Richard Henchion's article on Gravestone Inscriptions in Tracton Abbey from the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society Journal (2015) & Eileen McGough's Reply.
In the 2015 edition of ‘The Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society’, local historian Richard Henchion authored a survey of the Tracton Abbey graveyard.
This included historical notes on the Lynch family and specifically, Diarmuid and is reproduced here:
“If the Cadogan and Falvey Dictionary is accepted as the biographical bible of Cork then Diarmuid Lynch (1878-1950) will be acknowledged as one of Tracton's most important personages for only four natives of the parish are profiles in that authorative work and he is one of the four. Nor will there be any inclination to cast doubt on Diarmuid's own claims that he was of the ninth generation of Lynch's in Granig for all that was needed to prove that was an ancestor born around 1620 and we know from the census returns of the 17th century that Lynch was among the most numerous surnames in Kerrycurrihy at that particular time.
Moving on to the next century we meet Daniel Lynch of Granig who died about 1772 (Index of Cork Wills) and Dan Lynch of Granig (20) who dies in 1801. In 1828 Jeremiah Lynch (c.1808-c.1875) was farming 41.5 acres in the town land. Granig was a very crowded place at that period there being no less than 22 farming households with acreages ranging from 6 to 73 and names as familiar as Ahern, Brien, Canty, Coveney, Daunt, Lynch, Neill and Walsh. The Great Famine boosted rather than crushed the Lynch's for in 1850 three substantial holdings were in the name of Jeremiah Lynch, although it is possible that two or even three Jeremiahs, rather than one person so names, were in question. The farms were of 61, 91 and 47 acres, the last two having substantial buildings valued at £5.10.0 and £3.10.0 attached. A Jeremiah also had a slate quarry valued at £6. What series of events brought about this transformation must remain one of Tracton's mysteries until unravelled.
By 1875 Timothy J. Lynch (1844-1890) was the top man at Granig. In February, 1877, when described as the youngest son of the late Jeremiah Lynch and Margaret Collins, Tracton Abbey, he married Hannah, the second daughter of Denis Dunlea, Ballyvorisheen House, Carrignavar, at her home, Canon Freeman, PP, Glanmire, who was her cousin, officiating. Diarmuid (d.1950) asserted that this lady was his mother and that she died at his birth. He was christened Jeremiah Christopher.
In December 1879, Timothy married secondly Margaret, the 26 year old daughter of Bartholomew Murphy, Knockanemore, Ovens, whom Diarmuid described, mistakenly it would seem, as a native of Riverstick. Five years later, by an extraordinary twist of fate, Timothy found himself in the Bankruptcy Court. There he stated that he had two farms but they were not worth much after rent was paid. He thought one was worth about £300 the other £150. His father had made a will, which had not been proved. One of his sisters had married and gone to Australia. When he himself was married in 1879 he received £300 with his wife. His father-in-law Bartholomew Murphy handed it to him. After he received the money, he paid off a number of debts. In the bank there was a bill for £170 to which his name and that of his brother were appended, but he had paid off the final instalment. No settlement had been made at the time of his marriage, but two years later one was concluded for the benefit of his wife and family. Whatever answers were given later to questions about the value of the stock and property were not published, nor were the details of his wife's examinations made available, for an adjournment intervened and the final outcome of the hearing seems to have eluded journalistic attention completely. Mr Thomas F. O'Connell acted on behalf of the bankrupt.
Timothy Lynch died 28 December 1890 at 28 Waterloo Place leaving a personal estate of £510. He was only 46 years of age at the time. In 1901 his widow, Mrs Margaret Josephine Lynch (48) was residing at Granig with four sons, Timothy B (15), Daniel J. (13), Denis J (13) and Michael F (11) as well as a daughter, Mary (16),Three servants, one a male, were part of the household. Timothy B. (b.1885) of Temple View, Ballintemple, died 27 April, 1958, his wife, the former Nellie Forde, on 8 August 1967; Daniel Joseph (b.1877) of Granig died on 24 February 1955, while Mary (b.1884) of Granig died unmarried on 11 October, 1957. All four were buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Cork in a plot purchased by Daniel Joseph in 1915 to receive his mother who had died at Granig on 11 June, 1915.
