Morrow is born on April 26, 1863, in Comber, County Down, the second son of George Morrow, a painter and decorator from Clifton Street in west Belfast. Of his seven brothers, four, George, Jack, Edwin, and Norman, are also illustrators and all but one are artists. He is a keen ornithologist in his youth. In later life he is a keen walker and paints landscapes for leisure.
While studying under T. M. Lindsay at the Government School of Art in 1880, Morrow is awarded a £10 prize for drawing from the eminent publishers Cassell, Petter and Galpin. In 1881, while still learning his trade, he paints a mural of Belfast for the Working Men’s Institute in Rosemary Street, where his father is chairman. Later in that same year he exhibits a watercolour sketch of a standing figure entitled Meditative at the gallery of Rodman & Company, Belfast.
Morrow then wins a three-year scholarship worth £52 per year which he takes to the National Art Training School at South Kensington in 1882, where he begins a lifelong friendship with the British sculptor Albert Toft. In 1883, while still attending South Kensington, he joins the staff of The English Illustrated Magazine in preparation for the launch of the first edition. Two of his works are published in the Sunday at Home magazine in September of the same year.
J. Comyns Carr, first editor of TheEnglish Illustrated Magazine, commissions Morrow to complete a series on English industry when he has yet to complete his studies at South Kensington.
In 1890, Morrow begins illustrating for Bits and Good Words. He exhibits nine works at the Royal Academy of Arts between 1890 and 1904, all of which are watercolours, and another in 1917, and an offering in chalk at the 159th Exhibition, in the year of his death.
Morrow becomes a member of the Belfast Art Society in 1895, exhibiting with them in the same year. In 1896, a Morrow print is published in Volume 2 of the limited-edition print-collection Les Maîtres de l’Affiche selected by “Father of the Poster” Jules Chéret. In the same year he shows a watercolour of a Gurkha at the Earls Court in the Empire of India and Ceylon exhibition. In 1900, he exhibits with two Ulster artists, Hugh Thomson and Arthur David McCormick, at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, who along with Morrow had contributed to the early success of TheEnglish Illustrated Magazine.
Morrow is one of the founders of the Ulster Arts Club in November 1902 along with five of his brothers, an organisation that has a nonsectarian interest in Celtic ideas, language and aesthetics. In November 1903, he exhibits at the first annual exhibition of the Club when he shows alongside John Lavery, Hans Iten, James Stoupe and F. W. Hull. He exhibits The Itinerant Musician, a watercolour that he had previously shown at the Royal Academy in 1902. Honorary membership is conferred upon him the following year. Three years later he is honoured with a solo exhibition of sketches and posters in conjunction with the Ulster Arts Club, at the Belfast Municipal Gallery.
In 1908, Morrow joins his brothers in an exhibition at 15 D’Olier Street, Dublin, an address which is later registered to the family business in 1913. Among his contributions to the family exhibition is his painting of Brandon Thomas, The Clarionette Player, which had previously been exhibited at the Royal Academy, and a poster entitled Irving in Dante.
In 1917, Morrow joins his brother George and 150 artists and writers, in petitioning the British Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George to find a way of enacting the unsigned codicil to Hugh Lane’s will and establish a gallery to house Lane’s art collection in Dublin. Among the 32 notable artists who sign this petition are Jack B. Yeats, Sir William Orpen, Sir John Lavery, and Augustus John.
Morrow illustrates books for children and adults, but he is best known for the hundreds of posters he designs for the theatre, with the bulk of his commissions coming from just one lithographical printer, David Allen and Sons. As a cartoonist he draws for children’s annuals, and contributes three cartoons to Punch in 1923, 1925 and posthumously in 1931.
Morrow dies at his home in West Hoathly, West Sussex, on October 26, 1927, at the age of 64. He is survived by his wife and two children. His headstone in the local churchyard at All Saints Church, Highbrook is designed by his friend, the sculptor and architect, Albert Toft.
Smyllie is born on March 20, 1893, at Hill Street, Shettleston, Glasgow, Scotland. He is the eldest of four sons and one daughter of Robert Smyllie, a Presbyterian printer originally from Scotland who is working in Sligo, County Sligo, at the time, and Elisabeth Follis, originally from Cork, County Cork. His father marries in Sligo on July 20, 1892, and later becomes proprietor and editor of the unionistSligo Times. Smyllie attends Sligo Grammar School in 1906 and enrolls at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1911.
After two years at TCD, Smyllie’s desire for adventure leads him to leave university in 1913. Working as a vacation tutor to an American boy in Germany at the start of World War I, he is detained in Ruhleben internment camp, near Berlin, during the war. As an internee, he is involved in drama productions with other internees. Following his release at the end of the war, he witnesses the German revolution of 1918–1919. During this period, he encounters revolutionary sailors from Kiel who temporarily make him a representative of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council, and he observes key events including the looting of the Kaiser’s Palace and violent clashes between rival factions in Berlin. It is also during this period that he secures a personal interview with David Lloyd George at the Paris Convention of 1919. This helps Smyllie gain a permanent position with TheIrish Times in 1920, where he quickly earns the confidence of editor John Healy. Together, they take part in secret but unsuccessful attempts to resolve the Irish War of Independence.
Smyllie contributes to the Irishman’s Diary column of the paper from 1927. In 1927, he publishes an exclusive report outlining a draft government including both Labour Party and Fianna FáilTDs, signaling the volatile politics of the early state years.
Smyllie’s knowledge of languages (particularly the German he had learned during his internment) led to numerous foreign assignments. His reports on the rise of National Socialism in 1930s Germany are notably prescient and instill in him a lasting antipathy towards the movement.
When Healy dies in 1934, Smyllie becomes editor of TheIrish Times and also takes on the role of Irish correspondent for The Times (London), a position that brings significant additional income. Under Healy’s leadership, The Irish Times shifted from representing the Anglo-Irish ascendancy to becoming an organ of liberal, southern unionism, and eventually becomes a critical legitimising force in the Irish Free State. Smyllie enthusiastically supports this change. He establishes a non-partisan profile and a modern Irish character for the erstwhile ascendancy paper. For example, he drops “Kingstown Harbour” for “Dún Laoghaire.” He also introduces the paper’s first-ever Irish-language columnist. He is assisted by Alec Newman and Lionel Fleming, recruits Patrick Campbell and enlists Flann O’Brien to write his thrice-weekly column “Cruiskeen Lawn” as Myles na gCopaleen. As editor, he introduces a more Bohemian and informal style, establishing a semi-permanent salon in Fleet Street’s Palace Bar. This becomes a hub for journalists and literary figures and a source of material for his weekly column, Nichevo.
