TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016 1916 COMMEMORATION THE MAYO NEWS … · the mayo news 1916 commemoration tuesday, may 3, 2016 tuesday, may 3, 2016 1916 commemoration the mayo news “ 1916

1TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016 1916 COMMEMORATION THE MAYO NEWS

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2 TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016THE MAYO NEWS 1916 COMMEMORATION


Easter of 1916 was set to be an auspicious time for the MacBride family from Westport Quay.

Anthony, the middle of fi ve sons, was due to get married on the

Wednesday after Easter and his young-est brother, the famed Major John, was to be at his side as Best Man.

That was one role Major John Mac-Bride would never get to perform. By the time Wednesday came around, he was cooped up in Jacob’s Biscuit Factory on Dublin’s southside, second in com-mand to Proclamation signatory Thomas MacDonagh as they repelled enemy approaches.

It may have been by accident that MacBride joined the Rising in Dublin on Easter Monday but this lifelong, pas-sionate republican was never going to refuse an opportunity to take on the British when it came his way.

As far back as 1896 he had said of lead-ing an Irish brigade in the Boer War in South Africa that he wanted to be in a position ‘to strike a blow at England’s power abroad when we could not, unfor-tunately, do so at home’.

Doing so on home ground would cost him his life. At home in Westport instead of the celebration of Anthony’s wedding, Honoria MacBride was confronted with the tragic news that her youngest son had been executed.

“Mrs MacBride was deeply shocked and just bowed her head,” Tommy Hevey, the man dispatched to tell the news, was reported as saying.

The grieving Mrs MacBride would then have to deal with the arrest and internment of another son, Joseph, and a nephew, Joseph Gill, in Westport as the British moved to lock up whom they felt were ‘dangerous Sinn Féiners’ around the country.

The two men would be among the last of the 31 men arrested in Westport to be released from Frongoch Internment Camp in north Wales on Christmas week of 1916, even though they were never charged with any crime.

The Rising action may have centred in Dublin but try to tell Honoria Mac-Bride, in particular, or the family of any of those interned, that its impact wasn’t nationwide.

In Mayo, the story of the 31 arrested in Westport is a fascinating one and helps to illustrate the political, and social, climate of the time. James Kelly and the

100 years on MacBride’s legacy is fl owering

when facing the fi ring squad gives you some indication of the character of the man.

What the celebrations of this cente-nary year have helped to do is tell the story of all of the 16 rebels who were executed for their role in the Rising. For many years the historical narrative focused just on the seven signatories, Pádraig Pearse and James Connolly especially.

Some fi gures will always stand taller than others in the telling of history but it does seem odd that MacBride’s place in Irish history is not stronger than it is. The writings of WB Yeats certainly did MacBride no favours. MacBride’s wife Maud Gonne was the muse of Yeats and the relationship between the three was far from straightforward.

Historian Anthony Jordan deals with that dynamic as part of three insightful pieces on MacBride.

One could only imagine how today’s celebrity and tabloid culture would lap up MacBride’s marriage to Maud Gonne and subsequent diffi culties.

It was the celebrity marriage of its time but is just another layer to the fascinat-ing life of a man from Westport Quay.

We think, 100 years on, Major John MacBride has started to reclaim a right-ful place in the pantheon of Irish patri-ots and Westport and Mayo ought to be proud of his legacy.

We hope you enjoy reading about MacBride, the remarkable Dr Kathleen Lynn, the story of the Westport 31, the triumph and disaster which befell Jim Ruane and so much more as much as we’ve enjoyed pulling this commemora-tive supplement together.

Westport Historical Society have done invaluable research to uncover the sto-ries of the 31 and tell their story, so viv-idly, 100 years on.

James’ writings in this supplement on the arrests, his profi les of the 31 and analysis of the situation in Westport before, during and after 1916 are required

FOREWORD

EDWIN [email protected]

OORD

LLmaayonews.ie

ONLINE DOWNLOADThis supplement will be available in PDF format to download from www.mayonews.ie from Friday afternoon

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reading. We are also deeply indebted to Harry Hughes, Chairman of the West-port 1916 Centenary Commemoration Committee, and all the committee for their considerable assistance with the production of this supplement.

There’s so many others who have been a great help in bringing this supplement together but particular credit must go to Kevin Loftus, Head of Design at The Mayo News for what I’m sure you will agree is the outstanding design and lay-out of this supplement.

LEGACYNEXT Thursday marks the 100th anni-versary of the execution of Major John MacBride, at dawn, in Kilmainham Gaol. That he asked not to be blindfolded

y DETERMINED Major John MacBride was determined to be involved in a war involving Ireland taking on England at some stage in his life. This portrait of him takes pride of place in the house of his grand-niece, Mary MacBride-Walsh. Pic: Michael McLaughlin

Editor: Edwin McGreal

Designer: Kevin Loftus

Writers: Áine Ryan, Anne O’Dowd,

Anthony Jordan, Anton McNulty,

Daniel Carey, Edwin McGreal, Ger Delany,

Harry Hughes, James Kelly, Liam Canning,

Liam Friel, Rory Gavin, Vincent Keane.

Pics: The Brehony Family, Westport; Austin

Vaughan, Mayo County Library; Corinne

Beattie, Bronagh Joyce, Clew Bay Heritage

Centre; Conor McKeown, Edel Golden,

Jackie Clarke Museum; Geraldine O’Reilly,

Harry Hughes, James Kelly, Liam Friel,

Mary Kelly, Mary MacBride-Walsh,

Matt Loughrey, Michael McLaughlin,

The Murphy family, Westport; National

Library of Ireland, Pat Ruane, Seamus

Gavin, Westport Historical Society.

FRONT PAGE IMAGE Our front page picture is the only 1916 medal awarded for action in Mayo. Its recipient was Jim Ruane from Kiltimagh and it is part of a display for the centenary year in the Jackie Clarke Museum in Ballina. The photograph was taken by Corinne Beattie. Our interview with Jim Ruane’s son Pat is on pages 10 and 11.

MAYO NEWS 1916 2016 COMMEMORATIVE SUPPLEMENT

INDEX

EDWIN MCGREAL

President Michael D Higgins will lead the Westport 1916 Centenary Commemorations this Sunday.

Westport Historical Society will unveil a plaque to honour the 31 men who were arrested in Westport and interned after Easter 1916.

Major John MacBride, one of the exe-cuted leaders of the Easter Rising, is a native of the town and the commemo-rations will be at the MacBride 1916 monument on the South Mall.

Sunday will also see the James Street bridge in the town named after broth-ers William and Patrick J Doris, found-ers of The Mayo News in 1892. William was imprisoned for his Land League activities and Patrick J was one of those interned in 1916.

The Defence Forces, the Westport Town Band and the Clew Bay Pipe Band will be in attendance and schoolchil-dren from the four Westport nationals schools will participate in welcoming the President to Westport.

They will march with the President from the Courthouse to the South Mall at 1pm.

During the ceremonies three students from the two secondary schools will read out the names of the 31 Westport 1916 internees and 31 children from Gaelscoil na Cruaiche will hold aloft large signs with each internee’s name.

The three students reading the names are: Liam Canning, great-grandnephew of Major John and Joseph MacBride; Dylan Ralph, great-grandson of Tho-mas Ralph; and Zoe Cunniffe, great-grandniece of Thomas Derrig.

Many relations of the MacBrides, Doris brothers and of the 31 men interned are travelling from many parts of the world for the commemorations.

“The commemorations will be a tre-mendous occasion for all the families associated with the patriots of 1916,” Harry Hughes, Chairman of the West-

President to lead 1916 commemorations

port 1916 Centenary Commemorations Committee said. “There were still seven of the Westport internees alive at the Golden Jubilee in 1966, but we now have an opportunity to truly honour these men during the centenary commemo-rations with the unveiling of a dedicated plaque next Sunday.

“Outside of Loughrea and Athenry, Westport had the third biggest number arrested in Connacht. We can refl ect back with pride at the contribution of our ancestors in the cause of Irish free-dom and particularity the involvement of men and women from the Westport district. Next Sunday is a community celebration and is non political,” added Mr Hughes.

The commemorations get underway at 1pm, after a 1916 Centenary Mass at

12 noon in St Mary’s Church. Afterwards there will be a reception

in Hotel Westport and an exhibition of local 1916 material. All are welcome.

Sunday will be the conclusion to a busy weekend of 1916 events in the town.

On Thursday, the one hundrenth anni-versary of the execution of Major John MacBride will be marked with a wreath-laying ceremony at the MacBride memo-rial on Westport’s South Mall at 10.30am.

Later that evening the fi rst major exhi-bition on his life will open. The exhibi-tion, ‘MacBride: Snatch up the torch from the Slumbering Fire’, will be held in the Customs House Studios at West-port Quay, right next door to the house where he was born in 1868. It gets under-

way at 6pm. The exhibition includes many rarely seen artifacts and images.

On Saturday evening historian Anthony J Jordan, a renowned MacBride biog-rapher, will give a lecture entitled: ‘Major John MacBride - A National Hero’. The lecture commences at 8pm in Westport Quay Community Centre.

Meanwhile in Achill this Friday night, Professor Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh will speak on the subject - ‘Commemorat-ing 1916: The What and the Why of Commemoration’.

Professor Ó Tuathaigh is Professor Emeritus at NUI Galway and a widely respected authority on modern Irish history. The talk will be delivered at Ted Lavelle’s in Cashel, Achill, com-mencing at 8.30pm.

y COMMITTEE Pictured is the Westport 1916 Centenary Commemoration Committee, with members of The Mayo News. Front, from left: Harry Hughes, Sal O’Connor, Mary MacBride-Walsh, John Mayock, James Kelly. Back, from left: Edwin McGreal, Aiden Clarke, Vincent Keane, Paddy Joe Foy and Neill O’Neill. Pic: Ronan Hughes

The dramatic life of Jim Ruane Find out about the

dramatic, and ultimately

tragic, life of Jim Ruane, the

only man to get a 1916

medal for action in Mayo Pages 10-11

The legacy of a Mayo republican and feminist Áine Ryan refl ects on the

remarkable career of Dr Kathleen

Lynn, the Killala native whose

legacy is being lauded at last

Pages 12-14

The story of the Westport 31 In three compelling articles James

Kelly refl ects on the fascinating story

of the 31 men arrested in Westport

after the 1916 Rising

Pages 21-27



ÁINE RYAN

WHEN Canon Owen Han-nay staged a farcical play, entitled ‘General John Regan’, caricaturing a Catholic priest in the

Town Hall, Westport, on February 4, 1914, all hell broke loose with a rush towards the stage and furniture being broken, despite the protestations of the Catholic priest.

After the local Royal Irish Constabulary was called in to quell the melee, the sub-sequent arrests and court case for pro-vided dramatic headlines for both the national and international press.

Given the unfolding political tensions and growing nationalist ferment in 1914 – there was a schism later that year caused by Redmond’s call to the National Vol-unteers to join Irish regiments of the British Army – there were protests too at the gates of Hannay’s house, situated on the edge of the town on the Newport Road.

A century later that house, The Old Rectory, has been the longtime home of Mary MacBride-Walsh, her husband Séamus, and their fi ve adult children, Bernardine, Úna, Erc, Síabhra and Mary Catherine, all of whom now have fl own the coop.

Built in 1798, this rambling house, a rustic idyll, once had a coach-house and stables, a granary and cottage garden, as well as accommodation for a chauffeur and gardener. While the sylvan grounds are still kept impeccably, the atmospheric interior, with its warren of rooms, is like a gallery honouring some of Westport’s, and this country’s, most famous sons and daughters. And, appropriately, as the tapestry of history weaves a fascinat-ing web, these paintings and photographs and sculptures and records do not tell the story of Canon Hannay, or George A Birmingham, as was his literary pseu-donym.

PROUD LEGACYMARY MacBride-Walsh is the proud grand-niece of the 1916 Easter Rebellion hero, Major John MacBride and grand-daughter of his older brother, Joseph MacBride, a leading activist and Sinn Féin TD in the fi rst Dáil of 1919 and his wife, Eileen, the half-sister of Maud Gonne.

Her daughter, Úna, is the goddaughter of the late Seán MacBride, the famous son of John and Maud, and a lifetime friend of MacBride-Walsh’s. Seán was born in Paris in 1904, a year after his high-profi le parents’ marriage caused

Weaving the web

of a family legacyLeague in Westport in 1898. Named to mark O’Brien’s County Cork roots, Mal-low Cottage and its farmlands subse-quently became a home to members of another political family. It was here that Mary MacBride-Walsh’s father, Erc, was raised with his sisters, Clíodhna, Clohra, Úna and Sheila, the mother of poet, Paul Durcan. Indeed Major John was Sheila’s godfather.

When Erc (Senior) later married Ber-nadine Coen, who owned a drapery shop on Bridge Street, like the many other retailers on the street, they lived over the shop with their only offspring, Mary. Back in the late 1950s and 60s this was a bustling street where MacBride-Walsh played in the evenings with the other children.

Names such as Foleys (the chemist) and Gibbons, Stacks and McHales, Shanleys and Carters, may not be part of the signage these days but for locals they still resonate with much lore about their central signifi cance in the town, says Mary.

But when did MacBride-Walsh really become aware of her grand-uncle’s fame as a hero of 1916?

“I never ‘not’ remember him. I’d say it was Seán really. He used to always come and stay with us and used to always say that his wife Kid (Catalina) would say I reminded her of Maud,” MacBride-Walsh is laughing and imitating Seán’s renowned French accent.

“I was spirited, I suppose, and ‘a tonic’, they used to say, like my colourful grand-aunt.”

From early childhood, MacBride-Walsh was a regular visitor to Roebuck House (in Clonskeagh, south county Dublin) where Maud lived her later life until her death in 1953 and Seán, when not on his many diplomatic missions, in turn, lived with his family until his death in 1988.

“I don’t remember being brought to see Maud Gonne when I was a toddler. But I was always told that even in the gauntness of her old age, she was still such an imposing and striking person, sitting by the fi reside with a cigarette and a dog at her heel.”

From early childhood Mary had often heard stories from her family about how John ‘had given his life for Ireland’ and, of course, shared their hurt at ‘the biased’ coverage and some historical commen-tary on his character and contribution to the history.

“They were very proud of his bravery and his legacy, as I am,” she says. “I believe he knew no fear and was heroic until the end. You know, he asked not to be blind-folded before they executed him in Kil-mainham, saying, ‘I often looked down the barrel of their guns before’.

much dismay to the poet William Butler Yeats, for whom the beautiful Madame Gonne was a muse and close-confi dante throughout his life.

With the spotlight on the historic events of Easter 1916 and her grand-uncle’s legacy, Mary MacBride-Walsh recalls for The Mayo News how: “My granny, Eileen, my Dad Erc and aunt Úna, used to say they loved John’s visits because he had

always funny stories to tell them about the Boer War and his adventures on the sea. He used to stay with them at Mallow Cottage and always brought bags of sweets.”

Situated along the undulating Clew Bay coastal road near Westport, Mallow Cot-tage was the one-time home of William O’Brien: MP, Parnellite, advocate of Home Rule and founder of the United Irish

She continues: “He was a very kind and spiritual man, one of deep faith. The Capuchin priest, Fr Augustine, who anointed him afterwards, said during his last moments he emptied his pockets and – this really moved me – asked him to give his coins to the poor and to con-vey his rosary beads to his mother in Westport.”

Her granduncle was executed before dawn on May 5, 1916, two days after the executions of Pearse and McDonagh.

ROEBUCK HOUSEMARY enjoyed a lifelong closeness to her uncle Seán and spent many great evenings being entertained at Roebuck House, where, among the many culinary delights served to guests was Maud Gonne’s special recipe for burgers and Tarragon chicken. The guest list was usually illustrious, and on occasions when Mary was there, included Arch-bishop Tutu, Charles Haughey, Bono, Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson, and raconteur and author, Ulick O’Connor.

“Seán was always very private about family matters but I know he was aged 12 and at boarding school in Mount St Benedict in Gorey when he heard his father had been shot. You know, he never took sides about the marriage break-up,” she observes.

After Mary joined the bank in Dublin in the early 1970s she lived at Roebuck House for a while but, being an only child, she was lonely for home and her parents.

“It was soon after my return to West-port that I met ‘Mr Wonderful’ (her hus-

band, Séamus),” she laughs. “That is what I still call him after nearly 40 years of marriage.”

Indeed, they chose their wedding date – September 15, 1976 – to ensure Seán MacBride’s attendance. Among his many public service roles, he was High Com-missioner for Namibia at the time and spent a lot of time abroad. Mary is very proud of Seán’s contribution to Irish and international society, which culminated in his receipt of both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Lenin Prize.

“Seán was just aged 15 when he joined the Irish Volunteers and took part in the War of Independence. Unsurprisingly, with his family heritage, he opposed the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and was impris-oned by the Irish Free State during the Civil War,” says Mary. “I think it is impor-tant to remember that it was through his father’s reputation as a brave soldier, who led the Irish Transvaal Brigade – they were known as MacBride’s Brigade for the Boers against the British Army – that gave my uncle easy access to South Afri-ca’s apartheid government.”

REREADING THE PROCLAMATION AS Mary MacBride-Walsh prepares to read the Proclamation at next weekend’s centenary celebration in Westport, the fascinating tapestry of her family-tree will be confi rmed by the numbers of relatives who will descend on the herit-age town to mark this special occasion. A plaque was unveiled at John MacBride’s birthplace at the Quay in 1963, attended by President Éamon de Valera, Seán

MacBride and her late parents. Then, in 1983, President Patrick Hillery unveiled a bust of John MacBride, located on the town’s tree-lined Mall, near St Mary’s Catholic Church.

On this occasion, while the legacy of her granduncle is central to the celebra-tions, there is a renewed focus on the story of the 31 brave Westport men, including her grandfather, who were interned in Frongoch, and other British prisons, for their nationalist activism around the time of the Rising.

On May 8, 1916, just three days after receiving the shocking news of his young-est brother’s execution in the Stonecut-ter’s Yard at Kilmainahm, Joseph Mac-Bride was arrested at Mallow Cottage and conveyed under an armed RIC escort to Castlebar barracks.

Next Sunday, May 8, 2016, one hundred years to the day after her grandfather was arrested under the grief-stricken shadow of his youngest brother’s execu-tion, the intimate import of history will be shared by an extended family and a broad community: the benefi ciaries of their brave, pragmatic and idealistic fore-bears.

DID YOU KNOW?Major John MacBride was Best Man at the wedding of 1916 signatory Tom Clarke to Kathleen Daly in New York in 1901.

y RENOWNED FIGURE A bust of Seán MacBride has pride of place in the home of Mary MacBride-Walsh and Seamus Walsh in Westport. Pic: Michael McLaughlin

y PROUD DESCENDANT Mary MacBride-Walsh, a grandniece of Major John MacBride, pictured at her home in front of a portrait of the Major’s son, Seán MacBride, who was a close family friend. Pic: Michael McLaughlin

< RUSTIC IDYLL Mary MacBride-Walsh and her husband Seamus Walsh, pictured outside their home, The Old Rectory, on Newport Road, Westport. Pic: Michael McLaughlin



ANTHONY JORDAN

JOHN MacBride was born on May 8, 1868, the youngest of fi ve sons born to Honoria Gill and Patrick MacBride of The Helm, Westport Quay, a prosperous grocery, pub and hardware business.

His brother Joseph would later become a Sinn Féin TD and Anthony the Mayo County Surgeon. John attended the local Christian Brothers School and St Malachy’s College, Belfast.

His father had been a ship’s captain from the Glens of Antrim. His mother’s family had a long tradition in Irish nation-alism. John worked in Castlerea before going to work at a wholesale chemists Hugh Moore and Co, Yarnhall St, Dub-lin.

He was a member of the Celtic Literary Society and the IRB. His police fi le, dated August 2, 1895 says ‘he was 5’ 6’’ with red hair, fair eyebrows, long nose, regular mouth, fair complexion, thin visage, no whiskers, reddish moustache, no beard and a native of Westport Quay. His address was 13 O’Connell Ave Dublin’. It added ‘he was said to be an active Secret Soci-ety man and intimate with Fred Allen’, a leading member of the IRB. He would in 1905 become one of the founders of the Mayo Men’s Association in Dublin and in 1907 he was one of the subscribers to the Mayo Industrial Association.

In 1896 MacBride attended the National Alliance Convention in Chicago. He wrote, ‘shortly after the Jameson Raid, I resolved to go to the South African Repub-lic as I knew then England had her mind made up to take the country, and I wanted to organise my countrymen there, so as to be in a position to strike a blow at England’s power abroad when we could not, unfortunately, do so at home’.