Denis J, who acquired Upton House, and his wife Alice Mary Wyatt who died there on 10 March 1968, are also buried in this plot. On the other hand, Michael F (1890-10 October 1956) is buried in Ballyfeard as is his wife Carmel Quinn (d. 3 December 1960) who was the sister of his step-brother Diarmuid's wife, Kit Quinn. To Michael's son, Diarmuid and his wife Mary Rose Coveney, author and columnist, the Granig acres descended being now farmed by their family.
Going back to Diarmuid, the first son of Timothy, it could be said that in attempting to evaluate his ranking as an Irish nationalist there is inclination to admit that he is deserving of more acclaim than has been afforded to him, but also a recognition that time was more likely to push him onto the sidewalk of history when he had not been at the coalface of battle during the War of Independence even though he had been a close associate of the 1916 leaders and had fought as a Staff Captain in the GPO during that most famous of Easter Weeks before being deported to the USA in 1918 where he was to remain until 1932.
For him, deportation to the USA would not have been as displacing as it would have been for many another for he was a citizen of that country, which had already provided him with his own first home. Furthermore, becoming a married man just before he was shunted out was also likely to change his priorities substantially so that when he came to weigh up the advantage of the new life beckoning to him from abroad against assuming the duties first of Sinn Fein MP for Cork South-East and later a TD in an impoverished, war torn Ireland it was not too difficult to make a choice. By contrast with the exuberant tones of the telegram which he sent from New York in December 1918 on hearing of his first election success, the wording of which was 'To Lynch, C.I.V. Rochestown, Cork. Convey my heartfelt thanks to the people of south-east Cork. All lovers of liberty in America are enthusiastically with us'. The letter announcing his unwillingness to serve in the first Dail, which emanated from New York in 1920, was long winded - over 1,000 words - and seemed to suggest he was - just then at least - more an idealist than a pragmatist where Irish freedom was concerned. One perceives that he had been softened by foreign and domestic influences to approach Irish politics more as a spectator than a participant. He was not cast in the same mould as Michael Collins and as time as shown it was the Michael Collinses that the people came to cherish.
One suspects that there was some doubts about his true blue bloodedness in the minds of his IR colleagues when he was not inducted onto the Military Council that planned the details of the Rising, although he was a member of the Supreme Council and Pearse had entrusted him with the deciding where in Kerry the German arms were to be landed. Justification for the doubts may be extracted from Lynch's behaviour once he had been deported to the US. He continued to be attached to Ireland's cause, but it was as a paid desk-operative, not a fiery revolutionary. He became increasingly influenced by his superiors, Daniel F. Cohalan and John Devoy, men who viewed Ireland's trauma from the grandstand of a foreign country experiencing nothing of the raids, burnings and shootings that were convulsing what had once been the Island of Saints and Scholars. There was extra ground for a personal closeness with Devoy since he and Lynch's wife were both natives of Co. Kildare.
Lynch's reputation suffered its most serious set-back when the powerful support group, the Friends of Irish Freedom, of which he was National Secretary, was devastated as a result of De Valera's setting up the American Association of the Irish Republic in opposition. Sensing that the tide was turning against him, Lynch declined to make common cause with De Valera, at the same time resigning his Dail seat to which he had been elected unopposed in 1918 thanks to his Coveney neighbours at home fighting his cause in his absence. Being the first deputy ever to resign from Dail Eireann was hardly an achievement likely to warm the chilled hearts of those at home who had chosen him as their representative. And it was not conducive to his reputation that his resignation was received without demurral.
Another shattering blow to Lynch's good name was the editing of his biographical sketch with the title The IRB and the 1916 Insurrection by Florence O'Donoghue in 1952. In nearly 100 pages of that work was reproduced line-by-line excoriations of published work by R.M. Fox and Desmond Ryan, which left the reader believing that Lynch was nothing more than a crotchety old nit-picker. It was a withering misjudgement on the part of O'Donoghue for it put the seal on a career that had a recent essayist describing Diarmuid as 'one of the forgotten men of 1916'. Other set-backs that deflated the character of Lynch were (a) the opinion of fellow Corkman J.J.Walsh who reckoned he was only in the 'second grade' and (b) the loss of recognition that prompted the exclamation 'Who is he?' when Diarmuid was proposed for office in Cummann na Gaedheal in 1927.