One of Smyllie’s early political challenges as editor concerns the Spanish Civil War. At a time when Irish Catholic opinion is strongly pro-Franco, he ensures TheIrish Times coverage is balanced and fair, though advertiser pressure eventually forces the withdrawal of the paper’s young reporter, Lionel Fleming, from the conflict. His awareness of the looming European crisis earns him the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. However, during World War II, he clashes with Ireland’s censorship authorities, especially under Minister Frank Aiken. He challenges their views both publicly and privately, though his relationship with the editor of the Irish Independent, Frank Geary, is cold, reducing the effectiveness of their joint opposition to censorship.
During the 1943 Irish general election, Smyllie uses the paper to promote the idea of a national government that could represent Ireland with authority in the postwar world. He praises Fine Gael’s proposal for such a government and criticises Éamon de Valera for dismissing it as unrealistic. This leads to a public exchange between de Valera and Smyllie, with the latter defending The Irish Times’s role as a constructive voice for Ireland’s future rather than a partisan interest.
Following the war, Smyllie’s editorial stance shifts toward defending Ireland’s neutrality and diplomatic position. When Winston Churchill accuses de Valera of fraternising with Axis powers, Smyllie counters by revealing Ireland’s covert collaboration with the Allies, such as military and intelligence cooperation, despite official neutrality. In the same period, he continues to oppose censorship, particularly the frequent banning of Irish writers by the Censorship of Publications Board. This opposition features prominently in a controversy on TheIrish Times letters page in 1950, later published as the liberal ethic. The paper also adopts a critical stance toward the Catholic Church, notably during the 1951 resignation of Minister for HealthNoël Browne amid opposition from bishops and doctors to a national Mother and Child Scheme. His editorials suggest the Catholic Church is effectively the government of Ireland, though he maintains a cordial relationship with Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who invites him annually for dinner.
Smyllie is also wary of American foreign policy, showing hostility particularly during the Korean War. American diplomats in Dublin allege that Smyllie is “pro-communist“. Despite growing readership among an educated Catholic middle class, TheIrish Times’s circulation in 1950 remains under 50,000, far below the Irish Independent and the Fianna Fáil-aligned The Irish Press.
In later years, Smyllie’s health declines, prompting a quieter lifestyle. He moves from his large house in Pembroke Park, Dublin, to Delgany, County Wicklow. As he does not drive, he becomes less present in the newspaper office in D’Olier Street, contributing to a decline in the paper’s dynamism. His health deteriorates further, resulting in frequent absences from his editorial duties, though he retains his position despite management attempts to limit his authority, especially over finances. He dies of heart failure on September 11, 1954.
In 1925, Smyllie marries Kathlyn Reid, eldest daughter of a County Meath landowner. They have no children.
Smyllie is an eccentric: he hits his tee shots with a nine iron, speaks in a curious mix of Latin phrases and everyday Dublin slang, and weighs 22 stone (308 lbs.; 140 kg) yet still cycles to work wearing a green sombrero.
O’Connor is one of five children of Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) Supreme Council member and later MPJames O’Connor. He is IRB treasurer in 1870 and party to the discussions on the New Departure, a collaboration between constitutional and physical force nationalists, the open and the secret movements. Her uncle, John O’Connor, is a leading member of the Supreme Council.
In 1890, when O’Connor’s father is a journalist, her mother, Mary O’Connor, and four of her sisters – Annie, Aileen, Kathleen and Norah – die after eating contaminated mussels gathered on the seashore near where they lived in what became known as the Seapoint tragedy. She becomes violently ill, but survives.
O’Connor travels to London after a falling out with her stepmother six years later. She finds work as a civil servant and a paid speaker for the Liberal Party, through which she meets Crompton Llewelyn Davies, adviser to David Lloyd George and solicitor to the General Post Office, brother of Arthur Llewelyn Davies and uncle of the boys who inspire the creation of Peter Pan. They marry on December 8, 1910. The marriage produces two children: Richard and Catherine.
Davies is an orthodox home ruler but is radicalised by the 1916 Easter Rising. Davies and her husband raise funds for Roger Casement‘s legal defence and later lobby for his death sentence to be commuted. She is saluted as one of the “fond ones” in a letter from Casement to Margaret Gavan Duffy on the eve of his August 3, 1916, execution in Pentonville Prison.
Following the Easter Rising, Davies takes her two children to Ireland and purchases Furry Park, a crumbling mansion near Dublin. She collaborates with Michael Collins during the Irish War of Independence and her home in Clontarf becomes one of Collins’ many safe houses as he directs the war. She is arrested and imprisoned in 1920. Collins also stays at her Portmarnock house, using it as a safe house.
Davies says in later life that she and Michael Collins had been lovers, but the historian Peter Hart claims her to be a stalker. It has been suggested that Collins is the father of her son Richard. Historian Meda Ryan denies this saying “Letters from him and a phone call confirmed that he was born December 24, 1912, before his mother met Collins.”
Historian Tim Pat Coogan in his book Michael Collins says that Davies claimed on the night that Collins learned that Éamon de Valera was going to reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty “he was so distressed that I gave myself to him.” Coogan refuses to give a source and in the footnotes, he says, “Confidential source.”
Davies makes a lasting contribution to Irish literature with a translation, with George Thomson, of the Muiris Ó Súilleabháin book Fiche Bliain faoi Bhláth as Twenty Years a-Flowering. She is thought to have helped Collins write his book The Path to Freedom.
Duggan is the son of William Duggan, a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officer, and Margaret Dunne. He is a cousin of revolutionaries Thomas Burke and Christopher Burke through his mother. His parents meet when his father, a native of County Wicklow, is stationed in Longwood, County Meath, where they marry on October 19, 1874. His father is transferred to County Armagh the following year as officers cannot serve in their wife’s native county.