He was soon joined by his close friend from Dublin, Arthur Griffi th. They organ-ised an ‘Irish Society’ in Johannesburg which led the celebration of the cente-nary of the Rising of 1798 in that city. Griffi th then returned home to edit Wil-lie Rooney’s newspaper The United Irish-man. John worked as an assayer in the recently discovered gold mines.

IRISH BRIGADEWHEN it became obvious that a war with England was inevitable John fl oated the idea of organising an Irish Brigade to fi ght with the Boers. Griffi th’s paper carried a piece from John on September 17, 1899 reading: ‘we are doing well with our Irish Brigade. In a couple of weeks we hope to be assisting our friends, the Boers, to drive the English robbers into the Indian Ocean. Our deputation waited on the President and Executive on Wednes-

From Westport to South AfricaThe Boer War was a vital part of the development of an Irish patriot from Westport Quay

We fought to uphold the honour of Ireland and the cause of a kindly, courteous, gallant little nation- Major John MacBride on participation in the Boer War

twenty pitched battles and forty skir-mishes. Its loss in killed, wounded, and missing was about eighty men.

John MacBride wrote: ‘in this hastily written sketch I have omitted many things, but some time I have leisure I may write a detailed account of the doings of the Brigade. We fought to uphold the honour of Ireland and the cause of a kindly, cour-teous, gallant little nation. We received no pay, nor would we have accepted any. We were soldiers of freedom – the mer-cenaries were all on the other side. That the cause of the Boers will triumph ulti-mately I am certain, else there were no God. I trust that my countrymen will no longer be deceived by the idea that Eng-land is invincible. Her army is simply rotten; her navy, I am convinced, is little better. She has lived on bluff for half a century. We, who saw her soldiers run-ning on a score of fi elds, know how much her boast of power is worth. That we may live to upraise the fl ag of the Brigade in Ireland is our prayer’.

If the Brigadiers returned to Ireland they faced arrest. Most of them went to America. John MacBride travelled to Paris, where he was met by members of his family, Arthur Griffi th and Maud Gonne.

John MacBride subsequently wrote an extensive account of the Irish Brigade. It is contained in “Boer War to Easter Rising - the Writings of John MacBride” by Anthony J Jordan.[Available on Kin-dle]

day last, and we are to be made full burgh-ers. President Kruger insisted that the Irishmen who have come to the assist-ance of the Republic in its hour of danger must be made burghers at once’.

The Boer War began in October 1899 and MacBride’s Brigade, consisting of about 300 men, was in the vanguard as Natal was invaded. The Boers were very successful early on and captured many British soldiers.

After the Battle of Dundee MacBride wrote that some of his men were embar-rassed to discover that among the Dub-lin and Irish Fusiliers captured were fellow classmates from Dublin.

The Irish Transvaal Brigade was involved in battles at Spion Kop, Pepworth Hill, Colenso, and the siege of Ladysmith. The Brigade then moved with the Boer Army to Orange Free State. In one battle Mac-Bride had his horse shot from beneath him and only for the bravery of one of the Brigadiers would have been killed. MacBride reports how General Botha praised the courage of the Connaught Rangers and Dublin Fusiliers in battle. MacBride himself witnessed the courage of Lord Roberts son Frederick, as he died in battle at Chieveley, Natal.

DAVITT CONNECTION MICHAEL Davitt resigned his seat at Westminster in protest against the Boer War. MacBride was put up as a candidate in the by-election in South Mayo by Arthur Griffith and others but was

defeated. Davitt then visited South Africa. He and MacBride had a very amicable meeting in Pretoria.

In Ireland a Transvaal Ambulance Fund was set up by Maud Gonne, Griffi th and John O’Leary to send reinforcements and a fl ag out to MacBride. Among those who contributed were: J Cunnane, Knock, Ballyhaunis.

As the British feared losing the war they brought in large number of troops and began to push the Boers northward defeating them at the crucial battle at Brandford. As the Boers retreated towards Johannesburg and Pretoria the Irish Bri-gade brought up the rear defending the heavy artillery, eventually crossing the border with Lourenco Marques in Por-tuguese East Africa. The British began to lay waste to the land and set up con-centration camps.

On September 25 the Brigade partici-pated in its last engagement as a Brigade. The war now entered a new guerrilla phase and all the foreign commandoes were disbanded. State Secretary FW Reitz and Generals Botha and Viljoen having thanked the Brigade in the name of the Republic. Among the letters handed to Major MacBride was the following from State Secretary Reitz: ‘In the name of the Government of the South African Repub-lic, I hereby express my hearty thanks to Major McBride and the Irish Brigade for the valuable services rendered to our country during the war’.

In all, the Brigade participated in about

“ ANTHONY JORDAN

Maud Gonne, the daughter of an Eng-lish Army offi cer, was introduced to Ireland while her father was sta-tioned there. She became a convert to advanced Irish nationalism,

favouring physical force against the English. She was captivated on meeting John MacBride

in Paris in 1900, an Irishman who had actually fought the British, in the Boer War. She was a famous celebrity fi gure and the muse of WB Yeats, who had proposed marriage to her on several occasions.

When the impending marriage of Maud and John was announced in 1903, their families and friends cautioned against it, deeming them incom-patible. WB Yeats was distraught at the marriage and her conversion to Catholicism. His hatred of MacBride knew few bounds.

When their baby Seán MacBride was born in 1904 the marriage was in dire trouble and John went to America for several months. On arrival back to Paris he told Maud that he was leaving the marriage and he left for Westport. John wanted the baby brought up by his own mother in West-port. Maud agreed to meet him in Dublin with the baby.

In London she consulted her family solicitor. She then met Dr Anthony MacBride, John’s brother, in London. She informed Anthony that a docu-ment was being drawn up for John’s signature wherein he would admit to an indecent offence against Maud’s daughter Iseult Millevoye, assign custody of baby Seán to her and promise to live in America. If he refused, criminal proceedings would commence in Paris.

DENIALSJOHN travelled to London, met Maud, denied the allegations and refused to sign. WB Yeats was overjoyed to hear the news, advised Maud to sue for divorce and became her confi dant. He excori-ated MacBride in various writings, which are fervently believed by Yeats’ followers to this day. Maud returned to Paris with the baby and peti-tioned the Court on February 3, 1905. John had two weeks to respond to the Court rebutting the allegations.

The immorality accusations made by Maud were ones that had been reported to her by her friends and servants in late 1904, after John had left the marriage. One was that John had committed adul-tery with Maud’s own half-sister Eileen Wilson.

Maud explained to Yeats on John, ‘his claim on my son makes it unavoidable. I have complete proof. The evidence against MacBride is over-whelmingly terrible and complete’. Eileen travelled from Westport to Paris, where she was happily married to Joseph MacBride [John’s brother], and rebutted this allegation in court. Strangely Maud did not include her earlier allegation concerning Iseult to the court.

John MacBride’s counsel raised it, in order to have it dealt with by the court, thereby risking a 20-year jail sentence on John, should he be found guilty of such an offence.

The case was heard initially in November 1905, resumed in February 1906, with a verdict being

delivered on August 8, 1906. Maud wrote to WB Yeats with the verdict:

My dear Willie,Hear is the verdict as far as I can remember it not as yet having received the written copy. MacBride has succeeded in proving Irish nationality and domicile so that only a separation and not a divorce can be granted. The Court now suits Mr MacBride in his petition of separation against me - the Court thinks the charges of immorality are insuffi ciently proved, but the charges of drunkenness are mani-festly proved … the Court grants Mrs MacBride judicial separation in her favour and gives her the right of guardianship of the child. It allows the father the right of visiting the child at his wife’s house every Monday and when the child shall be over six years old allows the father to have him for one month in the year … I am very disappointed and I shall prob-ably appeal against his verdict and change my lawyer for Cruppi neglected my affairs shock-ingly.

John exercised his visiting rights on a few occa-sions before returning to live permanently in Dublin, never to see his son again. Maud raised Seán in the French language to distance him from his father, should John ever try to regain custody of him. Some have designated this as an early example of parent alienation syndrome. Maud later appealed the verdict and the proposed monthly visitation by John MacBride was rescinded.

In 1910 John MacBride was a candidate for a position with Dublin Corporation. Among the people who canvassed for him was Maud Gonne but he rejected her overture. She continued to live in Paris.

When WB Yeats continued his vitriol towards John in his famous poem ‘Easter 1916’, Maud rejected the poem on several grounds, writing to

Yeats: “no, I don’t like your poem, it isn’t worthy of you and above all it isn’t worthy of the subject … As for my husband he has entered Eternity by the great door of sacrifi ce which Christ opened and has therefore atoned for all so that in praying for him I can also ask for his prayers and ‘A ter-rible beauty is born’”.

After John MacBride’s execution WB Yeats pro-posed marriage to Maud and was again refused. He then proposed unsuccessfully to her daughter Iseult. Maud later returned to live in Dublin and wore black as she became one of the widows of 1916.

MAUD GONNE’S PRAISE IN her ‘A Servant of the Queen’ published in 1938 Maud wrote movingly in praise about the kind of man John was. She recalled the frequent occasions she took tea with him in his tiny attic fl at discuss-ing plans to free Ireland.

She wrote: ‘most of these plans did not bear fruit, though indeed he got his chance of another fi ght against the English for Irish freedom, when he took his place among the sixteen men of imper-ishable glory who were executed in 1916’.

My own view on the separation is that Maud was psychologically incapable of contemplating losing her baby boy, Seán. Her fi rst born boy, George Millevoye, had died in infancy. She believed in reincarnation and saw Seán as the reincarna-tion of Georges. In those circumstances she set out to destroy her husband. Her introduction of the immorality allegations followed and were thrown out by the Parisian Court. While Maud’s actions can be understood, I feel those of WB Yeats and his devoted followers are dishonour-able in insisting on the condemnation of an appar-ently innocent man.

Anthony J Jordan’s 2000 book ‘The Yeats/Gonne/

MacBride Triangle’ deals with this story in depth.

The MacBride-Gonne-Yeats triangleMajor John MacBride married Maud Gonne in 1903 but their relationship was often fraught

y BOER WAR CANNON John MacBride posing with the captured sight of a British cannon, seized at Colenso. It became a prized memento of the Boer War. Pic courtesy of Westport Historical Society

y MOTHER AND SON Major John MacBride pictured with his mother Honoria Gill. Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

y FAMILY PORTRAIT Maud Gonne MacBride, baby Seán MacBride and Major John MacBride pictured in 1904.Pic courtesy of Westport Historical Society



EDWIN MCGREAL

The offi cial unveiling of a com-memorative plaque to Major John MacBride at his birthplace at Westport Quay took place in 1963.

In attendance at the ceremony at The Helm Bar was President Éamon de Valera, himself one of the leaders of the 1916 Ris-ing, who was said to have survived execu-tion by virtue of his American birth.

President de Valera gave a lengthy speech at the ceremony, which took place on August 4. He vividly told those gathered of the formative years of John MacBride’s life.

“It is said that there is an island in Clew Bay for every day of the year. That may be so but for John MacBride there was one island in particular: Island More. His mother’s people came from Island More. She was Honoria Gill: a truly remarkable woman, forceful, kind, but always master-ful. She married a ship’s Captain from the Glens of Antrim, Patrick MacBride. Storms seldom delayed his ship.

“Captain MacBride died shortly after John’s birth in 1868, and Honoria had the task of rearing John and his four elder brothers and of running the family busi-ness at the Quay. But she was one of those

capable, forceful women which the West pro-duces,” he said.

Joseph Mac-B r i d e w a s elected the fi rst Sinn Féin TD f o r We s t Mayo in 1918; Patrick inher-ited the fam-ily business; Anthony, who was County Surgeon until the mid 1930s and Francis, who emi-grated to Australia, were John’s older brothers.

Westport Quay was a ‘thriving port’ in those days’ and there was ‘a strong Fenian tradition’ in the Gill family President de Valera said.

“Sailing in and out of the islands was the summer pastime of the young Mac-Brides.

“It is against this background of sails and of the Fenian tradition in the West that John MacBride grew up. He became a friend of John O’Leary. From 1893 he was regarded by the British Authorities as a

‘dangerous nationalist’ and was constantly shadowed

by detectives wherever he went in Ireland,”

said the President. P re s i d e n t d e

Valera went on to speak about John MacBride’s role in the Boer War and in the republican struggle, before talking about 1916. “Of all the leaders

of the 1916 Rising, he probably better than

any of the other leaders knew what faced him. As

a military man, he knew there was no hope of success; as an implac-able foe of British rule in Ireland, he knew there would be no mercy

shown to him. With Thomas MacDonagh he was in charge of the Republican forces in Jacob’s Factory. Captured and sentenced to death, he was executed on May 5, 1916. He asked not to be blindfolded, adding, ‘I am used to looking down the barrels of British guns.’”

President de Valera’s speech was printed

in Cathair na Mart Number 10 (1990).

President’s tribute to Major MacBride

HOW JOHN MACBRIDE’S MOTHER HEARD THE NEWSTommy Hevey relates how he saw Major

John MacBride’s photograph on the front

page of a newspaper, telling of his execution.

Mrs Joyce, the newsagent, then dispatched

him immediately to the MacBride home at

Westport Quay with the bad news. Hevey

said that ‘Mrs MacBride was deeply shocked

and just bowed her head’.

From Vincent Keane’s ‘Westport and the Irish

Volunteers’ Parts 1 and 2, Cathair na Mart 22

and 23 (2002 and 2003)

LIAM CANNING

WHEN Major John MacBride faced the fi ring squad in Kilmainham jail on May 5, 1916, he was arguably the most high-profi le rebel who’d been sentenced to death for his part in the rising. He was a great friend of Arthur Griffi th, founder of Sinn Féin and had been married to Maud Gonne, the woman who inspired much of WB Yeats’s most romantic poetry. They had a son together named Seán MacBride, who went on to have a long and distinguished career in politics.

Born at Westport Quay in 1868, John MacBride was the son of Patrick MacBride, a native of Co Antrim and Honoria Gill, whose family had strong links to the Fenian tradition in Mayo and beyond. He became a member of the Irish Republican Brother-hood while apprenticed as a draper’s assist-ant in Co Roscommon and when he later went to work in Dublin he became an active member of the Young Ireland League and the Celtic Literary Society during the early 1890s.

In 1895, MacBride emigrated to South Africa and it was while fi ghting against British troops in the Boer War that he dis-tinguished himself as a soldier and leader of men. He was awarded the title of Major in the Boer Army.

When MacBride eventually returned to Dublin he was very active in the Irish Republican movement and worked along-side Pádraig Pearse and James Connolly and the other leading rebels.

When the Rising began on Easter Mon-day on April 24, 1916, MacBride offered his services to Thomas MacDonagh and served as his second in command at Jacob’s factory. He deeply regretted Pearse’s deci-sion to surrender on the following Satur-day. MacBride was taken to Richmond Barracks where he was tried by Court Martial and was sentenced to death. He is reported to have said that ‘nothing will save me, this is the end, remember that this is the second time I have sinned against them’.

On the morning of his execution, Mac-Bride was visited by Father Augustine in his cell. Fr Augustine reported that Mac-Bride emptied his pockets of silver and copper and asked him to give it to the poor. He asked that his Rosary beads be given to his mother.

When he faced the fi ring squad, he bravely asked not to be blindfolded adding ‘I am used to looking down the barrel of British guns’. For many the name Major John MacBride means Westport, he was a great-great-granduncle to me and I’m proud to be a descendant of this great and noble man.

- Liam Canning, a Fifth Year student at

Rice College, Westport and descendant of

Major MacBride, gave this account of the

Major at the school’s Proclamation Day in

March

Remembering my noble ancestor

ANTHONY JORDAN

JOHN MacBride had come into Dublin that Easter Monday, 1916 morning from Glenageary to meet his brother Dr Anthony who was travelling from Mayo, to be married in Crumlin on the Wednes-day. John was to be the Best Man.

He was early and strolled up Grafton St to walk in St Stephen’s Green where, to his surprise, he saw Thomas MacDonagh assembling his Volun-teers. MacBride was a famous soldier as a founder and co-leader of the Irish Transvaal Brigade in the Boer War. He was too well-known by the police to have been part of the Military Coun-cil.

MacDonagh invited him to march with him to take over the nearby Jacob’s Biscuit Factory. MacBride did not hesitate and was appointed second in command. His appointment on the back of a Jacob’s Invoice was found on MacBride after the surrender and used in evidence at his Field Court Martial. His military experience was to prove important to the garrison during the week as he effectively became the military com-mander.

After they repulsed an early attempted incur-sion by the British, the Jacob’s garrison was mainly active in supplying nearby garrisons such as the Irish Citizen Army in the Royal College of Surgeons with provisions, forming parties to gather information on what was happening in the city (the last communication from the GPO was on the Wednesday) and supporting other garrisons by sending men to join the fi ghting.

In particular, a group of 20 men was sent to de Valera’s Boland’s Mills and Westland Row Rail-way Station, which was under heavy fi re from the British Army. When they reached the Mount Street area they were fi red on and were forced to retreat, with Volunteer John O’Grady mortally wounded – the only member of the garrison to die that week.

CONFUSION ALL during the week rumours were fast and furious - that the Germans had landed in the South and were marching on Dublin and so on. The days were all mixed up because they got very little sleep and did not know one day from another.

As Low Sunday approached the sound of heavy guns, machine gun staccato and the crack of the rifl e gradually died down the previous day and Saturday night had been unnaturally quiet. It was obvious that the struggle in Dublin was fi nished. Elizabeth O’Farrell and two Capuchin priests, Fr Augustine and Fr Aloysius arrived with news of Pearse’s surrender order.

Thomas MacDonagh left with them under a under a fl ag of Truce to meet Pearse and to con-sult with Eamon Kent. MacDonagh was later given an ultimatum by General Lowe that the

An accidental 1916 RebelThough one of the better known executed leaders, John MacBride’s involvement in the 1916 Rising came about by chance

British Army would shell Jacob’s unless they surrendered.

Thomas B Gay records that on hearing that MacDonagh had gone to discuss surrender, Con Colbert in Marrowbone Lane requested him to seek any message of surrender in writing from Major MacBride.

Gay went to Jacob’s, found Major MacBride and gave him the message. MacBride’s reply was: ‘I have never in my life written an order for Irish-men to surrender and I do not propose to do it now. Will you return at once and inform whoever is in charge that when they see the fl ag coming down from the top of our building they will know the surrender is taking place; beyond that I will not go’.

On his return MacDonagh summoned all offi c-ers to the staff room. A silent Company awaited his report. Major MacBride sat calmly beside him at a table. Thomas announced that Pearse had surrendered and had issued an order to all units to do likewise.

He read the order pointing out that they were not bound to obey orders from a prisoner. He solicited the views of those present as to the most desirable course to be pursued. Each offi cer spoke up in turn and though some were in favour

of fi ghting it out the majority counselled obedi-ence to the order.

MacDonagh listened carefully and then summed up. His voice shook as he spoke and fi nally with tears in his eyes broke down, crying: ‘boys, we must give in. We must leave some to carry on the struggle’.

‘LIBERTY IS A PRICELESS THING’PEADAR Kearney recorded that he discussed leaving with Major MacBride, who told him: ‘Liberty is a priceless thing and any of you that sees a chance, take it. I’d do so myself, but my liberty days are over. Good luck boys. Many of you may live to fi ght some other day. Take my advice and never allow yourself to be cooped up inside the walls of a building again’. The advice was taken.

The Cumann na mBan women did not wish to leave. MacBride spoke to Maire Ní Shiubhlaigh saying: ‘it would be better for you to go’. He asked her to pass on a message to her neighbour, Clara Allan of Glenageary, a woman he loved: ‘tell them that we had a good week of it and ask her to mind the fl ag’. Nic Shiubhlaigh wrote of MacBride: ‘he fulfi lled all the expectations as a soldier of cour-age and resource, a gentleman, quiet, witty, always unruffl ed. Without exception, the Volunteers in the building admired and respected him. It is sad to look back; every man in the place went to confession. I think John MacBride went. He told Bob Price he had been away from confession for some time. God rest him’.

John MacBride was court-martialed before Brigadier CJ Blackadder on May 4. He called one witness, Clara Allen, to see her for the last time. Fr Augustine reached the prison at 2am on Fri-day, May 5 and was immediately shown to a cell. He gripped the hand of Major MacBride who was quiet and natural as ever.

