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Tag Archives: Frank Pakenham (7th Earl of Longford)


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Birth of Kathleen O’Connell, Activist & de Valera’s Personal Secretary

Kathleen O’Connell, an Irish republican activist and Éamon de Valera‘s personal secretary, is born Catherine O’Connell at Caherdaniel, County Kerry, on October 5, 1888.

O’Connell is one of eleven children of farmer John O’Connell and Mary Ann O’Connell (née O’Sullivan). She is educated in County Kerry, and emigrates to Chicago in 1904 where she trains to be a secretary. She leaves a well-paid commercial job in 1912 to become secretary to the American delegation of the Gaelic League in New York City. She works closely with Thomas Ashe and Diarmuid Lynch on fund-raising and handles their secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) correspondence. She returns to Ireland briefly in 1915 to attend the Gaelic League Oireachtas na Gaeilge and ardfheis, voting in favour of the politicisation of the organisation. During the same visit she brings money and messages to the Irish Volunteers from John Devoy. She attends the New York Irish Race Convention, going on to work for the Friends of Irish Freedom. In this position she organises and collects for the “victory fund” for Irish independence. She is also a typist for Clan na Gael. After the 1916 Easter Rising, she becomes a member of Cumann na mBan in the United States, raising money for the widows and children of those killed or wounded during the Rising. It is through this work that she becomes a close friend of Arthur Griffith and his family.

Éamon de Valera requests that O’Connell join his “consular staff” on October 2, 1919, to support his tour of the United States. She works closely with him during this tour, traveling with him, assisting with speeches and dealing with his private and public correspondence. She is privy to secrets of the independence movement due to handling Harry Boland‘s correspondence as well. In November 1920, she returns to Ireland with de Valera and goes into hiding immediately. From February 1921 she lives at his secret headquarters at Strand Road, living in dangerous conditions until a truce is called in the Irish War of Independence. After this she lives with de Valera at Dr. Farnan’s house at Merrion Square and later in Blackrock. On June 22, 1921, she is arrested with him, and they are both released the next day. She is a member of the delegation that meets David Lloyd George in July 1921, and shares de Valera’s opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She joins de Valera and her sister Teresa in Suffolk Street in June 1922 when the Irish Civil War breaks out.

When fighting ends in Dublin in July 1922, she travels south, working closely with Dorothy Macardle, Robert Brennan, and Erskine Childers establishing a publicity department and publishing Poblacht na hÉireann. In September 1922, she returns to Dublin, and goes into hiding at 11 Upper Mount Street. She is a loyal follower of de Valera throughout the civil war, and is present at his arrest in Ennis in August 1923. She acts as his messenger and agent during his imprisonment, working with him on an Irish translation of shorthand which they later abandon. During this time she also works for the Sinn Féin TD for Mayo North P. J. Ruttledge.

O’Connell is present at the first meeting of the provisional organising committee of de Valera’s new political party, Fianna Fáil. During this time she continues to travel with de Valera, nationally and internationally. There are rumours regarding the nature of their relationship, leading to de Valera vehemently denying any impropriety in Dáil Éireann in 1928. The letter between O’Connell and de Valera’s wife, Sinéad, are cited as evidence there is no intimate relationship between O’Connell and de Valera. She resigns from her permanent civil service position of personal secretary to the Taoiseach when de Valera is defeated in 1948, returning in 1951 when he regains power. For her involvement in the Irish War of Independence, she is awarded an Irish military pension.

O’Connell is forced to retire in 1954 as she has developed cancer. Her niece, Maire O’Kelly, takes up her position. She dies on April 7, 1956, and is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery. Her funeral is attended by a guard of honour from the national executive of Fianna Fáil and the Old IRA. She receives full military honours and Seán MacEntee delivers the panegyric. During the writing of their biography of de Valera, Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, and Thomas P. O’Neill use her papers, which are held in the University College Dublin archives, extensively.

In 2016, a plaque is unveiled to O’Connell at her birthplace in Caherdaniel by Eamon Ó Cuív, de Valera’s grandson.


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Death of Historian Thomas P. O’Neill

eamon-de-valera-biography

Thomas P. O’Neill, Irish historian who wrote Éamon de Valera‘s official biography with Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, dies in Dublin on March 2, 1996.

Born in County Carlow, O’Neill is educated at St. Mary’s Knockbeg College and University College Dublin (UCD). While assistant keeper of the National Library of Ireland, he is asked to undertake the work on de Valera. Frank Gallagher, head of the Government Information Services and later a member of the library’s staff had been working on a biography for several years but dies in 1962 without completing the work.

De Valera knows of O’Neill’s reputation as a historian and asks him to undertake the project. A contract is signed with the publishers in 1963, and O’Neill moves to Áras an Uachtaráin to work on the book. He is later joined by Lord Longford as co-author.

O’Neill’s other works include a biography in Irish of James Fintan Lalor and a major study of the Great Famine, which establishes his reputation as a historian.

After the completion of the de Valera work, O’Neill is appointed lecturer and later professor of history in University College, Galway. On his retirement, he returns to live in Dublin, where he renews his association with the National Library, becoming a strong supporter of its expansion.