In 1911, Duggan is living with his parents on St. Brigid’s Road Upper in Drumcondra, Dublin. After his school education, he begins work as a law clerk. During his early years, he becomes heavily involved in politics after he qualifies as a solicitor and sets up a practice at 66 Dame Street in Dublin. He marries Evelyn Kavanagh, and they have one son.
In 1916, as a keen supporter of Irish independence, Duggan is serving in the North Dublin Union in the days approaching the 1916 Easter Rising. One of his close friends, Thomas Allen, is shot while Duggan is at the Four Courts. His efforts to get medical assistance are unsuccessful at Richmond Hospital as the British officer who responds to the call declines the message and does not allow it to go through. Eventually medical assistance is received but it is too late for Allen. In Duggan’s region, the volunteers suffer very few injuries with the most violent fighting taking place on Friday night and Saturday morning.
Duggan suffers the consequences and is subject to court-martial and then sentenced to three years penal servitude. He is interned in Maidstone, Portland and Lewes prisons. Under the general amnesty of 1917, he is released after fourteen months in prison and returns to Dublin where he goes back to studying law.
Duggan retains numerous ministerial posts in the Cumann na nGaedheal government. In 1921, he plays a role in the Irish delegation throughout the Anglo-Irish discussions, then playing a dominant role in liaising with British officials.
After the post-treaty government, Duggan is appointed the Minister for Home Affairs and shortly afterward he becomes the Parliamentary Secretary for the Executive Council and the Minister for Defence. He continues in various roles as a TD until 1933. These include Government Chief Whip from 1927 to 1932. Until 1933, he is a Cumann na nGaedheal TD for Meath. In 1933, he declines to go forward for the general election but is elected to Seanad in April 1933. He also is involved in local politics in Dún Laoghaire as the chairman of the borough council until his death in 1936.
Duggan writes papers which reflect on his engagement in the Easter Rising. In his letters, he writes about the tough times of imprisonment. He also writes about his participation in Sinn Féin and his triumph in being a candidate for the South Meath constituency. Most of his papers consist of letters to his fiancée and later wife, May Duggan, which are written while in prison. His time as a TD is also included. In one letter, which he writes on April 25, 1916, he references “the whole damn family” consisting of information as to how his volunteers and he are being “treated as princes” by the nuns in the nearby convent, receiving help from the children in the area and building barricades. In his letter, he also writes about morale among his comrades and hearing of rumours about a German who had landed in County Kerry. In the note, he states that the letter should be sent to May Duggan who is his fiancée at the time. At the end of the letter he refers to himself as “Edmund” by which he is also known.
Duggan dies suddenly at his home in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin, on June 6, 1936, at the age of 58, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery on the north side of Dublin.
Thomas “Tom” Michael Kettle, parliamentarian, writer, and soldier, is born on February 9, 1880, in Artane, Dublin, the seventh among twelve children of Andrew Kettle, farmer and agrarian activist, and his wife, Margaret (née McCourt). His father’s record in nationalist politics and land agitation, including imprisonment in 1881, is a valuable political pedigree.
The family is prosperous. Kettle and his brothers attend Christian Brothers’ O’Connell School in Richmond Street, Dublin, before being sent to board at Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare. Popular, fiery, and something of a prankster, he soon proves to be an exceptional scholar and debater, as well as a keen athlete, cyclist, and cricketer. He enrolls in 1897 at University College Dublin (UCD), his contemporaries including Patrick Pearse, Oliver St. John Gogarty and James Joyce. He thrives in student politics, where his rhetorical genius soon wins him many admirers and is recognised in his election as auditor of the college’s Literary and Historical Society. He also co-founds the Cui Bono Club, a discussion group for recent graduates. In 1899, he distributes pro-Boer propaganda and anti-recruitment leaflets, arguing that the British Empire is based on theft, while becoming active in protests against the Irish Literary Theatre‘s staging of The Countess Cathleen by W. B. Yeats. In 1900, however, he is prevented from taking his BA examinations due to a mysterious “nervous condition” – very likely a nervous breakdown. Occasional references in his private diaries and notes suggest that he is prone to bouts of depression throughout his life. He spends the following two years touring in Europe, including a year at the University of Innsbruck, practising his French and German, before taking a BA in mental and moral science of the Royal University of Ireland (RUI) in 1902. He continues to edit the college newspaper, remaining active in student politics. He participates, for example, in protests against the RUI’s ceremonial playing of “God Save the King” at graduations as well as its senate’s apparent support for government policy, threatening on one occasion to burn publicly his degree certificate.
In 1903, Kettle is admitted to the Honourable Society of King’s Inns to read law and is called to the bar two years later. Nonetheless, he soon decides on a career in political journalism. Like his father, he is a keen supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and in 1904 is a co-founder of the resonantly titled Young Ireland Branch of the United Irish League. Here he comes to the notice of John Redmond, who offers him the prospect of a parliamentary seat, but he chooses instead to put his energies into editing the avowedly pro-Irish-party paper, The Nationist, in which he promises that a home rule administration will uphold women’s rights, industrial self-sufficiency, and Gaelic League control of Irish education. He hopes that the paper will offer a corrective alternative to The Leader, run by D. P. Moran, but in 1905 he is compelled to resign the editorship due to an article thought to be anti-clerical. In July 1906, he is persuaded to stand in a by-election in East Tyrone, which he wins with a margin of only eighteen votes. As one of the youngest and most talented men in an ageing party, he is already tipped as a potential future leader. His oratory is immediately put to good use by the party in a propaganda and fund-raising tour of the United States, as well as on the floor of the House of Commons, where his oratorical skills earn him a fearsome reputation. He firmly advocates higher education for Catholics and the improvement of the Irish economy, while developing a close alliance with Joseph Devlin and the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH).