Fr Augustine continues: “His very fi rst words expressed sorrow for the surrender. He emptied his pockets of whatever silver and copper he had and asked me to give it to the poor. Finally, after placing his Rosary tenderly in my hand, he uttered a sentence that thrilled me; ‘and give that to my mother’. Then he began his confession with the simplicity and humility of a child; after a few minutes I gave him Holy Communion and we spent some time in prayer. I told him I would be with him to the last and that I would assist him when he fell … When the time was up, a soldier knocked on the door and we went down together to the passage where fi nal preparations were made … The prisoner stiffens and expands his chest. Then quickly, a silent signal, a loud volley, and the body collapses in a heap. I moved for-ward quickly and anoint him’.

y PORTRAIT A colour portrait of Major John Mac Bride. Pic courtesy of Matt Loughrey

y MEMORIAL Pictured at the unveiling of the memorial to Major John MacBride at The Mall, Westport on July 3, 1983 were, from left: Peter Grant (sculptor), President Patrick Hillary, Owen Hughes, Chairman of the MacBride Memorial Committee and Major MacBride’s son, Seán MacBride.

y 1916 LEADERS The famous painting of the 1916 executed rebel leaders shows Major John MacBride sitting, second from left, between Padraig Pearse and Thomas Clarke. A copy of this painting is on display at the Jackie Clarke Museum in Ballina. Pic: Corinne Beattie

y REFLECTING Liam Canning, a descendant of Major John MacBride, speaking about him at Rice College’s Proclamation Day. Pic: Michael McLaughlin



EDWIN MCGREAL

Jim Ruane and his friend Dan Sheehy were walking up Main Street in Kiltimagh when they saw an intriguing sight. An unat-tended car.

It was Sunday, April 30, 1916, and the Easter Rising in Dublin was over. Down the country it never got going, partly due to confusion over Eoin MacNeill’s countermand but also because Volun-teers around the country were very poorly equipped for launching any insur-gency.

The two Mayo teenagers were acutely aware of the weapons shortage, and it was known that there was a consignment of rifl es in the area. Seven days earlier, an attempt to relieve rifl es from an Irish Party (Redmondite) representative failed when a latch on a window had not been left open.

As the duo scanned the street and watched the empty car, they put two and two together. The car contained arms. In fact, the car was carrying 14 rifl es that were being brought to the authorities in Castlebar by two Redmondites, TS Moclair and T Quinn, who had adjourned to a local hostelry. The two young men saw a glorious opportunity to help to arm the local Irish Volunteers.

There was one snag. Neither Ruane nor Sheehy could drive. The pair met a local woman, Miss Gavin, and pleaded for her help, but she had never driven a motor car either – few people could drive in 1916.

The opportunity to speed away with rifl es looked like it could pass, but the resourceful duo were not giving up that easily.

ARMS ON TAPANTICIPATING that the car might stop at Balla on the way to Castlebar, they hot-tailed it on their bikes to the village, fi ve miles away.

tragedy

Daring, strife&

The fascinating and, ultimately, tragic life of Kiltimagh man Jim Ruane

There, they told leading local Volun-teer Dick Walsh of the possible arrival. Walsh, Ruane, Sheehy and another man decided they would act if the car stopped.

There was another problem, however – the weapons shortage meant they had no gun to hold up Moclair and Quinn.

Though only 19 at the time, Jim Ruane was prepared for this particular even-tuality. He had a brass beer tap from the family pub in Kiltimagh. Held the right way, it did not look unlike a gun. Neces-sity was the mother of invention in 1916, and so the four men waited patiently.

Their instincts were right. The car stopped at McEllin’s Hotel in Balla, and the four men, armed with a beer tap, relieved Moclair and Quinn of their 14 rifl es. It was the only organised insur-gency in Mayo that Easter.

READY, WILLING, NOT ABLETHE guns were stored in a nearby grave-yard, according to Seán T Ruane, Jim’s oldest brother, who recounted the story in his Bureau of Military History state-ment in 1957. Dick Walsh would be one of those arrested, but, being from Kilti-magh, Jim Ruane and Dan Sheehy were able to sneak back to Raftery country

and were never suspected of involve-ment. The guns did not remain long in the hands of the Volunteers though. Seán T Ruane recalled that as a relative of one of those men arrested was in a posi-tion where he could be ‘victimised’ by the authorities, the Balla prisoners decided to give up the location of the rifl es and they were released from cus-tody.

Seán T Ruane went on say that this story helps to show that the Volunteers down the country were willing but not able that Easter, due to weapons short-ages.

“I give these details as to what help would have been available to the men of Easter Week up and down the coun-try if only they were partly armed,” he said.

Jim Ruane was awarded an Easter Week medal for his role in this incident – the only person to receive a medal for action in Mayo that Easter.

His medal and other mementos are part of a display in the Jackie Clarke Museum in Ballina, gifted to the Museum for this year by Jim’s son, Pat.

BARROOM SHOOTOUTJIM Ruane would go on to play a very

active part in the struggle for independ-ence. His father, Simon was a member of the secret Irish Republican Brother-hood, and Jim joined the Volunteers in 1914.

He served as Battalion and later Bri-gade Chief Signaller with the Irish Vol-unteers and the IRA. During the War of Independence, he took part in various activities, including IRA attacks on RIC patrols and barracks at Bohola and Bal-lyvary, as well as arms raids and the manufacture of munitions.

In April, 1922, he joined the National Army, and it was after this that an infa-mous incident took place in Kiltimagh, an incident that would cast a long shadow.

The Ruane brothers took the pro-Treaty side that year. One man on the other side was another Kiltimagh man, Martin Lavan. In his book ‘The Road to 51, The Making of Mayo Football’, James Laffey describes Lavan as a ‘combustible indi-vidual’. The Ruanes would fi nd out just how combustible on Thursday, June 28, 1922.

Lavan had previously attempted to target the Ruanes after Sunday Mass, but he had been foiled. On that Thursday evening in June, Lavan and some col-

leagues stormed into Ruanes’ Bar. Jim Ruane and his brother Tommy

were shot, while Willie Moran, one of Lavan’s group, was shot dead in the ensu-ing chaos. Both Ruane brothers were critically wounded. Jim would live, but Tommy died in hospital one week later.

Lavan fl ed to the US, but when he recovered, Jim Ruane and another brother, Paddy, went after him.

“They never found him though,” Pat Ruane told The Mayo News this week. “It’s probably fortunate they didn’t, because they would have got the electric chair or would have been hanged if they did get him.”

Lavan eventually returned to Kiltim-agh, but only after Jim Ruane’s death.

TRAGIC BLAZEFOR the Ruanes, the shooting of 1922 would be followed by even greater trag-edy a little over two decades later.

Pat was just 18 months old when, in the early hours of May 18, 1944, a fi re took hold of Ruanes’ pub and store in Kiltimagh.

As locals rushed to help, the building was engulfed in fl ames with ten people trapped inside.

Pat’s aunt Margaret was persuaded to drop Pat from a fi rst-fl oor window to safety on the street, where he was caught unharmed. Margaret herself then jumped. She got caught in telephone wires, but Pat reckons these ‘broke her fall’ and meant her injuries were serious rather than fatal.

By the time that wretched night had passed, Jim Ruane, his wife Mary, three of their children (Thomas, aged seven; Maura, six and Seamus, fi ve) and three of their staff (Kathleen King, Kathleen Murtagh and Michael Stritch) were all dead.

The death of eight people that night in Kiltimagh was one of the greatest tragedies of the century to befall Mayo.

Pat Ruane is far from certain the fi re was an accident. “There’s a big question mark over that. My aunt said she heard a commotion outside. Politics was very hot at the time, meetings were being broken up. The offi cial line was that something electrical was left on. I have my doubts,” he says.

“Michael Stritch worked in the yard, and he had actually got out onto a fl at roof [of the burning building], but he went back in to try to help.

“There was no fi re brigade in Kiltimagh at the time, and the Castlebar engine was at a school fi re in Turlough. When they got to Kiltimagh, the water supply was inadequate. None of that mattered, the house was gone in half an hour. It was an old house.”

Pat Ruane grew up without his mother and father and with no sisters and broth-ers. He was reared on Linenhall Street in Castlebar by his mother’s uncle, Michael Lally – the only man he knew as ‘Dad’.

“The fi rst big word I knew was ‘trag-edy’,” says Pat.

PRIDE, IN PAST AND FUTUREHIS uncle Seán T, who was a Fine Gael senator and county councillor, was his main source of information on his father and their family.

“I didn’t appreciate until Seán T was dead that there was no other source of information left. I used to meet Seán T at council meetings in Castlebar. I worked with the council as a staff offi cer and Seán T used to tell me bits and pieces,” recalls Pat.

How does he refl ect on 1944 now? “It meant my parents were strangers

to me. I often wonder what life would be like if it hadn’t happened. But I wouldn’t have my wife and my family (two sons and two daughters that I’m so proud of) if I had stayed in Kiltimagh and not [been reared in] Castlebar.

“I was very happy in Linenhall Street. I had a great relationship with Michael Lally and I was on very good terms with his children, Joe and Angela.

“There was a lot of tragedy. It must have been devastating. We still have my father’s Sam Browne belt and his cane. His revolver was in a safe when the fi re happened. He was keeping that for Lavan!

“I am very proud of my father. I got his 1916 medal when I was 21, and it means a lot to me.”

While we chat, Pat’s wife Mary gets a call with some good news. Their elev-enth grandchild has just been delivered in Mayo University Hospital. The child, born one hundred years after the Rising, is a baby boy, called Pearse.

MY FATHER’S GUNPat Ruane had possession of his father’s Army Wembley 45 revolver in 1969 when the start of the Troubles led to a Government order declaring all such weapons illegal. He went into Castlebar Garda Station where they were clearly oblivious to the Government edict. “I walked in and told the guard there ‘I’ve something for you’ and showed him the gun. He let an awful jump out of him! They didn’t know about the order at all, so one of them hot-footed it over to Hanley’s on the Mall and checked the paper. I told him, ‘Sure I’ll take it back’.” “No, no, I can’t let it out of my sight,” he says back to me. Pat was told he could have it back if he would allow them to disarm it. “I told the cop ‘If I want a pop gun, I’ll go to a toy shop!’. I hope to get it back and am applying to get it. I think it is stored in the Phoenix Park (Garda HQ). It is of big sentimental value.”

y MY FATHER AND 1916 Pat Ruane (far right) pictured holding a photograph of his father Jim in his National Army uniform, when interviewed by The Mayo News at his home in Castlebar last week. Pictured above, from left, are: a replica of the brass beer tap which Jim Ruane provided for use as a gun to seize a consignment of rifl es in Balla in April, 1916; a picture of Jim Ruane on display in the Jackie Clarke Museum in Ballina; and the 1916 medal presented to Jim Ruane on the 25th anniversary of the Rising in 1941. Pics: Corinne Beattie



ÁINE RYAN

FIVE days before the Easter Rising of 1916, James Connolly gave Dr Kathleen Lynn a gold brooch in recognition of her work as a Captain and Chief Medical Officer of the Irish Citizen Army (ICA).

It might have been expected that her distant cousin, Countess Constance Markievicz, a more high-profi le member of the socialist army, would have been the recipient. However, as Connolly’s daughter, Nora, wrote in the 1950s: “The mem-bers of the Citizen Army, who were perhaps renowned for the toughness of their qualities rather than the delicacy of their perceptions, were swift to recognise this calm serenity of Dr Lynn, and won comfort and assurances from it many times … Those who were there with her remember and often tell of her calmness and serenity while on the roof of City Hall with bul-lets smacking all round her.”

Indeed, when that battalion’s leader, Sean Con-nolly, became the fi rst rebel fatality as he raised the fl ag over City Hall on Easter Monday after-noon, it was Lynn who took over as offi cer-in-charge.

During the heady and tense days leading up to the Rising, Lynn had used her car to run guns into Dublin, storing some at her own house in Rathmines.

At City Hall she was soon witness to the blood shed of the fi rst casualties on both sides of the Rising. On her arrival she was faced with the dead body of ‘a big policeman laying on the ground’; James O’Brien was a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary who was on guard at the adjacent Dublin Castle. He had been shot by

Lynn’s legacy lauded at last

Sean Connolly on the Citizen Army’s arrival. Poignantly, soon afterwards, Connolly was him-self shot on the roof of City Hall, in front of Lynn and his girlfriend Helena Molony.

“We suddenly saw him fall mortally wounded by a sniper’s bullet from the castle,” she wrote. “First aid was useless. He died almost immedi-ately.”

By evening, City Hall was occupied by British soldiers and Kathleen Lynn was among those arrested and taken to Ship Street Barracks. She was later transferred to Richmond Barracks, Mountjoy and Kilmainham jails.

Unsurprisingly, Lynn’s family, privileged Prot-estants, did not approve of her actions and for-bade her from returning home. They did help her avoid imprisonment though by securing her a position as an assistant doctor in Bath, living effectively under ‘open arrest’. Indeed, her activ-ism during the subsequent War of Independence would land her in jail, but again her expertise as a medic led to her release so she could provide expert assistance during a fl u epidemic that was ravaging the capital city.

DODGING BULLETSONE hundred years after Kathleen Lynn dodged bullets on the roof of Dublin’s City Hall her pro-gressive legacy has been marked – at last – here in her native county and also, fi ttingly, at a national level.

Like the many other overlooked militant suf-fragist sisters – Helena Molony, Molly Childers, Anne O’Farrell, Margaret Skinnider – the misog-yny of our historical narrative, which long pre-ceded the signifi cant contribution by women to the Easter Rising, the Mayo medic was written out of our national story.

A multi-venue exhibition by Mayo Arts Col-

laborative, entitled ‘Insider on the Outside’, cel-ebrating her rich multi-layered legacy has just closed after being on show since Easter Saturday last, March 26.

This multimedia investigation into the life, work and the contemporary context of the Killala-born feminist was created through newly-commissioned works by 12 of the 13 participating artists.

As the Director of the Linenhall Arts Centre, Marie Farrell, observed at the time of the open-ing: “Kathleen Lynn was an amazing Mayo woman. The early years of the last century were a time of great idealism, creativity and energy, and Kathleen was right at the heart of it. I regret that it is only in recent years I learned of her role in the founding of our State and her incredible work with sick infants.

“She should have formed part of the rich tap-estry of my life and my children’s lives as they were growing into adulthood. It is fi tting that Kathleen will be remembered in her home county in the early years of this century with work pro-duced by a creatively-engaged and committed group of visual artists.”

But as Dr Ann O’Mahony suggested at the launch of ‘Insider on the Outside’: “History as a discipline is highly selective in its narratives and positionings. Until challenged by mass move-ments, such as second-wave feminism, in the last third of the 20th century, the canon of history, by which I mean the version enshrined in uni-versities, academies and textbooks, contained deeply embedded bias, seemingly unconscious and unacknowledging of seminal issues such as social class, political privilege, socio-economic status, gender, race and geographical determi-nants. It validated and recorded the stories of male white European actors for an elite audience of the privileged classes of Church and State.”

TIMELINE DR KATHLEEN LYNN

1874 Born in Mullaghfarry, near Killala, on January 28, the

second child of Katherine Wynne, descended from

the Earl of Hazlewood, and Canon Richard Lynn, a

Church of Ireland clergyman

1886 The family moved to Cong,

where her father’s parish was

under the patronage of the

Ardilauns of Ashford Castle

1890 Aged 16, Kathleen was sent to

board at Alexandria School,

Dublin, where she excelled in

her studies

1903 Became a member of the Irish

Women’s Suffrage and Local

Government Association

1909 Made a Fellow of the Royal

College of Surgeons

Thus, during the 50th anniversary celebrations in 1966, notes O’Mahony, ‘women were not admit-ted into offi cial narratives’.

SUFFRAGETTE AND SOCIALIST REPUBLICANA staunch suffragette and socialist republican, Kathleen Lynn was an upper-middle-class medic who lived openly with her lesbian lover and fel-low activist, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen in Bel-grave Road, Rathmines, Dublin.

Born in Mullaghfarry, near Killala, in 1874, she was the second child of Church of Ireland cler-gyman Robert Lynn and his wife, Catherine Wynne, a descendant of the Earl of Hazle-wood.

Educated by a governess and later at Alexan-dria School, Dublin, she was one of the fi rst female medicine graduates from the Catholic University School. After undertaking postgrad-uate research in the US, she returned to Ireland in 1904 where some of her male colleagues at the Adelaide Hospital refused to work with her because of her gender.

Lynn’s disillusionment with John Redmond’s Home Rule party because of its failure to sup-port the franchise for women undoubtedly helped to compound her activism in the suffragette movement and radical republicanism. Her vol-unteerism during the 1913 Lock Out helped push her further along the path towards revolution, according to her biographer, Margaret O’ hOga-rtaigh.

An opponent of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, she became an abstentionist Sinn Féin TD in 1923, later refusing to join Fianna Fáil, and instead dedicated her life to the development of St Ultan’s Infant Hospital, which she ran with ffrench-Mullen. At the time, Dublin’s infant mortality rate was very high due to widespread malnutri-tion and an alarming number of children born with venereal disease.

The patriarchy and rigid Catholic nationalism of the new State, however, meant that the femi-nist and Protestant ethos of this hospital was treated with suspicion by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who charged the Knights of Colum-banus to spy on Lynn’s pioneering activities, which included the use of the BCG vaccine.

Undaunted, however, Lynn ran the hospital until her death, aged 80, in 1955. Her quiet prag-matism had ensured the hospital’s funding, and on her death De Valera established the Kathleen Lynn Memorial Fund to raise monies for a new operating theatre.

In the words of historian Sinéad McCoole, Lynn was ‘a pioneer, an innovator and a leader’.

“She followed her own beliefs in everything, including her relationship with Madeleine, the details of which are preserved in her diaries from 1916, now in the Royal College of Physicians,” says McCoole.

Like many others, McCoole has urged that the proposed new national children’s hospital should be named after Dr Kathleen Lynn.

One wonders what the Mayo-born medic and revolutionary would say about the contemporary Ireland?

Dr O’Mahony surmises that Lynn ‘would have applauded our stable democracy and the fact that we have fulfi lled Robert Emmet’s wish that Ireland take its place among the nations of the world’. However, the republic she aspired to would never have capitulated to the profl igacy of Celtic Tiger capitalism.

“Rather, values of participation, citizens’ rights, equality of access to life chances and a social justice agenda would have prevailed in Dr Lynn’s Ireland. The pragmatic, creative, skillful, human-itarian woman that Dr Lynn was would surely have found methodologies to cherish all of our nation equally,” argues Dr O’Mahony.

EXTRACTS FROM LYNN’S DIARIES

MONDAY, APRIL 24, EASTER MONDAY. Revolution. Emer (Helena Molony) and I in City

Hall, (Sean) Connolly shot quite early in day. Place

taken in evening. All women taken to Ship St

about 8.30.

TUESDAY, APRIL 25Ship Street Barracks. We objected to lavatory

accommodation and heard it was good enough

for us, that lice, fl eas and typhoid should content

us. Another offi cer had the WC cleaned and was

quite civil. Had good dinner, same as soldiers.

MONDAY, MAY 8Heard three shots this morning, told later on

Mallin, Ceannt and Colbert had been shot. That

makes seven. What other country shoots its

prisoners in cold blood! God bless them, they did

not fear to die for Ireland.

TUESDAY, MAY 9 Heard very pitiful crying, it was Miss (Nellie)

Gifford, her brother told her that two brothers in

law were shot, MacDonagh and Plunkett. Kind

matron let me go to her for a little.

FRIDAY, MAY 12A very black Friday. Fardie and Nan [Lynn’s father

and sister] were here, oh, so reproachful, they

wouldn’t listen to me and looked as if they would

cast me off for ever. How sorry I am for their

sorrow! Erin needs very big sacrifi ces. I am glad

they go home to-morrow. Why do they always

misunderstand me?

1913 Active in the relief efforts during

the Dublin Lock Out and

became a member of the Irish

Citizen Army

1916 As Chief Medical Offi cer, took

over the battallion of rebels on

the roof of Dublin City Hall after

Sean Connolly was shot dead

1919 Established St Ultan’s

Hospital for infants with her

life-partner, Madeleine

ffrench Mullen

1923 Elected as a Sinn Féin TD for the

Dublin County constituency but

adhered to its abstentionist policy

1955 Died aged 81 at St Mary’s

Anglican Home, Ballsbridge,

Dublin

The BCG vaccine was used in St Ultan’s Hospital for ten years before it was available throughout the country.

Lynn was descended ‘circuitously’ from the notorious Mary Queen of Scots, according to one biographer, Maeb Ruane.

DID YOU KNOW?

< MULTI-FACETED One of the art works on show in the recent ‘Insider on the Outside’ exhibition on Mayo-born Dr Kathleen Lynn is this photographic installation by artist Mary Kelly, called ‘Matriline’.



