The three funerals of Terence MacSwiney, October 1920
At the end of his court-martial on August 16th, 1920, Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, stated: ‘I have decided the term of my imprisonment…I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month.’
Four days earlier, British troops had stormed the City Hall in Cork and arrested MacSwiney on charges of possessing an RIC cipher and documents likely to cause 'disaffection to his Majesty'. Jailed for two years, he immediately began a hunger strike that was to spark riots on the streets of Barcelona, cause workers to down tools on the New York waterfront, and prompt mass demonstrations from Buenos Aires to Boston.
A ghoulish and ultimately fatal contest of wills unfolded. Anguished families, anxious doctors, an increasingly angry Irish nationalist public, and an amplifying press were drawn in by the terrible drama. Worldwide coverage even resulted in King George V considering over-ruling Prime Minister Lloyd George and enduring a constitutional crisis. As MacSwiney's wife, brothers and sisters kept daily vigil around his bed in Brixton Prison, watching his strength ebb away hour by hour, the hunger strike had Michael Collins preparing reprisal assassinations of the British Cabinet and influencing the future North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh & Indian nationalist, Mahatma Ghandi as well as other, deadly Irish hunger strikes of the 1920s and 1980s.
Some recent discoveries of family documents and connections add to the MacSwiney story such as a personal letter to Diarmuid Lynch from Muriel MacSwiney written as she sat by her husband's bedside on Day 51 of his strike to an admission ticket for his funeral service in London on October 28 issued to a close family friend.
Four days earlier, British troops had stormed the City Hall in Cork and arrested MacSwiney on charges of possessing an RIC cipher and documents likely to cause 'disaffection to his Majesty'. Jailed for two years, he immediately began a hunger strike that was to spark riots on the streets of Barcelona, cause workers to down tools on the New York waterfront, and prompt mass demonstrations from Buenos Aires to Boston.
A ghoulish and ultimately fatal contest of wills unfolded. Anguished families, anxious doctors, an increasingly angry Irish nationalist public, and an amplifying press were drawn in by the terrible drama. Worldwide coverage even resulted in King George V considering over-ruling Prime Minister Lloyd George and enduring a constitutional crisis. As MacSwiney's wife, brothers and sisters kept daily vigil around his bed in Brixton Prison, watching his strength ebb away hour by hour, the hunger strike had Michael Collins preparing reprisal assassinations of the British Cabinet and influencing the future North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh & Indian nationalist, Mahatma Ghandi as well as other, deadly Irish hunger strikes of the 1920s and 1980s.
Some recent discoveries of family documents and connections add to the MacSwiney story such as a personal letter to Diarmuid Lynch from Muriel MacSwiney written as she sat by her husband's bedside on Day 51 of his strike to an admission ticket for his funeral service in London on October 28 issued to a close family friend.
Terence 'Terry' James MacSwiney was born at 23 North Main St, Cork City, on March 28, 1879, the fourth of John and Mary MacSwiney’s nine children.
"One of his earliest memories is reciting poetry on Sunday afternoons: The more rebellious, the better his father liked it.".
John MacSwiney was born c.1835 on a farm at Kilmurray, near Crookstown, Co. Cork, moved to London in the 1860s where he worked as a schoolteacher. Something of a restless adventurer & entrepreneur, he upped sticks to Rome in 1868 after volunteering to fight as a Papal guard against Garibaldi, only to find on arrival, that the fighting was over. Returning to London, he met Mary Wilkinson 'a resilient, English Catholic school teacher' and they married in Southwark in 1871. Returning to Cork in the late 1870s with a young family, MacSwiney opened a tobacco factory in the city. Following the failure of this business, he emigrated to Australia alone in 1885 leaving Terence and his other children in the care of their mother.
John died in Melbourne, Victoria on 17 Oct 1895 aged c.58 and is buried in Melbourne General Cemetery, Carlton North, Melbourne. The inscription on his grave reads today in both Irish & English: In memory of John MacSwiney born in Cork in Ireland and died in Melbourne on 19 October 1895 at the age of 59 years. May God have mercy on his soul. And also in memory of his son Terence MacSwiney Lord Mayor of the City of Cork and leader of the Irish Republican Army who died for the sake of the Republic in Brixton Prison England, on 25 October 1920. May his soul rest at God's right hand.
MacSwiney's mother, Mary (née Wilkinson), the resilient Englishwoman also held strong Irish nationalist opinions. Terence was educated by the Christian Brothers at the North Monastery school in Cork city, but left at fifteen in 1894 to help support the family. Mary died in 1904, which forced her eldest daughter, Mary to return to Cork to look after the younger members of her family. Mary took a post at St Angela's where she had been a pupil.
"One of his earliest memories is reciting poetry on Sunday afternoons: The more rebellious, the better his father liked it.".
John MacSwiney was born c.1835 on a farm at Kilmurray, near Crookstown, Co. Cork, moved to London in the 1860s where he worked as a schoolteacher. Something of a restless adventurer & entrepreneur, he upped sticks to Rome in 1868 after volunteering to fight as a Papal guard against Garibaldi, only to find on arrival, that the fighting was over. Returning to London, he met Mary Wilkinson 'a resilient, English Catholic school teacher' and they married in Southwark in 1871. Returning to Cork in the late 1870s with a young family, MacSwiney opened a tobacco factory in the city. Following the failure of this business, he emigrated to Australia alone in 1885 leaving Terence and his other children in the care of their mother.
John died in Melbourne, Victoria on 17 Oct 1895 aged c.58 and is buried in Melbourne General Cemetery, Carlton North, Melbourne. The inscription on his grave reads today in both Irish & English: In memory of John MacSwiney born in Cork in Ireland and died in Melbourne on 19 October 1895 at the age of 59 years. May God have mercy on his soul. And also in memory of his son Terence MacSwiney Lord Mayor of the City of Cork and leader of the Irish Republican Army who died for the sake of the Republic in Brixton Prison England, on 25 October 1920. May his soul rest at God's right hand.
MacSwiney's mother, Mary (née Wilkinson), the resilient Englishwoman also held strong Irish nationalist opinions. Terence was educated by the Christian Brothers at the North Monastery school in Cork city, but left at fifteen in 1894 to help support the family. Mary died in 1904, which forced her eldest daughter, Mary to return to Cork to look after the younger members of her family. Mary took a post at St Angela's where she had been a pupil.
MacSwiney became an accountancy clerk but continued his studies and matriculated successfully. He continued in full-time employment while he studied at the Royal University, graduating with a degree in Mental and Moral Science in 1907.
By then, he was “part of a small group of Republicans, cultural nationalists, and artists, who were challenging the status quo”, says historian John Borgonovo. Sharing his mother’s strict Catholic principles, he frequently quotes from scriptures and describes Ireland’s struggle for independence as a religious crusade. A vocal member of the Cork Celtic Literary Society, he criticises the British government’s recruitment in Ireland for the Boer War, and during King Edward VII’s visit to Cork in 1902, unfurls a large black flag.
As a playwright and co-founder of the Cork Dramatic Society in 1908, he seeks to promote a republic through Irish theatre. In The Last Warriors of Coole (1910) he explores the courage to fight in the face of adversity. However, his ambitions outgrew the CDS's capabilities; in 1914 he published ‘The Revolutionist’, a play about a self-sacrificing separatist. It wistfully recalls his love for a female acquaintance whose parents thought him politically and financially unacceptable and the hero, prophetically, works himself to death for the cause.
MacSwiney's writings in the newspaper Irish Freedom soon brought him to the attention of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Though approached to join, MacSwiney refused to take the IRB oath, believing secrecy to be demoralising, and resigned from the CLS after it affiliated with Sinn Féin, whose ‘Hungarian policy’, in his view, compromised republican principles. A deeply religious person, MacSwiney disagreed with anti-clerical separatists as he considered religious and political idealism inseparable.
Nationalism pays poorly, and his full time employment was as a part-time lecturer in business methods at Cork Municipal School of Commerce, and in 1912, appointed as a full-time travelling commercial instructor for the Cork Technical Instruction Committee, cycling the roads of Cork for a salary of £200 per annum. The travelling involved gave him further insight into the lives and needs of the people of the county.
Nationalism pays poorly, and his full time employment was as a part-time lecturer in business methods at Cork Municipal School of Commerce, and in 1912, appointed as a full-time travelling commercial instructor for the Cork Technical Instruction Committee, cycling the roads of Cork for a salary of £200 per annum. The travelling involved gave him further insight into the lives and needs of the people of the county.
By 1914, MacSwiney had taken a leading role in the Cork division of the Irish Volunteers (founded December 1913) and President of the Cork branch of Sinn Fein. Between 19 September and 5 December 1914 when it was suppressed by the authorities after 11 issues, he published a separatist weekly, Fianna Fáil; he and his sisters sold their personal books to pay the printer. Writing in his newspaper, he claims Ireland’s interests are being sacrificed to “England and her Empire”. “There is one straightforward course, and that course must be followed, without swerving, to the end...” he declares in Principles of Freedom: 'The Irish must be shaken from their apathy to form a new Catholic state.'
After the Volunteers split in September 1914, MacSwiney became deputy leader of the Cork Volunteers and in August 1915 he resigned his teaching position to become a full-time Volunteer organiser.
Around this time, a young Muriel Frances Murphy (1892-1982) had innocently 'entered a closed circle of conspirators in Cork'.
The youngest of the six children of Nicholas Murphy , owner and director of Cork Distilleries Co. Ltd, and his second wife, Mary Gertrude (née Purcell), daughter of Richard Purcell, manager of the Provincial Bank, Cork. Tutored at home (at Carrigmore, Montenotte, in Cork city) until the age of fifteen, she completed her education at the Convent of the Holy Child, St Leonards, near Hastings. She came to detest her privileged education and described her family with disapproval in her 1951 statement to the Bureau of Military History as ‘completely imperialist, conservative, capitalist, and Roman catholic’. Already interested in radical nationalism and the Irish language, she joined the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan, becoming friendly with MacSwiney and his sisters.
In January 1916, MacSwiney was arrested for sedition and imprisoned. At his trial in March, nationalist leaning magistrates acquitted him on all charges but one for which he was fined a token shilling, the outcome representing a victory for republicanism and hugely enhanced MacSwiney's standing.
After the Volunteers split in September 1914, MacSwiney became deputy leader of the Cork Volunteers and in August 1915 he resigned his teaching position to become a full-time Volunteer organiser.
Around this time, a young Muriel Frances Murphy (1892-1982) had innocently 'entered a closed circle of conspirators in Cork'.
The youngest of the six children of Nicholas Murphy , owner and director of Cork Distilleries Co. Ltd, and his second wife, Mary Gertrude (née Purcell), daughter of Richard Purcell, manager of the Provincial Bank, Cork. Tutored at home (at Carrigmore, Montenotte, in Cork city) until the age of fifteen, she completed her education at the Convent of the Holy Child, St Leonards, near Hastings. She came to detest her privileged education and described her family with disapproval in her 1951 statement to the Bureau of Military History as ‘completely imperialist, conservative, capitalist, and Roman catholic’. Already interested in radical nationalism and the Irish language, she joined the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan, becoming friendly with MacSwiney and his sisters.
In January 1916, MacSwiney was arrested for sedition and imprisoned. At his trial in March, nationalist leaning magistrates acquitted him on all charges but one for which he was fined a token shilling, the outcome representing a victory for republicanism and hugely enhanced MacSwiney's standing.
A group of officers who assembled in Athlone in September, 1915 for training in the last Volunteer Camp before 1916.
Back left – right
Peadar Melinn (Athlone), Dick Fitzgerald (Kerry) Captain of famous Kerry Team, J.J. Burke (Dublin) Quarter Master of Camp, J.J. “Ginger” O’Connell, Peter Paul Galligan (Cavan), Larry Lardiner (Athenry), Terence MacSwiney (Cork), Seán Kearns (Kerry)
Front left – right
Mick Spillane (Killarney), Michael O’Buachalla (Maynooth), Mick Cremen (Cork), Mick Allis (Limerick), J. Morley (Ballaghderreen), Billy Mullins (Tralee), John Brennan (Roscommon). Thanks to Easter Rising Historical Society.
After Eoin MacNeill countermanded Volunteer mobilisation orders to prevent an insurrection on Easter Sunday 1916, MacSwiney, Tomás MacCurtain and others (including Michael Lynch) travelled the county to disperse the rural Volunteers; they did not receive Patrick Pearse's orders until after the rising broke out in Dublin. Confused, they barricaded the Volunteer Hall in Cork city rather than trying to rouse the countryside; their subsequent order to the Volunteers to surrender their arms to the authorities, so as to avoid further bloodshed, was widely criticised.
During Easter Week, Muriel Murphy had brought food and information to MacSwiney and his colleagues at the Volunteer Hall, Cork. MacSwiney and the majority of other Irish Volunteers were arrested on 3 May 1916 during the post-Rising sweep through Cork. In her deposition to the Bureau of Military History in 1951 some 35 years later, Muriel recalled she travelled to Dublin to see the prisoners from Cork and recalled Tomás MacCurtain, Terry MacSwiney and Michael Lynch. The other Lynch mentioned was his brother, Timothy, who was not a member of the Volunteers but as present in the family home at the time, was also arrested and detained without trial.
On 22 May he, Michael & Timothy Lynch and others were interned in Frongoch internment camp in Wales.
Muriel's relationship with MacSwiney further developed when she visited and wrote to him at various prisons in the aftermath of the rising.
On 11 July, MacSwiney was moved from Frongoch to Reading gaol with other leading Volunteers. Just over five months later, he was released along with the majority of Irish prisoners interned without trial on Christmas eve 1916 and shortly afterwards became engaged to Muriel. An Irish rebel and the daughter of a wealthy, conservative Catholic family made an unlikely match, but Muriel was certainly taken by this hard-working, handsome young man — whose big lock of black hair “was always getting over his face… I did not get the opportunity to meet Republicans when I was a child!” she explained in one interview.
The possibility of this love match dismayed the Murphy family. At Carrigmore in Montenotte, Muriel’s widowed mother persuaded Daniel Coholan, Bishop of Cork, to intervene by at least asking the couple to delay their marriage. This was agreed to but waiting only until Muriel could become financially independent on her 25th birthday.
In February 1917 MacSwiney was re-arrested and deported to Bromyard Internment Camp, Herefordshire, and Muriel followed him there, living locally.
Muriel recalled in her 1951 BHM statement:
Muriel's short forty months of married life were destined to be interrupted regularly by the absence of her husband either through his organizing work for the Irish Volunteers or as a result of harassment, threats or imprisonment by the British authorities.
Opposite: A wedding gift from the staff & students at St. Idé's school founded in 1916 by the MacSwiney sisters, Mary and Annie. A pierced silver dish ring (5.5oz) made by famous Cork silversmiths William Egan & Sons is currently on display at the Independence Museum in Kilmurry, Co Cork. Finely decorated with a hound, a doe, a partridge, a swan, flowers, fruit etc., with hallmarks for Dublin 1916 and with a panel inscribed in Gaelic lettering: M M M agus T Mac S Lá an dPóstá, 9/6/17. Ó Cailíní Sgoil Íte Naomhtha [MMM (Muriel Murphy) and Terence MacSwiney Day of Marriage 9/6/17 From the girls of St Íta’s School] |
By the end of June 1917, MacSwiney was released with all of the remaining Republican prisoners jailed since the Rising. After their welcome back to Ireland in Dublin, MacSwiney, Diarmuid Lynch and others returned to Cork on June 23 and were welcomed at the train terminus in the city by a crowd of some 10,000. They were escorted through the city as thousands gathered to hear them speak on the Grand Parade. Lynch addressed the crowd:
'That as a Cork man he was 'glad to return to his native city and to find that it was a Rebel Cork, a Republican Cork and an Irish Cork'.
Following the upheaval of the previous twelve months, Terry & Muriel began to settle into married life, first living in the Ballingeary Gaeltacht and then Douglas Road, Cork.
'That as a Cork man he was 'glad to return to his native city and to find that it was a Rebel Cork, a Republican Cork and an Irish Cork'.
Following the upheaval of the previous twelve months, Terry & Muriel began to settle into married life, first living in the Ballingeary Gaeltacht and then Douglas Road, Cork.
On 17 November 1917, after MacSwiney was convicted of drilling Volunteers and wearing military uniform, he instigated a mass hunger-strike in Cork Jail, which led to the release of prisoners on 21 November. The then pregnant Muriel objected to her husband on hunger strike. She later wrote ‘I did not approve of hunger strike although entirely for the cause’
Diarmuid Lynch, along with Con Collins and Cathal Brugha were commissioned by the IRB to investigate the inaction of the Irish Volunteers in the counties of Cork Kerry and Limerick during the Rising. The enquiry on the Cork region took place on 12 January 1918 and the outcome was as with Limerick and Kerry. that due to MacNeill's countermanding orders and the loss of the Aud & it's shipment of German arms, the volunteers in the Southern counties had no choice but to abandon their plans. Despite this, many in the Cork leadership incuding MacCurtain and MacSwiney believed that they could have done more to support the Rising
He was arrested once again in March 1918 and transferred between prisons in Dublin, Belfast, and Dundalk. MacSwiney's internment caused him to miss two major life events - the birth of his daughter, Máire, in June, and his election to the first Dáil as TD for Mid Cork, in December 1918.
Below is a photo of Mac Swiney with other Republican prisoners in Dundalk Gaol in 1918 - left to right Diarmuid Lynch, Ernest Blythe, Terence MacSwiney, Dick McKee and Michael Colivet. Sitting left to right Frank Thornton, Bertie Hunt and Michael Brennan.
Diarmuid Lynch, along with Con Collins and Cathal Brugha were commissioned by the IRB to investigate the inaction of the Irish Volunteers in the counties of Cork Kerry and Limerick during the Rising. The enquiry on the Cork region took place on 12 January 1918 and the outcome was as with Limerick and Kerry. that due to MacNeill's countermanding orders and the loss of the Aud & it's shipment of German arms, the volunteers in the Southern counties had no choice but to abandon their plans. Despite this, many in the Cork leadership incuding MacCurtain and MacSwiney believed that they could have done more to support the Rising
He was arrested once again in March 1918 and transferred between prisons in Dublin, Belfast, and Dundalk. MacSwiney's internment caused him to miss two major life events - the birth of his daughter, Máire, in June, and his election to the first Dáil as TD for Mid Cork, in December 1918.
Below is a photo of Mac Swiney with other Republican prisoners in Dundalk Gaol in 1918 - left to right Diarmuid Lynch, Ernest Blythe, Terence MacSwiney, Dick McKee and Michael Colivet. Sitting left to right Frank Thornton, Bertie Hunt and Michael Brennan.
On June 23, 1918, Muriel gives birth to a daughter, Máire.
In her autobiography, 'History's daughter: a memoir from the only child of Terence MacSwiney' (2005), Máire noted that she had no recollection of her father: their first meeting was in the Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast when she was three months of age, and he died on hunger strike when she was just two. Yet the impact that he had on her life was enormous. His first meeting & gift to her in Belfast was a fáinne (a gold broach in the shape of a ring indicating that the wearer could speak Irish), signalling his desire that she be brought up fluent in Irish. He also wrote three poems for her, entitled 'Máire', 'Máire plays' and 'Athair's prayer', the last sombre and filled with foreboding for his wife and young child.
In her autobiography, 'History's daughter: a memoir from the only child of Terence MacSwiney' (2005), Máire noted that she had no recollection of her father: their first meeting was in the Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast when she was three months of age, and he died on hunger strike when she was just two. Yet the impact that he had on her life was enormous. His first meeting & gift to her in Belfast was a fáinne (a gold broach in the shape of a ring indicating that the wearer could speak Irish), signalling his desire that she be brought up fluent in Irish. He also wrote three poems for her, entitled 'Máire', 'Máire plays' and 'Athair's prayer', the last sombre and filled with foreboding for his wife and young child.
In September 1918, MacSwiney was deported again from Belfast Crumlin Road Gaol to Lincoln Prison in the East Midlands to join other Sinn Féin leaders imprisoned since May 1918 as part of the so-called ‘German Plot’ (when the British Administration in Ireland claimed, falsely, that there was evidence of a conspiracy between Sinn Féin and the German military).
Below: fellow Republican prisoner in Lincoln, Seán Milroy’s (1877-1946) cartoons charting life in Lincoln Jail during 1918. ‘With the Insects at Lincoln’ contains 25 original coloured pen-and-wash cartoons, each measuring about 18 x 14cm. Terence MacSwiney is caricatured and the Christmas Card that helped De Valera, Milroy and Sean McGarry escape the prison in February 1919.
Milroy’s artistic skills were integral to the plotting that eventually resulted in the three prisoners making their escape. The plotting began when de Valera, who acted as an altar boy in the jail’s chapel, noticed that the priest had a set of keys that included a master key to the prison doors. Waiting for the right moment, de Valera made an impression of the master key in wax he had collected from the chapel candles. Milroy copied that impression in a cartoon that appeared to be part of a simple Christmas card. The cartoon showed a drunk man trying to fit a large key into a tiny keyhole. The significance of the drawing was not noticed by the prison guards who allowed the card to be posted to Dublin.
In Dublin, Michael Collins and Harry Boland organised a number of keys which were smuggled into Lincoln inside cakes. The first key to make it past the prison guards did not work and de Valera realised that the wax had shrunk as it hardened resulting in an impression that was of the correct shape but which was too small. A second cartoon by Milroy was sent with the key impression disguised in a Celtic knot pattern, although the resulting physical copy also failed. Ultimately, a blank key and a set of files were smuggled into the prison hidden in a fruit cake. The blank key and files were given to fellow prisoner Peter de Loughry. He had previously taken apart a prison lock using a contraband screwdriver and he used the knowledge gleaned from that endeavour to fashion a master key capable of unlocking any door in the jail. That was they key which de Valera, Milroy and McGarry used on 3 February 1919 to escape their incarceration. Once outside the prison walls, they met with a small group that included Michael Collins and Harry Boland. They had obtained taxis which took the escapees to Sheffield and then to a safehouse in Manchester.
In Dublin, Michael Collins and Harry Boland organised a number of keys which were smuggled into Lincoln inside cakes. The first key to make it past the prison guards did not work and de Valera realised that the wax had shrunk as it hardened resulting in an impression that was of the correct shape but which was too small. A second cartoon by Milroy was sent with the key impression disguised in a Celtic knot pattern, although the resulting physical copy also failed. Ultimately, a blank key and a set of files were smuggled into the prison hidden in a fruit cake. The blank key and files were given to fellow prisoner Peter de Loughry. He had previously taken apart a prison lock using a contraband screwdriver and he used the knowledge gleaned from that endeavour to fashion a master key capable of unlocking any door in the jail. That was they key which de Valera, Milroy and McGarry used on 3 February 1919 to escape their incarceration. Once outside the prison walls, they met with a small group that included Michael Collins and Harry Boland. They had obtained taxis which took the escapees to Sheffield and then to a safehouse in Manchester.
In the December 1918 General Elections, MacSwiney was returned un-opposed as Sinn Féin MP for Mid-Cork, succeeding the Irish Parliamentary Party MP, D.D.Sheehan in the nationwide electoral rout of the IPP. Like other Sinn Féin members, all follow the policy of abstentionism, refusing to take their seats at Westminster and determined to serve in Dáil Éireann instead.
When released again in March 1919, MacSwiney now used his commercial skills on Dáil committees, fundraising for the Dáil loan and establishing Dáil Éireann courts 'the end of English authority in Ireland'.
By the autumn of 1919, the MacSwiney family had moved from Douglas to 18 Sundays Well, Cork.
In a letter to Kathleen Lynch, (Diarmuid's wife) in New York (undated but referenced in a letter from Terence to Diarmuid Lynch of 9 December 1919), Muriel MacSwiney wrote of their summer in West Cork and visits from various relatives and friends:
When released again in March 1919, MacSwiney now used his commercial skills on Dáil committees, fundraising for the Dáil loan and establishing Dáil Éireann courts 'the end of English authority in Ireland'.
By the autumn of 1919, the MacSwiney family had moved from Douglas to 18 Sundays Well, Cork.
In a letter to Kathleen Lynch, (Diarmuid's wife) in New York (undated but referenced in a letter from Terence to Diarmuid Lynch of 9 December 1919), Muriel MacSwiney wrote of their summer in West Cork and visits from various relatives and friends:
Transcription
‘A Cara Dhil.
How are the two of you? We are very well all of us, our daughter is running about now & still it seems no time since we were in Dundalk together.
We have a new house in Cork now. Baby & I were in Ballingearry for six months and loved it, but we had to come back to Cork as it was too far for Terry to come out to us at this time of the year ( he used to have to bike from Macroom ).
All your family were down in a motor in the summer. Alice & Denis, Micéal, Mr & Mrs T.J.Murphy & a whole heap of others.
Mr & Mrs Murphy were staying at Gougane for a bit & the girls were in Ballingearry a whole month.
Mary Lynch came into see us one day since we came back to Cork & looked splendid.
When are we going to see you over here again? I would much prefer a talk to any amount of letters at any rate on my side as I don’t shine at them at all.
Give my best love to Diarmuid.
With the same to yourself,
From yours affectionately,
Muriel McSwiney
On December 9th, Terence MacSwiney wrote to Diarmuid Lynch in New York a somewhat guarded letter.
"Though I wouldn't leave Ireland at this moment for anything, I envy you all the rousing times and doings you can enjoy uninterrupted in America" and "there's a tough time before us in Ireland - that is a particularly rough time. The boys are just shaking themselves and looking forward to it like a terrier sniffing battle."
Transcription
18 Sunday's Well
Cork
Ireland
6th Dec 1919
From T.J.MacSwiney
A Diarmuid a cara.
Just after I returned home last March, I dropped in the Xmas card you sent last Xmas. It has been in my mind to send you a line since and this Xmas is on us again, so I won't let this occasion slip.