Kettle meanwhile makes good use of his connections to ArchbishopWilliam Walsh, the UCD Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Catholic Graduates and Undergraduates Association, as well as political support, to secure the professorship of national economics. T. P. Gill, of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, exceptionally acts as his referee. His detractors regard the appointment as a political sinecure and Kettle as a somewhat dilettantish “professor of all things,” who frequently neglects his academic duties. However, he takes a keen interest in imperial and continental European economies. He does publish on fiscal policy, even if always taking a pragmatic interest in wider questions, greatly impressing a young Kevin O’Higgins, later Vice-President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State. He has little time for what he regards as the abstract educational and economic idealism of D. P. Moran. He acknowledges that the “Hungarian policy” of Arthur Griffith has contributed significantly to a necessary debate about the economy, but argues that the Irish are “realists,” that Ireland’s natural resources ought to be scientifically measured, and that the imperial connection is crucial to Ireland’s future development. The achievement of home rule would, he asserts, encourage a healthy self-reliance as opposed to naive belief in self-sufficiency.
Kettle is encouraged by the heightened atmosphere of the constitutional crisis over the 1909 David Lloyd Georgebudget, culminating in the removal of the House of Lords veto, which has been an obstacle to home rule. He is also a supporter of women’s enfranchisement, while stressing that the suffragist cause should not delay or deflect attention from the struggle for home rule. He holds his East Tyrone seat in the January 1910 United Kingdom general election but decides not to stand at the general election in December of the same year. Returning to an essentially journalistic career, he publishes a collection of essays outlining his constitutional nationalist position. He opposes suffragette attacks on private property, but, in contrast, supports the Dublin strikers in 1913, highlighting their harsh working and living conditions. He tries without success to broker an agreement between employers and workers though a peace committee he has formed, on which his colleagues include Joseph Plunkett and Thomas P. Dillon. His efforts are not assisted, however, by an inebriated appearance at a crucial meeting. Indeed, by this time his alcoholic excesses are widely known, forcing him to attend a private hospital in Kent.
In spite of deteriorating health, Kettle becomes deeply involved in the Irish Volunteers formed in November 1913 to oppose the Ulster Volunteers. His appraisal of Ulster unionism is somewhat short-sighted, dismissing it as being “not a party [but] merely an appetite,” and calling for the police to stand aside and allow the nationalists to deal with unionists, whose leaders should be shot, hanged, or imprisoned. These attitudes are mixed in with a developing liberal brand of imperialism based on dominion federalism and devolution, warmly welcoming a pro-home-rule speech by Winston Churchill with a Saint Patrick’s Day toast to “a national day and an empire day.” Nevertheless, he uses his extensive language skills and wide experience of Europe to procure arms for the Irish Volunteers. He is in Belgium when the Germans invade, and the arms he procured are confiscated by the Belgian authorities, to whom they were donated by Redmond on the outbreak of war.
On his return to Dublin, Kettle follows Redmond’s exhortation to support the war effort. He is refused an immediate commission on health grounds, but is eventually granted the rank of lieutenant, with responsibilities for recruitment in Ireland and England. He makes further enemies among the advanced nationalists of Sinn Féin, taunting the party for its posturing and cowardly refusal to confront Ulster unionists, the British Army, and German invaders alike. Coming from a staunchly Parnellite tradition, he is no clericalist, yet he is a devout if liberal Catholic, imbued by his Jesuit schooling with a cosmopolitan admiration for European civilisation which has been reinforced by his European travels, and in particular has been outraged by the German destruction of the ancient university library of Louvain. Despite a youthful flirtation with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, he comes to regard “Prussianism” as the deadliest enemy of European civilisation and the culture of the Ten Commandments, there not being “room on earth for the two.” He increasingly believes that the German threat is so great that Irish farmers’ sons ought to be conscripted to defend Ireland. He also believes that considerable good might come out of the conflict, exhorting voters in East Galway to support what is practically a future home rule prime minister, cabinet, and Irish army corps. He unsuccessfully seeks nomination as nationalist candidate in the 1914 East Galway by-election in December. Nevertheless, he continues to work tirelessly on behalf of the party, publishing reviews, translations, and treatises widely in such journals as the Freeman’s Journal, The Fortnightly Review, and the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.
As a recruiting officer based far from the fighting, Kettle is stung by accusations of cowardice from advanced nationalists. He had tried repeatedly to secure a front-line position, but was rejected, effectively because of his alcoholism. He is appalled by trench conditions and the prolongation of the war, a disillusionment further encouraged by the Easter Rising, in which his brother-in-law, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, is murdered by a deranged Anglo-Irish officer, J. C. Bowen-Colthurst. He senses that opinion in Ireland is changing, anticipating that the Easter insurgents will “go down in history as heroes and martyrs,” while he will go down, if at all, as “a bloody British officer.” Nevertheless, he regards the cause of European civilisation as greater than that of Ireland, remaining as determined as ever to secure a combat role. Despite his own poor health and the continuing intensity of the Somme campaign, he insists on returning to his unit, the 9th Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
Kettle’s writings demonstrate the mortal danger he is placing himself in, evident not least in his frequently quoted poem, “To my daughter, Betty, the gift of God,” as well as letters settling debts, apologising for old offences, and providing for his family – his wealth at death being less than £200. He has no death wish, wearing body armour frequently, but as Patrick Maume notes, “As with Pearse, there is some self-conscious collusion with the hoped-for cult.” He is killed on September 9, 1916, during the Irish assault on German positions at Ginchy.
Kettle marries Mary Sheehy, alumna of UCD, student activist, suffragist, daughter of nationalist MPDavid Sheehy, and sister-in-law of his friend Francis Sheehy Skeffington, on September 8, 1909. In 1913 the couple has a daughter, Elizabeth.
Kettle is commemorated by a bust in St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, and in the House of Commons war memorial in London. He is a man of great passions and proven courage. George William Russell put his sacrifice on a par with Thomas MacDonagh and the Easter insurgents:
“You proved by death as true as they, In mightier conflicts played your part, Equal your sacrifice may weigh, Dear Kettle, of the generous heart (quoted in Summerfield, The myriad minded man, 187).
(From: “Kettle, Thomas Michael (‘Tom’)” by Donal Lowry, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Tom Kettle as a barrister when called to the Irish law bar in 1905)
On a cold December day in 1919, a group of young IRA volunteers wait at a public house near the Ashtown gate of Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Some are from Dublin, members of Michael Collins’ recently created assassination unit, the Squad. Others are from farther afield, like Dan Breen and Seán Treacy from County Tipperary and Martin Savage from County Sligo.