ANNE O’DOWD

I fi rst came across Dr Kathleen Lynn’s name in the late 1950s in Dublin when my mother would point out St Ultan’s Hospital on Char-lemont Street in Ranelagh, Dublin, on a fam-ily trip into town. She would tell us about the

great work that the women doctors were doing there for the less well-off mothers of the area and their children.

Lynn and a group of female doctors had estab-lished the hospital in 1919 as a way of tackling the dire infant mortality of the time and as a means of gaining experience and fi nding employ-ment in the otherwise male medical world. Lynn received her medical degree in 1899 just as the medical profession was ‘allowing’ women to be trained as doctors.

My mother’s own mother, Anne Brennan, had set up home at the other end of Ranelagh near Milltown village in the early years of the 20th century. When her civil servant husband died suddenly in 1931 leaving her with four small chil-

dren and just a year’s pension, she walked them down the road to the village, took a year’s lease on a small building known as The Barn. She ended up owning two houses and two grocery shops by the time of her death, 21 years later.

Neither Kathleen nor Anne was born in Dub-lin; Kathleen is, of course, a Mayo woman and Anne was born in Tipperary.

They both arrived to Dublin at the impression-able age of 16 years and both brought with them an ethos of hard work and a ‘get on with it’ approach. I suspect that the word ‘cope’ was not even in their vocabularies; they saw a job that needed to be done, whether that was saving infants and educating mothers about sanitation and cleanliness, or providing for a small family and ordering supplies for a grocer’s shop and post offi ce.

They both did their work energetically and well, they both died in the 1950s and they are both buried in Deansgrange Cemetery in Dublin. They were two women of their time.

I never met my grandmother, Anne Brennan, and I am sorry about that. She was obviously an innate businesswoman who would not have dis-

covered her business acumen and talent if her husband had lived and continued to be the main provider for her and her children.

Kathleen never married, and she lived her life with her friend and companion, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen. She and the others involved in the hospital kept it operational and open with fundraising and donations. The female co-oper-ative group successfully fought the male estab-lishment for decades, and the hospital gave the professional women working there certain free-dom to run it as they saw fi t and to maintain the emphasis on the health and welfare of the chil-dren attending.

I look forward to seeing Kathleen Lynn’s name over the door of the new National Children’s Hospital when all the talking, meeting and shape-throwing is done. There is no one else who deserves the distinction more.

Dr Anne O’Dowd’s book ‘Straw, Hay & Rushes in

Irish Folk Tradition’ recently won the 2015

Michael J Durkan Prize for Books on Language

and Culture, awarded by the American

Conference for Irish Studies.

Recalling two radical women of Ranelagh

ÁINE RYAN

LIKE all those involved in the 1916 Easter Ris-ing, Dr Kathleen Lynn’s activism must be examined in the

broader context of a multi-fac-eted cultural revival, often referred to as the Celtic Dawn.

As the spectre of the Great Famine faded, this revival was spawned by the pan-European breakdown of the medieval landlord system and a wave of nationalist sentiment, strength-ened by the ethnocentrism of a people defi ned by their island-ness.

Commentators and critics often use the disparaging term ‘Poet’s Rising’, arguing that those involved were from the privi-leged and ascendancy classes, moving in circles far from the impoverished masses, who were victims of laissez-faire econom-ics, the serfdom of landlordism and metropolitan ghettoism.

The harsh realities of everyday life – witnessed fi rst-hand by such literary pioneers as John Millington Synge, WB Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory – may have ended up conceptualised and idealised on the starched stage of the recently-founded national theatre, the Abbey, but from a socialist perspective, this is, fundamentally, how change is effected.

The discovery and embracing of the Irish language – with its

Cultural context of Lynn’s activism

distinctive idioms and folk ways – ignited a cultural revolution that engendered a new confi dence in people, long downtrodden by imperialist colonialism and impov-erishment.

Kathleen Lynn was a typical example of an upper-class Protes-tant whose fi rst-hand experiences radicalised her. The fact that she was born near Killala, in a poor and congested county still expe-

riencing the ravages of famine, because of laissez-faire econom-ics and a reliance on the potato, clearly had a lasting effect as her legacy confi rms.

People were still dying of fam-ine as late as 1898 in County Mayo.

Writing to The Freeman’s Journal after travelling to Mayo that year, Maud Gonne wrote: “In Belderrig, a village in the Killala Union, composed of some 20 houses, eighteen people have died from measles; they are ter-rible, these famine measles; kill-ing people in less than three days and leaving the corpses black and dreadful.” In the let-ter, Gonne also criticised the British Government’s relief methods, noting that the Poor Law Guardians were charging people three-times the market price for inferior seed pota-toes.

“I saw mothers with nothing to give their dying children but Indian corn, stirabout and no milk.”

Over her long life of public service, Dr Kathleen Lynn – suf-fragette, socialist, Irish Citizen Army Captain and Chief Medi-cal Offi cer during the Easter Rising – ensured that the infants of the hospital she founded, St Ultan’s, were cared for with compassion and progressive medical care. This was despite the repression of many lofty ideals of liberation espoused by the 1916 Proclamation but aban-doned in a post-civil war era where state and church con-servatism reigned.

y Dr Kathleen Lynn

y HOME ‘Mullaghfarry’, by Geraldine O’Reilly, a drawing of the home of Dr Kathleen Lynn, part of the ‘Insider on the Outside’ exhibition.

DID YOU KNOW?Lynn was afforded full military honours at her funeral but Éamon de Valera sat in his car outside, in compliance with a Catholic edict which forbade entrance to a Protestant Church.

ANTON MCNULTY

Some of the heaviest and most intense fi ghting during Easter week of 1916 took place in the area around the Four Courts which was under the leader-ship of Edward Daly, Commandant of

1st Battalion Dublin Brigade. The area around the Four Courts included North King Street, the Linenhall Barracks and the North Dublin Union and its location gave it strategic importance.

Among the Volunteers in the Four Courts that week was Hubert Murphy, whose son is Hugh Murphy from King’s Hill in Westport. A native of Glasnevin in Dublin, Hugh has lived in West-port for over 50 years.

Frederick, Hubert and Robert Murphy were three brothers of nine children born to Frederick and Annie Murphy at the end of the 1800s in Dublin. Hubert’s granddaughter, Ally Murphy explained that the role played by her grandfather and his family brought immense pride to all the family, especially to her father Hugh.

“The part played by the brothers in not just the 1916 rebellion but also in the subsequent contin-ued fi ght for independence for Ireland has always been very important to the whole Murphy fam-ily.

“Hubert died in his early fi fties and the full account of his contribution during the Rising was not known to his family until the military archives were released online,” she said.

Hubert died when Hugh was very young and very little is known how the three brothers were infl uenced to join with the Irish Volunteers.

Frederick was 25 and Hubert was aged 19 when they joined the Volunteers in Dublin prior to 1916 and their younger brother Robert joined Fianna Éireann as he was just 15 and too young to join the Volunteers but was still active in the Rising.

CONFUSION IN DUBLINBOTH Hubert and Frederick were in 1st Battal-ion Dublin City Brigade, and their battalion was thought to have numbered close to 300 but due to the confusion around the cancellation of the Rising, only 150 showed up on the day.

Hubert detailed his movements during the Ris-ing in his Military pension application. He was in the Four Courts from Monday to Thursday and on Friday he was sent to North King Street.

“From eyewitness accounts written subsequently by veterans, Hubert took part in a search of the Bridewell police station behind the Four Courts. They blew open the locks of the entrance and found horses saddles, bridles and rifl es indicat-ing that British troops were located in the station. Hubert reported to his commanding offi cer that they had captured two lancers and had locked them in a cell in one of the blocks,” Ally explained.

Hubert returned to the Four Courts on Satur-day to surrender, and was arrested and taken to

Band of Brothers played key role in Four Courts defence

Westport man’s father and uncles were in the thick of 1916 action

Richmond Barracks with the other Volunteers. From there the Volunteers were transferred to Stafford jail and on to the POW camp in Frongoch in Wales. He was released on Christmas Eve and returned with the other Volunteers to Dublin.

Frederick was also in the Four Courts and North King Street. He received a gunshot wound to the foot during the fi ghting and he was removed to the Red Cross Hospital in Dublin Castle where he stayed until the end of June that year. He was subsequently imprisoned in Kilmainham jail.

Robert was in the GPO and spent Monday and Tuesday on guard duty on the roof, and was sent to the Metropole Hotel where he kept guard until Friday when he evacuated with the rest of the garrison to Moore Street. He was deemed too young to be deported and was released after a week.

DANCE SHOESTHE three brothers were more committed to the cause than ever, and were in the Irish Republican Army during the War of Independ-ence.

“Towards the end of 1920 the British intro-duced curfews in the Dublin area and the risk of capture was high. Hugh remembers his father telling him that he went to IRA meetings with dance shoes in a bag just in case he was stopped - he would claim to be on his way to dance les-sons,” Ally recalled.

Hubert is also believed to have taken part in the infamous attack on British secret service agents. One week before the planned assassi-nations the Dublin battalions were alerted to an important operation the following week on the day that would become known as Bloody Sunday.

Hubert is listed as having taken part in a dan-gerous IRA operation on Marlborough Street on Bloody Sunday but the full operation detail is not on fi le. Hundreds of volunteers were arrested in the weeks that followed including Robert and Hubert, and both were interned in Ballykinlar Internment camp in Co Down.

After the Treaty, all three brothers went on to join the newly formed Irish Army in 1922. Sadly, both Robert and Frederick subsequently emigrated and over time lost contact with their extended family.

Hubert remained in the army and rose to the rank of Commandant. In later years he served as Aide-de-Camp to the then Minister of Defence, Desmond FitzGerald, also a Volunteer and father of Garrett FitzGerald. Hubert died in 1949 and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

y PRISON BAND Pictured is the Ballykinlar Band in 1921. Hubert Murphy, father of Hugh Murphy from Westport, is extreme right of the three men standing at the back. Just in front of him, with a beard, is Peadar Kearney, the man who wrote the Irish national anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann. Ballykinlar Interment Camp in Co Down was where many Republicans were interned. Pic courtesy of the Murphy family, Westport

y PRIDE Hugh Murphy and his family are extremely proud of the role his father and uncles played in 1916 and the independence struggle.



DANIEL CAREY

THERE’S a poster in Westport Library of a concert held on Easter Monday night of 1916, which was held to raise money for the Irish Volunteers. In recent weeks, Vincent Keane of the Westport Historical Society read a snip-pet of information about that concert. It came from Agnes Gallagher, the local Cumann na mBan commander, who says that in the mid-dle of the show, it was revealed that there was something happening in Dublin.

That ‘something’ was, of course, the begin-ning of the Easter Rising, and adds another layer to a week which was often shrouded in confusion in the provinces. Other Westport people said they only found out about events in the capital when the newspapers came in. In 1966, interviewed in The Mayo News, Ned Sammon recalled that a group was ready to rise in Westport.

“They were going to take the RIC barracks, and the military post, but they didn’t get orders,” Harry Hughes of the Westport His-torical Society told a small gathering in The Helm Bar and Restaurant last Tuesday. “So two or three days after the Rising had started in Dublin, they realised they had missed the boat. But they weren’t going to miss the whole boat!”

The following Sunday, April 30, 98 men marched around Westport, 21 carrying guns, according to a contemporary report. The fol-lowing day, the constabulary were sent from Castlebar, and there were ten arrests. Eventu-ally, 31 people from the Westport area were interned in Britain, and those deportations – coupled with the executions of 16 leading rebels – helped turn the tide of local public opinion.

What people knew in Westport, and when they knew it, is still a matter of debate. Local organiser Joseph MacBride (brother of the executed Major John) ‘said he knew nothing

about the Rising’, according to Vincent Keane.

“Another man wrote his memoirs, and he said Joe Ring went down to [Michael] Kilroy on the eve of the Rising, and he said: ‘We’re rising tomorrow’,” Keane adds. “I only found that out lately, and I’ve been going through Kilroy’s papers or writings, but I can’t fi nd it.”

Westport was the birthplace of the United Irish League, established in 1898, whose main concern was the redistribution of large estates. Harry Hughes has a theory about why there was more ‘trouble’ in Westport in 1916 than in other towns.

“This was one of the last estates to be sold,” he explains. “They were still discussing it in 1914. So there was still a group of people who could see all the other towns had sorted out their land issues, and they were getting more and more aggrieved. So once they had got across the line by 1914, there was a hardcore group there that naturally fell in with the Vol-unteers movement.”

Speeches made in Westport on St Patrick’s Day 1916 ‘made it very clear that the battle was coming’, Hughes adds. “The Volunteers were well organised, particularly in Augh-agower, Cushlough and Westport. And they were having regular route marches.”

BROAD CHURCH THREE of Hughes’s relatives were among those arrested in Westport – his uncle Patrick, grandfather Owen and granduncle Charles. Scanning down through a list of the 31 names, places of origin, ages and occupations, he’s struck by what a mixed group they were.

“This wasn’t just one club of men who were arrested,” he comments. “These were totally spread [out]. For example, there’s a Gavin and a Gannon who were teachers in the Christian Brothers’ School … There’s a cross-section, and the whole town would have been involved in this, with relations.

“The following year, 1917, after they were out of prison, four of these boys were picked on the senior team for Westport GAA. Ned Sam-mon was big in the soccer club, and Michael Derrig was big in the rugby club. There was a huge spread of people involved.”

Vincent Keane took a look at a picture of a local Fianna (scouts) group one night, and counted nine of their number among the 3 depicted in the ‘Men of the West’ photograph. Jack Leonard’s famous photo – taken in June 1921 – depicts the members of the West Mayo Flying Column three weeks after the Car-rowkennedy Ambush in the War of Independ-ence. It’s described in Dominic Price’s book ‘The Flame and the Candle’ as ‘unquestion-ably the best contemporary photograph of an IRA column ever taken’.

When we fi nally call a halt to the formal chat, the conversations continue. About Major John MacBride’s mother Honoria (nee Gill), who raised fi ve sons after the death of her husband. About Joe Gill, who resisted arrest, barricading himself in his home, before later turning himself in. And about Harry Hughes’s uncle Patrick, another of the 31, who drowned in August 1917. As not all of the Westport peo-ple were interned or released together, Harry Hughes believes Patrick’s funeral was ‘prob-ably the fi rst meeting’ of the 30 others since their imprisonment. “The youngest [of the 31] was the fi rst to die,” he observes.

Westport determined not to ‘miss the boat’

DANIEL CAREY

WHEN John MacBride’s grandnephew Patrick recently travelled from the United States to Ire-land for the recent com-

memoration of the 1916 Rising in Dublin, he brought with him a fi le full of let-ters.

Harry Hughes of the Westport His-torical Society said that the fi le included letters written by Major John MacBride to his brother, Dr Anthony McBride (some from his time fi ghting against the British in the Boer War), along with correspond-ence from men like O’Donovan Rossa, Eoin MacNeill and WT Cosgrave.

“The MacBrides were moving in big circles, national and international repub-lican circles, a full ten years before 1916,” Harry Hughes told a small gathering last Tuesday in The Helm Bar and Restaurant, the building at Westport Quay in which Major John MacBride was born in 1868.

“What’s very interesting is one of the letters written by a man called John Rey-nolds, [who] wrote to Dr Anthony Mac-Bride one year after the Rising. He said he’d heard a speaker state that Major John [MacBride] came upon the Rising by accident, and he said nothing could be further from the truth.

“This man Reynolds said he sent a tel-egram on Easter Monday morning to MacBride, asking him to come to 41, Par-nell Square.

“MacBride arrived at 11am and Reynolds and his party had taken possession of the building by then.

“They saw no action – there was noth-ing happening [yet] in the GPO – so MacBride said ‘We’ll go up and see if Thomas McDonagh is up in Stephen’s Green’, because that’s where he was to mobilise. So they walked up Grafton Street, according to the letter, and [McDon-agh] welcomed both of them with open arms.”

Conventional wisdom suggests that MacBride was an ‘accidental’ rebel, in Dublin to attend his brother Dr Anthony’s wedding, when he met MacDonagh by chance and offered his services. But the Reynolds letter suggests that MacBride ‘did know a Rising was coming’, accord-ing to Harry Hughes, who adds that The O’Rahilly had told a group in Westport as much on St Patrick’s Day 1916.

“I think it’s a bit far-fetched to think that John MacBride didn’t know, when you consider the circles that he was mov-ing in,” says Hughes.

“I always used to laugh when I heard that he just happened to be waltzing up the street,” agrees Noel Campbell, Docu-mentation Offi cer and Assistant Keeper at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life.

NEW LIGHTTHE existence of the Reynolds letter serves as a reminder that even now, 100 years on, information is popping up from

Talking history in The Helm

private archives that has the potential to cast new light on historic events. It sparks interest at the table, where Hughes and Campbell are joined by Vincent Keane of the Westport Historical Society and Mayo News journalist Áine Ryan.

Vincent Keane shakes his head in won-der as he recalls that Boer War hero MacBride got less than 500 votes when he contested the South Mayo by-election of 1900 created by the retirement of Michael Davitt, losing heavily to John O’Donnell. He also tells us there was a soccer club in Ballinrobe named after him subsequently.

Áine Ryan wonders if the ambivalent eulogy given to MacBride (described as ‘a drunken, vain-glorious lout’ in the poem ‘Easter 1916’) by WB Yeats – who considered MacBride’s ex-wife Maud Gonne his muse and later proposed to her – means ‘we have been listening to the establishment version of who John MacBride was for the last 100 years’.

Gesturing to the picture of MacBride that hangs on the wall at The Helm, Campbell says that though he ‘reluc-tantly’ ran for Davitt’s seat, the Major ‘thought parliament was a waste of time’. A known Fenian who was ‘being watched’ by the British authorities for decades, his reputation in the physical-force tra-dition was such that he ended up directly behind Patrick Pearse as the funeral ora-tion for O’Donovan Rossa was delivered in 1915.

“Remember, this was an IRB Rising, essentially,” Campbell explains. “They used the Volunteers. The senior Fenians wanted to merge their tradition with the Volunteers ... So they’re using MacBride to take his credentials and lend it to Pearse and the Volunteers. And he’s very much in favour of [that].

“MacBride talks from the early 1900s about the day when the guys who were fi ghting with him in the Boer War can pick up those weapons in Ireland and

use them. He called England the vilest nation in the world. He was absolutely determined that there would be a war at some stage.

“Even though the Military Council was very small, they kept adding people into it, but they couldn’t have MacBride, because he was too well-known … If they [the British] saw [Tom] Clarke, the likes of MacBride, or other more obviously militaristic guys leading volunteers, leading drills, leading training, it would have [set off] alarm bells. But he must have been in the know. It’s inconceivable, I think, that he wasn’t.”

They were getting more and more aggrieved

MacBride was determined there would be a war

“

“PARTICIPANTS

MORE

NOEL CAMPBELL National Museum of Ireland – Country Life

HARRY HUGHES Westport Historical Society

VINCENT KEANE Westport Historical Society

ÁINE RYANMayo News reporter

< MEMENTO Vincent Keane holding his souvenir cap badge of the Mayo Brigade, 1914. Pic: Conor McKeown

y EXPERTS Vincent Keane, Harry Hughes, Áine Ryan and Noel Campbell discussed Mayo and the 1916 Rising at The Helm, the Quay, Westport. Pic: Conor McKeown

For more from this discussion, see page 30 of this supplement.



RORY GAVIN

On December 3, 1892, William and PJ Doris, the two sons of Robert and Margaret Doris, Altamont Terrace, Westport, published and printed the very fi rst issue of The Mayo News, in their printing works at James Street, Westport. It was the start of a partnership which was to bring

success but which ultimately tore the two brothers apart.

The two brothers started the paper on the premise of it being a nationalist paper. William was the senior of the the two brothers and had a wide range of journalistic experience, including positions in The Connaught Tel-egraph, The Nationalist, Carlow and The Free Press, Wexford, so it was only natural that he should be appointed Editor of the paper.

The two brothers were heavily involved in the Irish cause. William, amongst other positions, was the fi rst secretary of the United Irish League and served as legal administrator to the Land League (where he was credited with the drafting and distribution of the famous ‘No Rent Manifesto’).

The brothers used their paper to constantly attack the government of Westminster and their policies, particu-larly in relation to the land question but also on the broader issue of Irish Independence. This extract from an 1898 article is typical of the kind of material being published by the paper at the time:

“Of all the grievances that help to render this unhappy country wretched, the land question is the one which may be said to involve all others. The establishment of a native parliament in College Green may be most desir-able to all Irishmen, and certainly, we believe there is not one who calls himself an Irishman, unless he belongs to the imported stock – those dupes of landlordism – but would hail with joy the day which brought the news to him of the establishment of a native parliament; and until such is established we fear the land question will remain unsettled – (the land of the people, January 7, 1898).