Hopefully there will be new and more balanced assessments of Lynch's status generated between now and the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016.
Having returned from America, Lynch finally settled at Tracton, occupying a bungalow facing the Graveyard. When he died, 9 November, 1950, Mr Sean T. O'Kelly, President of Ireland, attended the funeral. The chief mourners were Mrs Kit Lynch, his widow, Miss Mary Lynch, his step sister, Messrs Tim, Dan, Denis, and Michael, his step-brothers, Diarmuid Lynch (nephew), Misses Carmel Clancy, Deirdre, Dolores and Ann Lynch (nieces), Mrs M. Lynch, Mrs T. Lynch and Mrs Denis Lynch (sisters-in-law). A party of the Old IRA was led by Mr. Ted Barrett, William O'Reilly was the bugler while S. O'Brien (Chairman), T. Lyons (Secretary) and D. Murphy (Treasurer) represented Tracton GAA Club.”
“Ill-founded Assumptions and Inaccurate Historical Account by Cork Historian Richard Henchion”. Eileen McGough’s response.
In the current edition of the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society (2015) an updated survey by local historian, Richard Henchion, of the graveyard at Tracton Abbey, County Cork, once the site of an important Cistercian Foundation (1224) is included. In his accompanying 'historical' notes concerning one interred member of the local Lynch family of Granig, Henchion shows an ignorance of Irish-American politics during the turbulent years between 1916 and 1932. This lack of knowledge has not stopped him from surmising and recording his unfounded opinions in this eminently respected journal on what compelled Tracton native, Diarmuid Lynch, Supreme Council of the IRB, to remain in the USA as National Secretary of the FOIF (Friends of Irish Freedom) following the Treaty of 1921.
As the 'predominant force within the FOIF' according to the current AIHS (American-Irish Historical Society) archives, Lynch spent the 1920s in American courtrooms, representing the FOIF in several court cases, all of which were decided in favour of the FOIF. Lynch prepared the court submissions (in most cases these ran to hefty files of hundreds of documents). He was the man who stood in the dock giving witness for the FOIF in every case. The legal successes of the FOIF in the decade 1920- 1930 were attributed, according to Florrie O' Donoghue(1957), to Diarmuid Lynch's integrity and honesty, his attention to detail and the meticulous completeness of the records he kept on behalf of the organisation of which he was National Secretary from 1918- 1932, . One of those court cases was a battle for funds collected in the USA during 1919- 1921, for the new Irish Republic through the sale of 'Bond-Certificates'. Following the Treaty and establishment of the Irish Free State, Éamon De Valera wanted to acquire the funds thus raised for the specific reason of setting up his 'Irish Press' newspaper. That this case too went in favour of the FOIF led to even greater hostility in some political circles in Ireland and in sections of the Irish-American Diaspora opposed to the FOIF and its representative, Diarmuid Lynch.
Henchion's suppositions are quite insulting; 'One perceives that he (Diarmuid) had been softened by foreign and domestic influences to approach Irish politics more as a spectator that a participant.' Again he states that Diarmuid chose a softer life as a 'paid desk-operative over the life he would have as a TD in 'war-torn Ireland.'
On the contrary Diarmuid frequently expressed his and Kit's strong desire to return and live in Ireland (i.e., expressed in a letter to Piaras Beaslaí in 1925). While on holiday in Ireland during the 1920s he actively looked for employment which would enable the couple to survive financially if they returned.
Further vexation is added because Henchion’s brief history of the Lynch family is replete with annoying errors. For example, he states that Diarmuid recounted that his mother, Hannah nee Dunlea of Carrignavar died when he was born. This claim has no foundation as Hannah's death certificate, now in the hands of the Lynch family, shows that Diarmuid was six months old when she died of bronchial pneumonia. He also mistakenly claims that Diarmuid recorded that his step mother, Margaret Murphy, was a native of Riverstick (she was a native of Ovens); that Diarmuid's father, Timothy, died in Cork City whereas the family knows that he died in his own bed in Granig.
Considering these inaccuracies in Henchion's 'historical' notes on just one family whose members lie in the graveyard at Tracton Abbey it can be surmised that further inaccuracies are contained within his 'potted' histories of other families there interred.