They are waiting for Sir John French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the most senior British official in the land. He is returning from a visit to the west of Ireland and has alighted at Ashtown train station before returning by car to his official residence, the Viceregal Lodge, in the Phoenix Park.
The IRA men have a signaler in a tree and when French’s car approaches, they attempt to block the road with a farm cart. However, they are too late to block the Lord Lieutenant’s car which sweeps through the impromptu barricade. Shots are fired and one policeman is wounded but French himself emerges unscathed.
A second car, which the IRA believes to contain French, bears the brunt of the volunteers’ revolver fire and grenades. Though the car is badly damaged, there are no casualties.
The third car in the convoy contains French’s military escort and the soldiers inside the vehicle return fire, killing one of the attackers, Martin Savage. Some of the volunteers attempt to recover his body but the Crown forces’ fire is too heavy. Savage’s body is left on the scene as the IRA party flees on bicycles back to the city.
The Irish Times, for one, expresses outrage at the attack, “the attempted assassination of the greatest of Irishmen” which it says will “shock Ireland” and force Sinn Féin, victorious in the election of the previous year, to reflect on whether it wants to be associated with “outrage and assassination.” “There will now be many throughout the world ready to attribute the character of a murder society to the whole new Irish movement.”
Many in Ireland are even less sympathetic to hear of the escape of the Lord Lieutenant. The Irish Catholicbishops issue a statement the next day condemning not the attack but British rule in Ireland, which they characterise as “rule of the sword, utterly unsuited to a civilised nation.”
The attack is, in hindsight, a turning point, moving the standoff over Irish independence toward all out guerrilla warfare, but also, in a way, symbolising the eclipse of French and of his vision for what the country should be.
Sir John French’s health declines in 1920 and though he holds the position of Lord Lieutenant until April 1921, his central role in Irish affairs is eclipsed by new Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood. He wants to retire to his estates in Ireland in 1922 but is told it is simply too dangerous for him. During the Irish Civil War (1922-23), his country house at Drumdoe, County Roscommon, is raided by armed men who carry off much of the furniture.
(From: “Today in Irish History: 19 December 1919, The Attempted Assassination of Sir John French” by John Dorney, The Irish Story, http://www.theirishstory.com, December 18,2019 | Pictured: L to R, Sir John French and Martin Savage)
In effect a special extension of the Defence of the Realm Acts, the aim of the Act is to increase convictions of nationalist rebels while averting the need to declare martial law. Under Section 3(6) of the Act, military authorities are empowered to jail any Irish person without charge or trial. Secret courts-martial are established, and lawyers (appointed by Crown agents) can be present only if the death penalty is involved. Inquests of military or police actions are banned.
By the middle of 1920, Ireland is in the throes of a full-fledged rebellion that is barely recognized by the British Government in Ireland headquartered in Dublin Castle. The Irish Republican Army (IRA), the military arm of the Dáil Éireann revolutionary government, is engaged in a guerilla campaign to destroy elements of British power, particularly burning down courthouses and attacking members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), Britain’s police force in the countryside.
The British response to the increase in violence and the assassination of police officers is twofold. To suppress the IRA “murderers,” Major GeneralHugh Tudor, commander of the RIC and self-styled “Chief of Police,” begins supplementing that body with the employment of World War I veterans known as the “Black and Tans” because of the colour of their surplus World War I uniforms, and an additional temporary force of Auxiliaries. With little discipline and utter indifference to the plight or moral indignation of the Irish population, these groups raid and burn villages, creameries, and farm buildings to intimidate supporters of the IRA.
The second measure is the enactment of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (ROIA). The Act is envisioned as a remedy to the problem perceived by Chief Secretary for Ireland Sir Hamar Greenwood that “throughout the greater part of Ireland criminal justice can no longer be administered by the ordinary constitutional process of trial by judge and jury.”
The genesis of the Act may be seen in a Cabinet discussion on May 31, 1920, in which the members focus on the violence in Ireland. Rather than addressing violence as the product of rebellion, Greenwood insists that, “The great task is to crush out murder and arson.” He asserts that the violence is perpetrated by handsomely paid thugs. Commenting on a pending Irish bill, Secretary of State for WarWinston Churchill states, “You should include in the Bill a special tribunal for trying murderers. It is monstrous that we have some 200 murders, and no one hung.” The prime minister agrees that convicted murderers should be hanged but questions whether convictions can be obtained from Catholics. The concern of all is that the civil courts are incapable of strictly administering justice to the revolutionaries because the juries largely consisted of Irish Catholics. The ensuing discussion of possibly imposing court-martial jurisdiction is inconclusive.
After the May 31 meeting, Greenwood investigates the feasibility of imposing martial law in Ireland and raises martial law as the specific subject of a July 23, 1920, conference committee meeting of the Cabinet led by Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George to which the key members of the Dublin Castle administration are invited. William E. Wylie, the law advisor at Dublin Castle, notes that the RIC is disintegrating through resignations brought on by terrorist attacks, and that with “regard to the Civil Courts, the entire administration of the Imperial Government had ceased.” The civilian participants from Dublin Castle, especially Wylie, maintain that martial law is counter-productive, and will only antagonize the Irish people. As an alternative to martial law, General Tudor argues for the imposition of court-martial jurisdiction. Tudor argues forcefully that court-martial jurisdiction over all crimes will support the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries that he is recruiting. He declaims that “not a single criminal had been brought to justice for murder.” Lloyd George closes the discussion directing the Dublin Castle participants to provide final proposals for enforcement of the laws.
A draft bill to establish military criminal jurisdiction is considered by the Cabinet on July 26. The prime minister’s most telling contribution is his question as to whether a convicted man would be shot or hanged. It appears that he is comforted by the response that the defendant will be tried under the ordinary law which implies death by hanging. The resulting bill is completed by July 30, 1920, and is then quickly pushed through Parliament and receives royal assent on August 9, 1920. The ROIA provides that all crimes punishable under the laws in Ireland can be brought before a court-martial. The court-martial will have the power to impose any punishment authorized by statute or common law including the death penalty. The final step is taken on August 20, 1920, when the final regulations for implementation go into effect.