WILLIAM DORIS MPIN 1910 the political interests of the two took a huge step forward when William stood for election as the Irish Party candidate for the West Mayo seat in the House of Com-mons. The Mayo News proved invaluable to William in the campaign. At the time the newspaper was in a pow-erful position of infl uence, with no television or radio to ‘inform’ the public and limited means of communication between areas.

William’s speeches were extensively covered by the paper and PJ, who had by this time taken over as Editor, used his own editorials and his control over editorial policy to aid his brother. Despite support for another candidate from The Western People, William won a land-slide victory in this pro-nationalistic area.

In his victory speech (as reported in The Mayo News, on January 10, 1910), William stated “About a month or fi ve weeks ago some friends of mine in Westport and Newport said the time had come when West Mayo should be represented by a West Mayo man. I can assure you that up to that moment, although I agreed thoroughly with that sentiment, it never entered my head that I would have the honour of being that man. In addition to confer-ring on me a great honour, you have thrown upon my

Success for Doris brothers but at a priceThe two brothers who founded The Mayo News in 1892 became estranged over differences in politics

shoulders a heavy responsibility. It will be my endeavor to show that I was worthy of that honour, and that I am able for the responsibility.

“I have been elected as a pledge bound member of the Irish Party. In my humble opinion, for the past 30 years, the Irish Party has been able to accomplish a good deal, specially for the agricultural population of the country. Very little has been done, I am sorry to say, for the town labourers, and for the poorer classes generally in our towns. I must and will act as a faithful member of the Irish Party.

“Please God I will never forget that I am the son of a poor man, elected mainly by the poor people of the con-stituency. While I will not support injustice to anybody I am a poor man’s representative, and I will live and die the poor man’s representative.”

William immediately moved to London to take up his new seat, and with him went Sarah Cannon of Westport, his new bride. PJ took over the running of The Mayo News. While his brother faced the task of furthering Ire-land’s cause, PJ had to fi ght the censors, during World War I, in his attempts to support that cause.

PARTING OF WAYSTHE physical parting which took place when William moved to London was the beginning of a more funda-mental parting between the two. While William concen-trated on the land question in Parliament (it is reported that 95 percent of his questions were on this issue), PJ, like many in Ireland, had become involved in the push for outright independence from the union.

Despite gaining re-election in 1915, William, like most in the Irish Party, was losing support to the increasingly popular Sinn Féin party. PJ began actively supporting them through the paper. This resulted in the paper being

‘BLACK AND TANISM FAILED TO SUBDUE MAYO NEWS EDITOR’

Patrick Tunney from Cuslough, Westport was one of the 31 men arrested in Westport in 1916 and he went on to write prolifi -cally about events of the time and subsequent years in the independence struggle.

When writing an appreciation to mark the passing of one of the 31, Mr Thaddeus Walsh, in 1931, Mr Tunney spoke very glowingly of PJ Doris and his work in The Mayo News.

“Yet, whilst we have some of the 1916 heroes like ... Patrick J Doris and others to guide our destinies, there is hope for the future.

“Each week the editorials of The Mayo News ring like thunderbolts and instill animation to the very heart of the wayward reader. Our slogan should be: ‘Read The Mayo News, study it, practice its doctrines’. No other organ in Ireland has worked with more energy than the The Mayo News. Black and Tanism failed to subdue its Editor when its machinery was dismantled, the offi ces sacked, raided and PJ sent into exile,” wrote Mr Tunney.

MR PJ Doris, whose funeral took place on Friday, was born at Westport, on Tuesday, February 23, 1866.

With the assistance of his brother, the late Wil-liam Doris, MP, Mr Doris founded The Mayo News in 1892. The success and fame which have attended this journal since its inception, have gone to achieve ambitions which PJ Doris and his brother never hoped for. It was founded with meagre capital by men who were idealists, and whose sole ambition was the vindication of their country’s wrongs. In its pages, the Irish tenant farmer saw the injustices of his lot so vividly portrayed as to rouse him to action.

A fi rm adherent to the Land League movement and to the United Irish League which, with Wil-liam O’Brien, he helped to found, PJ Doris devoted his life to the cause of land reform. There was hardly an eviction within the borders of Mayo during the Land War, at which Mr Doris was not present with his notebook and pencil. The har-rowing scenes as portrayed by his descriptive genius, shocked and enraged Irishmen at home and abroad. Like the born journalist, he was also a born orator; and many a silent audience smoul-dered under his impassioned denounciations of tyranny and appeals for united action.

Immediately after the Rebellion of 1916, he, in company with his life-long friend and associate, Mr Charles Hughes, of Westport, was arrested and interned in various English prisons, winding up in Frongoch.

During the Christmas of 1916 he was released and immediately conveyed his campaign against England in The Mayo News.

Death of Mr PJ DorisThe following is an abridged version of the obituary for PJ Doris which appeared in The Mayo News edition of March 6, 1937

During the height of the Black and Tan terror of 1921, and in the height of his denounciation of them, the late Mr Doris very nearly met with what has since been referred to as a probable violent death. An employee of his own, who was a member of an active IRA column, learned that the Tans were on their way ‘to silence Doris and The Mayo News’ for all time.

Warned in the nick of time, Mr Doris escaped just as the Tans entered his home. Not fi nding him, they occupied themselves with wrecking The Mayo News plant, and appropriating all the moveable parts of his car. The Tans then occu-pied his home, and Mr Doris, who was even then a comparatively old man, was forced to endure the hardships of a rebel ‘on the run’.

With the acceptance of the Treaty, which fol-lowed the Truce in 1921, PJ Doris severed his political association with those leaders who were responsible for its imposition.

In 1932, he hauled President deValera’s acces-sion to offi ce with joyful anticipation, but, although he died a fi rm believer in the honesty of Presi-dent deValera himself, he had for years past lost confi dence in his government.

His private life served as a model of virtuous piety and labour. For close on forty years, until the few days previous to his demise, and during periods of internment in concentration camps, he never missed morning Mass and Communion. Of lifelong temperate habits, he was President of the Westport Branch of the Total Abstinence Association. His wife, who was formerly Ms Sabina McGing, predeceased him by about eight years.

All through life he contributed generously to National funds and charitable institutions. His intimate friends, other than relations, were staunch and few. Amongst them were Messrs. Charles Hughes and JJ O’Malley of Westport; Mr John Burke, Postmaster, Castlebar; and Mr Patrick Walsh, Newport, who set the machinery in motion for the fi rst issue of The Mayo News in 1892.

Mr Doris died following a short illness at the age of 71, on Wednesday, February 24. His pass-ing removes from Irish life one of the most out-standing characters of this age. It would be impossible to place values upon the good he has done during his lifetime.

y COMMEMORATION This Sunday, May 8 will see the naming of the James Street bridge in Westport as the Doris Brothers’ Bridge in honour of William and Patrick J Doris. After being proposed by the Westport Historical Society, it was recently approved by Mayo County Council.

banned, for a fi ve week period between March 30 and May 11, 1918, by the British Censor, under the emergency censorship laws which were introduced during the War.

PJ’s reaction was typically defi ant: “In the deepest trag-edy it is always possible to fi nd an element of comedy, a leaven of the humorous and the grave. When the history of the greatest war the world has ever known comes to be written, the story of the Press Censorship should pro-vide all that is needful to relieve the tale of blood of some of its horrors. We do not, now, refer particularly to the Irish Censorship, but rather to the whole system, now almost world wide, which aims at restricting the liberty of the Press, presumably in the interest of the respective belligerents.

“The system of controlling the press in time of war is justifi ed on the plea that it is necessary to prevent the publication of matter which might be of use to ‘the enemy’ but in England and Ireland as well as in France and the USA and probably also in Germany and Austria, the methods employed by the different Censors would indi-cate that considerations totally divorced from the needs of the military situation enter into the infl uences which grade the offi cial blue pencil.

“For fi ve weeks we have been denied the right of pub-lication. Today we are permitted to resume. We have not been informed why we were suppressed. We are not con-scious of having at any time published matter which could have been any stretch of the imagination of use to the enemy, and the only war which we were interested was the political strife by which Ireland was divided, and in which we supported and advocated the policy of Sinn Féin.” (May 11, 1918).

‘EXPLODED SHIBBOLETHS’LATER that year a general election was called. William returned to fi ght for his seat against the Sinn Féin candi-date, Joseph MacBride (the brother of Major John Mac-Bride). The Mayo News rarely even mentioned their former Editor, perhaps this was the most polite thing it could do since the policy of the paper was distinctly in favour of the Sinn Féin candidate. It did however attack William’s Irish Party and its leader, John Dillon.

“As the historic general election advances to the deci-sive stages it becomes more and more evident that the people of Ireland can no longer be cajoled by exploded shibboleths, nor turned from their own way of securing their National rights by the blind faith policy by which they have been fooled for years.

“Mr Dillon continues to talk by the column the usual time worn rubbish about the achievements of the Party, but the people smile and await the opportunity which the ballot box will give them for marking their appreciation of Mr Dillon’s peculiar pleadings. Strictly speaking the people are more concerned with what the Party failed to do than with any of the grand results which Mr Dillon would have us credit them with.” (December 7, 1918).

Following a long, painful campaign William lost his seat as the people of West Mayo put their support resound-ingly behind the Sinn Féin candidate. This signaled the end of the two brothers’ relationship – they remained estranged for the rest of their lives. William moved to Dublin, and settled there until his death a few years later.

PJ Doris continued to run the paper and to support the fi ght for Irish Freedom until the 1921 Treaty, which he joyously welcomed with the headline ‘We have won lib-erty’. On his death PJ left the paper to his nephew Eddy.

So ended the fascinating story of the two brothers. They were united in their desire for Irish freedom, a goal which ironically led to their estrangement. Their infl uence on Mayo and indeed Irish life can arguably still be felt today. In any case The Mayo News remains a living monument to William and PJ Doris and hopefully will remain to do so for another 100 years.

Rory Gavin is a native of Westport and a relative of the

Doris brothers. This piece fi rst appeared in The Mayo

News Centenary Supplement in 1994.

y CO-FOUNDER AND EDITOR PJ Doris co-founded The Mayo News in 1892 and was its Editor in 1916 when he was arrested and jailed in the wake of the Easter Rising.



GERARD M DELANEY

William Doris MP, was born on April 13, 1860 and baptised on April 15, 1860 in St Mary’s Church, West-port.

He was the eldest of eight chil-dren born to Robert Doris, a postman, and Mar-garet Madden. William received his education at Westport Christian Brothers’ School and com-menced his career as a solicitor’s clerk in Westport at the age of 16.

Two years later he took a post as a reporter with the Castlebar-based Connaught Telegraph, edited by James Daly (1836-1910). Daly used his columns to campaign for the rights of tenant farmers.

As part of his reporting duties, Doris was present at many of the mass meetings of tenant farmers arranged by Daly and Davitt. He was particularly stirred by Davitt’s passionate speeches and was receptive to the ideas contained in Daly’s articles. He promptly adopted the twin aspirations of the land reform crusade – the establishment of tenant proprietorship and Home Rule for Ireland. These were to remain his chief political ambitions for the duration of his public life.

‘NO RENT MANIFESTIO’ AND PRISON IN 1880 Doris left The Connaught Telegraph and in March of 1881 he moved to Dublin. There he served as acting legal secretary of the Land League and, in that capacity, in conjunction with William O’Brien, Editor of the Parnellite newspaper ‘United Ireland’, he drafted the ‘No Rent Manifesto’ that was issued from Kilmainham Jail on October 18, 1881.

Following the issuing of the manifesto, Doris returned to Westport where he was soon arrested and charged with ‘… compelling persons to abstain from paying rents lawfully’. Subsequent to his trial he was imprisoned in Dundalk jail for six months. The shops of Westport closed for half a day in protest at his arrest. His trial and imprisonment brought him widespread public sympathy and elevated him to the status of a popular hero.

In 1892 in conjunction with his brother, Patrick J, he co-founded The Mayo News. Editorially, the new paper strongly propagated his political aspi-rations for Home Rule and the reform of land law.

When Mayo County Council was set up in 1898

The career of William Doris

under the Local Government Act, Mr Doris suc-cessfully stood for election. During his time on the Council, he distinguished himself by his abil-ity, eloquence and great grasp of business. He served variously as vice-chairman and as chair-

1898. The UIL was chiefl y concerned with the redistribution of large estates and, by 1900, had 100,000 members.

MINISTER OF PARLIAMENT HE was elected Nationalist MP for the Mayo West Constituency in the election of 1910 when he defeated his friend, the outgoing Independent Nationalist MP William O’Brien (who took a seat in Cork) by a majority of 2,849 votes (the total electorate was 8,037).

On February 2, the same year, he married Sarah Cannon, daughter of Luke Cannon of Westport. The couple had one child, Mary.

Doris sat at Westminster until 1918 and devoted his energy chiefl y to his key objectives of imple-menting land reform and Home Rule. He was present at all of the 233 divisions of HH Asquith’s Third Home Rule Bill of 1912-1914.

During his period at Westminster, he resided at 37, North Side, Clapham Commons, London SW and occasionally at Altamont Terrace, Westport and at Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin, where he died.

Throughout his political career, Doris was a great friend of the poor and he consistently did everything in his power to assist the less advan-taged. At the time of the passing of the Old Age Pensions Act there were many who would never have got a pension but for his activity and infl u-ence.

In the election of 1918, Doris was defeated by Captain Joseph MacBride of Sinn Féin by a mar-gin of 2,627 votes. His defeat was inevitable, because of the enormous rise in the popularity of the Sinn Féin movement and the corresponding decline in support for constitutional nationalism that followed the Easter Rising. But much of the margin by which he lost can be attributed to the fact that The Mayo News, edited by his brother Patrick J, vigorously supported the Sinn Féin can-didate.

William Doris died on Monday, September 13, 1926. After Requiem Mass in the Church of St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, Dublin on Wednes-day, September 15, which was attended by a con-gregation representative of both the old and new political systems, his remains were removed for internment in Glasnevin Cemetery.

The above is an abridged version of a piece which

fi rst appeared in The Mayo News Centenary

Supplement in 1994.

man of that body from 1899 to 1910. He was chair-man of Westport UDC from 1899 to 1910.

William Doris was a founding member and fi rst secretary of the United Irish League, set up by William O’Brien MP in Westport on January 23,

Doris letters demonstrate political climate after the Rising

EDWIN MCGREAL

Letters between Wil-liam Doris, MP for West Mayo at the time of the Rising, and General Sir John

Maxwell give a fascinating insight into concerns Doris had for how the British response to the Rising could change the political land-scape.

Maxwell was the head of the British command in Ireland at the time and the man who ordered the executions of the

rebel leadersThe letters are from the UK

National Archive War Offi ce and were found by James Kelly of the Westport Historical Society, who kindly passed them on to us.

Doris - a member of the Irish Party and vehement opponent of militant nationalism, and the Rising - pleads for leni-ency in the cases of two con-stituents of his. They are Luke Sheridan (21), a shop assistant from Linenhall Street, Castle-bar and Edward Callaghan (21), also a shop assistant, from Sion Hill, Castlebar.

Writing to General Maxwell

on July 19, 1916 William Doris also warns against heavy handed action by the British having consequences in Mayo - it would prove quite a pro-phetic observation.

“May I express the earnest hope that these unfortunate young men, who are constitu-ents of mine, may be treated as leniently as possible? I am quite convinced that severe sentences would do consider-able harm instead of good in my constituency which had little or no connection with the recent troubles,” writes Doris.

A typed reply comes from

General Maxwell on July 20 which states that Luke Sheridan was tried by court martial at Athlone and ‘the sentence awarded him was reduced to one of 28 days’.

The letter went on to say that Edward Callaghan ‘will be tried tomorrow’.

Doris acknowledges receipt of this letter on July 22 and pleads with General Maxwell to ‘eliminate hard labour from the sentence passed upon Sheridan and not to impose it in any sentence that may be passed upon Callaghan, if he be found guilty’.

Doris goes on to issue another

warning about the political climate.

“Castlebar, to which the pris-oners belong, had no connec-tion whatever with the rebel-lion and a little leniency in these petty cases will do much good in the district.”

A subsequent letter from Maxwell to Doris reveals just how petty the charges were against Luke Sheridan.

He was charged under the Defence of the Realm act with attempting to cause disaffec-tion at Ballyvary on July 9 ‘by shouting, in the presence of several persons “Up with the Rebels”, “Cheers for the

Rebels”’. He was initially sentenced

to 84 days imprisonment with hard labour. This was remit-ted to 28 days, seemingly on account of William Doris’ appeal, but the hard labour sentence was maintained.

Two years later William Doris would lose his seat to Sinn Féin’s Joseph MacBride, a brother of executed Rising leader Major John MacBride as Sinn Féin swept aside the Irish Party. A Rising which had little popular support at the time went on to become a turning point in Irish his-tory.

CGREAL

In May 1916, thirty one men were arrested in the Westport district under the Defence of the Realm Act (1914). Some were interned for a matter of weeks, others for almost eight months.

These 31 men were arrested as part of the gov-ernment’s response to the Easter Rising, which took place between April 24 and April 30 1916. In making these arrests, the authorities wanted (i) to round-up those who were likely to participate in any renewed outbreak of rebel violence and (ii) to publically punish Sinn Féin by arresting its local leaders and supporters.

The Mayo News of May 6, 1916 reports that ten young Irish Volunteers were arrested in Westport at 4am on the morning of Tuesday, May 2 and the arrests ‘were witnessed by a number of the towns-people, who were roused by the commotion in the streets’.

The report goes on: ‘Mr Joseph Gill, the Quay, was also to be arrested, but when the police went to his house he refused to give himself up. After some persuasion on the part of his friends, and acting on their advice, he surrendered subse-quently and on Thursday [May 4] morning he was conveyed to Castlebar Jail’.

The police making the arrests ‘carried loaded rifl es … At each house where Volunteers were taken two policemen had the upper windows ‘covered’, while a third policeman knocked at the door with one hand and had a loaded revolver in the other. But the Volunteers offered no resist-ance and they went quietly to the barrack’.

The men were conveyed to Castlebar Jail by train and ‘were seen off at the station by a large crowd, and there was much cheering as the train steamed out. The Volunteers were in the best of spirits’.

Nineteen further arrests were made on May 8 and 9. The Mayo News of May 13 states that news of John MacBride’s death had reached Westport on Saturday evening (May 6).

REFUSED TO SURRENDER ARMS THE Connaught Telegraph (May 13) reported the arrests as follows: ‘On Tuesday last [May 9] a large number of arrests were made in Westport of Sinn Féin Volunteers, some of whom took part in a parade on Sunday week [April 30]. They also disobeyed the order of General Sir John Maxwell by refusing to give up their arms … On Saturday last [6 May] Castlebar Sinn Féin Volunteers handed up their rifl es. In the evening 23 new rifl es were conveyed in a cart to the police barrack. On that day a general surrender of arms took place all over Ireland, but it was rumoured that the West-port Volunteers did not comply with the order of Sir John Maxwell’.

The prisoners’ register for Castlebar Jail for the period of the 31 mens’ detention there details what they were arrested for. Their ages at the time are in brackets below:

The following men were listed as being ‘Guilty of behaviour of such a nature as to be prejudicial to the Public safety and the Defence of the Realm

Against The Realm: The Arrests in Westport in 1916

James Kelly details the arrests and detention of 31 men in Westport in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising

by marching with arms as Sinn Féin Volunteers at Westport on Sunday, April 30, 1916’: Edward Gannon (20), Charles Gavan (19), Thomas Ralph (24), Joseph Ruddy (22), Owen Hughes (44), Michael Duffy (21), Michael Derrig (23), Michael J Ring (22), John McDonagh (50), Thomas Derrig (18).

Joseph Gill (44) was listed as being ‘guilty of

Mayo News proprietor Patrick Joseph Doris (50), who was arrested on May 12, was listed as being ‘guilty of behaviour prejudicial to the state and the Defence of the Realm by aiding, abetting and encouraging in the prep-arations for the rebellion’.

DEFENCE OF THE REALMTHE prisoners were not told the nature of their alleged offences, only that they had been arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act. (Arrests under DORA were not uncommon in the years either side of 1916, particularly of people thought to be obstructing recruiting for the British army, then in the midst of the Great War.) No formal charges were ever brought against any of the 31 Westport men arrested.

Under the heading ‘Degree of Education’, we fi nd, for 30 of the men, the entry ‘RW’, meaning they are able to read and write, but against Doris’s name we fi nd the entry ‘Supe-rior’.