O’Neill continues historical research until shortly before his death. He discovers evidence that the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic was signed by the seven signatories at the home of the president of Cumann na mBan, Jennie Wyse Power, in Henry Street, Dublin, before the Easter Rising and not merely printed in Liberty Hall from an unsigned manuscript on Easter Sunday.

O’Neill is survived by his wife, Marie, and six children. His funeral Mass takes place at St. Joseph’s Church on March 5, followed by his interment at Shanganagh Cemetery.

(From: “Biographer of de Valera dies at 74,” The Irish Times, Monday, March 4, 1996)


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Birth of Edward Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford

Francis Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford

Edward Arthur Henry Pakenham, 6th Earl of Longford and an Irish peer, politician, and littérateur, is born on December 29, 1902. Also known as Eamon de Longphort, he is a member of the fifth Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the Oireachtas, in the 1940s.

Pakenham is the elder son of Thomas Pakenham, 5th Earl of Longford and Mary, Countess of Longford, née Child-Villiers. He is the only one of the Pakenham children on whom his mother dotes, apparently because he is to succeed to the earldom on his father’s death and because he is always in delicate health.

As a pupil at Eton College, where he twice received the Wilder Divinity Prize, Pakenham succeeds to the earldom when his father is killed in action at the Battle of Gallipoli on August 21, 1915. He is an Irish Nationalist since his days at Eton, taking inspiration from the Easter Rising in 1916 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. He learned Irish and adopted the name Eamon de Longphort.

Pakenham becomes an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford and meets his future wife, Christine Patti Trew, an Oxford “undergraduette.” They are married on July 18, 1925. His political views make him unpopular at both Eton and Christ Church, where he is famously put in “Mercury,” the pond containing a statue of Mercury in Tom Quad.

Pakenham becomes Chairman of the Gate Theatre in Dublin in 1930 and continues to work for the theatre until 1936, when he founds the Longford Players. His plays include Ascendancy, The Melians, The Vineyard, and Yahoo. An excellent linguist and Classical scholar, he translates Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, Le Malade Imaginaire, L’école des femmes, Tartuffe, Le Barbier de Séville, Agamemnon and Oedipus Rex and adapts the novella Carmilla for the stage.

Pakenham also has several volumes of poetry published, some at the expense of his mother when he is still at Eton, but he is not considered to have been a very good poet.

Pakenham is an Anglo-Catholic who never leaves the Church of Ireland. On November 13, 1946, he is nominated by the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, as a member of 5th Seanad Éireann, filling a vacancy caused by the death of Professor William Magennis. He is not re-appointed to the 6th Seanad.

Pakenham often collaborates with his wife with whom he is also responsible for redecorating Pakenham Hall, now Tullynally Castle, in Chinese style. Pakenham Hall is often the scene of gatherings of Oxford-educated intellectuals such as John Betjeman, Evelyn Waugh, and Maurice Bowra.

Edward Pakenham dies without issue on February 4, 1961, and is succeeded by his younger brother Frank. He is buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin.


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Birth of Bryan Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne

bryan-guinness

Bryan Walter Guinness, 2nd Baron Moyne, heir to part of the Guinness family brewing fortune, lawyer, poet, and novelist, is born on October 27, 1905.

Guinness is born in London to Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne, son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, and Lady Evelyn Stuart Erskine, daughter of Shipley Gordon Stuart Erskine, 14th Earl of Buchan. He attends Heatherdown School, near Ascot in Berkshire, followed by Eton College, and Christ Church, Oxford, and is called to the bar in 1931.

As an heir to the Guinness brewing fortune and a handsome, charming young man, Bryan is an eligible bachelor. One of London’s “Bright Young Things,” he is an organiser of the 1929 “Bruno Hat” hoax art exhibition held at his home in London. Also, in 1929 he marries the Hon. Diana Mitford, one of the Mitford sisters, and has two sons with her. The couple become leaders of the London artistic and social scene and are dedicatees of Evelyn Waugh‘s second novel Vile Bodies. However, they divorce in 1933 after Diana deserts him for British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley.

Guinness remarries happily in 1936 to Elisabeth Nelson, of the Nelson publishing family, with whom he has nine children.

During World War II, Guinness serves for three years in the Middle East with the Spears Mission to the Free French, being a fluent French speaker, with the rank of major. Then in November 1944 Guinness succeeds to the barony when his father, posted abroad as Resident Minister in the Middle East by his friend Winston Churchill, is assassinated in Cairo.

After the war, Lord Moyne serves on the board of the Guinness corporation as vice-chairman (1947-1979), as well as the Guinness Trust and the Iveagh Trust, sitting as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He serves for 35 years as a trustee of the National Gallery of Ireland and donates several works to the gallery. He writes a number of critically applauded novels, memoirs, books of poetry, and plays. With Frank Pakenham he seeks the return of the “Lane Bequest” to Dublin, resulting in the 1959 compromise agreement. He is invested as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Lord Moyne dies of a heart attack on July 6, 1992, at Biddesden House, his home in Wiltshire, and is succeeded by his eldest son Jonathan. He is buried at Ludgershall, Wiltshire, England.