Eileen McGough. Author, 'Diarmuid Lynch a Forgotten Irish Patriot' Mercier Press 2013
This included historical notes on the Lynch family and specifically, Diarmuid and is reproduced here:
“If the Cadogan and Falvey Dictionary is accepted as the biographical bible of Cork then Diarmuid Lynch (1878-1950) will be acknowledged as one of Tracton's most important personages for only four natives of the parish are profiles in that authorative work and he is one of the four. Nor will there be any inclination to cast doubt on Diarmuid's own claims that he was of the ninth generation of Lynch's in Granig for all that was needed to prove that was an ancestor born around 1620 and we know from the census returns of the 17th century that Lynch was among the most numerous surnames in Kerrycurrihy at that particular time.
Moving on to the next century we meet Daniel Lynch of Granig who died about 1772 (Index of Cork Wills) and Dan Lynch of Granig (20) who dies in 1801. In 1828 Jeremiah Lynch (c.1808-c.1875) was farming 41.5 acres in the town land. Granig was a very crowded place at that period there being no less than 22 farming households with acreages ranging from 6 to 73 and names as familiar as Ahern, Brien, Canty, Coveney, Daunt, Lynch, Neill and Walsh. The Great Famine boosted rather than crushed the Lynch's for in 1850 three substantial holdings were in the name of Jeremiah Lynch, although it is possible that two or even three Jeremiahs, rather than one person so names, were in question. The farms were of 61, 91 and 47 acres, the last two having substantial buildings valued at £5.10.0 and £3.10.0 attached. A Jeremiah also had a slate quarry valued at £6. What series of events brought about this transformation must remain one of Tracton's mysteries until unravelled.
By 1875 Timothy J. Lynch (1844-1890) was the top man at Granig. In February, 1877, when described as the youngest son of the late Jeremiah Lynch and Margaret Collins, Tracton Abbey, he married Hannah, the second daughter of Denis Dunlea, Ballyvorisheen House, Carrignavar, at her home, Canon Freeman, PP, Glanmire, who was her cousin, officiating. Diarmuid (d.1950) asserted that this lady was his mother and that she died at his birth. He was christened Jeremiah Christopher.
In December 1879, Timothy married secondly Margaret, the 26 year old daughter of Bartholomew Murphy, Knockanemore, Ovens, whom Diarmuid described, mistakenly it would seem, as a native of Riverstick. Five years later, by an extraordinary twist of fate, Timothy found himself in the Bankruptcy Court. There he stated that he had two farms but they were not worth much after rent was paid. He thought one was worth about £300 the other £150. His father had made a will, which had not been proved. One of his sisters had married and gone to Australia. When he himself was married in 1879 he received £300 with his wife. His father-in-law Bartholomew Murphy handed it to him. After he received the money, he paid off a number of debts. In the bank there was a bill for £170 to which his name and that of his brother were appended, but he had paid off the final instalment. No settlement had been made at the time of his marriage, but two years later one was concluded for the benefit of his wife and family. Whatever answers were given later to questions about the value of the stock and property were not published, nor were the details of his wife's examinations made available, for an adjournment intervened and the final outcome of the hearing seems to have eluded journalistic attention completely. Mr Thomas F. O'Connell acted on behalf of the bankrupt.
Timothy Lynch died 28 December 1890 at 28 Waterloo Place leaving a personal estate of £510. He was only 46 years of age at the time. In 1901 his widow, Mrs Margaret Josephine Lynch (48) was residing at Granig with four sons, Timothy B (15), Daniel J. (13), Denis J (13) and Michael F (11) as well as a daughter, Mary (16),Three servants, one a male, were part of the household. Timothy B. (b.1885) of Temple View, Ballintemple, died 27 April, 1958, his wife, the former Nellie Forde, on 8 August 1967; Daniel Joseph (b.1877) of Granig died on 24 February 1955, while Mary (b.1884) of Granig died unmarried on 11 October, 1957. All four were buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Cork in a plot purchased by Daniel Joseph in 1915 to receive his mother who had died at Granig on 11 June, 1915.
