Gwynn is appointed first lady registrar of Trinity College Dublin in February 1905. Women had only been admitted to the university the previous year. Despite coming from a family of academics, she had been unable to get a university education herself. She is 39 years old when appointed to her position in the university.
Students describe Gwynn as a pioneer. Her role as women’s registrar is described by one of her charges as “to control our movements to some extent and to protect the college and the students from criticism.”
In 1907, Gwynn is summoned before the Fry Commission on Dublin University to defend the position of women at Trinity. She is supported by the parents of the students. The result is that the commission endorses the principle of women’s admission to the university.
In 1922, the Dublin University Women Graduates’ Association is founded, under Gwynn’s presidency.
Gwynn never marries. As an eldest daughter she is required to assist in the management of her parents’ household and attend to them in their old age. From her mother’s brother, architect Robert Donough O’Brien, she inherits the house he had designed and built at Parteen-a-Lax in County Clare, close to Limerick. It is there that she retires at the end of her working life. Her hobby is tending its beautiful garden which lay next to the River Shannon.
Gwynn dies in County Clare in 1947.
Founded, by subscription, in 1948 in memory of Lucy Gwynn, the Lucy Gwynn Memorial Prize is awarded annually in the Michaelmas term to a Junior Sophister woman student for distinction in her course. The award is made by two women on the university staff nominated by the Board, and one of the female tutors. The value of the prize is €1,207.
Patrick J. Killoran, Irish traditional fiddle player, bandleader and recording artist is born on September 21, 1903, in Emlaghgissan (also spelled “Emlagation”), a townland in the civil parish of Emlaghfad near the town of Ballymote, County Sligo. He is regarded, along with James Morrison and Michael Coleman, as one of the finest exponents of the south Sligo fiddle style in the “golden age” of the ethnic recording industry of the 1920s and 1930s.
Killoran’s father Patrick plays the flute and his mother Mary the concertina, but he is also influenced by local fiddle master Philip O’Beirne, who had earlier tutored Michael Coleman. As a teenager, he is a volunteer with the Ballymote-based 3rd Battalion of the south Sligo Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence.
In 1925, Killoran emigrates to New York City, arriving on May 19 on the Cunard liner Scythia. Within a few months, he officially declares his intention to become a citizen of the United States, listing his address as 227 East 126th Street in east Harlem and his occupation as “laborer.” He later lodges with fellow Sligo fiddler James Morrison in a Columbus Avenue apartment on Manhattan‘s Upper West Side. A 1927 newspaper ad for “Morrison’s Orchestra” offers “Irish music by P. Killoran and J. Morrison, celebrated violinists,” giving 507 West 133d Street in west Harlem as the contact address. He soon launches his own career as a soloist and bandleader. A publicity photo of his quartet c. 1928 includes button accordionist D. Casey, tenor banjo player Richard Curran and second fiddler Denis Murphy. By the next year, he is performing on a weekly radio program sponsored by the Pride of Erin Ballrooms, located at the corner of Bedford and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn. He also tries another side occupation as his 1931 naturalization petition lists his occupation as “Music store owner.”
At the Pride of Erin, and later at the Sligo Ballroom at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, Killoran’s “Irish Orchestra” provides music for Irish dancing, while Jack Healy, another Ballymote native, leads a group for “American” dancing. Healy, as a singer and tenor saxophone player, also performs and records with Killoran’s group, the membership of which over the course of the 1930s includes fiddler Paddy Sweeney, another Sligo native, fiddle and clarinet player Paul Ryan, Ryan’s brother Jim on the C Melody saxophone, pianists Eileen O’Shea, Edmund Tucker and Jim McGinn, drummer Mickey Murphy, button accordionists Tommy Flanagan and William McElligott and tenor banjo/tenor guitar player Michael “Whitey” Andrews.
Killoran’s band is variously billed as his “Pride of Erin Orchestra,” “Radio Dance Orchestra,” “Sligo Ballroom Orchestra,” “Lakes of Sligo Orchestra” and “Irish Barn Dance Boys.” The group is a popular choice for county association functions, particularly those of Sligo and Roscommon. In 1932, he leads a band that accompanies CardinalWilliam Henry O’Connell of Boston to the Eucharistic Congress in Ireland and briefly bills his group as the “Pride of Erin Eucharistic Congress Orchestra.” He regularly performs at Irish beach resorts on the Rockaway peninsula and in East Durham in the Catskill Mountains.