Thirty of the men were removed on May 10 from Castlebar to Richmond Barracks in Dub-lin (PJ Doris was not arrested until May 12).

On May 12-13, 25 of them were removed to Wandsworth prison, London, by cattle boat.

Of the others, Joseph MacBride, Charles Hughes, Joseph Gill and PJ Doris were still in Dublin. John Berry and Patrick Hughes were amongst a group of prisoners deported from Richmond barracks to Barlinnie Detention Bar-racks, Glasgow on May 19.

RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGE THE Westport prisoners were released in three waves: one batch at the end of May, another in mid-to-late July, and the remainder in December. During their detention, none was charged or afforded legal representation.

On May 25, the following Westport prisoners were released: Martin Geraghty, Thomas O’Brien, Patrick S Kenny, John Lohan, John Berry, Hubert Heraty, Patrick Hughes, John Gavin and Thomas Ralph. They were in Westport the next day.

On June 16-17, all but three of the remaining Westport prisoners were moved to Frongoch internment camp in north Wales: Thaddeus Walsh and Tom Derrig followed at the end of June and Charles Hughes was deported to Frongoch on July 24, from a prison hospital in Dublin.

In mid-to-late July, the following Westport men were released:

Bartley Cryan, Thomas Derrig, Michael Derrig, Michael Duffy, Edward Gannon, Charles Gavan, Edward Haran, Charles Hickey, James Malone, John McDonagh, Michael Reilly, Joseph Ruddy, Edward Sammon and Thaddeus Walsh.

Having been interned for almost seven-and-a-half months, the following Westport prisoners were released from Frongoch on December 22, arriving home the next day: Joseph A Gill, Charles Hughes, Owen Hughes, Manus Keane, Michael Joseph Ring and Patrick Tunney.

The last of the Westport prisoners to be released, on Christmas Eve, were PJ Doris and Joseph MacBride, who had been held at Reading jail. They arrived in Ireland on Christmas Day 1916.

Copyright ©James Kelly 2016

This is an abridged excerpt from the author’s

forthcoming book,

An Illustrated History of Westport, to be

published by Westport Historical Society

behaviour prejudicial to the safety of the state and the Defence of the Realm by assembling with others with arms as Sinn Féin Volunteers at Far-naght near Westport on Sunday, April 30, 1916’.

Joseph M MacBride (55), a brother of Major John MacBride, was listed as being ‘guilty of behaviour prejudicial to the Public safety and the Defence of the Realm - being a dangerous Sinn Féin leader in organising and preparing for the rebellion’.

Charles Hughes (41), Edward Haran 34), Charles Hickey (20), Bartholomew Cryan (26), Martin Geraghty (19) and Thomas O’Brien (35) were listed as being ‘guilty of behaviour prejudicial to the Public safety and the Defence of the Realm’.

James Malone (34), Patrick Kenny (20), Edward Sammon (24), Hubert Heraty (22), Michael Reilly (33), Manus Keane (47), John Lohan (20), John Berry (18), Thaddeus Walsh (52), Patrick Hughes (17) John Gavin (20), Patrick Tunney (30) were listed as being ‘guilty of conduct prejudicial to the Public safety and the Defence of the Realm’.

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y ‘MOST DANGEROUS SINN FÉINERS’ A letter from Colonel BP Portal in Castlebar to headquarters in Dublin, dated May 14, 1916 detailing whom the authorities in Mayo felt were the ‘most dangerous’ leaders in the Westport district. Pic courtesy Harry Hughes



Westport 31James Kelly profi les each of the 31 men arrested in Westport immediately after the 1916 Rising

THOMAS DERRIG Tom was born on High Street in 1898.

He studied in UCG, and became

headmaster of Ballina Technical School

1918-23, but in 1918 was jailed for

attempting to steal a soldier’s rifl e. He

was commandant of the West Mayo

brigade, and was interned in 1921. While

in jail, he was elected a Sinn Féin TD. He

voted against the Treaty, and lost his

seat in 1923. During the Civil War he

was adjutant-general in the Four Courts.

Attempting an escape from National

troops, in 1923, he was shot and lost his

left eye. He was interned until 1924.

Re-elected to the Dáil in 1927, he was a

founder member of Fianna Fáil, and

became Minister for Education and

Minister for Lands. He died in 1956.

EDWARD GANNONEdward (Eamonn) Gannon

was born in Carrowkennedy

in 1896, soon after which the

family moved to High Street.

In 1916, he was a teacher in

Westport CBS. During the

War of Independence, he held

rank in the IRA North Mayo

brigade, and arbitrated at the

early Dáil Courts. He was vice

chairman of Mayo County

Council, and principal of

MacFirbis Irish college in

Enniscrone. In the early

1920s, he suffered further

internment in the UK and

Ireland, having taken the

anti-Treaty side. In 1923 he

launched an Irish newspaper,

An Cearnóg. He later moved

to a teaching job in Dublin.

PATRICK JOSEPH DORISPatrick J Doris was born in Westport

in 1866, the son of a postman. He

was a member of the Fenian

Brotherhood and was active in the

Land League, and later in the United

Irish League (UIL). As assistant clerk

to the Westport Board of Guardians,

he helped nationalists gain some

control over local affairs. In 1892, he

co-founded The Mayo News with his

brother William (later an MP), through

which he fought landlordism and

imperialism. Personally and

professionally, he was subject to

numerous harassments during the

War of Independence. He died in

1937.

MICHAEL DUFFY Michael was born in Lanmore

in c.1896. In 1916, he was a

draper’s assistant in Charles

Hughes’s, Bridge Street.

Unfortunately, we know very

little about his life. He may

have been a cousin of John

Berry, another 1916 internee

and native of Lanmore. A

1949 newspaper article states

that Duffy ‘died a premature

death as a result of solitary

confi nement and penal

persecution’, but we have no

further details. Given that his

name does not appear in any

of the lists of the local IRA

companies, it might be that he

died at some point prior to

1921.

EDWARD HARANEdward was born at Drummindoo in 1881. Like

his father, Ned was a baker, fi rst on James Street,

later on Bridge Street. He played a leading role in

Westport GAA and was a member of Westport

UDC. During the War of Independence, he was a

member of A Company (Westport) IRA. Ned and

his family suffered terribly at the hands of the

Black and Tans. Once, they harnessed him and

another man to a cart, forcing them to pull it

around town, the Tans whipping them as they

went. Ned and family emigrated to America in

1926, where he worked for a railroad company.

He died in New York in 1943.

JOHN BERRYJohn was born in Lanmore in c.1897. In

1916, he was a grocer’s assistant in

John McGing’s, High Street. Following

the murder of resident magistrate John

Charles Milling, in 1919, police

suspected Berry of a minor role in the

crime. He was vice-commandant of the

3rd battalion IRA during the War of

Independence, and a member of the

Active Service Unit (ASU); he took the

republican side in the Civil War. He went

to Philadelphia in 1925. Forty years later,

he was still making efforts on Ireland‘s

behalf, raising funds for a proposed

monument in Westport to Major John

MacBride. He passed away in 1982.

HUBERT HERATYHubert was born on High Street in 1894,

and followed his father as a butcher and

cattle dealer. The family shop was fi rst

on Mill Street, later on Altamont Street,

near the Red Bridge. During the War of

Independence, Hubert was a member of

A Company ( Westport) IRA. In later

years he became overseer of the town

dump, beyond the railway station. He

died in 1958, and is buried in

Aughagower.

The

CHARLES GAVANCharles was born on High Street in

1896. In 1916, he was training to be

a teacher in Westport CBS. When

Ned Moane was tried in 1918 for

Volunteer activity, riots broke out and

a number of local Volunteers were

arrested. Charles was given six

months hard labour in Dundalk jail

for his part. In 1921, he was interned

for a second time, for IRA activity

and involvement with the Sinn Féin

courts. A member of the 3rd Batt.

ASU in the War of Independence, he

was one of only four survivors

present at the 1916 commemoration

in Westport in 1966. He was

Westport UDC rate collector

1930-1963. Charles passed away in

1970.

JOHN GAVINJohn was born at

Murrisknaboll in 1894. He

worked as a grocer’s assistant

in Mrs PJ Kelly’s, the Octagon.

He came there in 1911,

replacing his brother Pat, and

was working there at the time

of his arrest in 1916,

continuing to do so until

February 1917. With his

brother Pat, who was also an

active nationalist, John

emigrated to Liverpool. He

settled in Birkenhead, where

he met his wife Clara, and

worked for many years in the

shipyard there. He died there

in 1985, aged 91.

MARTIN GERAGHTYMartin was born on James Street

in 1896. Like his father and

brothers, he became a butcher.

He was a member of Westport

Fianna Éireann and later the

Volunteers. In 1918, he joined his

brother in Liverpool, and in April

1921 went to the USA, becoming

a citizen in 1927. He lived in New

York, working as a grocery store

manager. During the War of

Independence, his family were

subjected to considerable

maltreatment by the Black and

Tans. Throughout his life he

retained a deep love for his native

Westport. He passed away in

1990, the last surviving member

of this group of 31 internees.

JOSEPH A GILL Joseph was born at the Quay in

1874, a fi rst-cousin of John and

Joseph MacBride. His father

Anthony, was one of the Fenians

jailed in 1867. Joe fought in the

Greco-Turkish war (1897), went to

America, but returned and

opened a coal business at the

Quay. He was involved in the

General John Regan riots in 1914.

When arrested in 1916, he

barricaded himself in his home,

daring police to come and get

him. Police suspected him of

involvement in the Milling murder

(1919), in the wake of which he

left for America, via Liverpool. He

died in the Bronx in 1928.

CHARLES HICKEYCharles was born in Dublin in

1896, the son of a clerk in a

carrier’s offi ce. Charles came

to Westport to work as a

coach painter in John P

Breheny’s coach factory on

Castlebar Street. He was in

Westport by at least 1915, as

he appears in the Westport

Fianna Éireann photograph.

Unfortunately, it has not been

possible to trace any further

details of Charles’s life.

BARTHOLOMEW CRYANBartley Cryan was born in Ougham,

Bunninadden, Co Sligo in c.1892. In

1916, he was a draper’s assistant in

Charles Hughes’s, Bridge Street. During

the War of Independence, Bartley was a

member of the Westport ASU. He later

became a commercial traveller for

Charles Hughes. When his fellow

1916-arrestee and workmate, Patrick

Hughes, drowned at the Quay in 1917,

Bartley made a brave attempt to save

him. He was interned during the Civil

War but escaped from the Curragh

camp in 1923. He moved to Co Leitrim,

where he ran a drapery and fancy goods

business. He died in 1957.

CHARLES HUGHESCharles was born in Lankill in 1876. He set up

shop on Bridge Street in 1904, going on to build

one of the biggest businesses in the west of

Ireland. A member of all the nationalist

organisations in Westport, he was involved in the

Westport cattle-drive (1911) and the General John

Regan riot (1914). He was arrested in 1916

together with practically all of his staff. During the

War of Independence, his home and premises

were badly damaged, and he was a target for

assassination by agents of the Crown. He became

a prominent member of Fianna Fáil, and was

involved in all the local affairs of the town in the

1920s and 30s. He passed away in 1949.

MICHAEL DERRIG Michael was born on Castlebar Street in

1893, but the family moved to the

Octagon, and later to James Street.

Mikey worked for a few years as a

carpenter’s apprentice, but then became

a mechanic in Chappie Bourke‘s garage.

He loved greyhounds and coursing, was

one of Westport’s fi nest handball players,

a renowned billiards player and a

member of many local GAA and rugby

teams of the 1910s-1930s. He served in

Westport (A) Company, 3rd Batt. IRA

during the War of Independence. The

Derrig family was subjected to a great

many cruelties by the Black and Tans.

Mikey passed away in 1952.



JOHN MCDONAGHJohn was born on High Street in 1865,

following his father as a plasterer and stone

mason. A veteran nationalist, John was charged

with riotous behaviour for his part in a pro-Boer

celebration in Westport in 1900. During his

internment in 1916, he was held for a time in

solitary confi nement. He received rough

treatment during the War of Independence: the

Black and Tans searched his home and

assaulted him quite badly, and on one occasion

completely burned out the family home. John

died in 1934 at his home on Mill Street, and is

buried Aughaval.

JOSEPH M MACBRIDE Joseph was born at the Quay in 1860, elder brother

of Major John MacBride. In 1890, he became

secretary to Westport Harbour Commissioners. He

was involved in the Land War, held senior positions in

the Gaelic League and the GAA, and was a guiding

light of militant nationalism in West Mayo. He formed

the Irish Volunteers in Westport in 1914 and was

engaged in organising and drilling all over Mayo up to

1922. The British interned him three times: 1916,

1917 and 1918-1919. In 1918, while in Gloucester

jail, he was elected Sinn Féin MP for West Mayo. He

was a member of the fi rst Dáil (1919) and held his

seat until 1927. He passed away in 1938.

JOHN LOHANJohn was born near the village of Creggs, in Co.

Galway in c.1898. In 1916, he was a draper’s

assistant in Hugh Coen‘s on Bridge Street. In

1929, he married Mary Breheny, Castlebar Street,

and the couple lived on John’s Row. During the

War of Independence he was a member of A

Company (Westport) IRA and took the anti-Treaty

side in the Civil War. In 1966, at the 50th

anniversary commemoration of 1916 in Westport,

he was presented with a special medal to mark

his service. He passed away in 1969 and is buried

in Aughaval.

MICHAEL REILLYMichael (Broddie) Reilly was born on Peter Street in

1881, all of his extended family being victuallers and

livestock exporters, as was Broddie himself. The

family later moved to the Fairgreen. He was a

member of the IRB and the Volunteers, and gave

evidence for the defence during the 1917-18 trials

of Tom Derrig and Tommie Kitterick, who were

charged with attempting to steal a soldier’s rifl e.

During the War of Independence, he was a member

of A Company (Westport) IRA. Michael was one of

the four survivors present at the 50th anniversary

commemoration of 1916 in Westport in 1966; he

passed away later that year.

PATRICK HUGHESSon of Owen Hughes, Patrick was born

at Lankill in 1898. He went to work for

his uncle, Charles Hughes, in Westport.

He joined the local Sinn Féin club and

the Irish Volunteers, and was an

enthusiastic Gaelic footballer. During his

internment in 1916, Patrick, along with

John Berry, Lanmore, was held at

Barlinnie jail, in Scotland. In August

1917, while swimming off the Point of

the Quay, he was drowned, despite

brave efforts to save him. His coffi n was

draped in the Sinn Féin fl ag.

OWEN HUGHESOlder brother of Charles, Owen was

born in Lankill in 1873. He was father of

James (NT), Owen (NT, county

councillor), Richard (BE), Quay Road and

Padraig Hughes (Charles Hughes Ltd.).

Owen was prominent in the Aughagower

UIL, Sinn Féin and the Gaelic League,

and was arrested in the wake of the

1911 cattle drive. He was under regular

surveillance by the RIC. When Owen

was arrested in 1916, it was alongside

his son Patrick. During the War of

Independence, Owen was a member of

H (Aughagower) Company IRA. He died

at Lankill in 1944.

JOSEPH RUDDYJoe was born in Westport in 1892, the family

living on Church Lane. He worked as a carpenter

and builder. He held senior positions in the local

IRB, Volunteers and Sinn Féin. He was suspected

by police of involvement in the Milling murder

(1919), and went on the run in its aftermath.

During the Civil War, he was a captain in the

National Army, and adjutant of its West Mayo

Brigade. When Westport was retaken from the

Irregulars, Joe became offi cer in charge of the

district. He was killed at the Battle of Newport, in

November 1922, and is buried in Aughaval.

MICHAEL JOSEPH RINGJoe Ring was born in Ballinasloe in 1891, and brought up at

Drummindoo. He was one of the leading nationalist fi gures in West

Mayo. He became offi cer commanding 3rd Batt. West Mayo IRA

and was a founder of the ASU. He was directly or indirectly involved

in all of the IRA actions in the Westport area during the War of

Independence, often leading the fi ght, including the ambushes at

Islandeady, Kilmeena and Carrowkennedy. After the Truce, he

played an important role in the formation of An Garda Síochána.

With the Civil War, he was made a brigadier-general in the National

Army, and in 1922 led the successful recapture of Westport from

anti-Treaty forces. Brigadier-General Ring was killed in a battle with

Irregulars in the Ox Mountains in September 1922. He is buried in

Aughaval.

EDWARD SAMMONEdward (Ned) was born in Kilsallagh in 1888, the family

soon thereafter moving to Peter Street. Later, Ned and his

wife and family lived on John’s Row. Ned was a stalwart of

Westport United, being involved in the club for about 70

years. He was a member of the Volunteers from their

formation; during the War of Independence he was

quartermaster of the 3rd Batt. IRA, and a member of the

ASU, participating in many of their famous engagements.

In 1971, he was one of the few surviving members of the

Flying Column present at the 50th anniversary

commemoration in Carrowkennedy. He passed away in

1975.

PATRICK S KENNYPatrick was born into a large family, at

Keash in Co Sligo, where his father,

Michael, was a farmer. At the time of his

arrest in 1916, he was an assistant in

Michael Browne’s drapery on Shop Street,

probably coming there as an apprentice a

few years previously. He moved to Dublin

at some point, and later to Bodenstown,

Co Kildare. Patrick passed away in 1952

and was buried in Knockbrack, near his

birthplace, Keash. He was an uncle of

Kathleen Reynolds, widow of the late

Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.

JAMES MALONEJames was born on High Street in 1881, into a

well-known family of Westport tailors – he was

uncle of Pake and Brod Malone, James Street.

James joined the Westport IRB and was the fi rst

sergeant in the Westport Volunteers. After 1916,

he played leading roles in the Volunteers and

IRA in Ballinrobe and Ballinasloe, forming fl ying

columns, raiding for arms and instructing

recruits. During the Civil War he and his family

came under fi re, and were lucky to escape. He

set up shop in Clifden in the early 1920s, his

client list including a king and a maharaja.

James passed away in 1958.

THOMAS O‘BRIEN Thomas was born at Raigh, Aughagower in

1879, but the family moved to Moyhastin, where

he spent the rest of his life running the family

farm. A veteran nationalist, Tom was a member

of A Company (Westport) IRA during the War of

Independence, and of the ASU, participating in

all the local ambushes and engagements. He

took the anti-Treaty side in the Civil War. When

Tom passed away, in 1955, he was described

as ‘a gentleman of outstanding character … one

of the last remaining links with the Fenians’. His

funeral to Aughagower cemetery included an

Old IRA guard of honour.

THOMAS RALPHThomas was born in Westport in 1892. His father

was a postman in Westport, and Tom became a

railway porter. He was a member of the Westport

UIL and in 1914 was a ‘ringleader’ in the General

John Regan riot. Soon after his release from

internment in 1916, Tom was transferred by the

railway company to Mullingar, possibly because

of his political activities. He had four brothers in

the British Army during the First World War. Tom

married Agnes Ollington, and they lived in

Castlebar. He passed away in 1960, and is

buried in Castlebar Old Cemetery.

PATRICK TUNNEYPatrick was born in 1886 at Derrykillew, and worked as a

tailor. He was one of the few to write down his memories of

the revolutionary period, many of which he published in the

form of poems, letters and articles. Pat joined the IRB at a

young age and was a founder of the Cuslough Fife & Drum

band. During the War of Independence, he was a member of

D Company (Cuslough) IRA, and his home was a hive of

nationalist activity. He was interned again in 1920-21, but

escaped from the Curragh camp. For many years a member

of Westport Rural District Council, he later moved to Dublin,

and passed away in 1951.

MANUS KEANEManus was born in 1865 at Cloonskill.

By trade he was a blacksmith. He joined

the Fenian Brotherhood at a young age,

and during the War of Independence

was a member of H Company

(Aughagower) IRA. His nationalism was,

by all accounts, his hallmark, and was

referred to often in later accounts of his

life. He died in 1954 and is buried in

Aughagower. Owen Hughes NT

delivered an oration at his graveside,

paying tribute to his personal qualities

and ‘his deep and sincere patriotism’.

THADDEUS WALSHThaddeus was born in 1864 at Knockfi n. He opened a

bar and grocery on Mill Street in c.1890, a business which

continued for over a century. Thaddeus was involved in all

the local nationalist movements, including the Irish

National Federation, the UIL and Sinn Féin. He was

chairman of Westport Rural District Council, a member of

Mayo County Council and a founder of Westport Cumann

na nGaedheal. Thaddeus, his family and his business

suffered greatly at the hands of the Black and Tans. In

1922, his son, Vice-Brigadier Joseph Walsh, was killed

fi ghting for the National Army at the Battle of Newport.

Thaddeus himself passed away in 1931.