Though I wouldn't leave Ireland at this moment for anything, I envy you all the rousing times and doings you can enjoy uninterrupted in America. In Ireland, the I.R. [Irish Republic] is proclaimed, in America you seem to have it fairly well established. Of course we shall reach that point in time, and if ye can claim a monopoly of free speech & meetings just now, we can claim a monopoly of poisonous & threatening eruptions. One can't have it both ways for the whole [word unclear]is the more exciting. Every day has it's own sensation and none need be surprised if something astonishing were to happen.
page 2
Anyway life is packed full of interest & we are kept very much alive.
I could send you many items of the interesting doings but perhaps then you might not get the letter at all - so I might as well restrain my pen. I have [words indecipherable] that may as well be made.
A message came from Dev some time ago to keep our end up here & all would be well. Now you are there, don't worry about our end. It's going to be kept up whatever happens over the water. But of course it's great encouragement to get such rousing news & cuttings from the other side.
You can read the signs of the times as well as we can & no doubt you have guessed that there's a tough time before us in Ireland - that is a particularly rough time. The boys are just shaking themselves and looking forward to it like a terrier sniffing battle. That is, I take it all you wish to know.
I have no doubt that you are all up to your eyes in work owing to the tension & enthusiasm in America
page 3
& the widespread organisation & work it must entail. However you have a good number now from this side now to help. Really we'll have to call a halt or the Dail will be transferred bodily to the other side!
I suppose you will all get together somewhere for Xmas and I'm wondering what will Dev's reflections be comparing this Xmas with last in Lincoln Hotels! (1) Well the changes are startling to say the least of it.
Give my best wishes for Xmas & the New Year to all our colleagues. I must send you a card for Dev, another card just as a reminder of our last Xmas together.
I fear a letter is not much use unless one can particularise as to what's doing here for them, and so I may as well bring my generalising to an end. But you can gather the report from the Home base is all well, faith unbroken, spirits high. So much news is worth sending.
I hope Mrs Lynch is in the best of health & enjoying the good times over. I saw her in the pictures more than once! (2)
page 4
The particular time of her exile fell at a lucky moment. She's in the centre of historic doings.
I hope you are in good form yourself, and going by Muriel & all at home, I send you good wishes for a happy Xmas and the best of New Years.
Toirdealbhach Mac Suibhne
PS enclosed note from Muriel to Mrs Lynch
(1) Lincoln Hotels - reference to De Valera & MacSwiney's jailing in Lincoln Prison (May 1918-February 1919) and de Valera's successful escape from the prison engineering by Michael Collins and Harry Boland.
A manuscript menu for 'Royal Hotel, Lincoln, Christmas Day 1918', including such dishes as 'Hors d'oeuvres a la East Mayo', 'Poisson (ask Cotter)', 'Dindon a la East Cavan', 'Jambon Clontarf', 'Plum Pudding (Brandy Sauce not arrived)', etc., signed by seventeen prisoners including Eamon de Valera, Sean McGarry, M.P. Colivet, Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne (Terence MacSwiney), etc.; also signed on front by Lorcan O Lorgneain (Larry Lardner), and signed again on back by Eamon De Valera, 19.8.53 (during a visit to Athenry). Sold by Adams, Dublin 2006. Thanks to Adams, Dublin. |
(2) from this reference, it appears that Diarmuid's wife, Kathleen Lynch was either filmed for news reels of the time or included in group photographs of De Valera's American visit during 1919. Research ongoing.
MacSwiney was elected to Cork corporation in January 1920 and became Lord Mayor on 30 March after the assassination of Tomas MacCurtain. MacSwiney also succeeded to MacCurtain's position as Commandant of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA.
In his inaugural speech as Lord Mayor he declares: “This contest of ours is… one of endurance — it is not to those who can inflict the most but to those who can suffer the most, who will conquer.” The Cork Examiner praised Lord Mayor MacSwiney’s “great energy and determination… absolute impartiality, lovable and kindly disposition”. Francis Costello calls his plans to build houses for working people, and develop technical education: “innovative and industrious”.
MacSwiney worked from 10am until 10pm, snatching meals, seeing very little of Muriel and Máire and cautious of British assassination squads, only venturing out with a bodyguard. While he defended the shooting of RIC policemen by IRA volunteers, he apparently was somewhat ill at ease with guerrilla warfare, which did not accord with his romanticised image of insurrection.
The family stayed occasionally with the MacSwiney sisters, Mary & Annie at 4 Belgrave Place, Cork, a house leased at a peppercorn rent rent to the sisters by the city merchant & member of the Cork Harbour Commissioners, T.J.Murphy (details of the Murphy story here).
Mary, a teacher and founder member of the Cumman na mBan in Cork was involved in the 1916 Rising in Cork, had been arrested and imprisoned in the sweep of suspects in May 1916. On release, she had been dismissed from her post at St. Angelas in Cork and so at 4 Belgrave, Mary and her sister Annie re-founded Scoil Íte, a sister school to Patrick Pearse's St. Enda's School in 1917.
MacSwiney was elected to Cork corporation in January 1920 and became Lord Mayor on 30 March after the assassination of Tomas MacCurtain. MacSwiney also succeeded to MacCurtain's position as Commandant of the Cork No. 1 Brigade of the IRA.
In his inaugural speech as Lord Mayor he declares: “This contest of ours is… one of endurance — it is not to those who can inflict the most but to those who can suffer the most, who will conquer.” The Cork Examiner praised Lord Mayor MacSwiney’s “great energy and determination… absolute impartiality, lovable and kindly disposition”. Francis Costello calls his plans to build houses for working people, and develop technical education: “innovative and industrious”.
MacSwiney worked from 10am until 10pm, snatching meals, seeing very little of Muriel and Máire and cautious of British assassination squads, only venturing out with a bodyguard. While he defended the shooting of RIC policemen by IRA volunteers, he apparently was somewhat ill at ease with guerrilla warfare, which did not accord with his romanticised image of insurrection.
The family stayed occasionally with the MacSwiney sisters, Mary & Annie at 4 Belgrave Place, Cork, a house leased at a peppercorn rent rent to the sisters by the city merchant & member of the Cork Harbour Commissioners, T.J.Murphy (details of the Murphy story here).
Mary, a teacher and founder member of the Cumman na mBan in Cork was involved in the 1916 Rising in Cork, had been arrested and imprisoned in the sweep of suspects in May 1916. On release, she had been dismissed from her post at St. Angelas in Cork and so at 4 Belgrave, Mary and her sister Annie re-founded Scoil Íte, a sister school to Patrick Pearse's St. Enda's School in 1917.
Opposite: A selection of newsreel sequences shows the trial of in August 1920 of Terence Mac Swiney (Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork) and other events in Cork in 1920. The opening sequence, unusual for its time, appears to have been shot inside the Cork Courthouse. The Courthouse exterior is seen with a group of children seated on the steps.
The following sequence shows Arthur Griffith, founder and leader of Sinn Féin, reading on a porch. He is then seen in conversation with Robert Brennan, Sinn Féin’s Chief of Propaganda / Publicity. The final scenes show a group of men and young boys standing near a burnt out train carriage. This may be stock on the West Cork Railway, on which construction began in 1845, which was the railroad most affected by the upheaval of in the 1920s. Signal boxes were burned and tracks and bridges blown up, including the Chetwynd Viaduct. < Click image to access |
Arrest, Detention & Hunger Strike
On the evening of 12 August 1920, 300 British soldiers of The 2nd Hampshires based in Victoria Barracks surrounded Cork City Hall and with fixed bayonets, conducted a search of the building. That evening, a Dáil Éireann court was in session in the council chamber while Terence MacSwiney was holding a meeting of senior IRA officers in the Lord Mayor's chamber. Having completed their search, MacSwiney and eleven senior IRA officers were arrested by the military and taken to Victoria Barracks for questioning. Among those arrested were Liam Lynch, Officer Commanding, Cork No. 2 Brigade, Seán O’Hegarty, the second-in-command of Cork No. 1 Brigade, Joseph O'Connor, Brigade Quarter Master; Dan Donovan, Officer in Command of 1st Battalion; Florence O’Donoghue, Brigade Intelligence Officer; Dom Sullivan, Brigade Adjutant; Liam Deasy, Officer in Command of Cork No.3 Brigade and Mick Murphy, Officer in Command, 2nd Batallion Cork City. Each except for the Lord Mayor, gave false names and addresses.
Upon arrival at the barracks, the prisoners had of all their possessions removed. MacSwiney, however, steadfastly refused to part with one item – his chain of office. All went on hunger strike within 24 hours of arrest.
A few days later, in what can only be described as one of the greatest British intelligence failures of the war, the eleven senior IRA officers were all released. However, because he was found in possession of an RIC cipher and documents relating to Dáil Éireann, MacSwiney was charged with sedition and remanded in custody. In protest at his arrest, he decided to join the hunger strike that republican prisoners in Cork Prison had begun the previous day.
On 16 August, MacSwiney was brought before a British Army court-martial in Victoria Barracks. Asked if he would be represented by counsel, he stated that the court was illegal. He went on to take sole responsibility for his actions and concluded, ‘This is my position, I ask for no mercy.’ The court found MacSwiney guilty. When the verdict was delivered, he declared, ‘I will put a limit to any term of imprisonment you may impose’, and, since he had been on huger strike and refusing food, said he would be ‘free, alive or dead, within a month’. Terence MacSwiney was then sentenced to two years’ imprisonment to be served in Brixton Prison, London.
Below: letter from Fr. Dominick, Chaplain to the Lord Mayor of Cork to Major General Sir Peter Strickland (1869-1951) military Governor of Cork and General commanding 6th Division Ireland. In this letter, Fr Dominick requests permission to attend 'his Lordship till he is freed one way or the other from his present confinement' which was granted.
Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. John Francis O’Connor (13 Feb. 1883 - 17 Oct 1935). Educated at the Capuchin College, Rochestown, Cork , he entered the Capuchin 8 novitiate on 1 Oct. 1899 and received the religious name of Dominic. A year later he took his simple vows and in the Autumn of the same year entered the Royal University, Cork, to study for a degree in philosophy. He was ordained a priest on 17 Mar. 1906 in the Capuchin Friary in Kilkenny. He later enrolled in the Catholic University in Louvain where he obtained a Sacrae Theologiae Baccalaureus (Bachelor of Sacred Theology). In response to a call from Cardinal Michael Logue, Archbishop of Armagh, Fr. Dominic volunteered for chaplaincy work with British forces during the First World War.
After spending two months with a Scottish brigade in England, he transferred to a hospital unit bound for Salonika, Greece. After approximately two years of service, Fr. Dominic resigned his post in 1917, returned to Ireland and was appointed to the Capuchin community at Holy Trinity, Cork. Fr. Dominic soon attained notice in nationalist circles and was appointed chaplain to the Cork Brigade of IRA Volunteers by Tomas MacCurtain. As chaplain, Fr. Dominic was the first at the MacCurtain home in Blackpool, Cork, on the morning the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor was killed by British forces (20 Mar. 1920). He also served as chaplain to MacCurtain’s successor as Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, who was arrested on 12 Aug. 1920. Fr. Dominic ministered to MacSwiney throughout his hunger strike in Brixton Prison and was present at his death on 25 Oct. 1920.
After spending two months with a Scottish brigade in England, he transferred to a hospital unit bound for Salonika, Greece. After approximately two years of service, Fr. Dominic resigned his post in 1917, returned to Ireland and was appointed to the Capuchin community at Holy Trinity, Cork. Fr. Dominic soon attained notice in nationalist circles and was appointed chaplain to the Cork Brigade of IRA Volunteers by Tomas MacCurtain. As chaplain, Fr. Dominic was the first at the MacCurtain home in Blackpool, Cork, on the morning the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor was killed by British forces (20 Mar. 1920). He also served as chaplain to MacCurtain’s successor as Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, who was arrested on 12 Aug. 1920. Fr. Dominic ministered to MacSwiney throughout his hunger strike in Brixton Prison and was present at his death on 25 Oct. 1920.
British Home Office files of the period released in 2003 show that Dublin Castle quickly intervened to calls for MacSwiney's release, sending a telegram to the Home Office in London advising: "This man is not to be released. It is intended to forcibly feed him. You are aware that he is entitled to be treated as a political prisoner." But by this time, MacSwiney had already been transferred to Brixton gaol in London and had been examined by the prison doctor who found him in a weakened state after a week on hunger strike and with signs of latent tuberculosis.
MacSwiney’s relatives were advised by the Home Secretary that he would not be forcibly fed ‘on medical grounds, so if he wont feed it’s suicide…I hope they realise the truth but I’m sure these hunger strikers still believe we will let them out at the last moment’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p25
The Home Office wired back to Dublin Castle: "It is not intended to feed MacSweeny (sic). Medical officer says that state of health is such that artificial feeding will be unsafe."
Thus the stage was set for a tragic death that would drag on over 74 days and be played out before an international audience fascinated at the long-drawn out agony of the latest martyr for the cause of Irish freedom.
Publicity on MacSwiney's imprisonment and hunger strike was immense. Newspapers and journals throughout the world carried daily reports of his condition. Public meetings were held in France and Germany in protest against his imprisonment and other countries appealed for his release. MacSwiney’s hunger strike also drew attention to the fight for an independent Irish republic that was then taking place in Ireland.
Three extraordinary women were to become central to the hunger strike and who were daily visitors to MacSwiney’s bedside throughout it — his wife Muriel and his sisters Annie and Mary. These three women were witnesses to history, as well as active participants and ultimately, victims of it. The protracted nature of the struggle and ultimate death of a husband and brother affected all three women deeply.
Three extraordinary women were to become central to the hunger strike and who were daily visitors to MacSwiney’s bedside throughout it — his wife Muriel and his sisters Annie and Mary. These three women were witnesses to history, as well as active participants and ultimately, victims of it. The protracted nature of the struggle and ultimate death of a husband and brother affected all three women deeply.
MacSwiney's hunger strike gained world attention and action. The British Government was threatened with a boycott of British goods by Americans, while four countries in South America appealed to the Pope to intervene. Protests were held in Germany and France as well. An Australian MP, Hugh Mahon, was expelled from the Australian parliament for "seditious and disloyal utterances at a public meeting", after protesting against the actions of the British Government. Two weeks later, the Spanish Catalan organization Autonomous Center of Employees of Commerce and Industry (CADCI) sent a petition to the British prime minister calling for his release and the newspaper of the organization, Acció (Acción in Spanish), began a campaign for MacSwiney.
Daily press conferences on MacSwiney’s condition were held in the Sinn Féin London Office at No. 3 Adam Street. Art O’Brien, the Envoy of the Irish Republic to London, was fluent in both French and Spanish and was thus able to keep international journalists updated on the progress of MacSwiney’s strike, all much to the annoyance of the British Home & Foreign Office.
‘The Lord Mayor of Cork isn't dead yet nor another – there’ll be a fine bust up if one does die, so we are told’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p26
The principal pro-Irish independence organisation in Britain at the time, the Irish Self-Determination League (ISDL), organised daily prayer vigils outside Brixton Prison for the Lord Mayor’s release. The attendance steadily grew as the strike continued.
“Terry”, as his family knew him, was well known for his Catholic piety and received daily Communion throughout his hunger strike. He also requested that his family, who had also travelled to London, read to him from The Imitation of Christ, the 15th-century treatise by the German-born monk Thomas à Kempis. MacSwiney repeatedly requested the section entitled “Thoughts on Death” so that he might find consolation in the words: “Learn to die to the world now, that then you may begin to live with Christ.”
Arthur Griffith cabled President Wilson asking for American intervention in the case of Terence MacSwiney:
‘I inform your Excellency that the Lord Mayor of Cork, duly elected deputy for Cork County, Ireland, was recently seized by the armed forces of England, arraigned before English military officers and forcibly deported from this country in an English war vessel and is now in imminent danger of death in Brixton Prison, London. I recall to your excellency the declarations made by the heads of the Allied and neutral States when the Burgomaster of Brussels was treated with a lesser indignity and harshness’
Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom 1866-1922’. Devin-Adair. New York 1957. P.406
Sir Stanley Harrington, President of the Cork Chamber of Commerce and Secretary of the Irish Dominion League met with Mark Sturgis. ‘He thinks McSwiney ought to be let out because there will be bloodshed in Cork and ‘probably in Dublin’ if he dies. Good God! What a reason for what would be a final and complete surrender’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p27
Sturgis commenting on the hunger strikers: ‘They wont be let out so they must eat or die, and if they die they do, I suppose there will be a real row…we are being urged quietly and persistently that reprisals are the only thing to put down the gunmen and hearten the police and I begin to believe it, but the sort of reprisal that burns down half the town of Lisburn because the DI was murdered is the wrong sort’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p27-8
The Winnipeg, Canada branch of the ‘Self-Determination for Ireland League’ sent a telegram to Sir Hamar Greenwood ‘The Canadian consience is shocked at the Government’s continued reign of terror in Ireland. The Crimes bill and the treatment of McSwiney are particularly repulsive. You are alientating the Canadian people’
Newsletter of the Friends of Irish Freedom National Bureau of Information - Washington D.C – Vol.11, No 11 September 11, 1920. Lynch Family Archives
25 August
On the 13th day of the hunger-strike, MacSwiney’s health rapidly declined and a rumour spread that he was very near death. A ‘Labour Rally’ was quickly organised, outside the Prison, by George Lansbury, editor of the pro-labour newspaper the Daily Herald. From a small-platform down a side street, speakers publicly lambasted the British Government’s treatment of MacSwiney to reported cries of ‘Up Sinn Féin’ and ‘Up the Rebels’ from the crowd. The demonstration soon turned into a riot as a squadron of mounted police riders were dispatched to prevent the crowd turning the rally into a formal procession, especially with their many pro-Sinn Féin banners in tow.
With police batons drawn, it was not long before stones and loose bricks travelled through the air. Neighbouring windows were shattered and garden railings torn out of the ground. In the melee, one police officer was knocked down by a blow to the skull, while another was reportedly “unhorsed”. Once reinforcements arrived on the scene, the crowd was soon divided into small groups and ushered into nearby side-streets. Despite the injuries and damage, no arrests followed.
Edward Shortt, British Home Secretary, wrote to Mary MacSwiney, sister of the Cork Lord Mayor, to reaffirm the British government’s position that her brother would not be released from prison even if he continued to refuse food. Mr Shortt further stated that he would not meet with Ms MacSwiney, stating that it would ‘serve no good purpose’. He added that: ‘Owing to his state of health, Mr MacSwiney cannot be forcibly fed. For any consequences that may ensue from his refusal to take food, Mr MacSwiney alone is responsible.’
The Lord Mayor was also visited by Daniel Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne, Patrick Foley, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and Michael Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe who afterwards said that MacSwiney was ‘very prostrate...Weak though he is, the Lord Mayor’s message remained one of defiance and firmness of purposes: ‘If I gave way now I would give away the cause of Irish liberty. I would rather die than do that.’
The workers of Cork, following a call by the Joint Labour and Civic Council of Action, all ceased their activities to attend 10.45 mass yesterday in churches all over the city.
26 August
Cardinal O’Connell of Boston sent a cable to Lansing, the US Secretary of State: ‘I implore you in the name of humanity that our Government do everything it can to prevent the death of the Mayor of Cork now dying in a British prison’
Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom 1866-1922’. Devin-Adair. New York 1957. P.406
Diarmuid Lynch also sent a telegram to the Secretary of State requesting representation to the British Government:
"As Executive Secretary of the Friends of Irish Freedom, a nationwide organisation of several hundred thousand American citizens, I respectfully enter a most emphatic protest against the treatment accorded by the British Government to Lord Mayor McSweeney of Cork removed from Ireland on a British war-vessel and held by force of military power. We respectfully request you as Secretary of State to immediately make suitable representations to the British Government."
Diarmuid Lynch. 280 Broadway, New York.
All received a reply a few days later, apologising that the State Department would be unable to protest as Lord Mayor MacSwiney was not a US Citizen.
MacSwiney's hunger strike gained world attention and action. The British Government was threatened with a boycott of British goods by Americans, while four countries in South America appealed to the Pope to intervene. Protests were held in Germany and France as well. An Australian MP, Hugh Mahon, was expelled from the Australian parliament for "seditious and disloyal utterances at a public meeting", after protesting against the actions of the British Government. Two weeks later, the Spanish Catalan organization Autonomous Center of Employees of Commerce and Industry (CADCI) sent a petition to the British prime minister calling for his release and the newspaper of the organization, Acció (Acción in Spanish), began a campaign for MacSwiney.
Daily press conferences on MacSwiney’s condition were held in the Sinn Féin London Office at No. 3 Adam Street. Art O’Brien, the Envoy of the Irish Republic to London, was fluent in both French and Spanish and was thus able to keep international journalists updated on the progress of MacSwiney’s strike, all much to the annoyance of the British Home & Foreign Office.
‘The Lord Mayor of Cork isn't dead yet nor another – there’ll be a fine bust up if one does die, so we are told’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p26
The principal pro-Irish independence organisation in Britain at the time, the Irish Self-Determination League (ISDL), organised daily prayer vigils outside Brixton Prison for the Lord Mayor’s release. The attendance steadily grew as the strike continued.
“Terry”, as his family knew him, was well known for his Catholic piety and received daily Communion throughout his hunger strike. He also requested that his family, who had also travelled to London, read to him from The Imitation of Christ, the 15th-century treatise by the German-born monk Thomas à Kempis. MacSwiney repeatedly requested the section entitled “Thoughts on Death” so that he might find consolation in the words: “Learn to die to the world now, that then you may begin to live with Christ.”
Arthur Griffith cabled President Wilson asking for American intervention in the case of Terence MacSwiney:
‘I inform your Excellency that the Lord Mayor of Cork, duly elected deputy for Cork County, Ireland, was recently seized by the armed forces of England, arraigned before English military officers and forcibly deported from this country in an English war vessel and is now in imminent danger of death in Brixton Prison, London. I recall to your excellency the declarations made by the heads of the Allied and neutral States when the Burgomaster of Brussels was treated with a lesser indignity and harshness’
Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom 1866-1922’. Devin-Adair. New York 1957. P.406
Sir Stanley Harrington, President of the Cork Chamber of Commerce and Secretary of the Irish Dominion League met with Mark Sturgis. ‘He thinks McSwiney ought to be let out because there will be bloodshed in Cork and ‘probably in Dublin’ if he dies. Good God! What a reason for what would be a final and complete surrender’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p27
Sturgis commenting on the hunger strikers: ‘They wont be let out so they must eat or die, and if they die they do, I suppose there will be a real row…we are being urged quietly and persistently that reprisals are the only thing to put down the gunmen and hearten the police and I begin to believe it, but the sort of reprisal that burns down half the town of Lisburn because the DI was murdered is the wrong sort’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p27-8
The Winnipeg, Canada branch of the ‘Self-Determination for Ireland League’ sent a telegram to Sir Hamar Greenwood ‘The Canadian consience is shocked at the Government’s continued reign of terror in Ireland. The Crimes bill and the treatment of McSwiney are particularly repulsive. You are alientating the Canadian people’
Newsletter of the Friends of Irish Freedom National Bureau of Information - Washington D.C – Vol.11, No 11 September 11, 1920. Lynch Family Archives
25 August
On the 13th day of the hunger-strike, MacSwiney’s health rapidly declined and a rumour spread that he was very near death. A ‘Labour Rally’ was quickly organised, outside the Prison, by George Lansbury, editor of the pro-labour newspaper the Daily Herald. From a small-platform down a side street, speakers publicly lambasted the British Government’s treatment of MacSwiney to reported cries of ‘Up Sinn Féin’ and ‘Up the Rebels’ from the crowd. The demonstration soon turned into a riot as a squadron of mounted police riders were dispatched to prevent the crowd turning the rally into a formal procession, especially with their many pro-Sinn Féin banners in tow.
With police batons drawn, it was not long before stones and loose bricks travelled through the air. Neighbouring windows were shattered and garden railings torn out of the ground. In the melee, one police officer was knocked down by a blow to the skull, while another was reportedly “unhorsed”. Once reinforcements arrived on the scene, the crowd was soon divided into small groups and ushered into nearby side-streets. Despite the injuries and damage, no arrests followed.
Edward Shortt, British Home Secretary, wrote to Mary MacSwiney, sister of the Cork Lord Mayor, to reaffirm the British government’s position that her brother would not be released from prison even if he continued to refuse food. Mr Shortt further stated that he would not meet with Ms MacSwiney, stating that it would ‘serve no good purpose’. He added that: ‘Owing to his state of health, Mr MacSwiney cannot be forcibly fed. For any consequences that may ensue from his refusal to take food, Mr MacSwiney alone is responsible.’
The Lord Mayor was also visited by Daniel Mannix, Archbishop of Melbourne, Patrick Foley, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin and Michael Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe who afterwards said that MacSwiney was ‘very prostrate...Weak though he is, the Lord Mayor’s message remained one of defiance and firmness of purposes: ‘If I gave way now I would give away the cause of Irish liberty. I would rather die than do that.’
The workers of Cork, following a call by the Joint Labour and Civic Council of Action, all ceased their activities to attend 10.45 mass yesterday in churches all over the city.
26 August
Cardinal O’Connell of Boston sent a cable to Lansing, the US Secretary of State: ‘I implore you in the name of humanity that our Government do everything it can to prevent the death of the Mayor of Cork now dying in a British prison’
Tansill. ‘America and the fight for Irish Freedom 1866-1922’. Devin-Adair. New York 1957. P.406
Diarmuid Lynch also sent a telegram to the Secretary of State requesting representation to the British Government:
"As Executive Secretary of the Friends of Irish Freedom, a nationwide organisation of several hundred thousand American citizens, I respectfully enter a most emphatic protest against the treatment accorded by the British Government to Lord Mayor McSweeney of Cork removed from Ireland on a British war-vessel and held by force of military power. We respectfully request you as Secretary of State to immediately make suitable representations to the British Government."
Diarmuid Lynch. 280 Broadway, New York.
All received a reply a few days later, apologising that the State Department would be unable to protest as Lord Mayor MacSwiney was not a US Citizen.