Uniquely among the major New York Irish musicians of the pre-World War II era, Killoran continues his musical career through the 1950s. He issues new recordings, including duets with flute player Mike Flynn and some fiddle-and-viola sides with Paul Ryan, and leads an active dance band. Age and illness eventually force him to retire, and in 1962 he turns over leadership of the band, a fixture at the City Center Ballroom, to button accordionist Joe Madden, father of Cherish the Ladies flute player Joanie Madden.
In 1956, Killoran is a co-founder of the Dublin Recording Company, later better known simply as Dublin Records, which is organized to record new Irish discs in New York.
Killoran is a founding member of the Emerald Irish Musicians Benevolent Society, a group that stages “Night of Shamrocks” concerts to raise money for the benefit of sick and deceased Irish musicians in New York. He is also a member of the Irish Musicians Association of America, and a New York branch of that organization, which later merges with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Eireann, is named for him.
In addition to the 1932 trip to the Eucharistic Congress, Killoran returns to Ireland at least twice. In 1949, he plays on a Radio Éireann program hosted by piper and folklorist Séamus Ennis. Some selections from that broadcast are recorded on a private disc and are later released on CD. On a 1960 visit, he visits Sligo and Clare and performs at a concert in County Longford.
Killoran is married twice. His first wife, Anna Gorman, a native of County Roscommon, dies in 1935. His second wife is Betty (Bridget) Hayes, an immigrant from Shanaway West, County Clare, who survives him. He dies in New York City on April 24, 1965.
A “Paddy Killoran Traditional Festival” is celebrated in the third week of June in Ballymote, where a monument in Killoran’s honor is erected in 2012.
On September 19, 1863, the 5th Confederate Infantry, consisting of a large number of Irish from Memphis, fight in one of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War at Chickamauga, Georgia. One of the commanders is Cork-born Patrick Cleburne whom historians universally recognize as one of the most capable officers on either side during the awful conflict, although Chickamauga might not have been his finest hour. Cleburne is known as the “Stonewall of the West.” He is one of six Confederate generals to die in the Battle of Franklin.
After his successful Tullahoma campaign, Rosecrans renews the offensive, aiming to force the Confederates out of Chattanooga. In early September, he consolidates his forces scattered in Tennessee and Georgia and forces Bragg’s army out of Chattanooga, heading south. The Union troops follow it and brush with it at Davis’s Cross Roads. Bragg is determined to reoccupy Chattanooga and decides to meet a part of Rosecrans’s army, defeat it, and then move back into the city. On September 17 he heads north, intending to attack the isolated XXI Corps. As Bragg marches north on September 18, his cavalry and infantry fight with Union cavalry and mounted infantry, which are armed with Spencer repeating rifles. The two armies fight at Alexander’s Bridge and Reed’s Bridge, as the Confederates try to cross the West Chickamauga Creek.
Fighting begins in earnest on the morning of September 19. Bragg’s men strongly assault but cannot break the Union Army line. The next day, Bragg resumes his assault. In late morning, Rosecrans is misinformed that he has a gap in his line. In moving units to shore up the supposed gap, Rosecrans accidentally creates an actual gap directly in the path of an eight-brigade assault on a narrow front by Confederate Lieutenant GeneralJames Longstreet, whose corps has been detached from the Army of Northern Virginia. In the resulting rout, Longstreet’s attack drives one-third of the Union Army, including Rosecrans himself, from the field.
Union Army units spontaneously rally to create a defensive line on Horseshoe Ridge (“Snodgrass Hill“), forming a new right wing for the line of Major General George H. Thomas, who assumes overall command of remaining forces. Although the Confederates launch costly and determined assaults, Thomas and his men hold until twilight. Union forces then retire to Chattanooga while the Confederates occupy the surrounding heights, besieging the city.