The combination of growing police and military pressure and recourse to the ROIA lead to increased internments of known or suspected IRA members and a steady increase in convictions to 50-60 per week. This makes it more difficult for IRA soldiers to continue openly working day jobs while carrying on part-time guerrilla activities. As a result, the IRA shifts its approach to guerrilla warfare in the rural counties. Volunteers from IRA units are organized into elite, full-time, mobile flying columns of around 25 men who live off the land and on the run. These flying columns prove to be more suited to ambushes of patrols and convoys and other targets of opportunity, rather than attacks on barracks which had become better defended.
On December 10, 1920, martial law is proclaimed in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. In January 1921 martial law is extended to counties Clare and Waterford.
In a crucial judgement, R (Egan) v Macready, the Irish courts rule that the Act does not give power to impose the death penalty. This would no doubt have proved politically contentious had not hostilities ended the same day.
Despite its name, the courts are of the view that ROIA applies in England as well. Following the creation of the Irish Free State, when the Act is repealed by implication, it is still used to deport ex-members of the Irish Self-Determination League to Ireland.
On February 21, 1910, Carson accepts the parliamentary leadership of the anti-Home Rule Irish Unionists and, forfeiting his chance to lead the British Conservative Party, devotes himself entirely to the Ulster cause. His dislike of southern Irish separatism is reinforced by his belief that the heavy industry of Belfast is necessary to the economic survival of Ireland. The Liberal government (1908–16) under H. H. Asquith, which in 1912 decides to prepare a Home Rule bill, cannot overcome the effect of his extra-parliamentary opposition. The Solemn League and Covenant of resistance to Home Rule, signed by Carson and other leaders in Belfast on September 28, 1912, and afterward by thousands of Ulstermen, is followed by his establishment of a provisional government in Belfast in September 1913. Early in that year he recruits a private Ulster army, the Ulster Volunteer Force, that openly drills for fighting in the event that the Home Rule Bill is enacted. In preparation for a full-scale civil war, he successfully organizes the landing of a large supply of weapons from Germany at Larne, County Antrim, on April 24, 1914. The British government, however, begins to make concessions to Ulster unionists, and on the outbreak of World War I he agrees to a compromise whereby the Home Rule Bill is enacted but its operation suspended until the end of the war on the understanding that Ulster’s exclusion will then be reconsidered.
Appointed Attorney General for England in Asquith’s wartime coalition ministry on May 25, 1915, Carson resigns on October 19 because of his dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war. In David Lloyd George’s coalition ministry (1916–22) he is First Lord of the Admiralty from December 10, 1916, to July 17, 1917, and then a member of the war cabinet as minister without portfolio until January 21, 1918.
Carson retires in October 1929. In July 1932, during his last visit to Northern Ireland, he witnesses the unveiling of a large statue of himself in front of Parliament Buildings at Stormont. The statue is sculpted by Leonard Stanford Merrifield, cast in bronze and placed upon a plinth. The inscription on the base reads “By the loyalists of Ulster as an expression of their love and admiration for its subject.” It is unveiled by James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon, in the presence of more than 40,000 people.
Carson lives at Cleve Court, a Queen Anne house near Minster-in-Thanet in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, bought in 1921. It is here that he dies peacefully on October 22, 1935. A warship brings his body to Belfast for the funeral. Thousands of shipworkers stop work and bow their heads as HMS Broke steams slowly up Belfast Lough, with his flag-draped coffin sitting on the quarterdeck. Britain gives him a state funeral on Saturday, October 26, 1935, which takes place in Belfast’s St. Anne’s Cathedral. He remains the only person to have been buried there. From a silver bowl, soil from each of the six counties of Northern Ireland is scattered onto his coffin, which had earlier been covered by the Union Jack. At his funeral service the choir sings his own favourite hymn, “I Vow to Thee, My Country.”
In his early years, Devlin is active in various local debating societies, where his associates include Cathal O’Byrne, who he retains a personal friendship despite later political differences. A committee member of the Belfast branch of the Irish National League (INL) in 1890, he joins the anti-Parnellite faction during the O’Shea divorce scandal (1891), becoming local secretary of the Irish National Federation (INF). His political model at this time is Thomas Sexton, MP for Belfast West, whose campaign he organises at the 1892 United Kingdom general election.
Although Healyism is strong in CatholicUlster, Devlin aligns himself with the faction led by John Dillon and, from 1899, with the United Irish League (UIL), founded by William O’Brien. From the late 1890s this brings Devlin into conflict with the Belfast Catholic Association of Dr. Henry Henry, bishop of Down and Connor (1895–1908). This organisation, though sometimes regarded as Healyite, is essentially based on the view that mass nationalist political mobilisation in Belfast can only bring trouble and ostracism, and that Catholic interests are best represented by allowing a small group of lay and clerical notables to broker concessions from the unionist majority. After a series of local election contests in Catholic wards and controversies between the pro-Devlin weekly Northern Star and the clerically controlled The Irish News, Devlin succeeds in marginalising the politically maladroit Henry by 1905. In the process, however, he takes on some of the qualities of his “Catholic establishment” opponents. At the same time, he moves onto the national political stage.
Returned unopposed for North Kilkenny (1902–06), Devlin is appointed secretary of the United Irish League of Great Britain in 1903, and of the parent body in Dublin in 1904. A speaking tour of the United States in 1902–03 convinces him of the organisational potential of Catholic fraternal organisations, and in 1905 he takes over the presidency of the Board of Erin faction of the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), a specifically Catholic body which he proceeds to develop as an organisational arm of the Nationalist Party. Under his tutelage the AOH expands from 10,000 members in 1905 to 60,000 in 1909, despite opposition from some Catholic bishops who distrust it because of its close affiliation to Dillonism, its secrecy, and its habit of staging dances and other entertainments without paying what they regard as due deference to local priests. His AOH also faces opposition from a rival separatist body, the Irish-American Alliance AOH. Though far less numerous, this group is able to draw on the support of separatists within the American AOH and hinder Devlin’s attempts to mobilise the American organisation in his support. The AOH expands further after 1910 and is strengthened by becoming an approved society under the National Insurance Act 1911.