Liam de Roiste wrote in his diary of MacSwiney:
’If released alive, he will have won. If released in death, he shall still win…MacSwiney in Brixton, Lloyd George on the Swiss Mountains – was there ever material for an epic such as this’
Michael Hopkinson ’The Irish War of Independence’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 2002. p86
Intervention by King George V & the Archbishop of Canterbury
There was widespread unease at the prospect of MacSwiney's death in Brixton, not just in Ireland, but in England itself where MacSwiney's "crime" was not seen as justifying such harsh treatment. Even King George V intervened with the Government for "clemency" but this was kept secret. It was published at the time that the king had been petitioned by the High Sheriff of Cork and many others to intervene but they received a carefully worded reply from Balmoral Castle that "as you are probably aware, the case of the release of the Lord Mayor of Cork is one in which the King's clemency can only be exercised if His Majesty is so advised by his responsible Ministers." Behind the scenes, the king was complaining that the only information he was getting about MacSwiney was from press cuttings. He was especially touched by a petition for release from a nephew of Major John Redmond, who had been killed during the recent war. The king's secretary sent a copy to the Home Office Secretary, Edward Shortt, accompanied by the following telegram: "His Majesty feels sure Government are seriously considering the case of Lord Mayor of Cork. Were he to be allowed to die in prison results would be deplorable from every point of view. His Majesty would be prepared to exercise clemency if you would so advise and believes that would be wise course. Lord Mayor should not return to Ireland but be accommodated in private house under precautionary rule."
The Archbishop of Canterbury now also appealed for MacSwiney's release, and even the London Times, not noted for sympathy towards Ireland, urged the same.
The London Times 30 August on MacSwiney ‘we can recall no parallel in the history of this country to the duel now reaching its climax in Brixton Prison’ Later the same day, the Irish Catholic Hierarchy announced that should MacSwiney die, his death will be held as sacrificial and not suicidal.
However, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamer Greenwood, had warned London, and the King was told privately, that the release "would have disastrous results in Ireland and would probably lead to the mutiny of the military and police in South of Ireland."
MacSwiney's death was now inevitable unless he himself decided to abandon his hunger strike, and he was determined not to weaken. He told a prison doctor, Dr Higson, that the ethics of his strike had been "fully considered by the Church, and it had been decided that his death would be a 'sacrificial' one and not 'suicidal', otherwise he could not have been given the blessing of the Church and the Sacrament by the Priest." The doctor sent this report to the Home Office.
Fr Dominic also commented on the actions of the British doctors and nurses who cared for MacSwiney:
‘The doctors and nurses did all they could for him. But the doctors, though forced to admire his heroic fortitude and extraordinary will-power, were unsympathetic, and even hostile as far as the hunger-strike was concerned. They looked on it as a fool’s game. They were frequently a cause of great distress to the Lord Mayor by their lecturing him on the foolishness of his act, and by placing before him the sorrow he would inflict on his wife and family as well as by endeavouring to show him how much more useful he would be “alive and strong after two years to work for Ireland”. “No one”, they used to say, “can see any use or benefit coming from your present act”. This they felt to be their duty."
Gatherings, rallies, and protests in support of the imprisoned Corkman continued throughout September and October.
While many nations appealed to Pope Benedict XV for a Papal Intervention, the Roman Catholic Church was united in its support of MacSwiney's strike. Messages of support and Mass cards, prayers and spiritual support poured in from all over the world whilst hundreds flocked to Brixton and rallied outside the prison on Brixton Hill.
6 September
The British Trade Union Congress, representing six and a half million British workers, held a meeting in Portsmouth where it called for MacSwiney's release and also claimed that if he dies, the labour movement will hold the British government responsible for his death and for the ‘blind stupidity’ of an approach that made reconciliation between Ireland and Britain more difficult to achieve.
The Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, recently issued a statement deeply regretting what he said was Terence MacSwiney’s decision to ‘starve himself’. He insisted that the British government would be sticking to its decision and would not be releasing the Lord Mayor. To do so, he suggested, would require the release of every hunger striker regardless of his offence:
‘If the cabinet, therefore, departed from its decision a complete breakdown of the whole machinery of law and government would inevitably follow. Whatever the consequence, I cannot take that responsibility.’
Outside the Brixton prison gates, several thousand people congregated daily and in Washington D.C., pickets have been held outside the offices of the State Department in support of MacSwiney. In Ireland, alongside the Bishop of Cork and other leading Catholic clerics, the Chief Rabbi of Dublin and Minister of the Dublin Hebrew community has sent a telegram to King George V urging MacSwiney’s release.
In Dunmore, Co Waterford, a regatta was called off at the request of the Mayor of Waterford, in protest at the treatment of the Lord Mayor of Cork. A concert in aid of a Protestant schoolhouse that went ahead was halted when members of the Irish Volunteers interrupted the entertainment and, from the platform, demanded its suspension owing to MacSwiney's condition. The audience promptly left the building.
Le Matin newspaper in Paris, which reproduced two large photographs of MacSwiney and the Lady Mayoress, has alleged that ‘They [the British government] are allowing the struggle between England and Ireland to transform into a moral conflict between England and civilisation.’ This was in keeping with the tenor of much of the French press which afforded extensive and sympathetic coverage of the Lord Mayor’s plight. ‘Public opinion is profoundly moved’, La Liberté reported, ‘by the grandeur of the sacrifice and by the force of will of this voluntary martyr of Brixton prison.’
The Times in London claims that should Terence MacSwiney die, his name, heretofore unknown outside his own city, will ‘take rank with Fitzgerald, with Emmet, and with Tone in the martyrology of Ireland – his memory more eloquent and infinitely more subversive of peace than he himself could ever be.’
Art O’Brien observed during his visit with the Lord Mayor that while practically all life had drained from his body, the ‘vitality of the mind, as shown in the eyes, was a most remarkable contrast … He spoke a few words to me, but, although I bent down to catch what he said, I could only guess at what he meant to convey.’
The British Trade Union Congress, representing six and a half million British workers, held a meeting in Portsmouth where it called for MacSwiney's release and also claimed that if he dies, the labour movement will hold the British government responsible for his death and for the ‘blind stupidity’ of an approach that made reconciliation between Ireland and Britain more difficult to achieve.
The Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, recently issued a statement deeply regretting what he said was Terence MacSwiney’s decision to ‘starve himself’. He insisted that the British government would be sticking to its decision and would not be releasing the Lord Mayor. To do so, he suggested, would require the release of every hunger striker regardless of his offence:
‘If the cabinet, therefore, departed from its decision a complete breakdown of the whole machinery of law and government would inevitably follow. Whatever the consequence, I cannot take that responsibility.’
Outside the Brixton prison gates, several thousand people congregated daily and in Washington D.C., pickets have been held outside the offices of the State Department in support of MacSwiney. In Ireland, alongside the Bishop of Cork and other leading Catholic clerics, the Chief Rabbi of Dublin and Minister of the Dublin Hebrew community has sent a telegram to King George V urging MacSwiney’s release.
In Dunmore, Co Waterford, a regatta was called off at the request of the Mayor of Waterford, in protest at the treatment of the Lord Mayor of Cork. A concert in aid of a Protestant schoolhouse that went ahead was halted when members of the Irish Volunteers interrupted the entertainment and, from the platform, demanded its suspension owing to MacSwiney's condition. The audience promptly left the building.
Le Matin newspaper in Paris, which reproduced two large photographs of MacSwiney and the Lady Mayoress, has alleged that ‘They [the British government] are allowing the struggle between England and Ireland to transform into a moral conflict between England and civilisation.’ This was in keeping with the tenor of much of the French press which afforded extensive and sympathetic coverage of the Lord Mayor’s plight. ‘Public opinion is profoundly moved’, La Liberté reported, ‘by the grandeur of the sacrifice and by the force of will of this voluntary martyr of Brixton prison.’
The Times in London claims that should Terence MacSwiney die, his name, heretofore unknown outside his own city, will ‘take rank with Fitzgerald, with Emmet, and with Tone in the martyrology of Ireland – his memory more eloquent and infinitely more subversive of peace than he himself could ever be.’
Art O’Brien observed during his visit with the Lord Mayor that while practically all life had drained from his body, the ‘vitality of the mind, as shown in the eyes, was a most remarkable contrast … He spoke a few words to me, but, although I bent down to catch what he said, I could only guess at what he meant to convey.’
19 September
The Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney has issued what some are calling a ‘dying message’ to ‘Irish People Throughout the World’. In the statement, released on 19 September, MacSwiney expressed gratitude on his own behalf and on behalf of his fellow prisoners in Cork Gaol for the wonderful support they have received and for the masses and prayers that have been offered up for them. ‘The spiritual assistance afforded us has, I believe, sustained us in a supernatural manner... No natural reason can explain to me why I am, myself, alive. I was brought here after five days’ fast and a 24 hours’ journey in such a state of collapse that it was impossible to forcibly feed me.’
MacSwiney’s statement continued that he and his comrades were ‘singularly privileged in being made the instruments of God for evoking such a world-wide expression of admiration and support for the cause of Irish independence and the recognition of the Irish republic, and if we are to die we are called to even the greater privilege and happiness of entering the devoted company of those who died for Ireland...We forgive all those who are compassing our death. This battle is being fought with a clean heart purely for our country. We have made our peace with God, and bear ill will to no man.’
Reacting to what it has described as a ‘remarkable’ message, the Westminster Gazette reported that it brings home how ‘utterly the government misconceives the real issues’ in MacSwiney’s case. The Evening Standard suggested that as his hunger strike passes 40 days and 40 nights – a period closely associated with his religious beliefs – there may be an attempt on the part of his friends to get him to break his fast on spiritual grounds.
The French press, which has shown tremendous and sustained interest in MacSwiney’s plight, did not share this view. The London representative of Le Petit Parisien has written that the publication of the letter is ‘considered an indication that a fatal issue is approaching’ and if MacSwiney dies, the British government will find itself in a difficult situation.
On 21 September, Annie MacSwiney wrote to a friend that Terence had told her: ‘I never thought it could drag on so long – I am just dying by inches.’
30 September
In a letter to Cathal Brugha, MacSwiney wrote:
"If I die I know the fruit will exceed the cost a thousand fold. The thought of it makes me happy. I thank God for it. Ah, Cathal, the pain of Easter week is properly dead at last."
The pain referred to is understood to be that caused by his failure to partake in the 1916 Easter Rising. Contradictory orders from Dublin and the failure of the arms ship, the Aud, to land arms in Tralee left the Volunteers in Cork unprepared for insurrection. Instead, they heeded Eoin MacNeill's countermand and called off Easter manoeuvres. Only later on Easter Monday did MacSwiney learn of the Rising in Dublin and was haunted by this guilt, resolving to make his own blood sacrifice for Ireland.
2 October
Muriel MacSwiney wrote to Diarmuid & Kathleen Lynch in New York while sitting vigil her husband's bedside in Brixton Prison.
Muriel MacSwiney wrote to Diarmuid & Kathleen Lynch in New York while sitting vigil her husband's bedside in Brixton Prison.
Thanks to Lynch Family Archives. This letter and envelope were heavily faded and almost illegible when copied in 2001 - these have been enhanced & colourised in 2022 to more clearly show the handwriting.
3 Adam St, Strand, London.
A Cairde Díl.
I was very glad indeed to get your cable.
There is very little I can say about Terry. I see him every afternoon but of course we have no conversation. It is a great effort to him to speak at all now & tires him terribly if he does so.
His spirit is something marvellous, of course only for that he would not possibly be alive at all now.
He is in great pain at times & lies always with his eyes closed.
I showed him your cable & he said it was very nice. I know he was pleased to get it.
I have been thinking of you often & often over since the time we were all together in Dundalk. You know I am terrible about writing. I never write to anyone.
page 2:
Terry has just told me to say he was delighted at hearing from you & that he & the others are quite happy whether they die or get out because their victory is theirs against the British government in any case.
Le súil go bhfuileann sibh go h-ana-mhaith, le Graddh, [with hope that you will remain very well, with love]
ó
Muigheal
3 Adam Street, just off the Strand, were the Sinn Fein London offices, headed by Art Ó Bríain. One French journalist, Joseph Kessel, who visited Ó Bríain at Adam Street in September 1920, later spoke about the unusual circumstances under which Ó Bríain operated. Kessel remembered visiting a very busy office with lots of mackintosh-wearing young men hanging about. Serene amid all the clatter of the office, a pipe-smoking Ó Bríain was calmly giving orders, scribbling down messages and answering the telephone, all at the same time. Years later, Kessel said that the fact that the Irish had such an office in London at that time would be akin to the FLN having an office in Paris at the height of the Algerian War. Adam Street quickly became an Irish centre of the metropolitan web of anti-imperial nationalists. Burmese, Catalan and South African representatives all converged on the 'London office' in search of Irish republican support. Significant international relations were developed. Between 1919 and 1920 Ó Briain met with and advised Saad Zaghloul, the Egyptian revolutionary and statesman, in the latter's negotiations with the British government. He also became a close associate of the Indian nationalist and communist Shapurji Saklatvala. Ó Briain also collaborated with Scottish National League leaders William Gillies and Ruaraidh Erskine of Marr. The Dáil had additional diplomatic missions in New York, Washington DC, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Brussels and Geneva, and representation in Genoa, Buenos Aires and Santiago. Roving envoys were also present in Australia, South Africa and the Soviet Union at different stages."
10 October
Day 59 of MacSwiney's strike, a widely-attended ‘Hands-off Ireland!’ protest was held in Trafalgar Square. The following day, a man entered St Paul’s Cathedral and struck William Holman Hunt’s painting ‘The Light of the World’ which hung within. When the police later questioned the vandal, he asserted that he had felt compelled to attack the painting in support of MacSwiney as it portrayed salvation coming to rescue a sinful world. The plight of MacSwiney showed that such salvation was not always as forthcoming as it needed to be.
There was ongoing controversy about how MacSwiney was holding up so long. He was taking water and "medicines", which were mainly salt to remove toxins. His family members - wife, sisters and brothers - who were with him throughout the ordeal, as well as Father Dominic, his chaplain, indignantly rejected press speculation that they were slipping him nourishment.
The prison staff were suspicious of what they called a "tablet" he received daily from Father Dominic dissolved in water but this was clearly a Holy Communion wafer. MacSwiney and his wife, Muriel, had been told early on by a Dr Griffiths that while he would not be forcibly fed, he would be given nourishment whenever he became unconscious. The doctor reported that MacSwiney and his wife agreed that this was a doctor's duty.
But when in his last days, MacSwiney began receiving liquid nourishment while in a delirium, his family described this as "forcible feeding". The prison doctors said that no force was applied and he simply swallowed by reflex action the "Benger's Food, Brandy, orange juice and albulactin (milk albumen) in the drink-water." The doctors' daily reports show, however, that MacSwiney became very upset when, on regaining consciousness, he realised he had been fed. The two MacSwiney sisters, Mary and Annie, were infuriated at what they regarded as a betrayal and the doctors asked that they be kept away from the prisoner.
Le Petit Journal supplément illustré, an issue of the French daily conservative newspaper, Le Petit Journal published on Sunday 19th September 1920 featuring a coloured relief halftone lithograph depicting Terence MacSwiney dying from malnourishment in his prison cell; a monk is praying at his bedside, (the monk is Capuchin Friar Priest, Fr. Dominic O'Connor O.F.M Cap. from the Capuchin Friary of Church of the Holy Trinity, Cork).
Keeping vigil at his bedside along with Fr. Dominic were his wife, Muriel MacSwiney, his brothers, Peter MacSwiney and Sean MacSwiney and his sisters, Mary MacSwiney & Ann MacSwiney. As his wife, brothers and sisters around his bed in Brixton Prison, their vigil was a dreadful one in every way, his family spent every day and night by his side and his wife, sisters and brothers continued to maintain their vigil for six weeks.
Lord Mayor of Cork Alderman Terence MacSwiney, photographed in Brixton Prison, London, shortly before his death from hunger strike on 25th October 1920.
News of his peaceful protest and death reverberated around the world, bringing attention to the cause of Irish independence and influencing independence movements throughout the British Empire. Thanks to the National Museum of Ireland.
Above: this life mask is an early plaster version of the marble sculpture (now in Cork Public Museum) created by artist Albert Power. Power was commissioned by writer and republican Oliver St John Gogarty, and Mary MacSwiney, sister of Terence, organised for Power to visit the dying man on the pretence of being a relative coming to say his last goodbye. Power took measurements of MacSwiney’s face which he later used to create the sculpture, which remained hidden before being smuggled to Cork. Photos thanks to the National Museum of Ireland.
As the days passed, the anger and outpouring of emotion for the Lord Mayor across London was palpable. By the third week of October, MacSwiney’s condition deteriorated severely. By now, there were rumours that the authorities were about to force-feed him or that he had come off his strike early or that the British were planning to quickly dispose of his body if he succumbed. Only the daily bulletins of the ISDL provided an accurate account of what was taking place behind the walls of Brixton Prison.
Over the ensuing days, Terence would waiver in and out of consciousness and become delirious. Sometimes he tried to get out of bed. Sometimes he struggled into a sitting posture. In his emaciated condition, everything was difficult. Insistence by the doctors to take some food led to further delirium of Terence and anger by his family members (brothers Peter and Seán, and sisters Mary and Annie) who visited him and championed his hunger strike position.
Sunday, 17 October 1920: Another Cork hunger striker, Michael Fitzgerald died in prison.
Monday, 18 October 1920 marked the 67th day of Terence MacSwiney’s hunger strike in London’s Brixton Prison.
As his health continued to deteriorate, the end was only days away. In her diary, his sister Anne recalls he was conscious when she was with him from early that morning till lunchtime. Three prison doctors Peddard, Griffith, Hijson visited him at 1pm. They were with him some time, and when they left the room, they spoke to Terence’s wife Muriel. Dr Griffith was adamant that he should take some food. Dr Peddard told her Terence was developing scurvy and should take lime juice to ward it off. Muriel refused to give permission as did other family members.
On 21 October, Terence awoke and asked his sister Annie, who was at his bedside, where he was and why he was there. She answered that he was in Brixton Prison and that he was there “for the Republic.” His face lit up on hearing the news and he replied: “So it is established?” She answered, “Yes.” Following a pause, he turned and said: “Oh, we did grand marching in the night.” Shortly afterwards, he slipped into a coma.
Dr Higson's daily report for 21 October includes the following: "When I saw him in the early morning, though distinctly hostile and reiterating his determination not to take anything but his medicines, he seemed fairly clear mentally. On my return I found him delirious and commenced to have him fed with fruit juice and meat juice. He became very restless necessitating the employment of two male officers to keep him in bed."
[Nine years later in 1930, when a Dr Wolf requested clinical information about MacSwiney's state during the hunger strike, the Home Office refused to co-operate, and there is a note saying the file is to be closed until 2030. "The time has not yet come when the case of McSwiney (sic), which aroused intense feeling only 8 years ago, can be regarded as a mere matter of history." The file note goes on: "The question, for example, which Dr Wolf puts first, namely, whether McSwiney received any food whatsoever during the first 70 days of his fast, is one which could not be answered in such a way as not to be misleading without incurring the risk, if the answer were made public, of reviving bitter controversy. Political expediency, therefore, combines here with the requirements of professional confidence to enjoin silence." It is clear from other parts of the file, however, that the authorities had no evidence that MacSwiney might have been surreptitiously fed by visitors. Nevertheless, the medical journal, the Lancet, which also requested clinical details about the effects of prolonged starvation in December 1920, was refused on the grounds that this case had "no scientific value" as it was "impossible to say whether or not he was receiving food from his friends. They had constant access to him and might have given him food but there is no direct evidence that they did so." ]
Irish and British newspapers such as the Cork Examiner carried news of his ordeal and pictures of family figures and friends of the Republican cause coming and going from the gaol. There is very obvious tiredness and concern in their eyes.
Over the ensuing days, Terence would waiver in and out of consciousness and become delirious. Sometimes he tried to get out of bed. Sometimes he struggled into a sitting posture. In his emaciated condition, everything was difficult. Insistence by the doctors to take some food led to further delirium of Terence and anger by his family members (brothers Peter and Seán, and sisters Mary and Annie) who visited him and championed his hunger strike position.
Sunday, 17 October 1920: Another Cork hunger striker, Michael Fitzgerald died in prison.
Monday, 18 October 1920 marked the 67th day of Terence MacSwiney’s hunger strike in London’s Brixton Prison.
As his health continued to deteriorate, the end was only days away. In her diary, his sister Anne recalls he was conscious when she was with him from early that morning till lunchtime. Three prison doctors Peddard, Griffith, Hijson visited him at 1pm. They were with him some time, and when they left the room, they spoke to Terence’s wife Muriel. Dr Griffith was adamant that he should take some food. Dr Peddard told her Terence was developing scurvy and should take lime juice to ward it off. Muriel refused to give permission as did other family members.
On 21 October, Terence awoke and asked his sister Annie, who was at his bedside, where he was and why he was there. She answered that he was in Brixton Prison and that he was there “for the Republic.” His face lit up on hearing the news and he replied: “So it is established?” She answered, “Yes.” Following a pause, he turned and said: “Oh, we did grand marching in the night.” Shortly afterwards, he slipped into a coma.
Dr Higson's daily report for 21 October includes the following: "When I saw him in the early morning, though distinctly hostile and reiterating his determination not to take anything but his medicines, he seemed fairly clear mentally. On my return I found him delirious and commenced to have him fed with fruit juice and meat juice. He became very restless necessitating the employment of two male officers to keep him in bed."
[Nine years later in 1930, when a Dr Wolf requested clinical information about MacSwiney's state during the hunger strike, the Home Office refused to co-operate, and there is a note saying the file is to be closed until 2030. "The time has not yet come when the case of McSwiney (sic), which aroused intense feeling only 8 years ago, can be regarded as a mere matter of history." The file note goes on: "The question, for example, which Dr Wolf puts first, namely, whether McSwiney received any food whatsoever during the first 70 days of his fast, is one which could not be answered in such a way as not to be misleading without incurring the risk, if the answer were made public, of reviving bitter controversy. Political expediency, therefore, combines here with the requirements of professional confidence to enjoin silence." It is clear from other parts of the file, however, that the authorities had no evidence that MacSwiney might have been surreptitiously fed by visitors. Nevertheless, the medical journal, the Lancet, which also requested clinical details about the effects of prolonged starvation in December 1920, was refused on the grounds that this case had "no scientific value" as it was "impossible to say whether or not he was receiving food from his friends. They had constant access to him and might have given him food but there is no direct evidence that they did so." ]
Irish and British newspapers such as the Cork Examiner carried news of his ordeal and pictures of family figures and friends of the Republican cause coming and going from the gaol. There is very obvious tiredness and concern in their eyes.
An image taken from the ‘Daily Graphic’ newspaper on 26 October 1920. The caption accompanying the photograph reads: ‘Mrs Muriel MacSwiney, widow of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, leaving Brixton Prison for the last time before her husband’s death, which occurred yesterday, the 74th day of his hunger strike. For weeks past she had visited daily and done all that a devoted wife could do for a doomed husband. They had been married for three years. Mrs MacSwiney is also seen with their baby daughter, aged a year and 8 months’.
At 5.40 am on Monday, October 25, on day 74 of his hunger strike, Terence MacSwiney passed away.
Dr. Griffiths, the Prison Doctor in his final report wrote that "In my opinion on the advent of the scurvy a definite change took place in the patient's already debilitated condition and was probably responsible for the acute mental symptoms. It was in the state of acute delirium that the patient's heart became dilated and the immediate cause of death was heart failure."
Anne again in her diary tried to capture the immediate aftermath of his death, the emotion of family members with him as he passed, the grief, the confusion but above all, their anger at Westminster’s Home Office and the policing authorities.
Fr. Dominic saw to it that MacSwiney was laid out in his Volunteer uniform to honour his dying words, but also made sure that underneath his soldier's tunic, he was robed in the habit of St. Francis, (the Third Order of St Francis),a rough brown habit of a Franciscan monk. After Fr. Dominic had completed the dressing and reciting of prayers for the dead, he released the following statement to the press in a notice attached to the prison entrance:
Having sat by Terence's side through his ordeal, his sisters Mary MacSwiney and Annie were denied entry to see him in his final days. This letter was written by Father Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap., Chaplain at Brixton Prison, three hours after Terence died, informing the MacSwiney sisters that their beloved brother had 'completed his sacrifice for Ireland'. Thanks to University College Dublin Archives.
UCDA P48b/111 Papers of Mary MacSwiney.
"The Lord Mayor completed his sacrifice for Ireland at 5.40 this morning. Sean and myself present. Inform Bishop of Cork agus Ceann Feadhma [Heads of Operations, possibly leaders of the Volunteers in this context]. Respectfully request my fellow citizens to maintain the same calm, dignified and noble bearing as on occasion of Tomás MacCurtain. Deepest sympathy to his friends and fellow-citizens and fellow-soldiers. No vain regrets, but fervent prayers. No useless sighs, but stern resolve to emulate his patient and heroic endurance in bearing in all that God requires of us in establishing the Republic on a firm basis. May his noble spirit be with us always to guide and guard us. Ar dehis Dé go raibh a anam."
Fr. Dominic next sent a telegram to Donal O'Callaghan, the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork:
"The Lord Mayor completed his sacrifice for Ireland at 5.40 this morning. Sean and myself present. Inform Bishop of Cork agus Ceann Feadhma [Heads of Operations, possibly leaders of the Volunteers in this context]. Respectfully request my fellow citizens to maintain the same calm, dignified and noble bearing as on occasion of Tomás MacCurtain. Deepest sympathy to his friends and fellow-citizens and fellow-soldiers. No vain regrets, but fervent prayers. No useless sighs, but stern resolve to emulate his patient and heroic endurance in bearing in all that God requires of us in establishing the Republic on a firm basis. May his noble spirit be with us always to guide and guard us. Ar dehis Dé go raibh a anam."
A short few hours after his death, MacSwiney's inquest was fixed for 11 am.
Inquest
Terence’s wife Muriel was served with a notice by the prison authorities to appear to identify the body and to attend the inquest, but the policing authorities seemed rather anxious that she should not appear. Defiant but traumatised, she walked past the plethora of photographers at the prison gate, appeared in a dark veil and answered in short sentences to the questions before Coroner Dr G P Wyatt and the sworn in jury from the Brixton area. Present also were the MacSwiney siblings as well as Fr Dominic, Florence McCarthy (Town Clerk of Cork, William Hegarty (Lord Mayor’s secretary), and Donal J Galvin (Cork City Solicitor).