COPYRIGHT ©JAMES KELLY 2016This is an abridged excerpt from the author’s forthcoming book, An Illustrated History

of Westport, to be published by Westport Historical Society ©



The arrests made in Westport in May 1916 were based upon years of observation by the author-ities of the local Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), Irish Volunteers, Sinn Féin and Cumann na mBan.

In making the arrests the British administration saw themselves as punishing those they regarded as being in sympathy with the Dublin rebels, while also taking potentially effective insurgents out of circulation, thus limiting the IRB/Volunteers’ ability to mount a renewed offensive in the weeks following the Rising. In that sense, the Easter Rising must be seen as the event which precipitated these 31 arrests.

A signifi cant voice in the decision-making process which led to the arrests was undoubtedly that of John Charles Milling, the local resident magistrate and vir-ulent opponent of Sinn Féin, who tried a number of the 31 men in Volunteer-related cases in the years either side of 1916. He was murdered at his home on Newport Road in 1919, some of the 1916 internees being suspected of involvement.

BACKGROUND THE arrests occurred against the backdrop of a politi-cally divided Westport. Besides the loyalists and the neutrals, the nationalists of the district were split, and bitterly so. The split, which took place in 1914, was between those nationalists who supported the militant ideology of Sinn Féin and the IRB, and those who advo-cated the pursuit of Home Rule.

The Irish Volunteers were formed in response to the Ulster Volunteers’ threats to block, by force, the imple-mentation of Home Rule. The IRB, however, secretly wanted to develop the Irish Volunteers into an army with which they could launch a bid for Irish independ-ence. The Westport corps was established in March 1914, with about 120 men, most of whom joined in order to help secure Home Rule.

For about six months, the Westport Volunteers enjoyed the support of (most of) the members of both nation-alist camps, militants and constitutionalists. Even Lord Sligo said that he was willing to join the Volunteers in defence of the country - meaning the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

However, in late 1914 the Volunteers divided over John Redmond’s appeal for members to enlist in the British army, his idea being that if the Volunteers helped Brit-ain in her war with Germany, this would ensure the enactment of Home Rule legislation once the war ended.

In Westport, the division over this issue led to a fall-off in constitutionalist-nationalist support for the Vol-unteers: about 40 members left the ranks, and the corps lost the active support of a host of infl uential local fi g-ures. It was kept going by a core group of offi cers, mostly IRB/Sinn Féin activists, although the majority of ordi-nary Volunteers were still motivated by a desire to help secure Home Rule.

CYNICISM AND APATHY FROM late 1914 on, the Westport Volunteers had a rocky road. Time and again in 1915 and early 1916 we fi nd appeals in The Mayo News, written by an unnamed Westport Volunteer, seeking not only recruits, but for existing members to attend drill practise, and for those who do, to attend on time. The author constantly appeals

From Westport to Frongoch and beyondJames Kelly analyses the build up to the arrests of 31 men in Westport and the political aftermath of the Easter Rising in the town

to local young mens’ patriotism in an effort to overcome what seems to have been fairly widespread cynicism and apathy. Numerous references are made to local naysayers and mockers, suggesting that this was an organisation battling on a number of fronts. It was kept afl oat by a small, core group, in spite of derision from local constitutionalist nationalists, a lack of local cler-ical support, opposition from local unionists and the continual attention of the police.

When the Rising happened, the Westport corps of Volunteers was by no means a happy and thriving band, enjoying universal local support - far from it. The corps was reorganised in 1916, only a month before the Ris-ing, and the fact that this reorganisation was deemed necessary tells us that the corps had been, in various senses, struggling. Had it not been for the Rising and the subsequent internments and executions, all of which gave impetus to the resurgence of 1917-18, the move-ment would more than likely have fizzled out. The committed members of the Westport Volunteers, together with the local Fianna Éireann boy scouts, drilled and marched fairly regularly. Drill practice was usually on Fridays in Reilly’s Meadow, now Cluain Ard. Route marches assembled at the meadow or at the Octagon after last Mass on Sundays; the Westport Fianna would often march together, in uniform, to Mass. Drill and boxing classes for the local Volunteers were led by Tom Tarmey.

On St Patrick’s Day 1916, a parade and meeting were held in Westport. Refl ecting their opposing nationalist positions, The Mayo News and the Connaught Telegraph reported the event quite differently. At the conclusion of the parade, the crowd was addressed at the Octagon by a number of Sinn Féin fi gures, including The O’Rahilly, who was, just over a month later, killed in action dur-ing the Rising. The Connaught reports that: ‘As soon

as the processionists saw who were going to address them, three-fourths of them wheeled off and marched away, followed by the majority of the people … they saw it was to be used as a Sinn Féin meeting, and they wisely resolved to have no part in it. The whole trick was a transparent fraud and was treated as such’.

The Mayo News, on the other hand, reported that: ‘St Patrick’s Day in Westport was celebrated in a truly national spirit … The procession was of immense pro-portions and … the meeting afterwards was most enthu-siastic’. Other sources tell us that St Patrick’s Day 1916 was not quite the harmonious affair depicted in The Mayo News report, nor was it the ‘miserable failure’ depicted by the Connaught.

‘INNER CIRCLE’NEWS of the Rising reached Westport on Monday night/Tuesday morning April 24/25, and the Westport IRB held an ‘inner circle’ meeting on the Wednesday night (April 26). According to Edward Moane, a prom-inent IRB and Volunteer fi gure in town, they discussed what they might do, whether some sort of show-of-force was possible, but concluded that, because they had no fi rearms to speak of, nothing could be done.

Seán Gibbons (IRB) recalled that there was some talk of attacking the RIC barracks on Shop St, but the plan was abandoned because ‘there was very little to attack with’. One of their few weapons was a revolver Major John MacBride had used in the Boer War. The Kilmeena Volunteers marched to join in the attack on the bar-racks, only to be told it was called off. In the end, the Volunteers marched around the town, with the RIC following taking names. The best estimate is that between 10 and 20 men carried arms during that march. This was the last appearance of the Volunteers in West-port in 1916. The arrests began two days later.

y SPEECH The O’Rahilly, one of the leaders of the 1916 Rising, who was killed in the Rising, spoke to the crowd in Westport after the St Patrick’s Day parade of 1916.

y LUCKY COIN A coin Major John MacBride wore around his neck. It was taken from him before he was executed for his role in the Rising. He became an instant martyr in Westport. This coin is on display at the Clew Bay Heritage Centre. Pic: Michael McLaughlin

The majority of Westport nationalists regarded the rebellion as a betrayal of the stated aim of the Volun-teer movement, which was to help secure Home Rule, not to engage in confl ict with British forces. All of the local newspapers condemned it in those terms, as did the county and urban councils and boards of guardi-ans.

PJ Doris wrote in a Mayo News editorial that none of the local Volunteers ‘had the least idea that the organ-isation to which they belonged was, in the remotest possibility, ever to be used for any such purpose’. It is ironic that Doris should have been arrested for ‘aiding, abetting and encouraging in the preparations for the rebellion’, having spent the preceding days writing a public condemnation of that rebellion.

In the short term, the Rising almost killed armed-nationalism in Westport; in the long term, it was its saving grace. In its immediate aftermath, the Rising dealt two almost-fatal blows to militant nationalism in Westport.

First, as a military fi asco, it made physical-force nation-alism distinctly unattractive, and this approach looked set to be either killed-off or relegated to the fringes.

Second, the round-up of local Volunteer and IRB lead-ers in the wake of the Rising meant that there was no-one left to steer the ship of militant nationalism in Westport. By the time the Rising occurred, the IRB in Westport had been struggling to counteract local apa-thy and cynicism for at least a year. The reputational damage done by the Rising, coupled with the intern-ment of almost its entire leadership, looked set to kill it stone dead.

EXECUTIONSTHE turning point was the public outrage at the execu-tion of the Rising’s leaders. Widespread revulsion was

felt amongst the Irish people, the majority of whom had not, theretofore, been in sympathy with the rebels. The veteran MP for East Mayo, John Dillon, made a powerful and infl uential speech in the House of Com-mons, warning that people ‘who ten days ago were bit-terly opposed to the Sinn Féin movement and the rebel-lion, are now becoming infuriated against the Government on account of these executions … In Mayo, which I have the honour to represent as senior Mem-ber, it is absolutely quiet. Not a soul stirred in Mayo [but] there is not a more troublesome county in Ireland if disturbed … There was not a man moved in Mayo … And now the reward we get is to send down troops … to make arrests all over the county, and turn our own friends into enemies of the Government … You are let-ting loose a river of blood … between two races who, after three hundred years of hatred and of strife, we had nearly succeeded in bringing together’.

In Westport, John MacBride became a martyr over-night. It was this turn in public opinion which facilitated the re-emergence of militant nationalism in Westport. Had the British not carried out the executions, West-port nationalism would almost certainly have taken on an overwhelmingly constitutionalist character. As it was, the executions did take place, and the political scene that emerged in Westport had the physical-force nationalists in the ascendant, and the constitutionalists on a downward trajectory.

Most of the 31 men arrested in 1916 were part of the IRB-leaning hardcore, which kept the Volunteer move-ment alive in Westport following the acrimony of 1914. They played no part in the rebellion, nor could they have done, even if they had received an unequivocal order to rise up: they were desperately short of arms, the authorities kept them under close observation and they lacked widespread local support.

The most important event in Westport in 1916 was the shift in the public’s attitude towards militant national-ism. That was mainly due to the executions in Dublin, but the Westport arrests, and the duration of the mens’ internment undoubtedly added to the sense of griev-ance people felt towards Britain.

Many Westport people who had, up to that point, been moderate, constitutionalist nationalists, with their focus on Home Rule, now turned, in sympathy and practical support, towards the more radical goal of full Irish independence, and the idea of achieving that through direct confl ict with the British. This change in public mood opened the way for the emergence in Westport in 1917-1918 of an explicitly IRB-focused Volunteer movement, which was to play an important part in Mayo’s War of Independence.

In recalling what happened in Westport in 1916, the important event, historically, was the swing in public opinion. But we should not forget the hardships endured by the 31 interned men and their families at home, who worried that the men were going to be either shot or sent to the Western Front.

Many of them suffered further periods of internment and targeted harassment by the Black and Tans. Two of the 31 internees gave their lives for their country: Joe Ring and Joe Ruddy were killed fi ghting for the National Army in 1922, as was Joe Walsh, son of 1916-internee Thaddeus Walsh. In many ways, 1916 was a condensed adolescence, a year in which Westport moved from relative innocence towards a much darker period of its history.

COPYRIGHT ©JAMES KELLY 2016This is an abridged excerpt from the author’s

forthcoming book, An Illustrated History of Westport,

to be published by Westport Historical Society

y WESTPORT NA FIANNA ÉIREANN This superb picture shows the Westport group of Na Fianna Éireann in 1915. The next year three of its members (Tom Derrig, Charles Hickey and Éamonn (Edward) Gannon) would be among the 31 arrested in Westport. The photograph was taken by Mrs P Walsh, McLoughlin’s Studios, Westport. Back, from left: Willie Malone, High St; John Tom Walsh (drill instructor), High St; Tom Derrig (scout master), High St; Joe Gillivan, James St; John Malone, High St; James ‘Broddie’ Malone, The Fairgreen; James ‘Broddie’ Carney, Mill St; James McKenna, ‘The Pound’, Carrabawn; Joe Walsh, Mill St; John Hastings, High St; Tommie Ketterick (recruiting sergeant), High St; Charles Hickey, Castlebar St; William Lyons, Quay Rd; Dan Gavin, High St; Michael O’Malley, Carrabawn; Eamonn Gannon, High St. Second row, from left: Austin Hoban, Mill St; Peter Mutch, Castlebar St; Wille Duffy, The Fairgreen; Martin Duffy, The Fairgreen; Francis Quinn, Lower Peter St; Peter Kelly (troop bugler), Tubber Hill; Jack McDonagh, High St; Wille Joe Ainsworth, Castlebar St; Tom Sheirdan, Mill St; David Walsh, High St; Paddy Haran, Bridge St; Jack Breheny, Castlebar St. Front, from left: Matt Heraty, Altamont St; Paddy Blaney, Altamont St; Teddy Walsh, Bridge St; Paddy McGreal, Bridge St; Mick Breheny, Castlebar St; ‘Champ’ McGreal. Pic courtesy of Westport Historical Society and the Breheny family



VINCENT KEANE

CUMANN na mBan was founded in Wynnes Hotel, Abbey Street, Dublin on April 5, 1914. It was an independent womens’ republican organisation and drew its membership from all classes of society. The vast majority of its members supported the Irish Volun-teers when Redmond’s National Vol-unteers broke away later in 1914.

Cumann na mBan was involved in a non-combative role in the 1916 Rising and took part in dispatch delivery, fi rst aid and intelligence gathering.

Many well known women were asso-ciated with Cumann na mBan. Countess Markievicz, Helena Moloney and the Gifford sisters were some of the prom-

inent people that joined. Markievicz eventually became an offi cer in the Citizen Army.

Elizabeth Bloxam was a founding member of Cumann na mBan. Eliza-beth was born in Westport. Her father was a retired RIC member who had gained employment at Westport House Demesne. She was born in 1878 and the family lived at the Demesne in No.1, the farmyard.

The family were members of the Church of Ireland congregation and Elizabeth was educated in the local Church of Ireland national school. She left Westport in 1908 and became a Domestic Science teacher. In Dublin she became involved in nationalist politics and according to her testimony to the Bureau of Military History, she was a founding member of Cumann

na mBan. She secured a teaching post in New-

townards, County Down, and was working there in 1916 when news of the Rising in Dublin reached her. She was distressed to learn of the death and imprisonment of so many of her friends. After 1916 she went to work in Wicklow and Meath.

In 1915 there were 78 members in Westport Cumann na mBan. They trained in all the usual subjects as laid down in their constitution and were there in support of the Irish Volunteers and Na Fianna Éireann. They attended demonstrations, public meetings and organised fundraising concerts. The organisation spread outwards from the town to areas such as Lecanvey, Mur-risk, Aughagower, Killavalla and Kilmeena. Westport got Battalion sta-

tus and all the outlying branches came under the Westport District Council. Later, Newport, Brockagh, Glenhest, Tiernaur and Shramore were included in the Battalion area.

Overseeing the organisation’s West-port Battalion structure was Tessie Moane, Carrabawn, Westport, sister of Edward (Ned) Moane, who was already prominent in the local Volun-teers. She was assisted by Lily Knight of Triangle, Ayle. The Westport town branch was commanded by Agnes Gal-lagher, Bridge Street. Agnes was from an old Fenian family and was a cousin of the MacBrides from Westport Quay.

None of the Cumann na mBan mem-bers appeared to have been arrested after the 1916 Rising and this gave them scope to get involved in assisting the

families of the 31 men from Westport that were interned in Britain. Concerts and ceilidhe were organised at West-port, Cushlough and Aughagower as fundraisers. All this activity smoothed the way for the great re-organisation of the Republican Movement in 1917.

The Cuman na mBan organisation was at it’s strongest point in the years 1919-1924, and it stood solidly with the IRA. The organisation’s convention held in January 1922 rejected the 1921 Treaty. In 1922 Agnes Gallagher and Emma McManamon from Newport were imprisoned at Kilmainham Prison. The prisoners were brutally treated by their jailers when they were forced to move to a new prison at the North Dublin Union (Grangegorman). Agnes was released in 1924 and returned to live in Westport.

Westport’s Cumann na mBan was very active before Easter Rising

Margaret (nee Mulroe) and Nora (nee Dunne) Tunney both suffered greatly as a result of the direct involve-ment of Patrick and

Michael Tunney in the fi ght for free-dom.MARGARET Mulroe from Greenáun, Tourmakeady married Thomas Tunney of Derrykillew, Cushlough, Westport. These were the days of matchmaking. The ‘deal’ was done at The Pattern in Leenane. That was the fi rst time that either set eyes on the other. Thomas Tunney died in 1915. At that point their two sons Patrick and Michael were heav-ily involved in the Irish Republican Brotherhood and independence for Eire.

In 1916 her home was a hive of repub-lican activity. Liam Mellows, the Galway leader, found a warm welcome when he stayed at the Tunney home in Cushlough.

In 1917, just six months after his release from Frongoch jail, Nora Dunne, Car-rowkennedy, Westport married Patrick Tunney. Her husband was a ‘man on the run’, tailor, a poet, a songwriter and a small farmer. Unfortunately poems and

The hidden heroes of the Independent struggleLiam Friel writes about the role Patrick Tunney’s mother and wife played in the rebellion years

and found Patrick Tunney there, whom they believed was under lock and key in Galway jail.

They didn’t know that he had a ten day parole from Galway jail because of spe-cial family circumstances. Margaret saw the Black and Tans pin her son at gun-point against the gable wall of his home. Their sole intent was to execute him on the spot. And they would have carried it out had it not been for the cries of a tiny new-born baby from within and the pleading of the family.

The compassion did not last long. They broke into the home despite the pleas of the family that the mother had just given birth. Nora had just given birth to her third baby – Margaret Mary (Mairéad) – late on the day before.

The Black and Tans went up to Nora’s bed-room and pulled the bedclothes off her bed, in case she was hiding a fugi-tive.

Margaret boldly refused to converse with the Black and Tans in a language that they could understand. So they hit her with the butt of their rifl es and knocked her against the dresser, injuring her and breaking much of the delft.

Patrick Tunney was advised for his own security to return to the ‘safety’ of Galway jail. It would be another nine months before Nora and her baby would lay eyes on him again.

These were the women behind the men, the often forgotten people and the unsung heroes. Those two ladies faced down the rifl es of the RIC and the Black and Tans for the cause of Ireland’s free-dom.

Liam Friel is a grandson of Patrick and

Nora Tunney

being on the run don’t put a dinner on the table.

Nora was to raise ten children on the small farm in the barren rural area of Derrykillew, while he spent many years of his life in jails through-out Ireland and England.

The valley in which they lived being isolated was continually frequented by

the members of the Active Services Units of the Irish Republican Army from 1917 to 1922. These men on the run found a warm welcome under their hospitable roof, but it also attracted ‘visits’ by the Crown forces who sought information about the movement of the ‘boys’.

One brutal episode occurred on March 22, 1921 when the Black and Tans arrived

y BEHIND THE SCENES The roles of women like Nora Tunney (left) and Margaret Tunney were a huge part of the independence struggle. Pics courtesy of

Liam Friel

VINCENT KEANE

THE 31 internees from Westport had all returned home by Christmas 1916. A great national unity had been achieved whilst they were at the ‘Frongoch University’.

The great electoral victory of 1918 was fol-lowed by the opening of the First Dail Eireann in 1919. Then came the ‘Terror’ of 1920/21 and

the country stood united against its oppressor. The divisive Treaty of 1921 split that unity and old comrades now became enemies. Tragedy came to some of the ex-internees in the Civil War of 1922/23.

Joe Ring had become an Assistant Commis-sioner of the newly formed Garda Siochana, but left that position to become a Brigadier in the Free State Army when the Civil War erupted in July. On September 14 he was caught in an ambush laid by the IRA in the Ox Mountains,

near Bonniconlon, and was shot dead.Joe Ruddy was the O/C of the Westport FSA

Garrison, located at the Town Hall. On Novem-ber 1 he was involved in a controversial shoot-ing when a young IRA man, Pat Mulchrone, was shot dead in Gallaghers of Brockagh. On November 24, Captain Ruddy died in action at Kilbride, Newport, during a large-scale advance against Republican forces.

Thaddeus Walsh had a grocery and licenced premises at Mill Street. Tragedy came to him

when his son, Captain Joe Walsh, was also killed with Captain Ruddy at Kilbride.

Another ex-Frongoch internee, Tom Derrig, had become Adjutant General of the IRA in Dublin. In March 1923 Derrig was arrested by the CID from Oriel House. He tried to escape, and the bullet that struck him damaged his eye to the extent that it had to be removed. He sur-vived the Civil War and in later years became a minister in the fi rst Fianna Fáil govern-ment.

TRAGEDY AFTER UNITY

HARRY HUGHES

There is a disproportional political legacy from the thirty-one Westport internees. A total of seven MPs or TDs

from the Westport district were elected in Westport over the last one hundred years.

Two were internees and four were relations or descendants of the internees. The only exception was Edward Moane, although not a Frongoch internee, he was active in the fi ght for free-dom - in fact he was one of the leading Westport volunteers not arrested in 1916 and led the organisa-tion in the absence of many of its lead-ers who were detained in Frongoch.

Edward Moane was a TD from 1932 to 1938.

The fi rst direct connection with the detainees is William Doris, a brother of PJ Doris. William was an MP from 1910 to 1918 but the sea change in the nationalist movement led to him losing his seat.