Thomas withdraws the remainder of his units to positions around Rossville Gap after darkness falls. The Army of Tennessee camps for the night, unaware that the Union Army has slipped from their grasp. Bragg is not able to mount the kind of pursuit that would be necessary to cause Rosecrans significant further damage. Many of his troops had arrived hurriedly at Chickamauga by rail, without wagons to transport them, and many of the artillery horses had been injured or killed during the battle. The Tennessee River is now an obstacle to the Confederates and Bragg has no pontoon bridges to affect a crossing. Bragg’s army pauses at Chickamauga to reorganize and gather equipment lost by the Union Army. Although Rosecrans had been able to save most of his trains, large quantities of ammunition and arms are left behind.
Army of Tennessee historianThomas L. Connelly has criticized Bragg’s performance, claiming that for over four hours on the afternoon of September 20, he missed several good opportunities to prevent the Union escape, such as by a pursuit up the Dry Valley Road to McFarland’s Gap, or by moving a division to the north to seize the Rossville Gap or McFarland’s Gap via the Reed’s Bridge Road.
The battle is damaging to both sides in proportions roughly equal to the size of the armies: Union losses are 16,170 (1,657 killed, 9,756 wounded, and 4,757 captured or missing), Confederate losses are 18,454 (2,312 killed, 14,674 wounded, and 1,468 captured or missing). Among the dead are Confederate generals Benjamin Hardin Helm (husband of Abraham Lincoln‘s sister-in-law), James Deshler, and Preston Smith, and Union general William H. Lytle. Confederate general John Bell Hood, who had already lost the use of his left arm from a wound at Gettysburg, is severely wounded with a bullet in his leg, requiring it to be amputated. Although the Confederates are technically the victors, driving Rosecrans from the field, Bragg did not achieve his objectives of destroying Rosecrans or of restoring Confederate control of East Tennessee, and the Confederate Army suffers casualties that they can ill afford.
Drew is the son of the Rev. Thomas Drew, son of a Limerick grocer, and Isabella Drew (née Dalton), daughter of a Dublin attorney. He is one of four sons and eight daughters of the couple, although most of the children die young. His sister, Catherine Drew, is a prominent Londonjournalist and an early champion of women’s rights.
Drew is trained under Sir Charles Lanyon before moving to work in Dublin, where he becomes principal assistant to William George Murray. In 1865, he becomes the diocesan architect of the united dioceses of Down, Connor and Dromore, and from that point forward Church architecture is his principal activity. He is consulting architect for both St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.
Drew marries Adelaide Anne, sister of William George Murray, in 1871.
From 1885 to 1892, Richard Orpen works with Drew as a managing assistant. Drew’s most significant work in Belfast is St. Anne’s Cathedral, completed in 1899.
Christened as William O’Brien, the seventh child of Arthur O’Brien, clerk, and Mary O’Brien (née Christie), who is from County Meath, Ó Briain takes an interest in the Irish language from an early age and begins learning Irish by himself from a grammar book, as it is not encouraged by his teachers at the Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School nor spoken by his parents. While still at the O’Connell School, he starts using the Irish version of his name. He also attends meetings of the Gaelic League, then attends University College Dublin (UCD) on a scholarship, where he studies French, English and Irish, receiving a BA (1909) and an MA (1910).
UCD decides to start awarding one annual scholarship for overseas travel in 1911, and Ó Briain wins the first one, using it to visit Germany and study under Kuno Meyer and Rudolf Thurneysen. After three years, he returns home, where he rejoins the Gaelic League and begins teaching French at UCD. He also joins the Irish Volunteers then, the following year, Seán T. O’Kelly convinces him to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB).
Around this time, Ó Briain joins Sinn Féin, and he stands unsuccessfully for the party in Mid Armagh at the 1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland, taking 5,689 votes. His campaign leads, indirectly, to his arrest and three months in jail in Belfast. In 1920, following his release, he is appointed a judge in the then-illegal republican court system in Galway, and visits both France and Italy to try to source weapons for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In November 1920, he is arrested in the UCG dining room by Black and Tans, and is imprisoned for thirteen months, first in Galway and then in the Curragh camp in County Kildare, thereby missing the conclusion of the Irish War of Independence. By the time he is released, the Anglo-Irish Treaty has been signed. He supports the treaty and takes no further part in militant activity.