Muriel became animated when asked as to MacSwiney's ocupation, she described that her husband Terence was a soldier of the Irish Republican Army and that his occupation was to work for his country. Muriel insisted her husband did not wish to die and so his passing should not be ruled suicide. Dr Griffiths, Brixton prison’s senior medial officer, reported that MacSwiney often stated he “would get out of prison alive or dead” and that, if released, he would agree to take food.
Later in his summing up to the jury, the Coroner asked of the jury three questions: Did MacSwiney deliberately take his own life?
Did refusing food unbalance his mind that he was not clearly thinking? Or was he hoping that the hunger strike would lead to his release?
The verdict of the inquest jury read: “The deceased died from heart failure consequent upon his refusal to take food”.
Release of the body to the MacSwiney family
When the inquest was over, Mr James Heyman McDonnell, the family solicitor, asked for the certificate that would give Terence’s body into the family’s keeping. The family's greatest fear was that the authorities would bury MacSwiney within the prison grounds, in un-consecrated British prison soil and preventing family & mourners from visiting his grave.
The British government on the other hand was determined to avoid large demonstrations when the body was handed over to relatives. This issue had been discussed at senior levels as early as September 1920 with Dublin Castle adamant that the body was not to be paraded through Dublin before going on to Cork for burial.
Home Office files released in 2003 files show that the government had planned to delay the hand-over to the relatives until the body had been surreptitiously transported to Cork by naval vessel. To that end, the government expected an inquest verdict of suicide, which would have then resulted in the Coroner ordering burial somewhere in England under legislation at that time.
However, even though the jury had simply given the cause of death with no verdict of suicide, the Coroner remained adamant that he had no power to give release of MacSwiney's body for burial outside of England. When Hayman McDonnell next requested that the body be released to the clergy of Southwark Cathederal, this too was refused by the Coroner.
Eventually, it was decided that Muriel and Art O’Brien should then immediately go to the British Home Office and ask for an explanation and to formally release the body to the MacSwiney family as the government had no legal basis to refuse.
Art was the envoy of Dáil Éireann in Britain (since 1919) and was also a leading figure in organising campaigns for the release of Irish political prisoners held in Britain and in orchestrating the publicity campaign surrounding the hunger-strike of Terence.
At the home office, Mr McDonnell was informed by officials that a British government vessel would be placed at the family’s disposal, free of all expense, and every facility offered, provided that they went straight to Cork.
Muriel was quite upset by this political call, wishing for her husband to get a national commemoration in Dublin.
Going straight to Mr Edward Shortt, English Secretary of State for Home Affairs, she made her case and asked for her husband’s body without restrictions. Shortt advised that the request would be considered and a reply be made early the following day, on October 26.
Meanwhile in Cork, by early morning the streets were filled with people who wore Republican rosettes with black crepe. The Municipal and Harbour Board flags flew at half-mast, and most of the city’s establishments had their premises partly shuttered.
Most of the ships in the harbour had their flags at half-mast. All public functions in the city and county were cancelled, and theatres and other such amusement spaces closed.
A special meeting of Cork Corporation was convened where councillors expressed their condolences and raw emotion at losing the City’s Lord Mayor. The Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor Donal Óg O’Callaghan issued a defiant statement, decrying that despite Terence’s death, the merit of Republicanism will still linger and pass on:
“The only message that I on behalf of the Republicans of Cork give today over the corpse of the late Lord Mayor is that Cork has definitely yielded its allegiance to the Republic, that the people of Cork will continue that allegiance unswervingly and that those of us who man the Municipal Council will attempt as far as us lies to follow the noble and glorious lead of the two martyred Republican Magistrates....The Republican hold on the Municipal Chair of Cork ceases only when the last Republican in Cork has followed Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney into the Grave. Death will not terrorise us”.
In Milan that night, La Scala remained closed because Irish soprano Margaret Burke-Sheridan felt unable to perform.
In New York, a group of Irish-American actresses led by Eileen Curran blagged their way on to the docks and persuaded 2,000 longshoremen (including a huge number of African-Americans) to down tools and to stop unloading ships in what the city's newspapers dubbed "The Irish Patriotic Strike". After briefly creating havoc for the Cunard and Red Star lines, and causing copycat protests to break out on the waterfronts of Boston and New Jersey, the women sent a cable to Lloyd George in Downing Street.
“The sound of death in the throat of Terence MacSwiney is the death knell of your adventure in Ireland,” they warned. “We hear the bells tolling. The people are gathering. Oil your tanks, polish up your guns.”
The South Australian Labour Congress passed a resolution protesting his imprisonment and urging immediate release "in the interests of humanity and justice". In Rome, Benito Mussolini described the hunger strike as "Uno stoicismso superbo", even as Irish clerics at the Vatican campaigned feverishly and, ultimately in vain, to get Pope Benedict XV to speak out on MacSwiney's behalf.
In Buenos Aires, an expatriate organisation called Circulo Irlandez (Irish Circle) planned a more violent show of support, getting caught plotting to blow up the Edifico Britanico, a building occupied by the British Legation, the Royal Wheat Commission, and the Royal Mail.
In Paris, such was the demand for information that one theatre actually issued updates about MacSwiney's physical condition in between acts each night.
On the same day in Cork Jail, 25 year old Joe Murphy died in the 76th day of his hunger strike.
Murphy joined the Irish Volunteers in 1917 and became a Volunteer in C Company, Second Battalion, Cork No.1 Brigade of which he was an active member. Murphy was arrested by British forces on 15 July 1920 for being in possession of a dud bomb used for throwing practice and was imprisoned in Cork County Gaol. He faced a Military Tribunal but was not convicted or sentenced for any crime but was returned to Cork Gaol. On 11 August 1920 Murphy joined a large group of prisoners at the gaol on a hunger strike in conjunction with the Lord Mayor of Cork Terence McSwiney. Another Cork hunger striker Michael Fitzgerald died eight days before Murphy - 17 October 1920. Murphy was buried in the republican plot at St. Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork with full military honours. |
Muriel MacSwiney's insistence & persistence succeeded as eventually Home Secretary Shortt sent a special message expressing his view and regret at any delay, and assuring her that he merely wished to find out how he stood and expressing the perspective that he was not sure of his legal powers. He had attended the Home Office and got clearance to have Terence’s body handed over to the family without restrictions and permitted the MacSwiney family to take the body to the Catholic St George’s Cathedral in Southwark, under the guidance of Bishop Peter Amigo.
Bishop Amigo had campaigned on MacSwiney’s behalf throughout his hunger strike, writing to politicians at Westminster petitioning his release. In a telegram to prime minister David Lloyd George on September 5th, Bishop Amigo warned: “Resentment will be very bitter if he is allowed to die.” Yet some in Amigo’s own diocese thought he meddled far too much in Irish affairs, with one anonymous author telegramming: “English Bishops, English Priests for English people”. By contrast, Cardinal Francis Bourne, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and head of the English and Welsh Catholic Church, did not publicly comment and privately argued a hunger strike to the death was suicide.
Bishop Amigo granted the MacSwiney family request for use of the cathedral, despite the British government urging otherwise. The bishop pointed out to Downing Street & the Home Office that the Lord Mayor was a Catholic, had died in his diocese and so was quite entitled to the services of his church, irrespective of his political beliefs.
The Daily Herald recorded, “He has won immortality. His name will remain an inspiration to all that come after him.” The same article branded the British Government “liars” and “brutes” and predicted that “the children’s children will remember them with horror”.
The Irish republican, Seán McGrath, later remarked that MacSwiney’s death was the first time he had seen Michael Collins “really upset” and that Collins had immediately “talked then about shooting in England.” It was no coincidence that the hunger-strike protest had resulted in the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, being issued with a personal bodyguard for the first time. As he confided to his wife, “[the] police are convinced that if he [MacSwiney] dies the Irish will try to kill me.”
However, Art O’Brien and the leadership of the ISDL were fully aware of the significant impact that a carefully managed and choreographed funeral procession could have on both public opinion and the cause of the Republic. The sight of a republican funeral in the belly of the beast itself – London – offered additional prospect and potential for international propaganda.
After the inquest had been completed, Terence MacSwiney's body was finally handed over to his family for burial. Preparations were arranged for removal of remains from Brixton Prison to the Church, the preparer for the removal of the remains from Brixton Prison to the Church and coffin supplier were Stanley Clare & Son, undertakers, Brixton. Meanwhile in Cork, Richard Cronin & Sons, undertakers were tasked with organizing the Funeral Mass at the North Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne, along with the funeral ceremony and obsequies in Ireland, once the body would return to Cork on October 31st.
Very few observers have considered the human trauma, stress and acute loneliness of the young widowed mother, Muriel MacSwiney. Nor did they empathise with her personal reaction to her husband’s slow painful death over 74 days, the enormous impact of which was such that Muriel collapsed from sheer exhaustion and grief and was unable to attend the funeral in London.
Bishop Amigo had campaigned on MacSwiney’s behalf throughout his hunger strike, writing to politicians at Westminster petitioning his release. In a telegram to prime minister David Lloyd George on September 5th, Bishop Amigo warned: “Resentment will be very bitter if he is allowed to die.” Yet some in Amigo’s own diocese thought he meddled far too much in Irish affairs, with one anonymous author telegramming: “English Bishops, English Priests for English people”. By contrast, Cardinal Francis Bourne, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster and head of the English and Welsh Catholic Church, did not publicly comment and privately argued a hunger strike to the death was suicide.
Bishop Amigo granted the MacSwiney family request for use of the cathedral, despite the British government urging otherwise. The bishop pointed out to Downing Street & the Home Office that the Lord Mayor was a Catholic, had died in his diocese and so was quite entitled to the services of his church, irrespective of his political beliefs.
The Daily Herald recorded, “He has won immortality. His name will remain an inspiration to all that come after him.” The same article branded the British Government “liars” and “brutes” and predicted that “the children’s children will remember them with horror”.
The Irish republican, Seán McGrath, later remarked that MacSwiney’s death was the first time he had seen Michael Collins “really upset” and that Collins had immediately “talked then about shooting in England.” It was no coincidence that the hunger-strike protest had resulted in the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, being issued with a personal bodyguard for the first time. As he confided to his wife, “[the] police are convinced that if he [MacSwiney] dies the Irish will try to kill me.”
However, Art O’Brien and the leadership of the ISDL were fully aware of the significant impact that a carefully managed and choreographed funeral procession could have on both public opinion and the cause of the Republic. The sight of a republican funeral in the belly of the beast itself – London – offered additional prospect and potential for international propaganda.
After the inquest had been completed, Terence MacSwiney's body was finally handed over to his family for burial. Preparations were arranged for removal of remains from Brixton Prison to the Church, the preparer for the removal of the remains from Brixton Prison to the Church and coffin supplier were Stanley Clare & Son, undertakers, Brixton. Meanwhile in Cork, Richard Cronin & Sons, undertakers were tasked with organizing the Funeral Mass at the North Cathedral of St. Mary and St. Anne, along with the funeral ceremony and obsequies in Ireland, once the body would return to Cork on October 31st.
Very few observers have considered the human trauma, stress and acute loneliness of the young widowed mother, Muriel MacSwiney. Nor did they empathise with her personal reaction to her husband’s slow painful death over 74 days, the enormous impact of which was such that Muriel collapsed from sheer exhaustion and grief and was unable to attend the funeral in London.
Fr. Dominic wrote chillingly and poignantly of the slow and painful death of MacSwiney: "His sufferings, no pen could write. But he never complained, never flinched. He knew he was risking a slow, lingering death, and he was ready for it. He even thanked God for giving him the chance of a long preparation for death. I joined him, in Brixton Jail, as a friend, as his chaplain. But 'twas as a brother, a fellow-child of St. Francis that I bade farewell to him and sent him to meet Tomas and Eoghan Ruadh and Joan of Arc, in the company of the saint and soldier, the gentle Francis of Assisi".
MacSwiney's body was finally removed from Brixton Prison on the first stage of the journey to St. Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork.
About seven o'clock on the evening of October 27th, the Lord Mayor's coffin was carried out of the gates of Brixton Prison on the shoulders of six Irish political prisoners who happened to be in Brixton at the time. Acting under the orders of their officer, they laid the coffin in the horse drawn hearse, covered it with the Tricolour, saluted, and marched back behind the iron gates, and from there watched the hearse leave the prison.
An I.R.A. detachment escorted the Lord Mayor from Brixton to St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral followed by cars containing members of Cork Corporation, Cork Harbour Commissioners and the MacSwiney Family.
Huge crowds lined the streets of London for the removal procession. The Cathedral was already filled with about five thousand people, waiting for the funeral to arrive, and saying the Rosary and other prayers.
The removal procession arrived at the Cathedral where the remains were received by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Peter Emmanuel Amigo, along with the assistance of several Irish & British Catholic bishops and priests.
The coffin was shouldered into the church by six members of Cork Corporation. A 21-member delegation had travelled to London with members of the Cork Harbour Board to accompany their mayor home. The coffin on its catafalque was ringed by the Volunteers forming a sentry over their colleague for the night as thousands filed past until the church closed at 11pm.
On the coffin was an Irish inscription, which translated as “Murdered by the Foreigner in Brixton Prison, London, England on October 25th 1920. The fourth year of the Republic. Aged 40 years. God have mercy on his soul”.
MacSwiney's body was finally removed from Brixton Prison on the first stage of the journey to St. Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork.
About seven o'clock on the evening of October 27th, the Lord Mayor's coffin was carried out of the gates of Brixton Prison on the shoulders of six Irish political prisoners who happened to be in Brixton at the time. Acting under the orders of their officer, they laid the coffin in the horse drawn hearse, covered it with the Tricolour, saluted, and marched back behind the iron gates, and from there watched the hearse leave the prison.
An I.R.A. detachment escorted the Lord Mayor from Brixton to St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral followed by cars containing members of Cork Corporation, Cork Harbour Commissioners and the MacSwiney Family.
Huge crowds lined the streets of London for the removal procession. The Cathedral was already filled with about five thousand people, waiting for the funeral to arrive, and saying the Rosary and other prayers.
The removal procession arrived at the Cathedral where the remains were received by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Southwark, Dr. Peter Emmanuel Amigo, along with the assistance of several Irish & British Catholic bishops and priests.
The coffin was shouldered into the church by six members of Cork Corporation. A 21-member delegation had travelled to London with members of the Cork Harbour Board to accompany their mayor home. The coffin on its catafalque was ringed by the Volunteers forming a sentry over their colleague for the night as thousands filed past until the church closed at 11pm.
On the coffin was an Irish inscription, which translated as “Murdered by the Foreigner in Brixton Prison, London, England on October 25th 1920. The fourth year of the Republic. Aged 40 years. God have mercy on his soul”.
News of the death has made headlines across the world, but has been met with particular sorrow in the city of which he was Lord Mayor.
An editorial in the Cork Examiner paid tribute to MacSwiney's heroic sacrifice, while noting:
‘An eulogy is not necessary for one who has been tested and found true to his country, and no one – not even Terence MacSwiney’s gaolers – can allege that a man who cherished a principle greater than he esteemed his life, was unworthy of the freedom he sought to win for Ireland. He has died, as many Irishmen before him have died, to win liberty for a small nation – he has made the supreme sacrifice to hasten the coming of Irish freedom. Such sacrifices as his cannot be in vain.’
In a message to the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, Dónal Ó Ceallacháin, Fr Dominic requested that his fellow citizens exhibit the same calm and dignified bearing as they had after the assassination of Tomás Mac Curtain earlier in the year.
Mourners in Boston, Chicago, Melbourne, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Manchester held symbolic, mock funerals with empty caskets.
Cork Examiner editorial - published 27 October 1920
A patriot, his sacrifice was as noble as his life was pure
BY the death of Lord Mayor MacSwiney, Ireland has lost another of her most patriotic and noble-spirited sons, and Cork its leading citizen.
His demise, under such terrible and tragic circumstances, has cast gloom throughout the length and breadth of the country, as well as in many distant lands in which many Irishmen and women at present reside.
Lord Mayor MacSwiney made the great sacrifice: He gave his life for Ireland and the cause of the freedom of his country. From an early day, he demonstrated his love of country and his desire to forward her interests by every means in his power, and throughout his life, he never failed to work in that noble and patriotic direction.
Following a brilliant scholastic and university career, during which he obtained, with honours, the Bachelor of Arts degree, he devoted a number of years to the educational training of the youth of the country, and in this important capacity, his efforts proved eminently successful.
He was a brilliant educationalist, and his great abilities were ever placed at the disposal of the numerous students who came under his tuition. He was possessed of a magnetic personality, but it was as one of the pioneers of the Sinn Féin movement in the South that his great worth as one of Ireland most self-sacrificing sons became apparent.
The movement had a small beginning, but his Lordship persevered in most determined fashion, and even when it had reached the height of its power throughout the country, he never ceased his labours.
Up to the time of his death, he was a vigorous worker in the cause of Ireland. By means of manuscript journals, to which he was a regular contributor, he accomplished a great deal of useful propaganda work for the movement with which he was identified.
He was also a most valuable asset to the work of the Irish Literary Society, the Gaelic League, and Cork Industrial Development Association, and he laboured in most untiring fashion for the advancement of those well-known organisations.
A fluent Irish speaker, a dramatist, and an ardent supporter of industrial revival, he was of most invaluable assistance to those movements. It was, however, in the Volunteer movement, in which he held a most important and responsible post, that he was best known.
He was deeply interested in the Volunteers and it was mainly through his exertions that that movement, so far as the South of Ireland was concerned, was brought to such a state of perfection. During the course of his organisational work on behalf of the Volunteers, he was subjected to some police prosecutions and, later, following the rebellion of Easter Week 1916, he, with numerous other Irish men from all parts of Ireland, was arrested and interned.
He spent terms of imprisonment in Richmond Barracks, Wakefield Prison, Frongoch Prison, and other jails, both in England and Ireland, but he never wavered in his allegiance to his principles, and on each occasion that he was released he was as determined and as energetic as ever in Ireland’s work.
During 1918, he again underwent terms of imprisonment in England and Ireland. At the general election, he was nominated as parliamentary representative for the Mid-Cork constituency, and secured an unopposed return, while at the Cork Municipal elections, he was a candidate in the Central Area, and was elected Councillor, having obtained a very large number of votes.
In public life, his abilities were soon recognised and appreciated. His efforts were mainly directed towards the reconstruction of the administration of public affairs, and with the late Lord Mayor MacCurtain, he was instrumental in accomplishing many reforms, not alone in the Corporation, but in many of the local institutions with which he was identified, and there can be no doubt if his life had been spared, that he would have successfully completed beneficial work to his credit in public life.
He was undoubtedly a most useful public representative. Following the murder of Lord Mayor MacCurtain, he was unanimously chosen by the Corporation to fill the vacancy. It was an appointment that met with the approval of all creeds and classes in Cork.
From the moment of his election, Lord Mayor MacSwiney was most indefatigable in the performance of the onerous duties connected with that high court. His great energy and determination, coupled with his absolute impartiality and his lovable and kindly disposition, gained for him the respect and esteem of every member of the Town Council, and under his able guidance Corporate affairs were conducted with a thoroughness that it would be impossible to excel.
It was at a moment when that work was being carried out in such a successful manner that Lord Mayor MacSwiney was again arrested. A party of armed military visited the City Hall and took his Lordship into custody.
The events associated with that military visit created a great sensation throughout the city, as well as many parts of the country, but no one realised the terrible tragedy that was to follow.
As a protest against his arrest and detention, Lord Mayor MacSwiney went on hunger strike. While indulging in such a protest, he was tried by District Court-martial at Victoria Barracks, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
He was then subjected to great cruelty, as, after having been without food for several days, he was removed in a state of great weakness from Cork Gaol, placed on board a Government sloop, and taken across by sea to Penzance, and cast into Brixton Prison.
His determination to continue his protest, however, never changed. An idea of his great willpower can be obtained from the words that he uttered on the occasion of his election as Lord Mayor, and also when he was tried by court-martial.
On the first-mentioned occasion, he said: “It is not to those who can inflict the most, but to those who can suffer the most that the victory will be”; and at the court-martial, he declared: “I have decided the term of my detention, whatever your Government may do, I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month.”
These were noble sentiments that many may feel, that all must admire, but that few, other than the late Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne, could live up to. He spoke them and acted them, and while the city throbbed with anxiety throughout the prolonged, anguishing days that he lay in Brixton Prison breathing to the last his determination, his love for his colleagues, and steadfastness to a great principle, it now mourns with sincerity the premature death of as pure-souled an Irishman as ever lived.
The days of his grand struggle will be forever an inspiring memory, and not the least impelling thought will be the recollection of his gentle, but firm, turning down of admirers who urged him by letter to desist from the strike — in fact, he ordered that letters to this character be not delivered to him.
He passed away, surrounded with all the affection of his dear relatives and the esteem of the highest representatives, clerical and lay, of not only Cork but other parts of Ireland.
His visitors each day were his widow, the Lady Mayoress: his sisters, the Misses MacSwiney, and his brothers, Messrs Sean MacSwiney and Peter J MacSwiney, and his chaplain Rev Father Dominic, OSFC, who administered to him during the final stages and gave him the strengthening comfort of the Sacraments.
Other anxious visitors were his Lordship Most Rev Dr Cohalan, Bishop of Cork; his Lordship Most Rev Dr Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe; his Grace Archbishop Mannix, Ald De Roiste, MP, Professor Stocklet, etc.
Lord Mayor MacSwiney’s sacrifice was as noble as his life was pure and his work unselfish.
May be rest in peace in the fervent prayer of the whole Irish nation, and particularly of his loved native city.
Irish Examiner’ archives. Original article published October 1920.
When the doors of St. George's Cathedral re-opened at seven the next morning, queues that had built up overnight continued to pass by the bier. In total, an estimated 30,000 people saw the Lord Mayor lying-in-state in London. A guard of honour around his coffin was maintained throughout the day and night, manned by relays of Irish Volunteers from Cork, Dublin, and London Battalions.
Mass was fixed for 11 am, which was a ticketed affair. The crowds attempting to gain entry was so great that the Police had to link arms to prevent those without tickets from pushing their way in. Shortly before the funeral service began, six men wearing long raincoats presented their tickets to the policemen and once inside took their coats off to reveal the green unformed members of the IRA. They replaced their colleagues as the honour guard by the coffin. Muriel was too sick to attend or to travel back to Ireland. Two of Terence’s sisters Margaret and Kit, both nuns, could not travel home from America or Tokyo.
In attendance were representatives from Dáil Éireann, Cork Corporation, Dublin Corporation, the British Trades Union Congress, the British Labour Party, and of nearly every Irish association and organisation across Britain. The Mayors of Fulham, Battersea, Camberwell, Southwark, and Stepney were also present. The Mayor of Stepney was none other than future British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who was dressed in his British Army Major uniform. As the Irish republican and international statesman Seán MacBride later lamented, “I’m only sorry that the impression didn’t alter his politics when it came to dealing with Ireland later on.”
The size and stature of the Requiem Mass in St George’s was so impressive that newspapers could only draw a comparison to the funeral of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, eight years prior in 1912.
Bishop William Cotter of Portsmouth gave the Solemn Requiem with Bishop Amigo, Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne, and Archbishop Anselm Kennealy of Simla, India, in attendance.
(The Charleville, Co. Cork born Archibishop Mannix of Melbourne had travelled to Ireland from New York in August 1920 after a successful if controversial speaking tour of the United States. But while at sea close to the Irish Coast, three Royal Navy destroyers halted his ship, RMS Baltic, boarded by detectives and issued Mannix with a prohibition order from landing in Ireland in addition to banning him from visiting Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow, and transferred him directly to the nearest land point, a remote quayside some six miles from Penzance in Cornwall. The British scored a figurative own-goal in essentially hijacking Archbishop Mannix off the Baltic and then essentially dumping him in Penzance. The landing attracted considerable press attention, and the archbishop seemed to enjoy his notoriety : I have had a good deal of amusement out of it all,” he told reporters in London next day. “Since the Battle of Jutland,” he facetiously said, “the British navy has not scored a victory comparable with the chasing of the liner Baltic from the Irish coast and capturing without the loss of a single British sailor of the Archbishop of Melbourne.”)
Mass was fixed for 11 am, which was a ticketed affair. The crowds attempting to gain entry was so great that the Police had to link arms to prevent those without tickets from pushing their way in. Shortly before the funeral service began, six men wearing long raincoats presented their tickets to the policemen and once inside took their coats off to reveal the green unformed members of the IRA. They replaced their colleagues as the honour guard by the coffin. Muriel was too sick to attend or to travel back to Ireland. Two of Terence’s sisters Margaret and Kit, both nuns, could not travel home from America or Tokyo.
In attendance were representatives from Dáil Éireann, Cork Corporation, Dublin Corporation, the British Trades Union Congress, the British Labour Party, and of nearly every Irish association and organisation across Britain. The Mayors of Fulham, Battersea, Camberwell, Southwark, and Stepney were also present. The Mayor of Stepney was none other than future British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who was dressed in his British Army Major uniform. As the Irish republican and international statesman Seán MacBride later lamented, “I’m only sorry that the impression didn’t alter his politics when it came to dealing with Ireland later on.”
The size and stature of the Requiem Mass in St George’s was so impressive that newspapers could only draw a comparison to the funeral of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, eight years prior in 1912.
Bishop William Cotter of Portsmouth gave the Solemn Requiem with Bishop Amigo, Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne, and Archbishop Anselm Kennealy of Simla, India, in attendance.