Belfast is where Devlin’s political career begins and where it ends. Organisational skill contributes substantially to his hold on the largely working-class seat of Belfast West, which he wins in 1906 on a platform that seeks to transcend religious boundaries by combining labour issues with the home rule demand. A lifelong bachelor, though short in stature, he is apparently highly attractive to women, and takes a special interest in their problems, no doubt mindful of the influence they might have on the political behaviour of their spouses. He founds a holiday home for working-class women. When the scholar Betty Messenger interviews former Belfast linen workers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she is startled to discover the extent to which Devlin is remembered as a champion of the workers decades after his death. This image persists among Protestant workers as well as Catholics, and he is generally credited with various ameliorations of workplace conditions even when he had not been responsible for them.
Possessed of great oratorical skills and even greater organisational ability, Devlin effectively becomes the key organiser of the Nationalist Party from the early years of the twentieth century, relieving the party leader, John Redmond, of a great deal of the administrative burden of party affairs, and becoming well known abroad through fund-raising trips, especially in North America. His personal geniality makes him a great favourite at Westminster, and Irish socialists are dismayed at the willingness of British Labour Party MPs to accept him as an authentic Labour representative. Several MPs elected after 1906 can be identified as his protégés, and groups of Hibernian strong-arm men uphold the party leadership in such contests as the 1907 North Leitrimby-election and the 1909 “baton convention” which witnesses the final departure of William O’Brien and his supporters from the UIL. He is the only post-Parnellite MP to be admitted to the tight leadership group around Redmond. In 1913 he is a leading organiser of the National Volunteers.
When William O’Brien embarks on his personal initiative to deal with the Ulster problem through conciliation in the early Edwardian period, he finds a stern critic in Devlin and in turn demonises the “Molly Maguires” as sectarian corruptionists. Personally non-sectarian, Devlin, like other party leaders, endorses the shibboleth that home rule will prove a panacea for Ireland’s problems, including Ulster, and uses his credentials as a labour representative to dismiss popular unionism as a mere product of elite manipulation. In a period when the Vatican‘s Ne Temere decree on religiously mixed marriages is heightening Protestant fears about the “tyranny” of Rome, he seems to be oblivious to how his integration of Hibernianism and nationalism is exacerbating that problem. As the third home rule bill passes through Parliament and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) mobilises, he encourages the Irish party leaders in the view that the Ulster unionist campaign is a gigantic bluff, dismissing contrary opinions even when held by other nationalist MPs. During these years the AOH clashes with the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) during the Dublin lock-out, and from late 1913 the AOH spearheads the Redmondite attempt to take over and dominate the Irish Volunteers.
Devlin endorses Redmond’s support for the British war effort and engages in extensive recruiting activity. He seems to be motivated, at least in part, by the belief that after the war nationalist ex-soldiers can be used to overawe the Ulster unionists by the threat of force. According to Stephen Gwynn, Devlin wishes to apply for an officer’s commission but is asked not to do so by Redmond on the grounds that the party needs his organisational skills.
Devlin’s career is decisively shaped by his decision to use his influence to persuade northern nationalists to accept temporary partition, in fulfilment of the flawed agreement arrived at between David Lloyd George, Sir Edward Carson, and Redmond in the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising. He later claims he has been decisively influenced by the prospect that under this agreement the excluded area would be governed directly from Westminster, rather than by a local, Orange-dominated parliament. He forces the agreement through a Belfast-based convention despite protests from west Ulster nationalists, but the proposal collapses after it transpires that Lloyd George has made incompatible commitments to nationalists and unionists. Northern nationalism immediately splits between west and south Ulster dissidents and Devlin’s loyalists predominant in Belfast and east Ulster, and the next year sees massive secessions of AOH members outside Ulster to Sinn Féin. Although he retains a core of loyal supporters, he is reduced from a national to a sectional leader. As a member of the Irish convention (1917–18) he sides with Bishop Patrick O’Donnell against Redmond on the issue of seeking a compromise settlement with southern unionists on the basis of home rule without fiscal autonomy. He is offered the leadership of the Nationalist Party on Redmond’s death in 1918, but concedes the honour to his long-standing mentor, John Dillon.
Devlin holds Belfast West until 1918 and easily sweeps aside an attempt by Éamon de Valera to displace him from the Falls division of Belfast at the general election of that year, though the electoral decimation of the Nationalist Party elsewhere leaves him leading a rump of only seven MPs. In the ensuing parliament he is an outspoken critic of government policy towards Ireland and highlights sectarian violence against northern nationalists. Clearly discouraged and with boundary changes militating against retention of the Falls seat, he unsuccessfully contests the Liverpool Exchange constituency as an Independent Labour candidate in 1922. Elected for Antrim and Belfast West to the Parliament of Northern Ireland in 1921, he eventually takes his seat in 1925, holding it until 1929, when he combines representation for Belfast Central with that for Fermanagh and South Tyrone at Westminster.
Only after the boundary commission ends the border nationalists’ hopes of speedy incorporation in the Irish Free State is Devlin able to assert leadership of northern nationalism as a whole on the basis of attendance at the northern parliament. Even then he is considerably handicapped by recriminations over the events of 1916–25. He embarks on his last significant political campaign in 1928, when he seeks to unite minority politics through the agency of the National League of the North (NLN). The initiative, emphasising social reform, is unsuccessful. His own political baggage is a hindrance to the unity of the factions that minority politics had thrown up over the previous ten years, while the minority community itself is politically demoralised by the fate that has overtaken it, and the unionist government shows itself unwilling to make concession to him. The project, moreover, coincides with the onset of the gastric illness, exacerbated by heavy smoking, that takes his life on January 18, 1934. For some time before his death he ceases to attend the Northern Ireland parliament.