In the newly independent Ireland, Ó Briain remains a professor at Galway. He also stands in the 1925 Seanad election, although he is not successful. He is the founding secretary of the Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe theatre, also acting in many of its productions, and spends much time translating works from English and the Romance languages into Irish. He stands to become president of UCG in 1945, but is not elected, and in the 1940s and 1950s is best known for his many appearances on television and radio.
From his retirement in 1959, Ó Briain lives in Dublin. In 1974, the National University of Ireland (NUI) confers an honorary doctorate on him. He dies on August 12, 1974, at St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Cabinteely, County Dublin. His funeral to Glasnevin Cemetery is almost a state occasion, with a huge attendance of public figures, and a military firing party at the graveside, where the oration is given by Micheál Mac Líammóir and a lesson is read by Siobhán McKenna. For days after his death, the newspapers carry tributes to his many-sided career and personality. On the one hundredth anniversary of his birth, Proinsias Mac Aonghusa and Art Ó Beoláin write commemorative articles in Feasta.
On September 1, 1921, Ó Briain marries Helen Lawlor, of Dublin, who dies two years before him. The couple’s only child is Eibhlín Ní Bhriain, who is a journalist for The Irish Times and other periodicals.
Janet McNeill, prolific Irish novelist and playwright, is born on September 14, 1907, in Dublin. Author of more than 20 children’s books, as well as adult novels, plays, and two opera libretti, she is best known for her children’s comic fantasy series My Friend Specs McCann.
McNeill is born to Rev. William McNeill, a minister at Adelaide Road Presbyterian Church, and Jeannie Patterson (Hogg) McNeill. In 1913, the family moves to Birkenhead, Merseyside, England, where her father becomes minister at Trinity Road Church. She attends public school in Birkenhead and studies classics at the University of St. Andrews in St. Andrews, Scotland, completing a MA degree in 1929. While at university, she is involved in writing and acting with the College Players. In 1924, the family returns to Ireland due to her father’s failing health, and Rev. McNeill becomes the minister of a village church in Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland, while Janet joins the Belfast Telegraph as a secretary.
In 1933, McNeill marries Robert Alexander, the chief engineer in the Belfast city surveyor’s department, and the couple settles in Lisburn, where they raise their four sons. One son is the zoologist Professor Robert McNeill Alexander, CBE, FRS. Though she plans to write her first novel early on, she finds it impossible to write seriously until the children grow up, saying, “It was four years before I had a baby and twenty-five before I produced the book.”
In 1946, McNeill wins a prize in a BBC competition for her play Gospel Truth. She begins writing radio dramas, which are broadcast by the BBC. She suffers an intracerebral hemorrhage in 1953. During her recovery, she begins writing novels both for adults and children, producing a large body of work between 1955 and 1964. Her popular children’s character, Specs McCann, who debuts in a 1955 book and makes several reappearances, also inspires a newspaper cartoon strip by Rowel Friers, a Belfast artist and friend of hers.
Her 1944 novel The Maiden Dinosaur is her first to be published in the United States, twenty-two years later. She also has three writing credits on television with series and plays. Several of her plays are staged at the Ulster Group Theatre.
In 1964, McNeill’s husband retires, and the couple moves to Bristol, South West England. She writes one more novel after she leaves Northern Ireland but continues to write children’s books for another decade. During this time, she writes her only children’s play, published as Switch On, Switch Off, and other plays (1968), which presents different moral themes in scenes set in “domestic and workplace settings in contemporary England.” Her children’s book The Battle of St. George Without is televised by the BBC in 1969.
In her adult fiction, McNeill focuses on the lifestyle and social mores of Belfast and Ulster in the mid-twentieth century. Her characters are primarily “menopausal, middle-aged, middle-class Protestants.” She depicts the “dreary, Ulster religiosity” of ministers and laymen alike, and the class conventions and sexual repression of middle-aged, upper-middle-class women. The theme of suppressing self-identity and goals, both by wives in deference to their husbands and parents on behalf of their children, pervades her adult novels.