(The Charleville, Co. Cork born Archibishop Mannix of Melbourne had travelled to Ireland from New York in August 1920 after a successful if controversial speaking tour of the United States. But while at sea close to the Irish Coast, three Royal Navy destroyers halted his ship, RMS Baltic, boarded by detectives and issued Mannix with a prohibition order from landing in Ireland in addition to banning him from visiting Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow, and transferred him directly to the nearest land point, a remote quayside some six miles from Penzance in Cornwall. The British scored a figurative own-goal in essentially hijacking Archbishop Mannix off the Baltic and then essentially dumping him in Penzance. The landing attracted considerable press attention, and the archbishop seemed to enjoy his notoriety : I have had a good deal of amusement out of it all,” he told reporters in London next day. “Since the Battle of Jutland,” he facetiously said, “the British navy has not scored a victory comparable with the chasing of the liner Baltic from the Irish coast and capturing without the loss of a single British sailor of the Archbishop of Melbourne.”)
Admission ticket owned by T.J.Murphy, a Cork City merchant and member of the Cork Harbour Board. With thanks to his Grandson, Colm O'Sullivan.
The notification of the Mass and lying-in-state of McSweeney at St George’s Cathedral. Turned out in quick time by East London Printing Co., suggestive of advance preparations by Irish community, despite authorities’ efforts to suppress displays of support for Irish independence. Thanks to Niall Murray
Southwark Cathedral London 1920
(Terence MacSwiney)
Date
1920
Artist
Sir John Lavery
Medium
Oil on canvas. “In this painted sketch Sir John Lavery (1856-1941), who later hosted the Anglo-Irish Treaty delegates at his London home in 1921, depicts the procession following MacSwiney’s requiem mass. The artist’s handling of light and shade in the cavernous cathedral space is deliberately dramatic: the shafts of sunlight emphasising the crimson vestments of the clergy and the green, white, and orange of the Irish tricolour draped over MacSwiney’s coffin. Observant viewers will notice that the artist has taken some licence by having sunlight streaming from the north windows, rather than the south. The effect, however, is both solemn and heroic.” The cathederal was completely gutted by Luftwaffe bombing during the London Blitz on 16 April 1941. Rebuilt and re-dedicated in 1958.
The journey of Terence MacSwiney's remains through London on 28 October was a magnificent but sombre spectacle.
Following a Requiem Mass in St George’s Cathedral, thousands of sympathisers lined the route to Euston Station to where the large procession, stretching for more than a mile and led by Archbishop Mannix, made its slow progress.
The Daily Herald described the event:
"...The vast throng of marchers, Irish residents in England, first women of Cumann na mBan, of all classes, but one spirit… After them were members, hundreds after hundreds, of the Irish Self-Determination League. Each of the 27 London branches had their banner… Thousands of ordinary men and women, most of them very poor… And the English crowd that poured out of the sordid streets of South London were quiet too. Sight-seeing perhaps, but not in a sight-seeing mood, moved by death, moved by heroism, and moved by the spectacle of those many marches. And nowhere a sneer or a laugh; for these were the Commons of England and not the House of Commons..."
Once the procession reached Blackfriars Bridge, spectators were packed five rows deep on either side. Many had been waiting for hours just to see the procession pass by. Policemen stewarding the crowds along the route wore black gloves as a sign of respect and some were even reported to have formally saluted the cortège as it passed.
Foreign correspondents would later report amazement that the flag and uniform of a revolutionary army at war with Britain openly paraded through the city centre of London. As Gladys Ní Eidhin of the London branch of the Gaelic League later wrote, “it was strange to feel that we were following our dead through the enemy city.”
The Morning Post, a Tory-aligned newspaper, observed that the MacSwiney funeral procession through London had exposed the hollowness of Sinn Féin’s claim that they suffered under a ‘ruthless British tyranny’, for in what other country in the world would such a demonstration be possible? Instead of being a victim, the Morning Post claimed, Ireland appeared as the ‘spoilt child of an illimitable indulgence’.
However, here in Ireland, even the Irish Times, though opposed to MacSwiney's ideals, has acknowledged that all shades of Irish opinion should respect his sacrifice. ‘He was a brave man who, for the faith that was in him, endured a terrible ordeal with dignity and patience. He willed his own death, but willed it unselfishly for a cause which he held to be worth the process. We maintain that the end did not justify the means’.
The Cork Examiner has claimed that there was no need to eulogise someone who had been ‘tested and found true to his country’. The Examiner stated that the name Terence MacSwiney will go down as a devoted champion of Ireland’s liberty, and as such he will be remembered and his memory revered. ‘Outside Ireland, in lands where free men dwell, the story of his heroic fight against overwhelming odds, of his determination not to yield while life was his – has been followed with the most profound sympathy.’
The plight of the hunger striking Lord Mayor has been closely followed in the international press during recent months and his death has been widely reported. In France, where coverage has been generally sympathetic towards MacSwiney throughout his imprisonment, there has been widespread criticism of the English government. Le Bonsoir has accused the government of being more kindly disposed to the Germans than to the Lord Mayor of Cork, while Le Radical states that whatever one makes of MacSwiney’s act from a political point of view ‘there is no one with a heart but must bow before such a profession of patriotic faith, such a heroism of sacrifice.
Tens of thousands followed Archbishop Mannix as he led the funeral procession from the cathedral to Euston railway station, where a train would take MacSwiney and many mourners to Holyhead. A ship would then take the coffin to Dublin for a second funeral before on to Cork for the final funeral service and burial.
That was the plan, however the British government had already put alternative arrangements in place.
Following a Requiem Mass in St George’s Cathedral, thousands of sympathisers lined the route to Euston Station to where the large procession, stretching for more than a mile and led by Archbishop Mannix, made its slow progress.
The Daily Herald described the event:
"...The vast throng of marchers, Irish residents in England, first women of Cumann na mBan, of all classes, but one spirit… After them were members, hundreds after hundreds, of the Irish Self-Determination League. Each of the 27 London branches had their banner… Thousands of ordinary men and women, most of them very poor… And the English crowd that poured out of the sordid streets of South London were quiet too. Sight-seeing perhaps, but not in a sight-seeing mood, moved by death, moved by heroism, and moved by the spectacle of those many marches. And nowhere a sneer or a laugh; for these were the Commons of England and not the House of Commons..."
Once the procession reached Blackfriars Bridge, spectators were packed five rows deep on either side. Many had been waiting for hours just to see the procession pass by. Policemen stewarding the crowds along the route wore black gloves as a sign of respect and some were even reported to have formally saluted the cortège as it passed.
Foreign correspondents would later report amazement that the flag and uniform of a revolutionary army at war with Britain openly paraded through the city centre of London. As Gladys Ní Eidhin of the London branch of the Gaelic League later wrote, “it was strange to feel that we were following our dead through the enemy city.”
The Morning Post, a Tory-aligned newspaper, observed that the MacSwiney funeral procession through London had exposed the hollowness of Sinn Féin’s claim that they suffered under a ‘ruthless British tyranny’, for in what other country in the world would such a demonstration be possible? Instead of being a victim, the Morning Post claimed, Ireland appeared as the ‘spoilt child of an illimitable indulgence’.
However, here in Ireland, even the Irish Times, though opposed to MacSwiney's ideals, has acknowledged that all shades of Irish opinion should respect his sacrifice. ‘He was a brave man who, for the faith that was in him, endured a terrible ordeal with dignity and patience. He willed his own death, but willed it unselfishly for a cause which he held to be worth the process. We maintain that the end did not justify the means’.
The Cork Examiner has claimed that there was no need to eulogise someone who had been ‘tested and found true to his country’. The Examiner stated that the name Terence MacSwiney will go down as a devoted champion of Ireland’s liberty, and as such he will be remembered and his memory revered. ‘Outside Ireland, in lands where free men dwell, the story of his heroic fight against overwhelming odds, of his determination not to yield while life was his – has been followed with the most profound sympathy.’
The plight of the hunger striking Lord Mayor has been closely followed in the international press during recent months and his death has been widely reported. In France, where coverage has been generally sympathetic towards MacSwiney throughout his imprisonment, there has been widespread criticism of the English government. Le Bonsoir has accused the government of being more kindly disposed to the Germans than to the Lord Mayor of Cork, while Le Radical states that whatever one makes of MacSwiney’s act from a political point of view ‘there is no one with a heart but must bow before such a profession of patriotic faith, such a heroism of sacrifice.
Tens of thousands followed Archbishop Mannix as he led the funeral procession from the cathedral to Euston railway station, where a train would take MacSwiney and many mourners to Holyhead. A ship would then take the coffin to Dublin for a second funeral before on to Cork for the final funeral service and burial.
That was the plan, however the British government had already put alternative arrangements in place.
Terence’s two brothers and two sisters reached Euston Station at 4.30 pm. On arrival at the station, the siblings were informed the train was due to leave at 4.45 pm.
After they had accompanied Terry’s body to a good’s carriage van they hurried down the platform to their carriage. Without notice, the departure was put back till 6 pm. The train was also crowded with police in every carriage.
A train guard came to family friend Art O’Brien and said the police inspector wished to speak to him and was looking for Muriel. He said he had a communication for her, but was not permitted to issue this to her until they had passed Crewe. As Muriel had remained in London due to illness, Mary MacSwiney agreed to represent the family pro-tempore in the widow's absence and accept the letter in due course.
Once the train passed Crewe, the inspector visited the MacSwiney delegation again and gave a letter from Chief Secretary for Ireland Thomas Hamar-Greenwood, addressed to Muriel.
Opening it they found a copy of a letter addressed to the press to the effect that, owing to the possibility of civil disturbances resulting from the funeral service in Dublin, the British Government had ordered that the remains should go straight to Cork.
The family advised that as the Lady Mayoress & widow was in London, they could take no decision without consulting her, and that the coffin should remain in Holyhead while someone went back to lay the facts before her. The request was turned down and the transport of the body continued to the English coast and then bound for Cork.
The train reached Holyhead about midnight. The family had arranged that all should go at once to the van where Terry’s body lay. The train stopped at the town station and it was there the SS Kenmare was immediately waiting to depart. Family friend Art O’Brien produced the contract of the railway to take Terence’s body via Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) Dublin, to Cork, and he ordered them to carry it out.
However, a British Government order said the stationmaster should not carry out the contract.
In protest, the family joined hands around the coffin. In a tense standoff, railwaymen entered the carriage and began removing the wreaths. Outside police and Black and Tans and ordinary military lined the platform.
However, once the railwaymen tried to get access to the coffin they family blocked their way and said: “Don’t dare touch that coffin, we forbid you to touch it”.
With that, the police rushed forward, pushed the family to one side and away from the coffin and surrounded it. The coffin was lifted out of the van and on to the steamer, the SS Rathmore. The relatives were given the option of travelling with the body but refused. The seizure of the body flouted the law, as the British files released in 2003 show.
"I thought the age of body-snatching was gone," yelled Fr Dan Walsh as British forces commandeered the remains of Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, to prevent the coffin being taken to Dublin.
Rumours quickly spread that the Rathmore had left port with Black & Tans & Auxilliaries disrespectfully sitting on MacSwiney's coffin.
To add insult to injury, the family was forced to get the train for Holyhead and board a separate steamer there. The journey to Dun Laoghaire was quiet.
The Manchester Guardian commented in an editorial the next day: "A stroke of work that was in every way good has been marred by some fussy authority's interference at Holyhead. Instead of the invincible English decency of London's citizens and police we now read of a shabby scramble for the Lord Mayor's body and its abduction by special steamer to Cork."
Mark Sturgis ( the Assistant Under-Secretary for Ireland based in Dublin Castle) was angry that the decision to re-route the Lord Mayor's body took so long: ‘London has declined to inform the relatives of this change or make it public in London so we are not able to put anything in the evening papers here – the result will be stacks of people will be assembled before they can see the morning papers and I should think a row may ensue. One cannot resist the inference that London’s only care is to get rid of McSwiney without trouble there…even the Shinns are entitled to be told tonight if tomorrows circus is off … to rob them of their meat at the last minute may provoke a far bigger row than the funeral itself…anyway the papers tonight are full of elaborate plans for Dublin’s public funeral, this is an offence anyway.’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 61-2
After they had accompanied Terry’s body to a good’s carriage van they hurried down the platform to their carriage. Without notice, the departure was put back till 6 pm. The train was also crowded with police in every carriage.
A train guard came to family friend Art O’Brien and said the police inspector wished to speak to him and was looking for Muriel. He said he had a communication for her, but was not permitted to issue this to her until they had passed Crewe. As Muriel had remained in London due to illness, Mary MacSwiney agreed to represent the family pro-tempore in the widow's absence and accept the letter in due course.
Once the train passed Crewe, the inspector visited the MacSwiney delegation again and gave a letter from Chief Secretary for Ireland Thomas Hamar-Greenwood, addressed to Muriel.
Opening it they found a copy of a letter addressed to the press to the effect that, owing to the possibility of civil disturbances resulting from the funeral service in Dublin, the British Government had ordered that the remains should go straight to Cork.
The family advised that as the Lady Mayoress & widow was in London, they could take no decision without consulting her, and that the coffin should remain in Holyhead while someone went back to lay the facts before her. The request was turned down and the transport of the body continued to the English coast and then bound for Cork.
The train reached Holyhead about midnight. The family had arranged that all should go at once to the van where Terry’s body lay. The train stopped at the town station and it was there the SS Kenmare was immediately waiting to depart. Family friend Art O’Brien produced the contract of the railway to take Terence’s body via Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) Dublin, to Cork, and he ordered them to carry it out.
However, a British Government order said the stationmaster should not carry out the contract.
In protest, the family joined hands around the coffin. In a tense standoff, railwaymen entered the carriage and began removing the wreaths. Outside police and Black and Tans and ordinary military lined the platform.
However, once the railwaymen tried to get access to the coffin they family blocked their way and said: “Don’t dare touch that coffin, we forbid you to touch it”.
With that, the police rushed forward, pushed the family to one side and away from the coffin and surrounded it. The coffin was lifted out of the van and on to the steamer, the SS Rathmore. The relatives were given the option of travelling with the body but refused. The seizure of the body flouted the law, as the British files released in 2003 show.
"I thought the age of body-snatching was gone," yelled Fr Dan Walsh as British forces commandeered the remains of Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, to prevent the coffin being taken to Dublin.
Rumours quickly spread that the Rathmore had left port with Black & Tans & Auxilliaries disrespectfully sitting on MacSwiney's coffin.
To add insult to injury, the family was forced to get the train for Holyhead and board a separate steamer there. The journey to Dun Laoghaire was quiet.
The Manchester Guardian commented in an editorial the next day: "A stroke of work that was in every way good has been marred by some fussy authority's interference at Holyhead. Instead of the invincible English decency of London's citizens and police we now read of a shabby scramble for the Lord Mayor's body and its abduction by special steamer to Cork."
Mark Sturgis ( the Assistant Under-Secretary for Ireland based in Dublin Castle) was angry that the decision to re-route the Lord Mayor's body took so long: ‘London has declined to inform the relatives of this change or make it public in London so we are not able to put anything in the evening papers here – the result will be stacks of people will be assembled before they can see the morning papers and I should think a row may ensue. One cannot resist the inference that London’s only care is to get rid of McSwiney without trouble there…even the Shinns are entitled to be told tonight if tomorrows circus is off … to rob them of their meat at the last minute may provoke a far bigger row than the funeral itself…anyway the papers tonight are full of elaborate plans for Dublin’s public funeral, this is an offence anyway.’
The Last Days of Dublin Castle – The Diaries of Mark Sturgis. Irish Academic Press Dublin & Oregon 1999. p 61-2
In response to Dáil Éireann calling for a day of general mourning, much of the country came to a standstill on 29 October.
No place of amusement opened its doors and work stopped. Dublin city was silent. Requiem Masses were celebrated and prayers offered up for the repose not only of the deceased Lord Mayor but also for the two deceased hunger strikers in Cork Gaol – Michael Fitzgerald and Joseph Murphy.
In Ulster, however, it became clear that many unionists did not want to join with the sympathising. In Cootehill, Co. Cavan, some unionist businesses remained open and when a Sinn Féin flag was flown at half-mast on the town hall it was taken down by the military who were cheered on by Ulster Volunteers. There was a similar story in Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, where police and military presonnel visited all the licensed houses and compelled them to re-open.
Tensions were already at a high pitch in the city due to the impending execution of 18-year-old Volunteer Kevin Barry, who would himself be dead within three days. Capuchin priest Fr. Augustine Hayden – who had officiated at Terence’s wedding to Muriel Murphy just over three years before and was a concelebrant at the funeral Mass for MacSwiney had hurriedly arrived to the Cathedral after ministering to Kevin Barry in Mountjoy Jail.
After a crowded requiem mass in the Pro-Cathederal presided over by Archbishop William Walsh, the family delegation went in funeral procession behind the empty hearse through the capital to Islandbridge and the Cork Train, which left at 2pm.
No place of amusement opened its doors and work stopped. Dublin city was silent. Requiem Masses were celebrated and prayers offered up for the repose not only of the deceased Lord Mayor but also for the two deceased hunger strikers in Cork Gaol – Michael Fitzgerald and Joseph Murphy.
In Ulster, however, it became clear that many unionists did not want to join with the sympathising. In Cootehill, Co. Cavan, some unionist businesses remained open and when a Sinn Féin flag was flown at half-mast on the town hall it was taken down by the military who were cheered on by Ulster Volunteers. There was a similar story in Castleblayney, Co. Monaghan, where police and military presonnel visited all the licensed houses and compelled them to re-open.
Tensions were already at a high pitch in the city due to the impending execution of 18-year-old Volunteer Kevin Barry, who would himself be dead within three days. Capuchin priest Fr. Augustine Hayden – who had officiated at Terence’s wedding to Muriel Murphy just over three years before and was a concelebrant at the funeral Mass for MacSwiney had hurriedly arrived to the Cathedral after ministering to Kevin Barry in Mountjoy Jail.
After a crowded requiem mass in the Pro-Cathederal presided over by Archbishop William Walsh, the family delegation went in funeral procession behind the empty hearse through the capital to Islandbridge and the Cork Train, which left at 2pm.
The SS Rathmore overnight ploughed her way across the Irish Sea bringing back to Ireland the coffin containing the lord mayor's body, surrounded not by friends, but by British soldiers.
That morning in Cork, in advance of the arrival of the Rathmore, an officer from Cork Miitary Barracks visited the Catholic Bishop and informed him that the people would not be permitted to march in military formation at the funeral of MacSwiney and display of flags would not be allowed. With a like purpose, an officer of the Cameron’s stationed at Belmont Hutments also called in on the Bishop. But to their astonishment, they were informed that the citizens of Cork not only did not intend to march in military formation or display flags but did not intend to march at all or to receive the body. The Harbour Pilots also made it clear that they would refuse to take the Rathmore to Cork City.
The Rathmore was met inside the harbour by the admiralty tug, Hellespont and accompanied the steamer to the Deep Water Quay, Quuenstown (Cobh), docking at 1.45pm on Friday 29 October.
The moment the vessel was sighted, the population of the town gathered along the seafront, and when the SS Rathmore reached its berth, hundreds of people awaited it. The MacSwiney family had withheld any permission to accept the body on arrival in Queenstown and so nobody would take charge of the remains.
So, the Rathmore remained beside the quay, its docks full of armed men. These included Cameron Highlanders, London Metropolitan Police, and a strong force of R.I.C. Auxiliaries. They stood grimly on the deck. Opposite the bier on the quay among the citizens were all of the members of the Town Commissioners who were not jailed or on the run, the Town Clerk and assembled clergy including Bishop Dr. Browne, Rev David Kent, Adm.; Rev. P. Fouhy, C.C.; Rev. S Wigmore, D.D., C.C.; Rev, W.F. Browne, C.C.; Rev J.K. Fielding. Chicago; Rev. D. O’Keefe, C.C; Rev, J. Callanan. Spike Island; Rev. J. Tuohy. Carrigtwohill; Rev. FR. Lyons, U.S.A; Rev. Gabiel D’Aroy, Manchester.
Uniformed Irish Volunteers lined the quay and kept the crowds from pressing in, while inside the cordon they had drawn stood the Bishop, the priests, and the public men.
For an hour all waited there watching the movements of those aboard The Rathmore, while those aboard the vessel did the same.
At 2.45 the Hellespont drew alongside, and the people at once concluded that the coffin was to be transferred from the Rathmore and taken by the Hellespont to Cork.
But again, the Hellespont moved off and the Mary Tavy, another Admiralty tug appeared. Deckhands then unloosed the ropes around the coffin, which was covered with sailcloth; the military and the police called to attention, and the coffin was taken on to the tug by members of the crew. The wreaths were next transferred and the Admiralty tug, flying a black flag and the blue ensign at half mast, moved up the river for Cork with a detachment of auxiliary police having gone aboard.
Whilst leaving the quays of Cobh, the bishop asked the crowd to kneel to pray whilst the bells of the cathedral tolled.
That morning in Cork, in advance of the arrival of the Rathmore, an officer from Cork Miitary Barracks visited the Catholic Bishop and informed him that the people would not be permitted to march in military formation at the funeral of MacSwiney and display of flags would not be allowed. With a like purpose, an officer of the Cameron’s stationed at Belmont Hutments also called in on the Bishop. But to their astonishment, they were informed that the citizens of Cork not only did not intend to march in military formation or display flags but did not intend to march at all or to receive the body. The Harbour Pilots also made it clear that they would refuse to take the Rathmore to Cork City.
The Rathmore was met inside the harbour by the admiralty tug, Hellespont and accompanied the steamer to the Deep Water Quay, Quuenstown (Cobh), docking at 1.45pm on Friday 29 October.
The moment the vessel was sighted, the population of the town gathered along the seafront, and when the SS Rathmore reached its berth, hundreds of people awaited it. The MacSwiney family had withheld any permission to accept the body on arrival in Queenstown and so nobody would take charge of the remains.
So, the Rathmore remained beside the quay, its docks full of armed men. These included Cameron Highlanders, London Metropolitan Police, and a strong force of R.I.C. Auxiliaries. They stood grimly on the deck. Opposite the bier on the quay among the citizens were all of the members of the Town Commissioners who were not jailed or on the run, the Town Clerk and assembled clergy including Bishop Dr. Browne, Rev David Kent, Adm.; Rev. P. Fouhy, C.C.; Rev. S Wigmore, D.D., C.C.; Rev, W.F. Browne, C.C.; Rev J.K. Fielding. Chicago; Rev. D. O’Keefe, C.C; Rev, J. Callanan. Spike Island; Rev. J. Tuohy. Carrigtwohill; Rev. FR. Lyons, U.S.A; Rev. Gabiel D’Aroy, Manchester.
Uniformed Irish Volunteers lined the quay and kept the crowds from pressing in, while inside the cordon they had drawn stood the Bishop, the priests, and the public men.
For an hour all waited there watching the movements of those aboard The Rathmore, while those aboard the vessel did the same.
At 2.45 the Hellespont drew alongside, and the people at once concluded that the coffin was to be transferred from the Rathmore and taken by the Hellespont to Cork.
But again, the Hellespont moved off and the Mary Tavy, another Admiralty tug appeared. Deckhands then unloosed the ropes around the coffin, which was covered with sailcloth; the military and the police called to attention, and the coffin was taken on to the tug by members of the crew. The wreaths were next transferred and the Admiralty tug, flying a black flag and the blue ensign at half mast, moved up the river for Cork with a detachment of auxiliary police having gone aboard.
Whilst leaving the quays of Cobh, the bishop asked the crowd to kneel to pray whilst the bells of the cathedral tolled.
From early hours on Friday, crowds began to assemble in the vicinity of Albert Quay, the new bridge, and every point of advantage around, so that long before the arrival of the tug the entire place was densely packed, even the rigging of some shifts on the opposite jetty holding many onlookers.
The announcement made earlier in the day that in the absence of the relatives, no one had the authority to receive the body, was not known either by the large party of military who had come there in half a dozen lorries, accompanied by two armoured cars, or by the party of fifty auxiliary police who accompanied the tug from Cobh.
The officer commanding the troops who arrived from Cork Barracks explained to a number of assembled Pressmen that his duties were solely to maintain order should any disturbance arise and when he communicated with the barracks and informed the General of the situation, he was directed to withdraw.
At 4.15pm, the tug arrived at the Custom House Quay in Cork City and slowly docked. Again, no official was deputised to receive the body. An officer of the Cameron’s called to the City Clerk (Mr H. F. O’Reilly) and asked him if his Council had any wishes in the matter. He said they had none, and the officer left.
At 6.20 pm the special train from Dublin conveying the relatives of the deceased Lord Mayor arrived at the Glanmire terminus of the G.S. and W. Railway, and in the carriages which were waiting they drive to the City Hall, the wreaths which accompanied them being conveyed in the Corporation ambulances.
At around 6.30pm, the auxiliary police removed the Lord Mayor's coffin from the Mary Tavy tug and placed it on the quay along with wreaths. The tug steamed away shorty afterwards.
It was dark by the time members of the MacSwiney family eventually arrived at the quayside and assisted by Irish Volunteers received the Lord Mayor’s body from his British captors. It was less than three months since the Lord Mayor’s arrest; and good to his word (notwithstanding his longer-than-expected hunger strike) that he had wrenched himself from his captor’s grasp.
At 9.30pm the body was carried into the City Hall on the shoulders of Volunteers, being preceded by clergymen, reciting prayers and Irish Volunteers carrying wreaths.
As in London, a guard of honour of six IRA men was placed standing solemnly to attention around the coffin. These were relieved at two-hour intervals during daylight, but during the night, with curfew in force, they had to remain overnight in the City Hall.
As in London, a guard of honour of six IRA men was placed standing solemnly to attention around the coffin. These were relieved at two-hour intervals during daylight, but during the night, with curfew in force, they had to remain overnight in the City Hall.
On the next day, Saturday, despite the wet weather the people of Cork turned out in their droves to pay their respects and witness the ravages of his ordeal evident in the face of the Lord Mayor as he lay in repose in his open coffin. The crowds sustained throughout the day and into the night despite people having to queue in the rain for a number of hours. The visceral and lasting effect that this had on the mourning populace cannot be underestimated. Coming as it did in the middle of the War of Independence it is probably no coincidence that the conflict would escalate in the following weeks and months.
That Saturday night, two of Terence’s sisters, Annie and Mary – whose access to their brother had been cruelly restricted by the British authorities during the hunger strike – were not now about to leave their brother alone. They would spend the rest of that night and into Sunday morning keeping vigil over him. Incidentally, it was the same duty which Terence had performed in that same place for his murdered comrade and Lord Mayor, Tomás MacCurtain, back when he lay in repose there in March of that year.