Denis J, who acquired Upton House, and his wife Alice Mary Wyatt who died there on 10 March 1968, are also buried in this plot. On the other hand, Michael F (1890-10 October 1956) is buried in Ballyfeard as is his wife Carmel Quinn (d. 3 December 1960) who was the sister of his step-brother Diarmuid's wife, Kit Quinn. To Michael's son, Diarmuid and his wife Mary Rose Coveney, author and columnist, the Granig acres descended being now farmed by their family.
Going back to Diarmuid, the first son of Timothy, it could be said that in attempting to evaluate his ranking as an Irish nationalist there is inclination to admit that he is deserving of more acclaim than has been afforded to him, but also a recognition that time was more likely to push him onto the sidewalk of history when he had not been at the coalface of battle during the War of Independence even though he had been a close associate of the 1916 leaders and had fought as a Staff Captain in the GPO during that most famous of Easter Weeks before being deported to the USA in 1918 where he was to remain until 1932.
For him, deportation to the USA would not have been as displacing as it would have been for many another for he was a citizen of that country, which had already provided him with his own first home. Furthermore, becoming a married man just before he was shunted out was also likely to change his priorities substantially so that when he came to weigh up the advantage of the new life beckoning to him from abroad against assuming the duties first of Sinn Fein MP for Cork South-East and later a TD in an impoverished, war torn Ireland it was not too difficult to make a choice. By contrast with the exuberant tones of the telegram which he sent from New York in December 1918 on hearing of his first election success, the wording of which was 'To Lynch, C.I.V. Rochestown, Cork. Convey my heartfelt thanks to the people of south-east Cork. All lovers of liberty in America are enthusiastically with us'. The letter announcing his unwillingness to serve in the first Dail, which emanated from New York in 1920, was long winded - over 1,000 words - and seemed to suggest he was - just then at least - more an idealist than a pragmatist where Irish freedom was concerned. One perceives that he had been softened by foreign and domestic influences to approach Irish politics more as a spectator than a participant. He was not cast in the same mould as Michael Collins and as time as shown it was the Michael Collinses that the people came to cherish.
One suspects that there was some doubts about his true blue bloodedness in the minds of his IR colleagues when he was not inducted onto the Military Council that planned the details of the Rising, although he was a member of the Supreme Council and Pearse had entrusted him with the deciding where in Kerry the German arms were to be landed. Justification for the doubts may be extracted from Lynch's behaviour once he had been deported to the US. He continued to be attached to Ireland's cause, but it was as a paid desk-operative, not a fiery revolutionary. He became increasingly influenced by his superiors, Daniel F. Cohalan and John Devoy, men who viewed Ireland's trauma from the grandstand of a foreign country experiencing nothing of the raids, burnings and shootings that were convulsing what had once been the Island of Saints and Scholars. There was extra ground for a personal closeness with Devoy since he and Lynch's wife were both natives of Co. Kildare.
Lynch's reputation suffered its most serious set-back when the powerful support group, the Friends of Irish Freedom, of which he was National Secretary, was devastated as a result of De Valera's setting up the American Association of the Irish Republic in opposition. Sensing that the tide was turning against him, Lynch declined to make common cause with De Valera, at the same time resigning his Dail seat to which he had been elected unopposed in 1918 thanks to his Coveney neighbours at home fighting his cause in his absence. Being the first deputy ever to resign from Dail Eireann was hardly an achievement likely to warm the chilled hearts of those at home who had chosen him as their representative. And it was not conducive to his reputation that his resignation was received without demurral.
Another shattering blow to Lynch's good name was the editing of his biographical sketch with the title The IRB and the 1916 Insurrection by Florence O'Donoghue in 1952. In nearly 100 pages of that work was reproduced line-by-line excoriations of published work by R.M. Fox and Desmond Ryan, which left the reader believing that Lynch was nothing more than a crotchety old nit-picker. It was a withering misjudgement on the part of O'Donoghue for it put the seal on a career that had a recent essayist describing Diarmuid as 'one of the forgotten men of 1916'. Other set-backs that deflated the character of Lynch were (a) the opinion of fellow Corkman J.J.Walsh who reckoned he was only in the 'second grade' and (b) the loss of recognition that prompted the exclamation 'Who is he?' when Diarmuid was proposed for office in Cummann na Gaedheal in 1927.
Hopefully there will be new and more balanced assessments of Lynch's status generated between now and the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016.