McNeill has a number of health problems and dies in Bristol in October 1994.
His brother, Richard Pennefather, has a longer and more successful career as a judge. Appointed a Baron of the Court of Exchequer in 1821, he serves for nearly 40 years and is held in universal regard. With the general support of the profession, he remains on the Bench until shortly before his death at eighty-six, by which time he is blind. Edward and Richard, “the two Pennefathers,” are leading practitioners in the Court of Chancery (Ireland).
Pennefather is generally regarded as more gifted, a master of the law of equity and also a skilled libel lawyer. In 1816, he is one of the lead counsels in the celebrated libel case of Bruce v. Grady, which arises from the publication of a scurrilous poem called “The Nosegay,” written by a barrister, Thomas Grady, about his former friend, the notably eccentric banker George Evans Brady of Hermitage House, Castleconnell, County Limerick. The quarrel is said to arise from a dispute over money which Bruce had loaned to Grady. The plaintiff claims £20000 but the jury awards £500.
According to Elrington Ball, Pennefather is considered to be one of the greatest Irish advocates of his time, and one with few rivals in any age, but he does not live up to expectations as a judge, due largely to his age and increasing ill-health. As a judge he is remembered mainly for presiding at the trial of Daniel O’Connell in 1843 for sedition, where his alleged bias against the accused damages his reputation: he is accused of acting as prosecutor rather than judge, and his summing-up is described as simply an extra speech for the prosecution. Further damage to his reputation is done by the majority decision of the House of Lords quashing the verdict in the O’Connell case: while many of the errors were the fault of the prosecution, the Law Lords do not spare Pennefather for his conduct of the proceedings, and in particular for his summing-up. The Law Lords comment severely that the course of the trial, if condoned, will make a mockery of trial by jury in Ireland.
The related trial of Sir John Gray descends into farce when the Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, who is noted for his hot temper, challenges one of the defence counsel, Gerald Fitzgibbon, to a duel, for having allegedly accused him of improper motives. Pennefather tells the Attorney-General severely that a man in his position has no excuse for such conduct, whereupon the Attorney-General agrees to let the matter drop. The public notes with interest that Fitzgibbon’s wife and daughter are present in Court during the contretemps.
Following a long illness, Pennefather dies in Dunlavin, County Wicklow, on September 6, 1847. He is buried in Christ Church Cemetery, Delgany, County Wicklow.
An intelligence officer with the 4th Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA in the Ranelagh area, Fovargue is captured by the British Army in Dublin. Under interrogation, he allegedly leaks information that results in the arrest of the other members of his unit a few days later. In return for this information, the Intelligence Corps allegedly allows him to escape during a staged ambush in Dublin’s South Circular Road.
This attempted ruse however does not go unnoticed by Michael Collins‘s many moles inside the Crown’s security forces. On the night of the escape, Detective ConstableDavid Neligan of the Dublin Metropolitan Police‘s G Division is on duty in Dublin Castle when a telephone message on a police form is passed to him. The message, issued by the British Military Headquarters, states that a “Sinn Féin” suspect named Fovargue has escaped from three Intelligence Corps officers in a car while en route to prison. It gives a description of his appearance and asks that the British Army be notified in the event of his recapture by the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
Joe Kinsella is the I/O of the 4th Battalion. He is temporarily transferred to take care of munitions under Seán Russell for a few weeks and Fovargue is put in his place. From Joe Kinsella’s own statement to the Irish Bureau of Military History:
“From the outset I personally did not place a lot of trust in him, because on the morning that he took over from me he appeared to me, to be too inquisitive about the movements of Michael Collins and the G.H.Q. staff generally. He wanted to know where they could be located at any time. He said that he had big things in view, and that it would be to the advantage of the movement generally if he was in a position to get in touch with the principal men with the least possible delay. From his attitude I there and then formed the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that he was inclined to overstep his position. I did not feel too happy about him and I discussed him with Sean Dowling. It transpired that my impressions of this man were correct. I told him of two meeting places of Intelligence staff, one of Company Intelligence held at Rathmines Road and one of Brigade Intelligence held at Saville Place. A short time after giving him this information both these places were raided…I was now confirmed in my suspicions that Fovargue was giving away information. He was later shot in England by the IRA.”