The Newsletter of the Friends of Irish Freedom in New York carried details of 'An International Sacrifice'.
That Saturday night, two of Terence’s sisters, Annie and Mary – whose access to their brother had been cruelly restricted by the British authorities during the hunger strike – were not now about to leave their brother alone. They would spend the rest of that night and into Sunday morning keeping vigil over him. Incidentally, it was the same duty which Terence had performed in that same place for his murdered comrade and Lord Mayor, Tomás MacCurtain, back when he lay in repose there in March of that year.
The Newsletter of the Friends of Irish Freedom in New York carried details of 'An International Sacrifice'.
Touching scenes were to be seen as the transfer of the Lord Mayor from the City Hall to the North Cathedral preparatory to the funeral that Sunday afternoon.
As early as 8am, large crowds packed around the vicinity of City Hall. So large was the crowd that the volunteers had to draw a cordon, which extended from Parnell Bridge to Clontarf Bridge and only those with admission papers were permitted to enter.
Major General Strickland had issued a proclamation prohibiting any demonstration or any procession in formation at MacSwiney's funeral. Crowds continued to pay their respects to Lord Mayor MacSwiney, undeterred by the heavy intimidating military presence in Anglesea Street and along the proposed route of the funeral. This presence was no doubt to oversee and discourage any overt displays of Nationalist symbols; the only un-proscribed tricolour flag being the one that draped the Lord Mayor’s coffin.
Another directive by the British authorities was that the funeral cortege should at no stage exceed a quarter of a mile and that there were to be no military formations. Since this would effectively prevent any marching bands in the cortege the organiser circumvented this by stationing bands along the proposed route.
Feelings must have also been high in the city due to the recent deaths of hunger strikers, Michael Fitzgerald and Joe Murphy and the daily vigils kept by relatives and sympathisers outside Cork Gaol over the preceding weeks. So it must be testament to the respect of the populace for the occasion of the funeral, allied with the organisational capabilities of Volunteers, that the day passed without any hint of serious trouble.
As unsettling and provocative as the armed British military presence must have been, the majority of officers and soldiers were respectful of the solemnity of the occasion. Mostly they kept a discreet distance from the proceedings and could often be seen standing to attention and saluting as the coffin passed by them.
On leaving the City Hall the cortege made its way past thousands of people lining the routes via South Mall, Grand Parade, Camden Quay and then uphill to the North Cathedral in the city’s Northside.
Immediately behind marched the MacSwiney brothers, Peter and Seán, with members of Dáil Éireann such as Arthur Griffith and the Republican government, senior officers from General Headquarters, IRA, and his colleagues on the Cork Corporation.
Heading the Volunteer columns was A-Company, 2nd Battalion – MacSwiney's own – from University College Cork.
As early as 8am, large crowds packed around the vicinity of City Hall. So large was the crowd that the volunteers had to draw a cordon, which extended from Parnell Bridge to Clontarf Bridge and only those with admission papers were permitted to enter.
Major General Strickland had issued a proclamation prohibiting any demonstration or any procession in formation at MacSwiney's funeral. Crowds continued to pay their respects to Lord Mayor MacSwiney, undeterred by the heavy intimidating military presence in Anglesea Street and along the proposed route of the funeral. This presence was no doubt to oversee and discourage any overt displays of Nationalist symbols; the only un-proscribed tricolour flag being the one that draped the Lord Mayor’s coffin.
Another directive by the British authorities was that the funeral cortege should at no stage exceed a quarter of a mile and that there were to be no military formations. Since this would effectively prevent any marching bands in the cortege the organiser circumvented this by stationing bands along the proposed route.
Feelings must have also been high in the city due to the recent deaths of hunger strikers, Michael Fitzgerald and Joe Murphy and the daily vigils kept by relatives and sympathisers outside Cork Gaol over the preceding weeks. So it must be testament to the respect of the populace for the occasion of the funeral, allied with the organisational capabilities of Volunteers, that the day passed without any hint of serious trouble.
As unsettling and provocative as the armed British military presence must have been, the majority of officers and soldiers were respectful of the solemnity of the occasion. Mostly they kept a discreet distance from the proceedings and could often be seen standing to attention and saluting as the coffin passed by them.
On leaving the City Hall the cortege made its way past thousands of people lining the routes via South Mall, Grand Parade, Camden Quay and then uphill to the North Cathedral in the city’s Northside.
Immediately behind marched the MacSwiney brothers, Peter and Seán, with members of Dáil Éireann such as Arthur Griffith and the Republican government, senior officers from General Headquarters, IRA, and his colleagues on the Cork Corporation.
Heading the Volunteer columns was A-Company, 2nd Battalion – MacSwiney's own – from University College Cork.
The chief celebrant at the requiem Mass in a thronged Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne was Bishop of Cork Daniel Cohalan, a native of Gurranareigh in Kilmurry’s neighbouring parish of Kilmichael. Bishop Cohalan – who had visited MacSwiney in Brixton and had made entreaties at the time on behalf of his fellow citizen – had reconciled (with his own beliefs) the manner of MacSwiney’s sacrifice as a justifiable means of focusing worldwide attention on the Irish cause.
Also in attendance at the service was Cork Capuchin priest, Fr. Dominic (O’ Connor) who was a friend of Terence and Chaplain to the Cork Volunteers. It was Fr. Dominic who gave Terence the last rites; a constant friend and confessor to Terence throughout the whole of his ordeal in Brixton and also present at his death. In the many photographs and Pathé newsreels of the funeral, both in Cork and London, the distinctive features of Fr. Dominic with his beard and Capuchin gown can be seen among the chief mourners at the head of the cortege.
The chief mourners were his widow, Muriel MacSweeney, sisters, Mary McSweeney & Ann MacSwiney, and brothers, Peter MacSwiney & Seán MacSwiney. It was also attended by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, Donal O'Callaghan and members of Cork Corporation, members of Cork Harbour Board, Deputy President of Dáil Éireann, Arthur Griffith, the Ministry of Dáil Éireann and Dáil members, alongside members of the Queenstown Urban District Council, Queenstown Trade and Labour organization, Mallow Rural Council and Mallow Urban Council, Youghal Urban Council, Clonakilty Urban Council, Bandon Urban Council and Skibbereen Urban Council, North-East Cork Executive Conradh na Gaeilge, the Southern Land Association, the Cork Medical Association, and New Ross Urban Council, the various Labour associations and public organizations, the Cathedral was full to the overflowing, crowds spilling outside into the grounds of the Cathedral and the nearby streets.
The streets around the North Cathedral became absolutely impassable as hundreds of people crammed into the area. It was an occasion of intense grief and there were also heartrending scenes, the expansive number of people reflected the depth of respect for Terence. Also at the Cathedral, the staff and students from the North Monastery stood as tribute, alongside members of the Discharged and Demobilised Soldiers, Irish National Foresters, Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Catholic Young Men's Society, Commercial Travellers' Federation, Cattle Traders' Association, and the All-for-Ireland club.
After the Funeral Mass, the coffin, draped in the Tricolour and Terence's Irish Volunteers uniform hat, was carried from the Cathedral by members of the No. 1 Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. The procession from the Cathedral outside into the grounds of the Cathedral was lead by the Altar servers and acolytes to the tolling of funeral bells.
The sound of the funeral bells of the North Cathedral indicating that the funeral procession had started its journey was taken up by the bells of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Mathew Quay, St. Mary's Church on Pope's Quay and the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul on Paul Street as Volunteer comrades of Terence toted his coffin upon their shoulders and laid it in the horse-drawn hearse, full of floral tributes.
Also in attendance at the service was Cork Capuchin priest, Fr. Dominic (O’ Connor) who was a friend of Terence and Chaplain to the Cork Volunteers. It was Fr. Dominic who gave Terence the last rites; a constant friend and confessor to Terence throughout the whole of his ordeal in Brixton and also present at his death. In the many photographs and Pathé newsreels of the funeral, both in Cork and London, the distinctive features of Fr. Dominic with his beard and Capuchin gown can be seen among the chief mourners at the head of the cortege.
The chief mourners were his widow, Muriel MacSweeney, sisters, Mary McSweeney & Ann MacSwiney, and brothers, Peter MacSwiney & Seán MacSwiney. It was also attended by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, Donal O'Callaghan and members of Cork Corporation, members of Cork Harbour Board, Deputy President of Dáil Éireann, Arthur Griffith, the Ministry of Dáil Éireann and Dáil members, alongside members of the Queenstown Urban District Council, Queenstown Trade and Labour organization, Mallow Rural Council and Mallow Urban Council, Youghal Urban Council, Clonakilty Urban Council, Bandon Urban Council and Skibbereen Urban Council, North-East Cork Executive Conradh na Gaeilge, the Southern Land Association, the Cork Medical Association, and New Ross Urban Council, the various Labour associations and public organizations, the Cathedral was full to the overflowing, crowds spilling outside into the grounds of the Cathedral and the nearby streets.
The streets around the North Cathedral became absolutely impassable as hundreds of people crammed into the area. It was an occasion of intense grief and there were also heartrending scenes, the expansive number of people reflected the depth of respect for Terence. Also at the Cathedral, the staff and students from the North Monastery stood as tribute, alongside members of the Discharged and Demobilised Soldiers, Irish National Foresters, Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Catholic Young Men's Society, Commercial Travellers' Federation, Cattle Traders' Association, and the All-for-Ireland club.
After the Funeral Mass, the coffin, draped in the Tricolour and Terence's Irish Volunteers uniform hat, was carried from the Cathedral by members of the No. 1 Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. The procession from the Cathedral outside into the grounds of the Cathedral was lead by the Altar servers and acolytes to the tolling of funeral bells.
The sound of the funeral bells of the North Cathedral indicating that the funeral procession had started its journey was taken up by the bells of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Fr. Mathew Quay, St. Mary's Church on Pope's Quay and the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul on Paul Street as Volunteer comrades of Terence toted his coffin upon their shoulders and laid it in the horse-drawn hearse, full of floral tributes.
As the procession from the Cathedral to St Finbarr's Cemetery left at 12.30pm, members of the Irish Volunteers formed a guard of honour. The cortège was lead by the Cork Volunteer Band playing 'the Dead March'. The procession of mourners, extended over two miles in length, the cortège proceeded on the four mile route. The coffin was taken in a horse-drawn hearse & behind the hearse were mourning coach carriages with his widow and sisters, the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork & Ross and the officiating priests.
The funeral procession was also led by two bands, the Irish National Foresters' Brass Band, a mounted guard of Irish Volunteers & the Irish Citizen Army and members of the 1st Cork Brigade of the IRA who accompanied the hearse.
The procession navigated its way through Cork. Along Cathedral Walk, moving onto Lower John Street and made it's way to Mulgrave Road, Popes Quay and Camden Quay, Bridge Street, McCurtain Street and Brian Boru Street, crossing the River Lee over Brian Boru Bridge. The procession was also led by relays of the Irish Volunteers from Cork and Dublin. Cork observed a day of mourning, with many shops and businesses closed out of respect.
The funeral procession was also led by two bands, the Irish National Foresters' Brass Band, a mounted guard of Irish Volunteers & the Irish Citizen Army and members of the 1st Cork Brigade of the IRA who accompanied the hearse.
The procession navigated its way through Cork. Along Cathedral Walk, moving onto Lower John Street and made it's way to Mulgrave Road, Popes Quay and Camden Quay, Bridge Street, McCurtain Street and Brian Boru Street, crossing the River Lee over Brian Boru Bridge. The procession was also led by relays of the Irish Volunteers from Cork and Dublin. Cork observed a day of mourning, with many shops and businesses closed out of respect.
The cortège travelled through Merchants Quay, St. Patrick's Street, Washington Street, Lancaster Quay, Western Road, Carrigrohane Road, Victoria Cross and Dennehy's Cross, Schoolboy's Lane and Glasheen Road.
Large crowds lined the streets of Cork as the funeral procession took over an hour and a half to pass along the streets. It appeared as if the city itself was draped in black, such was the sense of mourning and loss.
Cork's main thoroughfare, St. Patrick's Street was crowded with people who were anxious to see the funeral and thousands of people thronged St. Patrick's Street, Grand Parade and the South Mall as the coffin enveloped in the Sinn Féin Flag was conveyed through the streets, there was an enormous turnout for the funeral as dense masses of people and immense crowds gathered to witness the procession of the cortège. Despite heavy and at times brutal security arrangements put in place by the British, over 15,000 attended the funeral. The gathering of people on the streets had also reached extremely large proportions and it was also testament to the respect of the populace for the occasion of the funeral.
As the Gaol Cross was reached, the salute 'eyes left' was given to MacSwiney's heroic fellow-strikers still in the death throes of hunger strike in the hospital of Cork's grim prison - a nod to the deaths of Michael Fitzgerald and Joseph Murphy. It was a tribute of respect and honour to the memory of the great Irishman who made the supreme sacrifice for a high principle.
As Terence MacSwiney's Funeral was underway in Cork, mourners in Boston, Chicago, Melbourne, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Manchester held symbolic, mock funerals with empty caskets.
Large crowds lined the streets of Cork as the funeral procession took over an hour and a half to pass along the streets. It appeared as if the city itself was draped in black, such was the sense of mourning and loss.
Cork's main thoroughfare, St. Patrick's Street was crowded with people who were anxious to see the funeral and thousands of people thronged St. Patrick's Street, Grand Parade and the South Mall as the coffin enveloped in the Sinn Féin Flag was conveyed through the streets, there was an enormous turnout for the funeral as dense masses of people and immense crowds gathered to witness the procession of the cortège. Despite heavy and at times brutal security arrangements put in place by the British, over 15,000 attended the funeral. The gathering of people on the streets had also reached extremely large proportions and it was also testament to the respect of the populace for the occasion of the funeral.
As the Gaol Cross was reached, the salute 'eyes left' was given to MacSwiney's heroic fellow-strikers still in the death throes of hunger strike in the hospital of Cork's grim prison - a nod to the deaths of Michael Fitzgerald and Joseph Murphy. It was a tribute of respect and honour to the memory of the great Irishman who made the supreme sacrifice for a high principle.
As Terence MacSwiney's Funeral was underway in Cork, mourners in Boston, Chicago, Melbourne, Newcastle upon Tyne, and Manchester held symbolic, mock funerals with empty caskets.
The crowds grew larger and larger as the cortege travelled on the final leg of the journey towards St. Finbarr's Cemetery. Near the entrance, an honour guard of A Company 2nd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers – MacSwiney's own – from University College Cork paid tribute as the funeral procession passed.
Arriving at St. Finbarr's Cemetery, filing slowly through the cemetery gates where members of the 1st Battalion of the Irish Volunteers & members of the 2nd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers acted as a ceremonial guard at the cemetery and escorted the coffin. Thousands of people collected in the environs of the Cemetery.
The coffin was taken to the Republican Plot in the south-east section of the Cemetery, directly beyond the gates. The grave was adjoining that of the late Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain and not more than a few yards from the burial spot of Joseph Murphy, the recently deceased hunger striker from Cork Gaol.
Terence MacSwiney was carried to the Republican Plot of the Cemetery, the Burial service was recited by Very Rev. Fr. J. Tuohy, P.P. Carrigtwohill and after final prayers, the coffin was lowered into the grave. The wreaths and floral tributes were then laid on the newly-made grave, and so numerous were these flowers and wreaths that they covered the entire Republican Plot. A Volunteer bugler sounded The Last Post & Reveille and as a final and fitting tribute to the memory of a fallen Volunteer, seven Volunteers then fired three rounds from revolvers over the grave.
Sinn Féin founder Arthur Griffith delivering the graveside oration:
''We, his colleagues of Dáil Éireann, stand by the graveside of Terence MacSwiney in sorrow but in pride. He laid down his life to consolidate the establishment of the Irish Republic, willed by the vote of the people of Ireland. His heroic sacrifice has made him in death the victor over the enemies of his county’s independence. He has won over them, because he has gained by his death for Ireland the support and sympathy of all that is humane, noble, and generous in the world. Remember over his words by you, the people of Cork, when seven months ago, he stepped into Bearna Baoghail - that triumph is not to those who can inflict most. He has exemplified all that the power of England could inflict upon him and in enduring triumphed over that power. His body lies here - his soul goes marching through the ages. He is not dead. He is living forever in the hearts and conscience of mankind. Mourn for him, but let your mourners be that for a martyr who triumphs. Ireland has lost a noble son as France lost a noble daughter when St John of Arc perished in the English bonfire. The sequel will be the same. St Joan of Arc has welcomed a comrade to heaven''.
Bishop Cohalan’s open letter for the Cork Examiner, declaring: “Terence MacSwiney takes his place among the martyrs in the sacred cause of the freedom of Ireland” struck a chord.
Terence’s sister Annie expressed the opinions of many that his ordeal was now truly over and he was finally free and among his own: “No hand but a comrade touched his grave”
Arriving at St. Finbarr's Cemetery, filing slowly through the cemetery gates where members of the 1st Battalion of the Irish Volunteers & members of the 2nd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers acted as a ceremonial guard at the cemetery and escorted the coffin. Thousands of people collected in the environs of the Cemetery.
The coffin was taken to the Republican Plot in the south-east section of the Cemetery, directly beyond the gates. The grave was adjoining that of the late Lord Mayor Tomás MacCurtain and not more than a few yards from the burial spot of Joseph Murphy, the recently deceased hunger striker from Cork Gaol.
Terence MacSwiney was carried to the Republican Plot of the Cemetery, the Burial service was recited by Very Rev. Fr. J. Tuohy, P.P. Carrigtwohill and after final prayers, the coffin was lowered into the grave. The wreaths and floral tributes were then laid on the newly-made grave, and so numerous were these flowers and wreaths that they covered the entire Republican Plot. A Volunteer bugler sounded The Last Post & Reveille and as a final and fitting tribute to the memory of a fallen Volunteer, seven Volunteers then fired three rounds from revolvers over the grave.
Sinn Féin founder Arthur Griffith delivering the graveside oration:
''We, his colleagues of Dáil Éireann, stand by the graveside of Terence MacSwiney in sorrow but in pride. He laid down his life to consolidate the establishment of the Irish Republic, willed by the vote of the people of Ireland. His heroic sacrifice has made him in death the victor over the enemies of his county’s independence. He has won over them, because he has gained by his death for Ireland the support and sympathy of all that is humane, noble, and generous in the world. Remember over his words by you, the people of Cork, when seven months ago, he stepped into Bearna Baoghail - that triumph is not to those who can inflict most. He has exemplified all that the power of England could inflict upon him and in enduring triumphed over that power. His body lies here - his soul goes marching through the ages. He is not dead. He is living forever in the hearts and conscience of mankind. Mourn for him, but let your mourners be that for a martyr who triumphs. Ireland has lost a noble son as France lost a noble daughter when St John of Arc perished in the English bonfire. The sequel will be the same. St Joan of Arc has welcomed a comrade to heaven''.
Bishop Cohalan’s open letter for the Cork Examiner, declaring: “Terence MacSwiney takes his place among the martyrs in the sacred cause of the freedom of Ireland” struck a chord.
Terence’s sister Annie expressed the opinions of many that his ordeal was now truly over and he was finally free and among his own: “No hand but a comrade touched his grave”
Some restored film links below - click to view:
< Click 'Century Ireland' logo opposite for newspaper coverage of Terence MacSwiney's death. (Irish Independent, Freeman's Journal, Cork Examiner, Irish Times, Belfast Newsletter, New York Times, Manchester Guardian & The Illustrated London News. Below: An audio recording from October 1920 of Eamonn DeValera. US Library of Congress |
On October 31st, 1920, 40,000 people filed into the Polo Grounds, a baseball field that was then New York's largest open-air stadium, to hear Éamon de Valera speak on MacSwiney's death. An estimated 10,000 more were stranded outside as the city's Irish community gathered to mourn his passing, and to vent 2½ months of pent-up anger and rage. When de Valera took to the stage, three turbaned Hindus sprinted across the outfield, carrying a tricolour and the flag of Indian independence. They mounted the platform and draped both emblems over his shoulders in a gesture that sent the crowd into a frenzy and caused a band to strike up Amhrán na bhFiann.
"In outposts all over the world, concerned British diplomats sent back to London clippings of pro-Irish newspaper articles and accounts of events like the Indian Nationalist Congress in Nagpur adopting a resolution paying homage to the deceased lord mayor. The civil servants wanted to convey to their superiors how unpopular the decision to allow him to die in prison had been. They knew well that in losing his battle, MacSwiney and Ireland had won the propaganda war."
Dave Hannigan. Terence MacSwiney: The Hunger Strike that Rocked an Empire (O’Brien Press)
Dave Hannigan. Terence MacSwiney: The Hunger Strike that Rocked an Empire (O’Brien Press)
Six days after the death of Terence MacSwiney, Kevin Barry, an 18 year old student at the National University was hanged for his part in an ambush which killed 3 British Soldier in Dublin and wounded 4. While it was not proven he had fired the fatal shot in which Private Matthew Whitehead was killed, he was found guilty through complicity, executed at 8am and buried inside the prison walls. His last message to his comrades was: "Hold on and stick to the Republic.''
Barry's execution was the first political hanging in Ireland since Robert Emmet in 1803. It was not to be the last.
As historian Donal O’Donovan wrote: ‘When people have to hang young boys like that, their cause is lost, their day is over’
Michael Hopkinson ’The Irish War of Independence’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 2002. p88
Barry's execution was the first political hanging in Ireland since Robert Emmet in 1803. It was not to be the last.
As historian Donal O’Donovan wrote: ‘When people have to hang young boys like that, their cause is lost, their day is over’
Michael Hopkinson ’The Irish War of Independence’ Gill & MacMillan, Dublin 2002. p88
MacSwiney's death marked a turning point in the way the public in Ireland and around the world perceived the cause of Irish independence. His suffering came to symbolize the suffering of Ireland, and blotted out the British refrain of "law and order."
It is unlikely that releasing MacSwiney quietly would have done more damage to British control of Ireland than did the spectacle of the Lord Mayor wasting away in a British prison.
Soon after MacSwiney's death, Arthur Griffith ordered the others in Cork prison off the strike. This not only ended that strike but the second wave of strikes planned. The month after MacSwiney's death was the most violent of the war of Independence, and only a few months later, the British ended the fighting.
The subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty established an Irish Free State, granting effective independence to most of Ireland. The limitations of the Treaty, however, divided the country and led to a Civil War.
It would be the Civil War before there would be another lengthy, fatal, strike. Seán McConville has perceptively noted that while many admired MacSwiney’s ‘doctrine of triumph through endurance’, it attracted few followers’. In their history of the ‘rebellion’, the general staff of the Sixth Division of the British army wrote that the ‘“breaking” of the Hunger-Strike weapon was the most important success gained by the forces of Law and Order up to that time.’
If it was a victory for the new British policy, then it was a pyrrhic one. The propaganda costs (during the strikes, because of the funerals, and for a long time afterward), as well as the further radicalisation of Irish opinion, were heavy prices to pay. On the nationalist side too, the cost was dreadful. Martyrs were valuable, but they were bought with lives. Rosamond Jacob probably put on the page the private thoughts of many Irish nationalists when, on hearing news of MacSwiney’s death, she wrote in her diary: ‘I can hardly think of anything braver that was ever done, but I’m not sure about the rightness of hunger strike always.’
For over sixty years after MacSwiney's death, Republicans continued to sacrifice themselves on hunger strikes against both the Irish and British governments. The most famous IRA hunger striker after MacSwiney, Bobby Sands, specifically claimed MacSwiney as an influence and an inspiration.
Although MacSwiney had helped Ireland finally triumph in its 700-year struggle for independence, he sacrificed his own future to do so, and also inspired generations of young men to sacrifice their own lives in the same agonizing way, but never with the same success.
A collection of MacSwiney's writings, entitled Principles of Freedom, was published posthumously in 1921 and based upon articles MacSwiney had contributed to Irish Freedom during 1911–1912.
MacSwiney's life and work had a particular impact in India. Jawaharlal Nehru took inspiration from MacSwiney's example and writings, and Mahatma Gandhi counted him among his influences. Principles of Freedom was translated into various Indian languages. The Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh was an admirer of MacSwiney and wrote about him in his memoirs. When Singh's father petitioned the British Government in India to pardon his son, Bhagat Singh quoted Terence MacSwiney and said "I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release" and told his father to withdraw the petition. He was executed on 23 March 1931 with two other men for killing a British officer.
Other figures beyond India who counted MacSwiney as an influence include Ho Chi Minh, who was working in London at the time of MacSwiney's death and said of him, "A nation that has such citizens will never surrender".
On 1 November 1920, the Catalan organization CADCI held a demonstration in Barcelona, where the poet and politician Ventura Gassol delivered an original poem extolling MacSwiney.
In Ireland, MacSwiney's sister Mary took on his seat in the Dáil and spoke against the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. His brother Seán MacSwiney was also elected in the 1921 elections for another Cork constituency. He also opposed the Treaty.
The Paris-based Irish-American composer Swan Hennessy (1866–1929) dedicated his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 49 (1920) to the memory of MacSwiney ("à la Mémoire de Terence McSwiney, Lord Mayor de Cork"). It was first performed in Paris, 25 January 1922, by an Irish quartet led by Arthur Darley.
It is unlikely that releasing MacSwiney quietly would have done more damage to British control of Ireland than did the spectacle of the Lord Mayor wasting away in a British prison.
Soon after MacSwiney's death, Arthur Griffith ordered the others in Cork prison off the strike. This not only ended that strike but the second wave of strikes planned. The month after MacSwiney's death was the most violent of the war of Independence, and only a few months later, the British ended the fighting.
The subsequent Anglo-Irish Treaty established an Irish Free State, granting effective independence to most of Ireland. The limitations of the Treaty, however, divided the country and led to a Civil War.