Having returned from America, Lynch finally settled at Tracton, occupying a bungalow facing the Graveyard. When he died, 9 November, 1950, Mr Sean T. O'Kelly, President of Ireland, attended the funeral. The chief mourners were Mrs Kit Lynch, his widow, Miss Mary Lynch, his step sister, Messrs Tim, Dan, Denis, and Michael, his step-brothers, Diarmuid Lynch (nephew), Misses Carmel Clancy, Deirdre, Dolores and Ann Lynch (nieces), Mrs M. Lynch, Mrs T. Lynch and Mrs Denis Lynch (sisters-in-law). A party of the Old IRA was led by Mr. Ted Barrett, William O'Reilly was the bugler while S. O'Brien (Chairman), T. Lyons (Secretary) and D. Murphy (Treasurer) represented Tracton GAA Club.”
“Ill-founded Assumptions and Inaccurate Historical Account by Cork Historian Richard Henchion”. Eileen McGough’s response.
In the current edition of the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society (2015) an updated survey by local historian, Richard Henchion, of the graveyard at Tracton Abbey, County Cork, once the site of an important Cistercian Foundation (1224) is included. In his accompanying 'historical' notes concerning one interred member of the local Lynch family of Granig, Henchion shows an ignorance of Irish-American politics during the turbulent years between 1916 and 1932. This lack of knowledge has not stopped him from surmising and recording his unfounded opinions in this eminently respected journal on what compelled Tracton native, Diarmuid Lynch, Supreme Council of the IRB, to remain in the USA as National Secretary of the FOIF (Friends of Irish Freedom) following the Treaty of 1921.
As the 'predominant force within the FOIF' according to the current AIHS (American-Irish Historical Society) archives, Lynch spent the 1920s in American courtrooms, representing the FOIF in several court cases, all of which were decided in favour of the FOIF. Lynch prepared the court submissions (in most cases these ran to hefty files of hundreds of documents). He was the man who stood in the dock giving witness for the FOIF in every case. The legal successes of the FOIF in the decade 1920- 1930 were attributed, according to Florrie O' Donoghue(1957), to Diarmuid Lynch's integrity and honesty, his attention to detail and the meticulous completeness of the records he kept on behalf of the organisation of which he was National Secretary from 1918- 1932, . One of those court cases was a battle for funds collected in the USA during 1919- 1921, for the new Irish Republic through the sale of 'Bond-Certificates'. Following the Treaty and establishment of the Irish Free State, Éamon De Valera wanted to acquire the funds thus raised for the specific reason of setting up his 'Irish Press' newspaper. That this case too went in favour of the FOIF led to even greater hostility in some political circles in Ireland and in sections of the Irish-American Diaspora opposed to the FOIF and its representative, Diarmuid Lynch.
Henchion's suppositions are quite insulting; 'One perceives that he (Diarmuid) had been softened by foreign and domestic influences to approach Irish politics more as a spectator that a participant.' Again he states that Diarmuid chose a softer life as a 'paid desk-operative over the life he would have as a TD in 'war-torn Ireland.'
On the contrary Diarmuid frequently expressed his and Kit's strong desire to return and live in Ireland (i.e., expressed in a letter to Piaras Beaslaí in 1925). While on holiday in Ireland during the 1920s he actively looked for employment which would enable the couple to survive financially if they returned.
Further vexation is added because Henchion’s brief history of the Lynch family is replete with annoying errors. For example, he states that Diarmuid recounted that his mother, Hannah nee Dunlea of Carrignavar died when he was born. This claim has no foundation as Hannah's death certificate, now in the hands of the Lynch family, shows that Diarmuid was six months old when she died of bronchial pneumonia. He also mistakenly claims that Diarmuid recorded that his step mother, Margaret Murphy, was a native of Riverstick (she was a native of Ovens); that Diarmuid's father, Timothy, died in Cork City whereas the family knows that he died in his own bed in Granig.
Considering these inaccuracies in Henchion's 'historical' notes on just one family whose members lie in the graveyard at Tracton Abbey it can be surmised that further inaccuracies are contained within his 'potted' histories of other families there interred.
Eileen McGough. Author, 'Diarmuid Lynch a Forgotten Irish Patriot' Mercier Press 2013