Glasnevin. The Sheehy Skeffingtons’ son Owen was also to attend the hearings; on the day his mother gave evidence he accompanied her, described by The Freemans Journal as a ‘bright little lad of ten’. Presiding over the Commission was Sir John Simon, former Attorney General and Home Secretary. Simon had resigned earlier in 1916 in protest at a bill allowing for the conscription of single men; a decision he later viewed as a mistake, not on the issue itself but rather on the tactics. The Prime Minister Herbert Asquith had considered him as a possible Irish Secretary when Augustine Birrell resigned following the Easter Rising. He was a major figure to chair such a commission but was apprehensive calling it ‘a horrid job’.2 The other members of the commission were Lord Justice Molony later the last Lord Chief Justice for Ireland and Mr Denis Henry KC MP, newly elected Unionist MP for South Londonderry and future Northern Ireland Chief Justice. The Attorney General for Ireland James Campbell, later Lord Glenavy (who had been appointed in some controversy and was later a Lord Chancellor and the first chair of the Senate of the Irish Free State), represented the Crown. It was a high powered commission appointed after a concerted campaign in Parliament and the Press by Hanna, J.B., their family and supporters, to see some public investigation into the killings. Their aim was, not just to establish the facts of the case, but by so doing to expose some of the excesses of militarism, confirming the pacifist principles Francis Sheehy Skeffington had campaigned and suffered for. Francis Sheehy Skeffington had returned to Ireland in late December 1915 from America. He had spent four months there, writing and lecturing about the war, following his recuperation in Wales from the effects of a hunger strike, undertaken while imprisoned in Mountjoy Gaol for anti-conscription activities. In America he had written regularly for The New York Times and sent back to his own newspaper The Irish Citizen, dispatches and funds, the raising of which was an important part of 1 All details from the proceedings from Joseph Edelstein, Echo of an Irish Rebellion –Verbatim report of the proceedings of the Royal Commission, Dublin 1932. Edited version in Weekly Irish Times, Sinn Féin Rebellion Handbook (Dublin 1916, 1998) 2 David Dutton, Simon: A Political Biography of Sir John Simon (London, 1992) p. 43 Published by Century Ireland, Sept 2016 the US trip. He had an uncomfortable relationship with nationalist leader John Devoy in America and also discussed his concerns about the growing militancy with union leader Jim Larkin who may have sent word back with Skeffington for Connolly saying that his boys ‘were not to move’.3 His father believed he should have stayed in the U.S.: ‘It would have been better for yourself if they had sent you back to America where you might make a living, I don’t see how you can do that here.’ He added: ‘I must say no other government would have been so lenient. In war when countries are spending thousands of lives and maiming millions they are in no mood for kid glove treatment of those opposed to them at home and it is unreasonable to expect such. Everybody here knows the pros and cons of recruiting, enlistment and conscription. So it is quite gratuitously running into ruin to talk of such matters. Perhaps your own family and especially Owen might have need of some of your consideration not to mention any others.’4 These concerns, particularly over his livelihood, and the vehemence with which they are expressed are a regular feature of the father/son correspondence, often tempered by the inclusion of a cheque to assist Frank in his latest financial crisis. Francis Sheehy Skeffington’s appointment diary for 1916 showed a period of intense activity. Large format, with a page for each day and each hour marked up in fifteen minute sections, he listed all his meetings, events, visits home, tasks completed, often with the names of those attending or met. There were frequently over twenty entries a day.5 He began a series of lectures starting on 4 January 1916 about his visit to America. He resumed his journalism for many publications including that of his own Irish Citizen for which he was trying to find a new guarantor. (Kathleen Lynn eventually joined Jack White and Dr Maguire, the paper having become a monthly due to lack of advertising in the war environment.)6 His anti-war activities now concentrated on the issue of taxation, with a campaign to prevent extra taxation being levied in Ireland to support the war. (The committee for the campaign, the Irish Financial Relations Committee, included Sean T. Ó Ceallaigh and William O’Brien). He wrote to John Redmond in March with a list of councils who had passed motions on the issue (Dublin, Limerick Thurles, Athy, King’s County). His work for women’s suffrage also continued with both the Irish Women’s Franchise League and Irish Suffragettes. Through the diary one also saw regular meetings with individuals, his morning visit to the Dublin Bakery Company café, to read the papers or play chess at lunch time. Throughout the period he was becoming more and more concerned at the prospect of serious violence in Ireland. At that 4 January 1916 meeting, held in the Forester’s Hall and chaired by James Connolly, Skeffington had praised the efforts of the Ford Peace Mission in promoting an end to the war. Constance Markievicz replied to his speech by disagreeing and declaring that there should not be peace until the British Empire was smashed. Reflecting on her remarks and the response they got, Skeffington wrote to The Workers’ Republic saying there was a ‘certain vagueness in the public mind as to what they really want which is desirable to clear up. I desire hereby through your 3 C. Desmond Graves, The life and times of James Connolly (London,1961) p. 385 4 J.B. Sheehy Skeffington to Francis Sheehy Skeffington 23/12/15, Skeffington Papers, NLI MS 33,609/13 5 Diary 1916 NLI MS 40,474/4. 6 Letters to Redmond, White, Lynn, Maguire in MS 40,473/3 see also Leah Levenson, With Wooden Sword, A Portrait of Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Militant Pacifist (Dublin,1983) Published by Century Ireland, Sept 2016 columns, to challenge Madame Markievicz to a public debate on the question – ‘Do we want peace now?’ – in which I would take the affirmative and she the negative side.’7 Markievicz accepted and saying she was prepared to show that ‘now as ever England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.’8 It was a challenge similar to the one he had made to Thomas MacDonagh nearly a year earlier but now in more stressed times. The debate was held on 18 February 1916 in the Forester’s Hall. In the debate Skeffington argued that there was not the slightest possibility that Germany would defeat England and that therefore it was folly to build hopes on securing freedom for Ireland through the crushing of England and that immediate peace was in the best interest of Ireland, of small nations and of civilisation. He countered the Countess’s repeated assertion that she was prepared to die for Ireland by saying that he was also willing to die for Ireland but he would not kill for Ireland and he considered it absolutely futile to talk of winning Irish freedom by arms. He was arguing a difficult cause as the suffragist Louie Bennett, who also spoke, recalled: ‘There was probably five or six hundred in the hall (chiefly men) for the debate. The debate itself was very uninteresting. Madame has no powers of debate. She re-iterated the same few points in various wild flower phrases, and talked much of dying for Ireland. The open discussion was ominous. The Countess had the meeting with her. Skeffington’s supporters numbered 26. Her supporters spoke in a bitter and sinister vein. I gathered they were willing to watch the war continue, with all its dreadful loses and consequences, if only it led to the overthrow of England and consequent release of Ireland. I broke out of the cowardice of that. I spoke pretty strongly and was listened to with civility. Then Connolly got up and spoke at some length. He spoke strongly in favour of seizing the moment to fight now against England. I gathered he regretted that more were not ready to do it. As always one felt the tremendous force of this man, with his big powerful body, and powerful face and head, and it came home to me that here, in this man, was the centre of danger at this time, and he would be relentless in carrying out a purpose.

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