Neither was Neligan fooled by this, as he explains:
“Now if they had said that this man (who was completely unknown to both of us) had escaped from one I.O. it might have sounded reasonable enough. But to tell us that an unarmed man had escaped out of a motorcar in the presence of three presumably armed men was imposing a strain on our credulity. Both of us thought this story too good to be true.”
The two men retype the message and pass it to Collins the following day. Meanwhile, Fovargue has been sent to England where he adopts the alias of Richard Staunton. He has in fact been sent to England by Intelligence Corps Colonel Ormonde Winter to infiltrate the IRA in Britain.
Sean Kavanagh, a Kilkenny IRA man, claims that Fovargue is put in a cell with him in Kilmainham Gaol in 1921 in order to try to extract information from him.
On April 2, 1921, a boy walking on the golf links of the Ashford Manor Golf Club in Ashford, Middlesex discovers the body of Fovargue, who had been shot through the chest. Discovered near the corpse is a small piece of paper on which has been scribbled in blue pencil the words “Let spies and traitors beware – IRA.”
(Pictured: Dublin Brigade IRA officer’s cap badge in white metal, “FF” (Fianna Fáil) at centre, surrounded by a garter bearing the motto “Drong Átha Cliath” (Dublin Brigade), all on an eight-pointed rayed star)
Colonel Frederick Hugh Crawford, CBE, JP, an officer in the British Army, is born in Belfast on August 21, 1861. A staunch Ulster loyalist, he is one of the lesser-known figures in Ulster Unionist history but one who is hugely influential because of his involvement in what is known as the Larne gun-running incident, when he is responsible for smuggling over 25,000 guns and ammunition into the North on the night of April 24, 1914. This makes him a hero for Northern Ireland‘s unionists.
According to the 1911 census for Ireland, Crawford is living in Marlborough Park, Belfast, with his wife of 15 years, Helen, and four of their five children: Helen Nannie, Marjorie Doreen, Ethel Bethea and Malcolm Adair Alexander. His other child, Stuart Wright Knox, is recorded as a pupil at Ballycloghan National School, Belfast. Stuart would become a lieutenant colonel in the British Army, before being invalided in 1944. Malcolm, after being a member of the Colonial Police, joins the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), advancing to District Inspector. In 1931, Malcolm becomes a Justice of the Peace for Singapore.
Crawford works as an engineer for White Star Line in the 1880s, before returning from Australia in 1892. In 1894, he enlists with the Mid-Ulster Artillery regiment of the British Army, before being transferred to the Donegal Artillery, with which he serves during the Boer Wars, earning himself the rank of major.
In 1898, Crawford is appointed governor of Campbell College, Belfast. Two of his children, Stuart Wright Knox and Malcolm Adair Alexander, both attend Campbell College.
In 1911, Crawford becomes a member of the Ulster Unionist Council. On September 28, 1912, he is in charge of the 2,500 well-dressed stewards and marshals that escort Sir Edward Carson and the Ulster Unionist leadership from the Ulster Hall in central Belfast to the nearby City Hall on Donegall Square for the signing of the Ulster Covenant, which he allegedly signs in his own blood. With the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1913, he is made their Director of Ordnance.
With regard to Irish Home Rule, Crawford is strongly partisan and backs armed resistance to it, being contemptuous of those who use political bluffing. His advocation of armed resistance is evident when he remarks, at a meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council, that his heart “rejoiced” when he heard talk of looking into using physical force. At another meeting he even goes as far as asking some attendees to step into another room where he has fixed bayonets, rifles and cartridges laid out.
In 1910, the Ulster Unionist Council plans for the creation of an army to oppose Home Rule and approaches Crawford to act as their agent in securing weapons and ammunition. He tries several times to smuggle arms into Ulster, however, vigilant customs officials seize many of them at the docks. Despite this, the meticulously planned and audacious Larne gun-running of April 1914, devised and carried out by Crawford, is successful in bringing in enough arms to equip the Ulster Volunteer Force.
