A Catalogue of the Éamon Donnelly Collection at Newry and Mourne Museum Robert Whan A personal perspective by one of Éamon Donnelly’s grandchildren On the last Friday of 1944, my day along with Major Vivion de Valera grandfather, Éamon Donnelly, who representing his father. A year later was a native of County Armagh and a a striking memorial was unveiled at prominent Irish Nationalist politician, his grave with the inscription “to a died at the age of 67 in a Dublin true friend and sterling patriot”. It is nursing home. A Requiem Mass was still there at his grave; a huge block of celebrated at St Andrew’s Church in white granite (now dulled by age and the City on 30th December, attended weather) with a bas-relief of Éamon on by Éamon de Valera, then Taoiseach the front. of the Irish Republic and other leading members of the Irish government. Since then, apart from the very Éamon’s remains were taken through occasional pilgrimage to his grave the streets of Dublin to Amiens Street and memorial by politicians and (now Connolly) Station for the train historians, Éamon Donnelly has been journey to Newry, County Down, largely forgotten. where he had spent much of his life, for burial. I came to Newry in about 1956 when my mother, Nell, the eldest of Éamon In Newry, one of the largest crowds and Marianne Donnelly’s six children ever seen in the town lined the route and by then a relatively young widow, to St. Mary’s Cemetery where Éamon returned to the town that had been her was buried with his wife, Marianne, family home years before. It was she and two of their children, Catherine who rescued, and safeguarded, most and Frank. The funeral cortege was of what records remained in the family preceded by fifteen members of the home. I was born nearly three years clergy in top hats, long black overcoats after Éamon had died, so my picture and carrying furled umbrellas. The of him was that stone face sculpted on old-fashioned hearse was drawn by his grave. I knew he had been someone two black horses. Behind walked his significant, if only because few people son, son-in-law and two grandsons, warrant such memorials over their last followed by leading politicians of the resting place. A Personal Perspective 1 Mum would talk to me about her father I wish now that I had listened who was, she would say, an Ulsterman more to my Mother’s recollections. first and an Irishman second. Although Instead, with all the callowness of elected as MP for Armagh in 1925 youth, I closed my ears. It took the he was considered by the British and encouragement of my cousin, Sean Northern Ireland Governments to be Donnelly, and Anthony Carroll’s article a threat. Mum often claimed that the in the online Newry Journal to send British Government of the time went me back to my mother’s papers. I had as far as offering Éamon a colonial kept, but not really examined, them, Governorship in an attempt to remove despite a visit from Eamon Phoenix to him from Northern Ireland. I have no study them! reason to doubt my mother’s word, but I am equally sure that no written record After consultation with my cousins, I of any such offer exists, anywhere! decided to donate Éamon Donnelly’s papers to Newry and Mourne Museum. Despite her great love for, and I am delighted that this catalogue admiration of, her father, Mum was not has been produced by the Museum. blind to his faults. He had a weakness It will help bring my grandfather’s for alcohol, not continuously but contribution to Irish history to a wider rather, as my Mum described it on audience. Hopefully, its publication, occasional ‘skites’. Interestingly his and the availability of his papers, will weakness was never exploited by the show just why Éamon Donnelly was British or Northern Ireland authorities. so publicly mourned by both leading It was his friends and colleagues in politicians and churchmen and by Dublin who used it if they thought vast numbers of the good people of Éamon would embarrass them through Newry, his adopted and much loved his opposition to Partition, a principle home town. he never abandoned. Donal Donnelly-Wood March 2014 A Personal Perspective 2 Introduction The Éamon Donnelly Collection comprises almost 400 documents dating from 1881 to 1972, but mostly from the 1930s and early 1940s. They are the personal and political papers of the Nationalist and Republican politician, Éamon Donnelly (1877– 1944). Donnelly was elected by constituencies in both the north and south of Ireland: Armagh (1925–29), Laois-Offaly (1933–37) and Belfast Falls division (1942–44). Originally a member of Sinn Féin, he joined Fianna Fáil after its