Two internees, Joseph MacBride and Tom Derrig were elected to Dáil Éireann during the foundation of the Free State.

Joseph Mac Bride, a brother of Major John Mac Bride, was elected an MP in 1918 - actually unseating William Doris - and later a TD in the fi rst Dail from 1922 to 1927. Tom Derrig was elected to the fi rst Dáil in 1922 for Mayo North and West. He was later elected for Carlow/Kilkenny from 1927 until 1954.

A Fianna Fáil TD, he was Minister for Education in Eamon de Valera’s fi rst govern-ment in 1932.

There is a gap of nearly fi fty years until the next Westport person is elected to the Dáil. Myles Staunton served as a TD from 1973 to 1977 and is a fi rst cousin – twice removed to 1916 internee Joseph Gill and is also related to the MacBride family.

Another twenty years elapsed before Seamus

Frongoch internees leave a substantial political legacy

Hughes, a nephew of Patrick Hughes and a grandson of Owen Hughes is elected from

1992 until 1997. Two years later Michael Ring was elected in a by-election in 1994. He

is a grandnephew of Joseph Ring. He is currently acting Minister of State for Tourism and Sport and is the longest serving of all Westport TDs, having been elected fi ve times since his by-election victory.

A number of other TDs related to the Westport intern-ees were elected outside of Westport. Seán MacBride, a son of the

excused leader Major John Mac-Bride and a nephew of internee

Joseph MacBride, was elected in Dublin in 1947 for the Clann na

Poblachta, the republican socialist party he formed. He was on the cabinet of the

fi rst inter-party government from 1948 to 1951 as Minister for External Affairs.

An opponent of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, MacBride would become a Chief of Staff of the IRA in the 1930s. Issues with Fine Gael leader Richard Mulcahy during the Civil War meant the likes of MacBride’s Clann na Poblachta would not support him as Taoiseach so Mulc-ahy stepped aside and allowed John A Costello to head the inter-party government.

MacBride went on to become a well-known international politician and was one of the

founding members of Amnesty International. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974 and was present in Westport in 1983 for the unveiling of the memorial to his father on The Mall in Westport.

Jim Tunney a nephew of Patrick Tunney was elected in Dublin in 1969 and was a member of Dáil Éireann until he was unseated

in 1992. From the mixed group of local politicians,

Sinn Feiners, Irish Volunteers and Fianna Éire-ann, who were arrested in 1916, over seven TDs within or related to the internees were elected and have served the country. The 31 internees would be proud of this political legacy.

y POLITICAL LEGACY Michael Ring TD (top, left) and former TD Seamus Hughes (top, right) and their forebears, Joe Ring (bottom, left) and Owen Hughes (bottom, right).

Pics: Michael McLaughlin, Harry Hughes and Westport Historical Society



EDWIN MCGREAL

ONE Ballina man who went to Dublin on busi-ness during Easter 1916 got more than he bar-gained for.

Garage proprietor Johnny White of King Street (now O’Rahilly Street), Ballina ended up driv-

ing an ambulance for two days and three nights, picking up casualties and bringing them to hospitals throughout the city, at times driving through ‘a hail of bullets’.

Terry Reilly recounts his story in his book Ballina: One Town, Three Wars and More.

Johnny would not avoid the ‘hail of bullets’ indefi nitely.

A bullet glanced off the horn of the ambulance

and hit him in the cheek, the author continues, ‘as he was assisting in removing maimed and mutilated men from streets and buildings, and he spoke of heart-rending scenes involving women and children who had to be rescued from buildings which had come under fi re’.

The book mentions others from Ballina who were in Dublin during the Rising, including a Mr Waters of the Provincial Bank and Robert

Hunter of Crofton Park who noted the scarcity of food and provisions and was very relieved ‘when he got his heels out of the city’.

The Western People referred to a man named McAndrew from the Moygownagh area who got out of the city on May 1 and cycled all the way back to Ballina having experienced ‘fi res and crashing houses and people being shot down’.

Ballina man shot in cheek in Rising crossfi re

ANTON MCNULTY

WHEN Pádraig Pearse stepped out in front of the GPO on Easter Monday, 1916 to read the Irish Proclamation, high on the roof raising the tri-colour was New-port-born Michael Staines.

Holding the rank of Quartermaster General of the Dublin volunteers, Staines was one of the senior offi cers in the GPO that historic Easter Monday and one of Pearse’s trusted lieutenants.

Michael Staines was born in Newport in 1885, the son of Edward Staines, a native of Carlow and a constable in the RIC and Margaret McCann, a native of Kiltarnet, close to Burrishoole Abbey outside Newport.

He was the eldest of six boys and two girls and they left Newport in 1890 when Edward was transferred to Bellanagare, Co Roscommon. In 1904, the family moved to Dublin where they lived at Murtagh Road, Stoneybatter and Michael worked in Henshaw Ironmongers on Parliament Street.

He was a member of the Gaelic League and attended the fi rst meeting of the Irish Volunteers in the Rotunda on November 23, 1913 where he was elected onto the Volunteers’ National Execu-tive.

In September 1915, he was appointed a Lieutenant to Pearse’s staff and was appointed the fi rst representative of the Dublin brigade on the General Council of the Volunteers and attended meetings of the Council which were held once a month.

“At these meetings the question of the Rising was frequently discussed. The general feeling was that we would be beaten militarily. The feeling of those present at these meetings was that we should not let the war end without our generation making a gesture or a protest against British rule and the occupation of the country,” he stated to the Bureau of Military history.

Staines was appointed to the role of Quartermaster General for the GPO gar-rison during the 1916 Rising which meant he was responsible for the transporta-

The Newport man who raised tricolor over GPO in 1916

As one of the key offi cers in the GPO, Staines was by the side of the leaders as they gave the order to evacuate the build-ing.

“Myself, Pádraig Pearse, William Pearse and Judge Law’s chauffeur brought Con-nolly out on a stretcher. We went into a house at Number 10 Moore Street. We placed Connolly in a bed and made his room the headquarters.”

Staines was one of six men who car-ried Connolly on a stretcher from their retreat on Moore Street and following surrender he was imprisoned in Kil-mainham Jail. From his cell on May 3 and 4, he could hear the shots of the executions of the fi rst seven leaders of the Rising.

When Edward Daly, the Limerick born leader was about to be executed, he told the priest who gave him the last rites to, ‘say hello to Michael Staines and all the boys in Blackhall Street’.

Staines was interned in Frongoch internment camp in Wales where he was elected Commandant in the camp. WJ Brennan Whitmore in his book ‘The Irish in Frongoch’ stated: ‘Commandant Michael Staines was a highly effi cient offi cer who earned the respect of every individual prisoner’.

Following his release, he was elected MP for St Michael’s, Dublin and was present in the Mansion House for the fi rst meeting of the Dáil on January 21, 1919.

He was arrested in December 1920 and imprisoned until June 1921 in Mountjoy Jail by the British authorities without trial, charge or internment order and was released along with Arthur Griffi th to take part in the Truce negotiations.

Following the Truce, he was part of the committee formed to disband the RIC and formed An Garda Síochána, becom-ing its fi rst Commissioner on March 10, 1922.

“The Garda Síochána will succeed not by force of arms or numbers but on their moral authority as servants of the peo-ple,” he stated.

Michael Staines married Julia Cullen in 1922. He died in 1955 and is buried alongside his wife Julia in Clontarf Cem-etery.

tion of arms from Liberty Hall to the GPO.

He led the move to the top fl oor of the building and along with other Volunteers hoisted the tricolour over the GPO while Pádraig Pearse read out the Proclama-tion.

At the heavy bombardment of the GPO began later in the week, Staines later recalled the building was ‘alight in every quarter and the front portion was a roar-ing furnace’.

y LEADING FIGURE Newport-born Michael Staines was a close ally of Pádraig Pearse.

DANIEL CAREY

A CONSIGNMENT of rifl es were taken in what Noel Campbell calls ‘the only rec-ognised offi cial bit of action’ which took place in Mayo

during Easter week, 1916. It involved companies from Balla and Kiltimagh mobilised on the orders of Mayo Brigade Adjutant Dick Walsh, and led to the awarding of a medal to James Ruane (which you can see on the cover of this supplement).

Campbell, the Documentation Offi cer and Assistant Keeper at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life, thinks he knows where the weapons – seized when they were being transferred by the Royal Irish Constabulary – came from.

“At the time of the split in the Volun-

Hidden rifl es and bags of swordsteers [over Irish participation in the First World War], when [John] Redmond’s National Volunteers and the Irish Vol-unteers split, there was a scramble for arms,” he told a gathering in The Helm Bar and Restaurant, Westport last Tues-day. “In Castlebar, Rooney Hall on Tucker Street, which is gone now, was the head-quarters of the Volunteers. A month after the split, the National Volunteers broke in and took 25 rifl es from the hall. Twen-ty-fi ve rifl es then were captured back [in 1916], and I’ve a suspicion we’re talk-ing about the same rifl es.”

The guns were hidden behind wooden walled panels in McEllin’s Hotel in Balla. Vincent Keane of the Westport Histori-cal Society says that the men involved were brought to Richmond Barracks in Dublin, and were ‘squeezed’ for infor-mation, to reveal where the weapons were being hidden. They were released when the rifl es were handed in.

In Castlebar, bags of swords were found in the river by the RIC, and 1,000 troops fl ooded into the county town. There were plans to use the deep harbour in Kilcummin to bring in weapons, remi-niscent of the Howth gun-running epi-sode.

“[From] the witness statements that are available, you can tell people were ready to roll,” says Campbell. “If one, single, clear, unambiguous order came down, you certainly would have seen action in Westport (the most active area in the county) and Castlebar as well, I think.”

The focus in Castlebar was on the RIC barracks (“There was no chance of tak-ing the military barracks”). But Campbell feels ‘prestigious buildings’ like the courthouse were overlooked by those planning rebellion. He’s seen no plans to take over such unprotected buildings, as happened in Dublin.

DANIEL CAREY

THE centenary of the 1916 Ris-ing has helped bring to life the stories of some forgotten fi gures from the Easter Rising. People like Kathleen Lynn, Michael Staines, Colonel Maurice Moore, Darrell Figgis and Dick Walsh have come back into the public consciousness.

Lynn is a particularly fascinat-ing case. Born in Mullaghfarry, near Killala, the daughter of a Protestant clergyman, she was a Captain and Chief Medical Offi cer of the Irish Citizen Army, excelling in medicine and endur-ing ‘huge prejudice’ as a woman in a man’s world.

Mayo News reporter Áine Ryan wonders if Lynn was ‘radicalised by seeing the famine as a young girl in Mayo’, noting that she was in Dublin at a ‘very excit-ing, heady time’, with cultural revolution encompassing femi-nism, the Irish language and Gaelic sport. She got to know James Connolly during the 1913 Lockout, and described herself as ‘a Red Cross doctor and a belligerent’ when arrested dur-ing the Rising.

Lynn later founded Saint Ultan’s Hospital for Infants. She lived openly with her partner, Madeline ffench-Mullen, and was a ‘radical’ in an era of ‘repres-sion’ and ‘rigid Catholic nation-alism’.

“There is a movement now to

People were ready to roll

“

Written back into history

Moore insisted that members of Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League) were crucial in the establishment of the Volun-teers in Mayo.

“When he was coming into an area – be it Westport, Achill with Darrell Figgis – they’d go to the Gaelic League fi rst,” explains Noel Campbell, the Documen-tation Offi cer and Assistant Keeper at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life. “And of course, that’s shown in the arrests afterwards. From Cong to Ballyhaunis, Gaelic Leaguers were picked up everywhere. This is obviously where their intelligence is – it’s not auto-matically Sinn Féiners, it’s ‘Let’s get the Gaelic Leaguers’ straight away.”

call the National Children’s Hospital, if it’s ever built, the Dr Kathleen Lynn Hospital, which I think would be wonder-ful,” added Áine Ryan, who also draws our attention to interest-ing local strands to the cultural revival that preceded the fi ght for independence.

Eoin Mac Neill was a contrib-

utor to the Royal Irish Academy’s Clare Island Survey, recording the Irish place names of the island between 1909 and 1911. Playwright John Millington Synge and artist Jack B Yeats travelled around Mayo and Con-nemara in 1905, reporting on the poverty still rampant in the ‘congested districts’.

It was a very exciting, heady time

“

“They were going to all these places and discovering them,” The Mayo News journalist notes. “They were coming into com-munities and energising people about the sense of value of their culture. [It] was … the velvet part of the revolution, if you want to call it that.”

And indeed, Colonel Maurice

y LANDMARK Vincent Keane, Vincent Keogh (proprietor) and Harry Hughes at The Helm, the Quay, Westport - the birthplace of Major John MacBride. A plaque to commemorate the fact is located at the top of the picture. Pic: Conor McKeown

< HISTORY Noel Campbell discussing the 1916 Rising at The Helm, Westport. Pic: Conor McKeown

Y


St Patrick’s Day in Westport

Procession and public meeting

St Patrick’s Day in Westport was celebrated in a truly national spirit. Under the auspices of the Irish Volunteers a procession and public meeting were held. The procession was of immense proportions, and was especially remarkable for good order and discipline, while the meeting afterwards was most enthusiastic.

Joseph McBride, the Chairman, said there had been a good many meetings held in Westport, amongst them being one at which Daniel O’Connell was present. They had present at this meeting men whose names were familiar to Irish people the world over – The O’Rahilly and Darrell Figgis (cheers). They would address the meeting, and

he was sure that they would be given a warm welcome (cheers).

The O’Rahilly, who was received with cheers, then addressed the meeting. He spoke fi rst in Irish and afterwards in English. He said his fi rst duty was to speak to them in the language which should properly be used at every assembly of Irishmen and Irishwomen, and it was their purpose to see that in the future that language would be used in every dignifi ed assemblage of Irishmen and Irishwomen, because the Irish language was the hall-mark of Irish Nationality and inseparably bound up with National ideals.

Mr Charles Hughes, Westport, proposed a vote of thanks to the Chairman for presiding. In doing so he appealed to Irishmen to join in a bond of love for their country, and he appealed too to the farmers to till the land that was theirs. Let Ireland depend on herself, he said, and on no foreign country,

and let the men of Ireland arm themselves and show that they did not want to skulk behind the army and navy. In the dark days of ‘47 the English tore the food from the mouths of starving Irishmen and hawthorn bushes on the roadside marked their graves, he said.

The proceedings came to a close with the singing of ‘A Nation Once Again’.

Excerpt, Saturday, March 25,

1916

Unavoidably held over

The active and enthusiastic manner in which the great Irish National Festival of St Patrick’s Day was celebrated in our native county, so fi lls our space this week that we regret being obliged to hold over many reports and other contributions for which we would be very glad to fi nd space if we possibly could do so. We hope to be able to give all: Crossard Gaelic League Classes, Kiltimagh and Ballyhaunis Notes, and reports of Ballyhaunis Petty Sessions, also some obituary and other notices, in next issue.

Castlebar District Council

The Dublin disturbance

The Chairman, Mr Patrick Higgins, said the Clerk had a resolution to submit to the council and he resolved the occasion had arisen for such a resolution. They were all aware of how the business of the country had been upset by an upheaval in Dublin. They were not in possession of full information but they knew that something very serious had occurred to upset the business of the country.

The Clerk then read the following – “That we, the council of the Rural District of Castlebar, hereby register our deep regret for, and resentment against the deplorable and insane action of a section of Volunteers of this country, who at this time of terrible crisis in her history, seized the opportunity, to precipitate civil war, to discredit the Irish Party, and the Irish leader and to bring irreparable damage and disaster to our prospects of prosperity and progress.

“We deplore that a body of irresponsible men in this country, who have no interest

with the peasantry of our land, should, for some reason we cannot understand, and for a grievance of we do not know of, throw their misguided dupes into the verter of civil war as fodder for the weapons of their own brothers and soldiers under arms, who have for nearly two years been fi ghting bravely against a powerful foreign enemy for the protection of us all. The trade of our country is upset and in imminent danger of complete destruction. We have been brought up against a clear view of the ruin that can and may be brought about by their action.”

The resolution was put and passed unanimously.

Excerpt, Saturday, May 6, 1916

Mayo Irish Volunteers and the Rising in

DublinWe believe that nobody in Ireland did the news of a Rising in Dublin come with greater surprise and consternation than to the Irish Volunteers in Mayo. None of them, we believe, had the least idea that the organisation to which they belonged was, in the remotest possibility, ever to be used for any such purpose.

The Volunteers were founded by Colonel Moore and others in this county to counteract the forces armed in the Northern provinces to prevent the putting into operation of the Home Rule Act. This was certainly very far removed from any revolutionary purpose, and the very best proof that they had no such purpose in their minds is to be found in the fact that not the least outbreak of any kind occurred in this county.

We think it is only fair to members of the organisation now suppressed and no longer in existence that this view of their position should be made clear. We believe the same statement could be made about Irish Volunteers all over Ireland. If the organisation as originally founded had been allowed to proceed, we don’t believe that any such outbreak as that which occurred in Dublin and in a few scattered places in other parts of the country would ever have been possible.

The root and foundation of all the trouble was permitting armed forces to be formed in the north of Ireland for the open and avowed purpose of resisting Ireland’s constitutional demands. Very little can now be

gained by going back on the causes which produced such unexpected and appalling results, but few people in the country will regret that Mr Birrell, who shone out as a maker of jokes and dispenser of jobs, has ceased to rule over Ireland. His funiosities were never Government and those under whose infl uence he acted have good reason to be ashamed of themselves. Are they ashamed of themselves? Not at all! With an audacity and heartlessness surpassing great, they are quite capable, if they are not closely watched by the Government, of trying to turn all the machinery for suppressing rebellion into an instrument for ruining every man who dared to criticise them in the past. Mr Birrell, as Chief Secretary, had every source of information at hand, or ought to have it, for knowing what was going on in this country. He never treated the Irish Volunteers as an illegal and revolutionary body. How then can he make it a crime that those with much less opportunities for knowing, had not done so? Up to the moment when the proclamation suppressing it was issued, the Irish Volunteers were, so far as the public could see, a perfectly legal organisation. The Rising at Dublin was the fi rst intimation the great body of the members, or the outside public, had that there were sections within it with other motives than those for which the Irish Volunteers were formed. We are glad to say that the terrible excitement produced by the unexpected and extraordinary occurrences in Dublin, and some scattered outbreaks in other parts of the country, is gradually passing away, and men are coming to be able to view those events with calm and intelligence. The military authorities have certainly a diffi cult task thrown upon them to unravel the tangled skein left them by Mr Birrell, we have no doubt many individuals will suffer unjustly and the seeds of discontent may be widely sown if the greatest care is not exercised in dealing with it. So far as Mayo is concerned at any rate it had no part in the rebellion, and as we have already stated, to none we believe did those extraordinary outbreaks come with greater surprise than to the Irish Volunteers and their supporters in the county.

An editorial written by PJ Doris

in the edition of Saturday, May

13. He was arrested the day

before, listed as being ‘guilty of

behaviour prejudicial to the

state and the Defence of the

Realm by aiding, abetting and

encouraging in the

preparations for the rebellion’.

He was interned until

December, 1916.

Death of Mr John McBride

The news of the execution of Mr John McBride following a sentence of courtmartial for complicity in the revolutionary disturbances in Dublin, reached Westport on Saturday evening and was received with deep regret by all who knew him. Mr McBride was the youngest son of the late Captain McBride of Westport Quay, and of Mrs McBride, and the sympathy of the people of Westport district went forth to his affl icted mother and family in their great sorrow. We knew Mr McBride very intimately in his school days at Westport Christian Brothers’ School, and his many school companions scattered the world over will read with sorrow of his tragic end - R.I.P.

Editorial comment by PJ Doris,

Saturday, May 13

Extra daylight hour

House of Lords sanction to

altering the clock

The Daylight Savings Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons at peep of dawn one morning last week and secured third reading at two o’clock on Tuesday morning. Late hours were probably accountable for its late arrival yesterday afternoon in the House of Lords where Lord Lansdowne sat waiting to welcome it with a noble eulogia.

Lord Lansdowne said the object of the Bill was to introduce a small measure of common sense into the present mismanagement of the hours of light and darkness. Many people seem to think that there was something impious and sacrilegious in laying hands on an institution so venerable as Greenwich mean time, which they regarded as standing on the same jewel as the British Constitution.

Lord Salisbury said he could not take the Bill very seriously. But there was no opposition and the Bill was read a second time.

Daylight saving means putting the clock forward one hour on Saturday night and doing everything henceforth as usual by the clock.

Saturday, May 20, 1916

1916

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