By the 1920s Crawford remains as stoic in his beliefs, remarking in a letter in 1920 that “I am ashamed to call myself an Irishman. Thank God I am not one. I am an Ulsterman, a very different breed.” In March 1920, he begins to reorganize the UVF and in May 1920 he appeals to Carson and James Craig for official government recognition. He states, “We in Ulster will not be able to hold our men in hand much longer…we will have the Protestants…killing a lot of the well-known Sinn Féin leaders and hanging half a dozen priests.” In 1921, he attempts to create an organisation intended to be a “Detective Reserve,” but called the “Ulster Brotherhood,” the aims of which are to uphold the Protestant religion and political and religious freedom, as well as use all means to “destroy and wipe out the Sinn Féin conspiracy of murder, assassination and outrage.” This organisation only lasts for a few months after failing to gain acceptance from the political authorities.
In 1921, Crawford is included in the Royal Honours List and appointed a CBE. In 1934, he writes his memoirs, titled Guns for Ulster.
Crawford dies on November 5, 1952, and is buried in the City Cemetery, Falls Road, Belfast. Upon news of his death, he is described by the then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Sir Basil Brooke, as being “as a fearless fighter in the historic fight to keep Ulster British.”
An earlier “Fianna” is organised “to serve as a Junior Hurling League to promote the study of the Irish Language” on June 26, 1902, at the Catholic Boys’ Hall, Falls Road, in West Belfast, the brainchild of Bulmer Hobson. Hobson, a Quaker influenced by suffragism and nationalism, joins the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1904 and is an early member of Sinn Féin during its monarchist-nationalist period, alongside Arthur Griffith and Constance Markievicz. Hobson later relocates to Dublin and the Fianna organisation collapses in Belfast. Markievicz, inspired by the rapid growth of Robert Baden-Powell‘s Boy Scouts, forms sometime before July 1909 the Red Branch Knights, a Dublin branch of Irish National Boy Scouts. After discussions involving Hobson, Markievicz, suffragist and labour activist Helena Molony and Seán McGarry, the Irish National Boy Scouts change their name to Na Fianna Éireann at a meeting in 34 Lower Camden Street, Dublin, on August 16, 1909, at which Hobson is elected as president, thus ensuring a strong IRB influence, Markievicz as vice-president and Pádraig Ó Riain as secretary. Seán Heuston is the leader of the Fianna on Dublin’s north side, while Cornelius “Con” Colbert is the leader on the south side. The Fianna forms as a Nationalist alternative to Powell’s Scouts with the aim to achieve the full independence of Ireland by training and teaching scouting and military exercises, Irish history, and the Irish language.
The Fianna finds its first years difficult and by 1912 has barely 1,000 members and a skeleton structure outside of the cities of Dublin, Cork, Belfast and Galway. But in the next couple of years the momentum of events carries the Fianna forward. It is involved in initiating the militarisation of the IRB, the launch of the Irish Volunteers and showing solidarity with the striking Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). It is also crucial to the success of the Howth and Kilcoole gun-running operations. Alongside these headline-grabbing activities, the Fianna continues with classes, drilling, camps and protests and reaps the benefits of an expanding membership and structure. When the fighting starts, the Fianna are not found wanting either. In 1916, Na Fianna members are present in all areas that mobilise and fight alongside all the other Republican organisations. They continue to fight throughout the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War. Seeing comrades being killed in action or executed or suffering imprisonment does not dim their enthusiasm for the fight. In Na Fianna Éireann’s March 1922 Árd Fheis, the 187 delegates representing 30,000 members vote unanimously to reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
The Fianna are declared an illegal organisation by the government of the Irish Free State in 1931. This is reversed when Fianna Fáil comes to power in 1932 but re-introduced in 1938. During the splits in the Republican movement of the later part of the 20th century, the Fianna and Cumann na mBan support Provisional Sinn Féin in 1969 and Republican Sinn Féin in 1986. The Fianna have been a proscribed organisation in Northern Ireland since 1920.
While the events in which the Fianna members are involved over the revolutionary years have a special place in Irish history, the specific role of the Fianna is absent from most written histories. This, allied with the failure to adequately commemorate the organisation’s centenary, marks a kind of revisionism of omission.