It would be the Civil War before there would be another lengthy, fatal, strike. Seán McConville has perceptively noted that while many admired MacSwiney’s ‘doctrine of triumph through endurance’, it attracted few followers’. In their history of the ‘rebellion’, the general staff of the Sixth Division of the British army wrote that the ‘“breaking” of the Hunger-Strike weapon was the most important success gained by the forces of Law and Order up to that time.’
If it was a victory for the new British policy, then it was a pyrrhic one. The propaganda costs (during the strikes, because of the funerals, and for a long time afterward), as well as the further radicalisation of Irish opinion, were heavy prices to pay. On the nationalist side too, the cost was dreadful. Martyrs were valuable, but they were bought with lives. Rosamond Jacob probably put on the page the private thoughts of many Irish nationalists when, on hearing news of MacSwiney’s death, she wrote in her diary: ‘I can hardly think of anything braver that was ever done, but I’m not sure about the rightness of hunger strike always.’
For over sixty years after MacSwiney's death, Republicans continued to sacrifice themselves on hunger strikes against both the Irish and British governments. The most famous IRA hunger striker after MacSwiney, Bobby Sands, specifically claimed MacSwiney as an influence and an inspiration.
Although MacSwiney had helped Ireland finally triumph in its 700-year struggle for independence, he sacrificed his own future to do so, and also inspired generations of young men to sacrifice their own lives in the same agonizing way, but never with the same success.
A collection of MacSwiney's writings, entitled Principles of Freedom, was published posthumously in 1921 and based upon articles MacSwiney had contributed to Irish Freedom during 1911–1912.
MacSwiney's life and work had a particular impact in India. Jawaharlal Nehru took inspiration from MacSwiney's example and writings, and Mahatma Gandhi counted him among his influences. Principles of Freedom was translated into various Indian languages. The Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh was an admirer of MacSwiney and wrote about him in his memoirs. When Singh's father petitioned the British Government in India to pardon his son, Bhagat Singh quoted Terence MacSwiney and said "I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release" and told his father to withdraw the petition. He was executed on 23 March 1931 with two other men for killing a British officer.
Other figures beyond India who counted MacSwiney as an influence include Ho Chi Minh, who was working in London at the time of MacSwiney's death and said of him, "A nation that has such citizens will never surrender".
On 1 November 1920, the Catalan organization CADCI held a demonstration in Barcelona, where the poet and politician Ventura Gassol delivered an original poem extolling MacSwiney.
In Ireland, MacSwiney's sister Mary took on his seat in the Dáil and spoke against the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. His brother Seán MacSwiney was also elected in the 1921 elections for another Cork constituency. He also opposed the Treaty.
The Paris-based Irish-American composer Swan Hennessy (1866–1929) dedicated his String Quartet No. 2, Op. 49 (1920) to the memory of MacSwiney ("à la Mémoire de Terence McSwiney, Lord Mayor de Cork"). It was first performed in Paris, 25 January 1922, by an Irish quartet led by Arthur Darley.
Located in London SW2, Lyham Road, on the rear wall of Brixton Prison is this spray painted grafitti in the format of the English Heritage blue plaques. Google Street View shows that this 'plaque' was painted on the wall between May 2012 and September 2014 & was still there in August 2022.
Both Muriel and Mary MacSwiney accepted an invitation to appear before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland, (meeting in Washington, D.C.) from Oswald Garrison Villard, editor of The Nation, who had established the non-U.S. government commission on behalf of Irish sympathisers. British authorities, though dubious of the commission, privately assured U.S. officials that they would not refuse passports to Irish witnesses, including the MacSwineys. Nearly 40 Irish, British, and American witnesses testified at commission hearings from November 1920 through January 1921.
On Nov. 25, Muriel & Mary MacSwiney “embarked quietly” on the Celtic at Queenstown, the Associated Press reported in U.S. papers. “Few people were aware that they were sailing.” Irish papers subsequently reported their departure with 400 others at Queenstown (Cobh), a quick stop between Liverpool and New York City. The two women “were greeted on embarking the line with cheers from their fellow passengers.”
The Celtic arrived shortly before 10 a.m. on Dec. 5, at New York City’s Pier 60, a day behind schedule due to westerly gales. The next to last night at sea “was so violent that the tops of the angry waves were blown over the bridge and funnels, smothering the ship with icy spray,” The New York Times reported.
Muriel and Mary were the first passengers off the ship, their bags carried down the gangway by a special delegation of Irish longshoremen, ahead of American financier J. Peirpont Morgan and his wife. The two Irish women seemed unaware they had crossed the Atlantic with the famous couple, who had been in Europe since August,
A crowd of up to 3,000 awaited them, less than half the estimated 10,000 that had gathered at the pier a day earlier. The scene turned chaotic as police confused which door the women would enter. Villard and Harry Boland, de Valera’s secretary, headed the reception. A parade of more than 70 cars followed, with crowds waving the Stars and Stripes and the Tricolor of the Irish Republic.
Muriel MacSwiney was described as “a slender, gray eyed young woman dressed in deep mourning, with masses of black hair showing in ripples when she threw back her heavy widow’s veil.” At the end of the day, she issued a statement:
I am deeply grateful for the wonderful reception given to me this morning, and especially to the women of America for their generous tribute to my husband’s memory. I have had many beautiful letters from America, even from American children, and I am happy to be in a country where so many are thinking about the cause of Ireland. … We feel in Ireland that America has a greater responsibility in the matter than any other land on account of her fine traditions and her war pledges, and because there are so many millions of our kin in this country.”
The women soon travelled to Washington and testified before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland over three days, Dec. 8-10.
On Nov. 25, Muriel & Mary MacSwiney “embarked quietly” on the Celtic at Queenstown, the Associated Press reported in U.S. papers. “Few people were aware that they were sailing.” Irish papers subsequently reported their departure with 400 others at Queenstown (Cobh), a quick stop between Liverpool and New York City. The two women “were greeted on embarking the line with cheers from their fellow passengers.”
The Celtic arrived shortly before 10 a.m. on Dec. 5, at New York City’s Pier 60, a day behind schedule due to westerly gales. The next to last night at sea “was so violent that the tops of the angry waves were blown over the bridge and funnels, smothering the ship with icy spray,” The New York Times reported.
Muriel and Mary were the first passengers off the ship, their bags carried down the gangway by a special delegation of Irish longshoremen, ahead of American financier J. Peirpont Morgan and his wife. The two Irish women seemed unaware they had crossed the Atlantic with the famous couple, who had been in Europe since August,
A crowd of up to 3,000 awaited them, less than half the estimated 10,000 that had gathered at the pier a day earlier. The scene turned chaotic as police confused which door the women would enter. Villard and Harry Boland, de Valera’s secretary, headed the reception. A parade of more than 70 cars followed, with crowds waving the Stars and Stripes and the Tricolor of the Irish Republic.
Muriel MacSwiney was described as “a slender, gray eyed young woman dressed in deep mourning, with masses of black hair showing in ripples when she threw back her heavy widow’s veil.” At the end of the day, she issued a statement:
I am deeply grateful for the wonderful reception given to me this morning, and especially to the women of America for their generous tribute to my husband’s memory. I have had many beautiful letters from America, even from American children, and I am happy to be in a country where so many are thinking about the cause of Ireland. … We feel in Ireland that America has a greater responsibility in the matter than any other land on account of her fine traditions and her war pledges, and because there are so many millions of our kin in this country.”
The women soon travelled to Washington and testified before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland over three days, Dec. 8-10.
Muriel recalled her fist visit to the United States in her statement to the Bureau of Military History in 1951:
Six days later, Irish leader Éamon de Valera was secreted aboard the same ship as the MacSweeney's had arrived in, for its eastbound return to Europe, ending his 18-month mission to America.
Muriel's testimony to the Commission was considered a damning indictment of British rule and she became the first woman to receive the freedom of New York.
Muriel MacSwiney has been giving evidence to an unofficial American Commission in Washington that is inquiring into the present conditions in Ireland. The proceedings are attended daily by many members of Congress. Over the course of a number of days this week, Mrs MacSwiney explained to the commission that the charges that had been brought against her husband had been without foundation. She detailed the challenges that she and her husband had faced from the time of their marriage to his entry into active republican politics, which brought him to the attention of the British authorities.
Mrs MacSwiney became interested in the cause of Irish freedom as a young girl and she informed the commission that she had already become an active republican two years prior to her marriage. She claimed that Ireland would achieve its freedom, that its people were willing to sacrifice themselves for that freedom.
Mrs MacSwiney is accompanied in the United States by Mary MacSwiney, sister of the deceased Lord Mayor. Ms MacSwiney has also been giving evidence to the commission and informed it of the efforts that had been made to build up the Gaelic League and promote the Irish language. ‘England has always stifled our language’, she said. ‘This is patent in her process of Anglicising Ireland’.
Before a large audience in the Oddfellows Hall on 10 December, Ms MacSwiney alleged that Americans had ‘not made the world safe for democracy, but rather had ‘only made it safe for the British for a short time.’
Muriel's testimony to the Commission was considered a damning indictment of British rule and she became the first woman to receive the freedom of New York.
Muriel MacSwiney has been giving evidence to an unofficial American Commission in Washington that is inquiring into the present conditions in Ireland. The proceedings are attended daily by many members of Congress. Over the course of a number of days this week, Mrs MacSwiney explained to the commission that the charges that had been brought against her husband had been without foundation. She detailed the challenges that she and her husband had faced from the time of their marriage to his entry into active republican politics, which brought him to the attention of the British authorities.
Mrs MacSwiney became interested in the cause of Irish freedom as a young girl and she informed the commission that she had already become an active republican two years prior to her marriage. She claimed that Ireland would achieve its freedom, that its people were willing to sacrifice themselves for that freedom.
Mrs MacSwiney is accompanied in the United States by Mary MacSwiney, sister of the deceased Lord Mayor. Ms MacSwiney has also been giving evidence to the commission and informed it of the efforts that had been made to build up the Gaelic League and promote the Irish language. ‘England has always stifled our language’, she said. ‘This is patent in her process of Anglicising Ireland’.
Before a large audience in the Oddfellows Hall on 10 December, Ms MacSwiney alleged that Americans had ‘not made the world safe for democracy, but rather had ‘only made it safe for the British for a short time.’
Muriel MacSwiney sailed home to Ireland on New Year’s Day, 1921, aboard the Panhandle State. Mary MacSwiney remained in America and continued to speak out for Irish independence. While many regular Americans supported the Irish cause, the U.S. government under new President Warren Harding considered it a British domestic issue, the same stance as predecessor Woodrow Wilson. In August, with a ceasefire agreed in the war, Mary MacSwiney and Boland returned to Ireland together aboard the White Star’s Olympic. Four months later a treaty ended the war and created the Irish Free State.
For the next sixteen months or so she lived in Ballingeary, West Cork and then Dublin.
The events of the War of Independence were followed closely in America, due to the large Irish diaspora community. During the winter of 1920–21 the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland was established to gather testimonies from eyewitnesses on the state of the country as a result of the war. The interim report, released in the US at the end of March 1921, was based on the testimonies of 38 witnesses and painted a grim picture of the conflict. It accused the British government of ‘a campaign for the destruction of the means of existence of the Irish people’. The report’s findings were quickly disputed by the British government and Ulster Unionists, who argued that the witnesses for the report were overwhelmingly from republican backgrounds. The Northern Whig in Belfast took rather a dim view of the Commission: "...The report declares that the evidence seems to prove that the Imperial British Government has created and introduced into Ireland a force of at least 75,000 men, many of them youthful and inexperienced, and some of them convicts and has incited that force to unbridled violence. The Imperial British forces in Ireland have indiscriminately killed innocent men, women, and children; have discriminately assassinated persons suspected of being Republicans; have tortured and shot prisoners while in custody, adopting the subterfuges of ‘refusal to halt’ and ‘attempting to escape’; and have attributed to alleged ‘Sinn Féin extremists’ the British assassination of prominent Irish Republicans." The British Embassy in Washington DC issued a statement declaring that the report of the American Commission on the Conditions in Ireland is ‘biased and wholly misleading’ and declares that Ireland is far from being a devastated country and is a most prosperous part of the United Kingdom. The report laid stress on the so-called reprisals, but ignored the Sinn Féin murders and burnings. The Embassy denies that a British Government order condoned unjustified violence. < Click image to view a copy of the report and testimony. |
Muriel MacSwiney's opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty was registered during the treaty debates in a letter read to the Dáil by Professor William Stockley, and she was part of the garrison in the Hammam hotel with Cathal Brugha in July 1922. She was briefly arrested. After her release she embarked on a lecture tour in the USA with Linda Kearns in support of the republic, leaving her daughter with the O'Rahilly family. Various Irish-American republican factions vied for her support, but this tour was not as successful as the first. While in New York she was involved in the occupation of the Irish consular offices by Robert Briscoe and was forcibly removed by the police. She also lobbied for the release of Jim Larkin from prison.
When she returned to Ireland in the late summer of 1923 she was a publicly declared atheist and she leaned towards, and later joined, the Irish Communist Party. She also became more closely involved with Labour politics and joined Larkin on the executive of the Irish Worker League. This did nothing to improve relations with her conservative sister-in-law, Mary, with whom she was also in dispute over the upbringing of Máire. Mary claimed that on his deathbed Terence had placed his daughter in their joint custody, but Muriel always denied this.
In late 1923 Muriel moved to Germany, taking Máire and sending her to a series of boarding schools where she hoped the child would be kept from Mary and the Catholic faith. Muriel travelled widely in Germany, Switzerland and France, becoming involved in left-wing politics in these countries. She appears to have suffered from depression, experiencing the sporadic lows that accompany this condition in the 1920s and 1930s while her fortune slowly dwindled away.
When she returned to Ireland in the late summer of 1923 she was a publicly declared atheist and she leaned towards, and later joined, the Irish Communist Party. She also became more closely involved with Labour politics and joined Larkin on the executive of the Irish Worker League. This did nothing to improve relations with her conservative sister-in-law, Mary, with whom she was also in dispute over the upbringing of Máire. Mary claimed that on his deathbed Terence had placed his daughter in their joint custody, but Muriel always denied this.
In late 1923 Muriel moved to Germany, taking Máire and sending her to a series of boarding schools where she hoped the child would be kept from Mary and the Catholic faith. Muriel travelled widely in Germany, Switzerland and France, becoming involved in left-wing politics in these countries. She appears to have suffered from depression, experiencing the sporadic lows that accompany this condition in the 1920s and 1930s while her fortune slowly dwindled away.
A relationship with a French intellectual, professor of philosopy and member of the French Resistance during the the war, Pierre Kahn produced a second daughter, Alix, in 1926 and she later married a German left-wing activist, Pullman, who was killed during the period of Nazi rule.
In 1932 Máire (whom she saw during the summer holidays) left Germany with Mary MacSwiney who, because of her refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the Free State, had to be given a special passport by Éamon de Valera. Consequently Muriel believed that her daughter had been kidnapped partially through de Valera's connivance. Máire always denied the allegation of kidnap, claiming that she wanted an end to the peripatetic and erratic life provided by her mother. Following a bitter custody battle Máire was made a ward of court and remained with her aunt and continued her education at the MacSwiney sister's Scoil Idé in Cork.
Although Muriel blamed the Catholic church, the judge seems to have been most influenced by Máire's wishes and the belief that her life lacked stability. When Máire refused to join Muriel in Switzerland in 1934 she never contacted her daughter again and rebuffed several attempts at contact by Máire and her husband (Ruairí Brugha (1917–2006), son of Cathal) in later years.
She spent the late 1930s in France, but left for England following the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940. During the war she worked in a hospital in Oxford. She spent her life after the war moving between left-wing circles in London and Paris. She was particularly active in the Ligue de l'Enseignement, a non-sectarian teachers’ association, to which she conscripted Owen Sheehy Skeffington. In London she was associated with the Connolly Association, a group inspired by the British Communist Party and led by Charles Desmond Greaves, but she fell out with Greaves and left in 1956. In 1950 – her fortune spent – she received a pension of £500 per annum that was occasionally increased, prompting debate in the Seanad on one occasion in 1959. In 1957 she objected to plans to erect a chapel in honour of Terence MacSwiney in St George's cathedral, Southwark. She believed that a memorial to her husband should be built only in Ireland, that it should be non-sectarian, and that it should be of benefit to the poor. As late as 1972 she addressed a meeting of the Workers’ Association for the Democratic Settlement of the National Conflict in Ireland. This gesture was repaid in the years following her death by consistent efforts by left-wing intellectuals to vindicate her reputation.
Muriel died in October 1982 aged 90 and is interred in Maidstone, Kent.
In 1932 Máire (whom she saw during the summer holidays) left Germany with Mary MacSwiney who, because of her refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the Free State, had to be given a special passport by Éamon de Valera. Consequently Muriel believed that her daughter had been kidnapped partially through de Valera's connivance. Máire always denied the allegation of kidnap, claiming that she wanted an end to the peripatetic and erratic life provided by her mother. Following a bitter custody battle Máire was made a ward of court and remained with her aunt and continued her education at the MacSwiney sister's Scoil Idé in Cork.
Although Muriel blamed the Catholic church, the judge seems to have been most influenced by Máire's wishes and the belief that her life lacked stability. When Máire refused to join Muriel in Switzerland in 1934 she never contacted her daughter again and rebuffed several attempts at contact by Máire and her husband (Ruairí Brugha (1917–2006), son of Cathal) in later years.
She spent the late 1930s in France, but left for England following the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1940. During the war she worked in a hospital in Oxford. She spent her life after the war moving between left-wing circles in London and Paris. She was particularly active in the Ligue de l'Enseignement, a non-sectarian teachers’ association, to which she conscripted Owen Sheehy Skeffington. In London she was associated with the Connolly Association, a group inspired by the British Communist Party and led by Charles Desmond Greaves, but she fell out with Greaves and left in 1956. In 1950 – her fortune spent – she received a pension of £500 per annum that was occasionally increased, prompting debate in the Seanad on one occasion in 1959. In 1957 she objected to plans to erect a chapel in honour of Terence MacSwiney in St George's cathedral, Southwark. She believed that a memorial to her husband should be built only in Ireland, that it should be non-sectarian, and that it should be of benefit to the poor. As late as 1972 she addressed a meeting of the Workers’ Association for the Democratic Settlement of the National Conflict in Ireland. This gesture was repaid in the years following her death by consistent efforts by left-wing intellectuals to vindicate her reputation.
Muriel died in October 1982 aged 90 and is interred in Maidstone, Kent.
On 27 March 1872, Mary MacSwiney, revolutionary, was born in Bermondsey, London of an Irish father & English mother. Returning to Cork with her family, Mary was educated as a teacher, like her parents. Beset by ill health in childhood, her misfortune culminating with the amputation of an infected foot. As a result, it was at the late age of 20 that Mary finished her education at St Angela's Ursuline convent school in 1892.
At 20, Mary she obtained a loan from a student's aid society and was admitted to a teacher-training programme normally reserved for men at Cambridge University in England. By 1900 she was teaching in English convent schools at Hillside, Farnborough, and at Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Her mother's death in 1904 led to her return to Cork to head the household, and she secured a teaching post back at St Angela's. In 1912 her education was completed with a BA from UCC.
The first republican speech Mary attended was the Centenary Celebration in Waterford in 1898. There, she heard John Redmond give a fiery rebel speech. Much to her disappointment, however, she read a speech given by Redmond in Yorkshire, England, a few days later, where he assured England that the Ireland would not even dream of asking for control of excise, customs or taxation in Ireland. Apparently appalled by the glaring contrast of the two speeches, she fiercely set out as an activist for Home Rule. She refused to join Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin because, as she said, I will never accept the King of England as the King of Ireland." She did join Sinn Féin in 1917, however, after its views became more republican.
Influenced by her revolutionary brother, Terence, she joined the Gaelic League and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, the nationalist women's organisation that would form the basis of Cumann na mBan. She taught in Cork, where she became a founder member of the Munster Women's Franchise League.
MacSwiney was a member of the Executive of Cumann na mBan when it was formed in March 1914, to advance the cause of Irish liberty through armed resistance.
Dispatched to west Cork by Terence shortly before Easter 1916 to deliver a message to Sean O'Hegarty (IRB county centre), Mary returned to Cork city in Easter week to witness the disarray of the Volunteers. Among the arrested Volunteer leaders was her brother Terence. Her return to teaching duties at St Angela's later in Easter week was shattered when the RIC arrested her while she was teaching in class, which led to her dismissal.
The Bishop of Cork effected an early release for women prisoners but Mary, however, was dismissed from her teaching post. Borrowing £200, she established her own school with the help of her sister.
In September 1916, Mary & her sister Annie and opened Scoil Íte (also known as Scoil Idé) (1916–54) in their home, 4 Belgrave Place, Cork. Like Scoil Bhríde, set up by Louise Gavan Duffy in Dublin on the model of St Enda's, founded by Patrick Pearse, Scoil Íte was an Irish-Ireland school and a progressive educational establishment as well. Ex-home ruler J. J. Horgan and pro-treaty Professor Alfred O'Rahilly were among her later political opponents who nonetheless freely acknowledged MacSwiney's credentials as a progressive Irish-Ireland educationist.
At 20, Mary she obtained a loan from a student's aid society and was admitted to a teacher-training programme normally reserved for men at Cambridge University in England. By 1900 she was teaching in English convent schools at Hillside, Farnborough, and at Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Her mother's death in 1904 led to her return to Cork to head the household, and she secured a teaching post back at St Angela's. In 1912 her education was completed with a BA from UCC.
The first republican speech Mary attended was the Centenary Celebration in Waterford in 1898. There, she heard John Redmond give a fiery rebel speech. Much to her disappointment, however, she read a speech given by Redmond in Yorkshire, England, a few days later, where he assured England that the Ireland would not even dream of asking for control of excise, customs or taxation in Ireland. Apparently appalled by the glaring contrast of the two speeches, she fiercely set out as an activist for Home Rule. She refused to join Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin because, as she said, I will never accept the King of England as the King of Ireland." She did join Sinn Féin in 1917, however, after its views became more republican.
Influenced by her revolutionary brother, Terence, she joined the Gaelic League and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, the nationalist women's organisation that would form the basis of Cumann na mBan. She taught in Cork, where she became a founder member of the Munster Women's Franchise League.
MacSwiney was a member of the Executive of Cumann na mBan when it was formed in March 1914, to advance the cause of Irish liberty through armed resistance.
Dispatched to west Cork by Terence shortly before Easter 1916 to deliver a message to Sean O'Hegarty (IRB county centre), Mary returned to Cork city in Easter week to witness the disarray of the Volunteers. Among the arrested Volunteer leaders was her brother Terence. Her return to teaching duties at St Angela's later in Easter week was shattered when the RIC arrested her while she was teaching in class, which led to her dismissal.
The Bishop of Cork effected an early release for women prisoners but Mary, however, was dismissed from her teaching post. Borrowing £200, she established her own school with the help of her sister.
In September 1916, Mary & her sister Annie and opened Scoil Íte (also known as Scoil Idé) (1916–54) in their home, 4 Belgrave Place, Cork. Like Scoil Bhríde, set up by Louise Gavan Duffy in Dublin on the model of St Enda's, founded by Patrick Pearse, Scoil Íte was an Irish-Ireland school and a progressive educational establishment as well. Ex-home ruler J. J. Horgan and pro-treaty Professor Alfred O'Rahilly were among her later political opponents who nonetheless freely acknowledged MacSwiney's credentials as a progressive Irish-Ireland educationist.
Scoil Íte at 4 Belgrave Place, Cork on the opening day, September 1916. Annie MacSwiney is seated, row 3 left and Mary MacSwiney standing, row 4 left. Standing to Mary's right is Natalie Murphy, daughter of T.J.Murphy & mother of Colm O'Sullivan. Natalie was also the first student enrolled in Scoil Íte. On the second row, second from left is Aloys Fleischmann (1910-1992) the future Irish composer, musicologist, professor and conductor. Thanks to Colm O'Sullivan.
In 1917 her election to Cumann na mBan's national executive, amid the movement's reorganisation, marked her ascent to her first leadership role at national level. But it was her brother's hunger strike and death in 1920, two years after his election as a TD for Cork and months after his election as Cork's lord mayor, that propelled her to national prominence. Together with Annie and Terence's wife Muriel, her vigil at Brixton prison was a key part of the hunger strike's drama, played out in front of the world's press. After his death (25 October 1920) at the end of a seventy-four-day ordeal, she assumed a large part of her brother's heroic mantle.
Mary then visited the US to give evidence before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland. For nine months, she and Terence's widow, Muriel, toured America lecturing and giving interviews, providing invaluable publicity to the republican cause.
After Muriel's return to Ireland in January 1921, Mary continued the highly successful seven-month coast-to-coast propaganda tour of the US. In June 1921, she was elected to the Dáil for Cork city.
She opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, calling it "the grossest act of betrayal that Ireland ever endured". Her speeches were among the most powerful, calling on the Dáil not to commit "the one unforgivable crime that has ever been committed by the representatives of the people of Ireland" by accepting a treaty which required an oath of allegiance to the British monarchy.
Mary was later Vice President of Cumann na mBan when that organisation voted against supporting the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty After the Treaty was ratified, Cumann na mBan, following a resolution proposed by MacSwiney, was the first national organisation to reject the formation of the Free State.
After re-election in June 1922 followed by abstention from the Dáil, MacSwiney fought the civil war in a political, auxiliary, non-combatant role. Her success in twice embarrassing the government into releasing her from prison, after she went on hunger strike in November 1922 and April 1923 (the former a twenty-four-day hunger strike), represented her main contributions to the republican campaign.
After the ceasefire, she retained her seat in the General Election of 1923 but, in common with the other Republican deputies, refused to take the Oath of Allegiance required under the constitution of the Free State.
When Éamon de Valera compromised in 1926 in order to enter the Dáil, MacSwiney, much like her brother before her, held fast to her Republican ideals, refusing to take the required oath to the Crown.