Devlin’s political career is one of great promise only partially fulfilled, its ultimate realisation undermined firstly by the fallout from the Easter Rising that destroyed the vehicle of his political ambitions, and secondly by the sequence of events that led to the creation of a constitutional entity so constructed that all nationalist politicians, regardless of talent, were effectively denied a route to power. Only at his death does the unionist regime adequately acknowledge his political stature. His funeral is attended by at least three Northern Ireland cabinet ministers, together with representatives of the government of the Irish Free State. Northern nationalism never again produces a leader of his ability in the Stormont era. His ability to use Westminster to promote the interests of Ulster nationalists is comparable to John Hume‘s use of Europe for the same purpose from the mid 1970s. After his death the nationalist party in Belfast grows increasingly reliant on middle-class leadership and is eventually displaced by nationalist labour splinter groups, some of whose prominent activists, such as Harry Diamond, had begun their careers as election workers for Devlin.
O’Connor is educated in St. Mary’s College, Dublin, and then in Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare, a public school run by the Jesuit order. It is also attended by the man who later condemns O’Connor to death, his close friend Kevin O’Higgins. He studies experimental physics, logic, and metaphysics. He also attends the College of Science, Merrion Street. He takes a BA (1906) and receives a B.Eng (1911). In 1910, he takes his Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Arts degrees at University College Dublin (UCD), then known as the National University. Prominent in the university’s Literary and Historical Society, he advocates militant constitutional nationalism as one of the many society members active in the Young Ireland branch of the United Irish League.
During the subsequent Irish War of Independence (1919-21) O’Connor is Director of Engineering of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a military organisation descended from the Irish Volunteers. The specialist skills of engineering and signaling are essential to the development of the 5th Battalion, Dublin Brigade. Its men are forbidden frontline duty as their contribution is regarded as vital, their number too small. But units only expand on an incremental local basis, disappointing General Richard Mulcahy.
O’Connor is also involved in the Republican breakout from Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England, on October 25, 1919. Michael Collins takes a particular interest in the escape and actually visits Austin Stack in the prison under a false name to finalise the arrangements. IRA men hold up traffic while a ladder is propped up against the outside of a prison wall. In all six prisoners escape, among them Piaras Beaslaí.
O’Connor refuses to accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which establishes the Irish Free State. It is ratified by a narrow vote in Dáil Éireann, the Irish parliament. He and many like him feel that the Treaty copper-fastens the partition of the six counties of Northern Ireland and undermines the Irish Republic declared in 1916.
On January 10, a meeting is held at O’Connor’s home in Monkstown, Dublin. In attendance are all senior anti-Treaty IRA officers except Liam Mellows. O’Connor is appointed to chair this grouping, known as the Republican Military Council. It is agreed that an IRA convention should be called without delay; failing this, a separate GHQ will be formed. At a further meeting in O’Connor’s office on March 20, a temporary IRA GHQ staff is elected under Liam Lynch as chief of staff. O’Connor remains in charge of engineering.
On March 26, 1922, the anti-Treaty officers of the IRA hold a convention in Dublin, in which they reject the Treaty and repudiate the authority of the Dáil. However, they are prepared to discuss a way forward. The convention meets again on April 9. It creates a new army constitution and places the army under a newly elected executive of 16 men, including O’Connor, that are to choose an army council and headquarters staff. Asked by a journalist if this development means the anti-Treatyites ware proposing a “military dictatorship” in Ireland, O’Connor replies, “You can take it that way if you want.”
On April 14, 1922, O’Connor is one of a number of IRA leaders in a 200-strong force that occupies the Four Courts building in the centre of Dublin in defiance of the Provisional Government. They intend to provoke the British troops, who are still in the country, into attacking them, which they believe will restart the war with Britain and re-unite the IRA against their common enemy. They also occupy other smaller buildings regarded as being associated with the former British administration, such as the Ballast Office and the Freemasons‘ Hall in Molesworth Street, but the Four Courts remains the focus of interest. On June 15, O’Connor sends out men to collect the rifles that belong to the mutineers of the Civic Guards.
Michael Collins tries desperately to persuade the IRA men to leave the Four Courts. At the Third IRA Convention on June 18, the Executive is split over whether the Irish Government should demand that all British troops leave within 72 hours. A motion to this effect, opposed by Lynch, is narrowly defeated, whereupon O’Connor and others leave the meeting to set up a separate GHQ. The IRA effectively splits into two factions opposed to the government.
On June 22, 1922, Sir Henry Wilson is assassinated in London by two IRA men, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan, each a former British soldier. Some now argue that this was done on the orders of Michael Collins, who had been a close friend of Dunne’s in the London Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George writes an angry letter to Collins, which includes the line “…still less can Mr. Rory O’Connor be permitted to remain his followers and his arsenal in open rebellion in the heart of Dublin… organizing and sending out from this centre enterprises of murder not only in the area of your Government…”
On June 28, 1922, after the Four Courts garrison has kidnapped J. J. “Ginger” O’Connell, a general in the National Army, Collins gives orders for the shelling of the Four Courts with borrowed artillery lent by Winston Churchill. The shelling leads to the Four Courts catching fire, damaging parts of the building in addition to destroying numerous government documents. O’Connor is one of 130 men that surrender on June 30, some of whom are arrested and imprisoned in Mountjoy Prison. This incident marks the official start of the Irish Civil War, as fighting breaks out openly around the country between pro- and anti-Treaty factions.
On December 8, 1922, along with three other republicans, Liam Mellows, Richard Barrett and Joe McKelvey, captured with the fall of the Four Courts, O’Connor is executed by firing squad in reprisal for the anti-Treaty IRA’s killing of Free State Teachta Dála (TD) Sean Hales. The execution order is signed by Kevin O’Higgins. O’Connor had been best man at O’Higgins’s wedding on October 27, 1921. Their deaths remain a symbol of the bitterness and division of the Irish Civil War. O’Connor, one of 77 republicans executed by the Provisional Government, is seen as a martyr by the Republican movement in Ireland.
On O’Connor’s execution, the equestrienne Joan de Sales La Terriere, a close friend of his, names her son in his honour. “Rory O’Connor Place” in Arklow is named in his honour. There is also a pub in Crumlin, Dublin, named after him and a housing estate near Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, called “Rory O’Connor Park.” A Sinn Féincumann (UCD) is named after him.
(Pictured: Rory O’Connor addressing members of the IRA’s Dublin City Brigade at Smithfield, April 1922)
seamus dubhghaill 