formation in 1926. A great organiser, Donnelly served as director of elections for both parties. As a result of his political convictions and activities he was imprisoned on a number of occasions. He was an ardent anti-Partitionist and, increasingly, by the mid-1930s, Donnelly had become disillusioned with Fianna Fáil’s lack of progress on the Partition issue. Introduction 3 PART A: ÉAMON DONNELLY Early life and involvement a full-time organiser for Sinn Féin in with Sinn Féin Armagh, where he was President of the local Sinn Féin Club. In the General Éamon Donnelly (named Edward John Election of 1918 he acted as director Donnelly) was born in Middletown, of elections in north-east Ulster. His Co. Armagh on 19 July 1877. His determination ensured that Sinn Féin father, Francis, was a mason and his contested every Irish constituency. mother, Catherine (née Haggin), was The election resulted in a landslide the daughter of a Fenian farmer. After victory with Sinn Féin winning 73 2 receiving his education, Éamon became out of the 105 seats. The Sinn Féin a labourer and later was storekeeper MPs, however, refused to attend the at the Armagh Asylum. He joined the Westminster Parliament, forming G.A.A., the Gaelic League, and Sinn instead a separate legislature, Féin, and was one of the first of the Dáil Éireann. Irish Volunteers in Armagh. On Easter Sunday 1916 he joined with Volunteers During the War of Independence, from the north who mobilised at 1919–1921, Donnelly’s activities Coalisland, Co. Tyrone. Though became the focus of further police they dispersed without fighting, attention and his home was frequently Donnelly was arrested because of his searched for arms and incriminating involvement and was imprisoned literature. In September 1919 he was in England.1 arrested and imprisoned for a fortnight in Belfast Gaol for refusing to pay a fine After his release and return to Ireland, imposed by a local magistrate for riding 3 Donnelly played a key role in the rise a bicycle at midnight without a light. of Sinn Féin in the north. He was Upon his release, Donnelly was actively dismissed from his post as storekeeper engaged in promoting the Dáil Éireann in the mental hospital because of his Loan in the north and in November political convictions and he became 1919 he was again imprisoned, this 1 Armagh Guardian, 17 May & 11 Oct. 1918; Bureau of Military History witness statement of Seán T. O’Kelly (W.S. 1765); Sinn Féin 1918 Ard Fheis report, pp 5–6 (National Library of Ireland, Dulcibella Barton papers, MS 8,786); Joseph Connolly, Memoirs of Senator Joseph Connolly, ed. J. A. Gaughan (Dublin, 1998), pp 150–51; Robert Brennan, Allegiance (Dublin, 1950), pp 168, 181–82. 2 Mícheál Ó Coileáin [Michael Collins] to Éamon Donnelly, 27 July 1920 (Newry and Mourne Museum, Éamon Donnelly Collection, NMM:2011.29.1.2); Aibhistín dé Staic [Austin Stack] to Éamon Donnelly, 19 & 20 Jan. 1921 (ibid., NMM:2011.29.2); Armagh Guardian, 14 & 21 Nov. 1919, 20 Feb. 1920; Irish Bulletin, 21 Nov. 1919; Newry Reporter, 22 Nov. 1919. 3 Armagh Guardian, 19 & 26 Sept. 1919, 16 Apr. 1920; Irish Bulletin, 25 Sept. 1919; Frontier Sentinel, 25 Oct. 1919; Irish Independent, 20 Dec. 1920; Donegal News, 15 Jan. 1921. 4 time for three months, for soliciting only effect that all our literature and contributions for the republican loan leaflets etc. will have upon them [the outside Tynan Chapel in Co. Armagh.4 Unionists] is to bring them out to In 1920 he was involved in the effort to vote against us in great numbers.”6 In establish Dáil courts in Ulster and also Northern Ireland, the Unionists gained in the organising of the Belfast Boycott 42 out of the 55 seats available, but also which sought to exclude Northern Irish successful was Michael Collins who goods from the nationalist-dominated was elected as an abstentionist member south.5 for Armagh. Shortly after the election, in September 1921, Donnelly organised Donnelly was the Ulster Organiser a large rally in Armagh, attended by for Sinn Féin in the 1921 election over 20,000 people, at which Michael campaign, which was not an easy Collins was the keynote speaker.7 task considering many of the party’s candidates were either in prison or ‘on During the negotiations in autumn the run’. During the election, Donnelly 1921, which led to the Anglo-Irish acted as election agent for Michael Treaty, Donnelly was invited by Collins Collins and in the campaign an attempt to come to London to advise the Irish was made on Donnelly’s life by the plenipotentiaries on the northern Igoe Gang, a group of undercover question. The illness of Donnelly’s R.I.C.