During the late twenties, her efforts to reinvigorate the movement foundered: the self-styled second dáil was without a president from 1927 and a new forum in 1929, Comhairle na Poblachta, was stillborn. At the change of government in 1932, her considerable reservations at Fianna Fáil's taking power were balanced by her delight in the defeat of what she termed the ‘murder gang’, i.e. Cumann na nGaedheal (Connaught Sentinel, 10 Mar. 1932). Together with the movement's manifest weakness and divisiveness, that change of government changed her own representation of her role and contribution to the movement. She now referred to herself and her allies merely as ‘guardians of the republican position’ (8 June 1932; MacSwiney papers, UCD, P48a/58(20)). Even so, her efforts to reunite the movement were just as unavailing as before, and indeed she could not prevent further fragmentation and disarray. In 1933, in opposition to the movement's leftward drift, she resigned from Cumann na mBan, founding the purist Mná na Poblachta instead. After the election of Fr Michael O'Flanagan as president of Sinn Féin in 1933, when he was a Free State civil servant, MacSwiney resigned from the party in 1934.
The fragmentation and increasing marginalisation of these years culminated in a sudden crisis that proved to be the watershed event of the last years of her life. After the IRA's killing of the 73-year-old retired vice-admiral Boyle Somerville and an alleged informer John Egan, the government's ‘coercion’ of the IRA in 1936 led her to break with Fianna Fáil and throw in her lot with the IRA. De Valera unambiguously condemned the IRA for both these killings, but MacSwiney equivocated: ‘if any man was shot by the IRA he was shot for being a spy’ (Irish Independent, 6 Aug. 1936). Two years later, in 1938, she was among the members of the second Dáil who transferred their powers to the IRA in response to a request by the IRA chief of staff to give moral legitimacy to a bombing campaign in England. After a heart attack in 1939, Mary MacSwiney died 8 March 1942 aged 69. De Valera offered to attend her funeral, but Annie MacSwiney contemptuously refused the offer.
By the 1930s Mary MacSwiney was widely represented as the Free State's gorgon republican – and yet even this did not give the full measure of her distinctions and achievements. Had she not risen from the ranks of the suffragists and of the first generation of newly enfranchised women to become one of the leading women in the Free State's politics? Had her credentials as a progressive Irish-Ireland educationist in her own school not been recognised by friend and foe alike? By contrast, her contribution to the republican leadership did little to avert the movement's disarray and fractiousness, and its failure to re-establish the republic. Nothing ever said of her whole approach, which shaped her contribution to these outcomes, matched the incisiveness of de Valera's telling counsel to her at the civil war's height, namely that there was a ‘difference between desiring a thing and having a feasible programme for securing it’
Mary MacSwiney died at her home in Cork on March 8, 1942.
After Muriel's return to Ireland in January 1921, Mary continued the highly successful seven-month coast-to-coast propaganda tour of the US. In June 1921, she was elected to the Dáil for Cork city.
She opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, calling it "the grossest act of betrayal that Ireland ever endured". Her speeches were among the most powerful, calling on the Dáil not to commit "the one unforgivable crime that has ever been committed by the representatives of the people of Ireland" by accepting a treaty which required an oath of allegiance to the British monarchy.
Mary was later Vice President of Cumann na mBan when that organisation voted against supporting the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty After the Treaty was ratified, Cumann na mBan, following a resolution proposed by MacSwiney, was the first national organisation to reject the formation of the Free State.
After re-election in June 1922 followed by abstention from the Dáil, MacSwiney fought the civil war in a political, auxiliary, non-combatant role. Her success in twice embarrassing the government into releasing her from prison, after she went on hunger strike in November 1922 and April 1923 (the former a twenty-four-day hunger strike), represented her main contributions to the republican campaign.
After the ceasefire, she retained her seat in the General Election of 1923 but, in common with the other Republican deputies, refused to take the Oath of Allegiance required under the constitution of the Free State.
When Éamon de Valera compromised in 1926 in order to enter the Dáil, MacSwiney, much like her brother before her, held fast to her Republican ideals, refusing to take the required oath to the Crown.
During the late twenties, her efforts to reinvigorate the movement foundered: the self-styled second dáil was without a president from 1927 and a new forum in 1929, Comhairle na Poblachta, was stillborn. At the change of government in 1932, her considerable reservations at Fianna Fáil's taking power were balanced by her delight in the defeat of what she termed the ‘murder gang’, i.e. Cumann na nGaedheal (Connaught Sentinel, 10 Mar. 1932). Together with the movement's manifest weakness and divisiveness, that change of government changed her own representation of her role and contribution to the movement. She now referred to herself and her allies merely as ‘guardians of the republican position’ (8 June 1932; MacSwiney papers, UCD, P48a/58(20)). Even so, her efforts to reunite the movement were just as unavailing as before, and indeed she could not prevent further fragmentation and disarray. In 1933, in opposition to the movement's leftward drift, she resigned from Cumann na mBan, founding the purist Mná na Poblachta instead. After the election of Fr Michael O'Flanagan as president of Sinn Féin in 1933, when he was a Free State civil servant, MacSwiney resigned from the party in 1934.
The fragmentation and increasing marginalisation of these years culminated in a sudden crisis that proved to be the watershed event of the last years of her life. After the IRA's killing of the 73-year-old retired vice-admiral Boyle Somerville and an alleged informer John Egan, the government's ‘coercion’ of the IRA in 1936 led her to break with Fianna Fáil and throw in her lot with the IRA. De Valera unambiguously condemned the IRA for both these killings, but MacSwiney equivocated: ‘if any man was shot by the IRA he was shot for being a spy’ (Irish Independent, 6 Aug. 1936). Two years later, in 1938, she was among the members of the second Dáil who transferred their powers to the IRA in response to a request by the IRA chief of staff to give moral legitimacy to a bombing campaign in England. After a heart attack in 1939, Mary MacSwiney died 8 March 1942 aged 69. De Valera offered to attend her funeral, but Annie MacSwiney contemptuously refused the offer.
By the 1930s Mary MacSwiney was widely represented as the Free State's gorgon republican – and yet even this did not give the full measure of her distinctions and achievements. Had she not risen from the ranks of the suffragists and of the first generation of newly enfranchised women to become one of the leading women in the Free State's politics? Had her credentials as a progressive Irish-Ireland educationist in her own school not been recognised by friend and foe alike? By contrast, her contribution to the republican leadership did little to avert the movement's disarray and fractiousness, and its failure to re-establish the republic. Nothing ever said of her whole approach, which shaped her contribution to these outcomes, matched the incisiveness of de Valera's telling counsel to her at the civil war's height, namely that there was a ‘difference between desiring a thing and having a feasible programme for securing it’
Mary MacSwiney died at her home in Cork on March 8, 1942.
Perhaps the greatest effect Terence MacSwiney had on Márie was his decision to involve his sister Mary MacSwiney in her life. Muriel was given to bouts of depression and, even before their child was born, would take to bed for days on end. MacSwiney, clearly concerned for his daughter's welfare in the event of his death, made a will in which he named Mary as co-guardian with her mother.
Terence MacSwiney died on 25 October 1920, after seventy-four days on hunger strike. His protest received attention worldwide and, seeking to capitalise on this, Éamon de Valera sent his grieving widow and sister on a speaking tour of America. This was the first in a long series of separations for the young Máire. In early 1921 Muriel returned from the States and mother and daughter lived together for a brief time, first in Cork and then in Dublin but, once again, politics took precedence over domestic life. Muriel joined the anti-treaty side in the civil war that broke out in June 1922: her opposition to the Anglo-Irish treaty was read out during the debates by Professor William Stockley, and she served in the garrison at the Hammam Hotel with Cathal Brugha in July 1922. At de Valera's request, she departed once more for a lecture tour of America, leaving Máire for eighteen months in the care of Nancy O'Rahilly, widow of Michael ('The') O'Rahilly, who had died in 1916.
Máire's formal education began in 1924 when her mother, by then an avowed communist and fiercely anti-catholic, moved her to Germany where she was undergoing treatment for depression. She attended the Odenwaldschule until 1928 – a liberal boarding school in Heppenheim, where she learned German and forgot both English and Irish – when her mother received word that her aunt Mary, who apparently had not been consulted about the move to Germany, had traced Máire to the school. She was removed immediately and sent to live with a friend of her mother's, Tilde Illig, in Heidelberg.
In 1930 Máire was uprooted again when her mother became convinced she was being 'contaminated' by the catholic religion (MacSwiney Brugha, 53), and sent to Grainau in southern Bavaria, to the house of Dr Kaltenbach who boarded children sent to the Alps for health reasons. Throughout this period Muriel was undergoing treatment and was periodically hospitalised. Mother and daughter had sporadic visits, but their meetings were usually in train stations, and only for hours at a time. At one such meeting in Garmisch Partenkirchen, near Munich in 1931, Muriel demanded that Máire come to Heidelberg to live with her and a friend. Tired of moving around, Máire refused, whereupon her mother stopped paying her boarding and school fees to force her to change her mind. Máire responded by contacting her aunt Mary, who travelled to Germany, collected her niece and they crossed the nearby border into Austria, Máire hiding in the bottom of a cab under a rug.
Muriel charged Mary with kidnapping her only child and in 1933 the case, heard in camera at the request of de Valera, found in favour of Mary MacSwiney, with the proviso that the child was not to be involved in any way in republican activities. Máire later noted that she was 'eternally grateful' to the judge for this as, returning to Cork as the daughter of Terence MacSwiney, she believed she would have been expected to join Cumann na gCáilíní and other republican organisations to continue her father's work (MacSwiney Brugha, 76). Muriel made one final attempt to recover her daughter, sending a messenger to Dingle in 1934 while Máire and her aunts were on holiday, demanding that she accompany the messenger back to Switzerland or she would never see her mother again. Máire refused to leave and, good as her word, Muriel never met her again although she lived until 1982.
Thus far Máire's life had been very unorthodox – there had been little consistency or stability in her time away from Ireland. Once under the guardianship of her aunt Mary this changed – she was able to focus on her education and establish ties with both her father and mother's families. Despite so many years out of the Irish education system, Máire was a natural scholar: she attended her aunt's school in Cork, Scoil Íde, where she attained her matriculation exam in 1935, and then moved to St Louis Convent in Monaghan where she sat her leaving certificate in 1936 and was awarded a scholarship to study arts at UCC. She graduated with first class honours in 1939, and began teaching at Scoil Íde while studying for her higher diploma in education. In 1941 she was awarded the highest scholarly accolade in the country when she won one of only two all-Ireland studentships, and the following year received her master's degree and began studying for her Ph.D.
In 1945 she married the republican activist Ruairí Brugha, son of Cathal Brugha. In an era when 'wives supported their husbands in their careers' (MacSwiney Brugha, 212), she never completed her Ph.D., nor sought a career in academia, but dedicated herself to raising their four children and supporting her husband in his business endeavours and political career with Clann na Poblachta and Fianna Fáil. As the children grew older she felt able to engage in more activities outside the domestic sphere. In 1965 she joined the committee of the newly-formed charity, Gorta: the Freedom from Hunger Council of Ireland, and was instrumental in setting up its first charity shop, initially in South Frederick Street and then in Merrion Row. She served as secretary of the council until her eyesight started failing in the 1990s, but continued serving in the shop until 2005. Engaging in politics herself, she was president of her Fianna Fáil cumann in south Dublin, and attended meetings of the Irish Association for Economic, Social and Cultural Relations, set up in 1935 to maintain links between north and south.
Máire MacSwiney Brugha died unexpectedly on 20 May 2012 at her home in Clonskeagh, Co. Dublin, and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery. The only child of one of Ireland's most famous nationalist martyrs, she attempted to forge a distinct identity and career of her own, one that incorporated Irish republican ideals but was tempered by her cosmopolitan early childhood experiences and European outlook. In the closing pages of her memoir, she noted that 'mine was a dual identity. I always felt partly German, yet wholly, deeply committed to Ireland' (MacSwiney Brugha, 239).
Terence MacSwiney died on 25 October 1920, after seventy-four days on hunger strike. His protest received attention worldwide and, seeking to capitalise on this, Éamon de Valera sent his grieving widow and sister on a speaking tour of America. This was the first in a long series of separations for the young Máire. In early 1921 Muriel returned from the States and mother and daughter lived together for a brief time, first in Cork and then in Dublin but, once again, politics took precedence over domestic life. Muriel joined the anti-treaty side in the civil war that broke out in June 1922: her opposition to the Anglo-Irish treaty was read out during the debates by Professor William Stockley, and she served in the garrison at the Hammam Hotel with Cathal Brugha in July 1922. At de Valera's request, she departed once more for a lecture tour of America, leaving Máire for eighteen months in the care of Nancy O'Rahilly, widow of Michael ('The') O'Rahilly, who had died in 1916.
Máire's formal education began in 1924 when her mother, by then an avowed communist and fiercely anti-catholic, moved her to Germany where she was undergoing treatment for depression. She attended the Odenwaldschule until 1928 – a liberal boarding school in Heppenheim, where she learned German and forgot both English and Irish – when her mother received word that her aunt Mary, who apparently had not been consulted about the move to Germany, had traced Máire to the school. She was removed immediately and sent to live with a friend of her mother's, Tilde Illig, in Heidelberg.
In 1930 Máire was uprooted again when her mother became convinced she was being 'contaminated' by the catholic religion (MacSwiney Brugha, 53), and sent to Grainau in southern Bavaria, to the house of Dr Kaltenbach who boarded children sent to the Alps for health reasons. Throughout this period Muriel was undergoing treatment and was periodically hospitalised. Mother and daughter had sporadic visits, but their meetings were usually in train stations, and only for hours at a time. At one such meeting in Garmisch Partenkirchen, near Munich in 1931, Muriel demanded that Máire come to Heidelberg to live with her and a friend. Tired of moving around, Máire refused, whereupon her mother stopped paying her boarding and school fees to force her to change her mind. Máire responded by contacting her aunt Mary, who travelled to Germany, collected her niece and they crossed the nearby border into Austria, Máire hiding in the bottom of a cab under a rug.
Muriel charged Mary with kidnapping her only child and in 1933 the case, heard in camera at the request of de Valera, found in favour of Mary MacSwiney, with the proviso that the child was not to be involved in any way in republican activities. Máire later noted that she was 'eternally grateful' to the judge for this as, returning to Cork as the daughter of Terence MacSwiney, she believed she would have been expected to join Cumann na gCáilíní and other republican organisations to continue her father's work (MacSwiney Brugha, 76). Muriel made one final attempt to recover her daughter, sending a messenger to Dingle in 1934 while Máire and her aunts were on holiday, demanding that she accompany the messenger back to Switzerland or she would never see her mother again. Máire refused to leave and, good as her word, Muriel never met her again although she lived until 1982.
Thus far Máire's life had been very unorthodox – there had been little consistency or stability in her time away from Ireland. Once under the guardianship of her aunt Mary this changed – she was able to focus on her education and establish ties with both her father and mother's families. Despite so many years out of the Irish education system, Máire was a natural scholar: she attended her aunt's school in Cork, Scoil Íde, where she attained her matriculation exam in 1935, and then moved to St Louis Convent in Monaghan where she sat her leaving certificate in 1936 and was awarded a scholarship to study arts at UCC. She graduated with first class honours in 1939, and began teaching at Scoil Íde while studying for her higher diploma in education. In 1941 she was awarded the highest scholarly accolade in the country when she won one of only two all-Ireland studentships, and the following year received her master's degree and began studying for her Ph.D.
In 1945 she married the republican activist Ruairí Brugha, son of Cathal Brugha. In an era when 'wives supported their husbands in their careers' (MacSwiney Brugha, 212), she never completed her Ph.D., nor sought a career in academia, but dedicated herself to raising their four children and supporting her husband in his business endeavours and political career with Clann na Poblachta and Fianna Fáil. As the children grew older she felt able to engage in more activities outside the domestic sphere. In 1965 she joined the committee of the newly-formed charity, Gorta: the Freedom from Hunger Council of Ireland, and was instrumental in setting up its first charity shop, initially in South Frederick Street and then in Merrion Row. She served as secretary of the council until her eyesight started failing in the 1990s, but continued serving in the shop until 2005. Engaging in politics herself, she was president of her Fianna Fáil cumann in south Dublin, and attended meetings of the Irish Association for Economic, Social and Cultural Relations, set up in 1935 to maintain links between north and south.
Máire MacSwiney Brugha died unexpectedly on 20 May 2012 at her home in Clonskeagh, Co. Dublin, and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery. The only child of one of Ireland's most famous nationalist martyrs, she attempted to forge a distinct identity and career of her own, one that incorporated Irish republican ideals but was tempered by her cosmopolitan early childhood experiences and European outlook. In the closing pages of her memoir, she noted that 'mine was a dual identity. I always felt partly German, yet wholly, deeply committed to Ireland' (MacSwiney Brugha, 239).
Fr. Dominic (1883-1935)
Soon after his return to Ireland in 1920, he described the events of 'bloody Sunday' (21 November) in a letter to a London friend, which was intercepted in the mail (see below), leading to Fr. Dominic's arrest by security forces during a night raid on the Capuchin friary on Church Street, Dublin (16–17 December). After a week's detention in Dublin Castle, where he was subjected to psychological torture (insults, taunts and threatened summary execution), he was transferred to solitary confinement in Kilmainham jail. Court-martialled on 8 January 1921 on charges related to written material likely to cause disaffection to the crown (the letter to the London friend and a memorandum book containing depositions taken from MacSwiney in prison), he was sentenced on 29 January to three years' penal servitude. Imprisoned briefly in Wormwood Scrubs prison, London, he was transferred to Parkhurst prison, Isle of Wight, where he was subject to the ordinary convict regime regarding diet, labour and dress (though his hair and beard were not cut). After a republican prisoners' work strike and intervention by Bishop Peter Amigo of Southwark, he was allowed first to celebrate Sunday mass, and then daily mass.
Released in a general amnesty in January 1922 pursuant to ratification by Dáil Éireann of the Anglo–Irish treaty, he was granted the freedom of Cork (25 February) for his services to MacCurtain and MacSwiney. With his Capuchin confrère Father Albert Bibby, he afforded spiritual ministry to the garrison of anti-treatyites who seized the Four Courts, Dublin, close to the Church Street friary. During the three-day bombardment and siege by Free State forces (28–30 June 1922), the two friars helped evacuate the wounded to hospital and finally to facilitate the garrison's surrender. Thereupon they ministered to the new anti-treatyite headquarters garrison in the Hammam Hotel, an act castigated by the Free State government as an abuse of the free movement and privileged immunity granted them; an official complaint to Archbishop Edward Byrne of Dublin also accused O'Connor of transmitting information to anti-treaty leaders.
O'Connor ministered to both sides in the Wicklow mountains and to the anti-treaty forces that briefly held Blessington. Like many other Capuchins, he continued to offer spiritual ministry to anti-treatyite republicans even after the catholic bishops' pastoral letter (10 October) interdicting reception of the sacraments by the 'irregulars' and their supporters; he may have been more visible than others in his defiance of the interdict. On returning to his Cork friary, he was refused renewal of his canonical faculties by Bishop Daniel Cohalan until he resumed theological studies and submitted to examination thereon. In this context, O'Connor was transferred in November 1922 by the order's provincial to the Irish Capuchin mission in Oregon, USA (where his uncle Father Luke Sheehan was still active). Serving in the order's houses in Bend and Hermiston, after being loaned for a year as temporary rector of St Francis de Sales cathedral, Baker City, in 1931 he was appointed superior of St Mary of the Angels friary in Hermiston. He wrote a brief history of the diocese of Baker City. While attending a Marian congress in Portland, he sustained serious injuries in a motor accident, was hospitalised for several weeks, and never fully recovered.
He died 17 October 1935 in the Hermiston friary, Oregon.
Of sturdy build and erect carriage, with long flowing beard, Father Dominic was a practical man of action, with great moral and physical courage, and mind and habits disciplined with a military-like precision. He was given to frequent citation of the Old Testament books of Maccabees as justification of armed insurrection to secure religious and political liberty, and maintained that violence done toward such an end was not only not sinful but meritorious. In June 1958 his remains, and those of Father Albert, who had died in California, were repatriated to Ireland, and reinterred at Rochestown, Co. Cork.
Soon after his return to Ireland in 1920, he described the events of 'bloody Sunday' (21 November) in a letter to a London friend, which was intercepted in the mail (see below), leading to Fr. Dominic's arrest by security forces during a night raid on the Capuchin friary on Church Street, Dublin (16–17 December). After a week's detention in Dublin Castle, where he was subjected to psychological torture (insults, taunts and threatened summary execution), he was transferred to solitary confinement in Kilmainham jail. Court-martialled on 8 January 1921 on charges related to written material likely to cause disaffection to the crown (the letter to the London friend and a memorandum book containing depositions taken from MacSwiney in prison), he was sentenced on 29 January to three years' penal servitude. Imprisoned briefly in Wormwood Scrubs prison, London, he was transferred to Parkhurst prison, Isle of Wight, where he was subject to the ordinary convict regime regarding diet, labour and dress (though his hair and beard were not cut). After a republican prisoners' work strike and intervention by Bishop Peter Amigo of Southwark, he was allowed first to celebrate Sunday mass, and then daily mass.
Released in a general amnesty in January 1922 pursuant to ratification by Dáil Éireann of the Anglo–Irish treaty, he was granted the freedom of Cork (25 February) for his services to MacCurtain and MacSwiney. With his Capuchin confrère Father Albert Bibby, he afforded spiritual ministry to the garrison of anti-treatyites who seized the Four Courts, Dublin, close to the Church Street friary. During the three-day bombardment and siege by Free State forces (28–30 June 1922), the two friars helped evacuate the wounded to hospital and finally to facilitate the garrison's surrender. Thereupon they ministered to the new anti-treatyite headquarters garrison in the Hammam Hotel, an act castigated by the Free State government as an abuse of the free movement and privileged immunity granted them; an official complaint to Archbishop Edward Byrne of Dublin also accused O'Connor of transmitting information to anti-treaty leaders.
O'Connor ministered to both sides in the Wicklow mountains and to the anti-treaty forces that briefly held Blessington. Like many other Capuchins, he continued to offer spiritual ministry to anti-treatyite republicans even after the catholic bishops' pastoral letter (10 October) interdicting reception of the sacraments by the 'irregulars' and their supporters; he may have been more visible than others in his defiance of the interdict. On returning to his Cork friary, he was refused renewal of his canonical faculties by Bishop Daniel Cohalan until he resumed theological studies and submitted to examination thereon. In this context, O'Connor was transferred in November 1922 by the order's provincial to the Irish Capuchin mission in Oregon, USA (where his uncle Father Luke Sheehan was still active). Serving in the order's houses in Bend and Hermiston, after being loaned for a year as temporary rector of St Francis de Sales cathedral, Baker City, in 1931 he was appointed superior of St Mary of the Angels friary in Hermiston. He wrote a brief history of the diocese of Baker City. While attending a Marian congress in Portland, he sustained serious injuries in a motor accident, was hospitalised for several weeks, and never fully recovered.
He died 17 October 1935 in the Hermiston friary, Oregon.
Of sturdy build and erect carriage, with long flowing beard, Father Dominic was a practical man of action, with great moral and physical courage, and mind and habits disciplined with a military-like precision. He was given to frequent citation of the Old Testament books of Maccabees as justification of armed insurrection to secure religious and political liberty, and maintained that violence done toward such an end was not only not sinful but meritorious. In June 1958 his remains, and those of Father Albert, who had died in California, were repatriated to Ireland, and reinterred at Rochestown, Co. Cork.
Four-page letter from Fr Dominic, Chaplain to the Cork Brigade of IRA Volunteers, 26 November 1920 giving details of IRA activities. Imperial War Museum, London. Catalogue Number Q 107782, part of Major General Strickland Collection. URL: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205350621
Costello, Francis J. Enduring the Most: The Life and Death of Terence MacSwiney. Dingle, Ireland: Brandon, 1995.
Kee, Robert. The Green Flag, Volume II: The Bold Fenian Men. London, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1972.
MacSwiny Brugha, Máire. History's Daughter: A memoir from the Only Child of Terence MacSwiney: O'Brien Press, 2005.
Miller, I. A History of Force Feeding: Hunger Strikes, Prisons and Medical Ethics, 1909-1974. Basingstoke (UK): Palgrave Macmillan; 2016
Thanks to: Colm O'Sullivan, The Irish Examiner, The Irish Times, Cork Independent, Wikipedia, An Phoblacht (18 Feb 2021), University College Dublin Archives, Niall Dillon & The Easter Rising Historical Society, The National Library of Ireland, Brian Kirby Provincial Archivist Irish Capuchin Archives, Anne Twomey on the life of Muriel MacSwiney and the Dictionary of Irish Biograpy.
Kee, Robert. The Green Flag, Volume II: The Bold Fenian Men. London, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1972.
MacSwiny Brugha, Máire. History's Daughter: A memoir from the Only Child of Terence MacSwiney: O'Brien Press, 2005.
Miller, I. A History of Force Feeding: Hunger Strikes, Prisons and Medical Ethics, 1909-1974. Basingstoke (UK): Palgrave Macmillan; 2016
Thanks to: Colm O'Sullivan, The Irish Examiner, The Irish Times, Cork Independent, Wikipedia, An Phoblacht (18 Feb 2021), University College Dublin Archives, Niall Dillon & The Easter Rising Historical Society, The National Library of Ireland, Brian Kirby Provincial Archivist Irish Capuchin Archives, Anne Twomey on the life of Muriel MacSwiney and the Dictionary of Irish Biograpy.
Brixton Prison Diary by Anne MacSwiney. Fourteen pages of close typed foolscap detailing events of 18th to 31st October, 1920 in Brixton, London, and Cork written by Anne MacSwiney. It provides much detail into the emotion of being present, the grief, the confusion but above all her and her siblings’ reaction to Westminster’s Home Office and the policing authorities. Click on image to open PDF - archive held by Cork Museum, Cork. |
- United States National Library of Medicine. ‘A Few Deaths from Hunger Is Nothing’: Experiencing Starvation in Irish Prisons, 1917–23. Click here Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK385299/
- Muriel MacSwiney - Statement to Bureau of Military History. December 1951 - click here
Link: https://www.militaryarchives.ie/collections/online-collections/bureau-of-military-history-1913-1921/reels/bmh/BMH.WS0637.pdf