Prelude to the Easter Rising of 1916

Prelude to the Easter Rising of 1916
The Signatories of the Proclamation

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Saturday, October 30, 2010

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - Dawson Bates

Richard Dawson Bates c. 1920.

Sir Richard Dawson Bates, 1st Baronet, OBE, JP, DL (23 November 1876 – 10 June 1949), also known as Sir Dawson Bates (as knight bachelor), was an Ulster Unionist Party member of the Northern Ireland House of Commons.

Born in Strandtown, Belfast, son of Richard Dawson Bates, solicitor and Clerk of the Crown, and Mary Dill. His father's father, John Bates (d. 1855) had been a minor figure in the Conservative Party in Belfast, before his duties were discharge on a Chancery Court ruling of maladministration.

Bates was educated at Coleraine Academical Institution. Studying at Queen's College, Belfast, became a solicitor in 1900, in 1908 founding a firm with his uncle - E and R. D. Bates. In 1906 he was appointed Secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council. During this time, he was instrumental in the events of Ulster Day and in the formation of the UVF, organised the Larne gun-running and supported the formation of the Ulster Unionist Labour Association to counter socialism. He toured Northern Ireland, working hard to build up the Unionist Party, while portraying all Roman Catholics as traitors.

Bates stood down as Secretary on his election to Stormont in 1921, where he represented first East Belfast and later Belfast Victoria. In the government of Sir James Craig he was the first Minister for Home Affairs and a member of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland. He introduced the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act, but opposed the Ulster Protestant Association. Under his administration, he was accused of gerrymandering, and of intervening to ensure that prison sentences were not imposed on Protestants who attacked Catholics.

Bates was also a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of County Down.

He married Jessie Muriel Cleland, daughter of Sir Charles John Cleland. They had one son Major Sir John Dawson Bates, 2nd Baronet (an Oxford-educated Wykehamist, d. 1998).

He was appointed OBE in 1919, Knight Bachelor in 1921 and was made a Baronet of Magherabuoy, near Portrush, in County Londonderry on 7 June 1937. In his retirement strained financial circumstances and security (he constantly required a police escort) led him to rent Butleigh House, near Glastonbury, Somerset. It was here he died in 1949; Sir Dawson's body was flown back to Ulster for burial at Ballywillan Church of Ireland.

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - John Dillon Nugent

John Dillon Nugent (1869 – 1 March 1940) was an Irish nationalist politician, insurance representative and company director. He was born at Keady, County Armagh in 1869. He was the national secretary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians from 1904 until his death. He was elected as MP for the constituency of Dublin College Green at the by-election of 11 June 1915 following the death of Joseph Patrick Nannetti. He was defeated at the 1918 general election by Michael Staines of Sinn Féin contesting Dublin St Michan's.

At the Northern Ireland general election, 1921, Nugent was elected in the Armagh seat. He was defeated at the 1925 general election.

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - Richard Best

Richard Best PC(Ire) KC (c. 1869 – 23 February 1939) was an Irish barrister, judge and politician.
Best was born in Richhill, County Armagh. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and was called to the bar by the King's Inns, Dublin in 1895. He took silk in 1912 and was elected a bencher in 1918. In 1921 he was elected to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland as Unionist member for Armagh and later the same year he was appointed Attorney General for Northern Ireland. He was appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland in the 1922 New Year Honours, entitling him to the style "The Right Honourable".

In 1925, he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Northern Ireland, a position he held until his death.

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - Robert Megaw

Robert Dick Megaw (born 1869) was a barrister and a Unionist politician in Northern Ireland.
He was educated at Ballymoney Intermediate School, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Queen's College, Belfast. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1893 and was Professor of Common Law at King's Inns from 1912 to 1914. He was appointed King's Counsel in 1921.

In 1921, he was elected to the Parliament of Northern Ireland as one of seven members for County Antrim, but was defeated in the general election of 1925. Megaw served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs from 1921 to 1925.

Following the loss of his seat in Parliament, he was appointed by the Minister of Home Affairs as a commissioner from 1925-26 to inquire into the administration of the Housing Acts by Belfast Corporation. He was Judicial Commissioner of the Land Purchase Commission of Northern Ireland from 1927 to 1937 and Chancery Judge of the High Court of Northern Ireland from 1932 to 1943. He was also a member of the Senate of Queen’s University, Belfast. He died on 2nd May 1947.

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - George Boyle Hanna

George Boyle Hanna (17 December 1877-30 October 1938) was a Northern Irish barrister, unionist politician and county court judge.

Born in Ballymena, County Antrim and educated at Gracehill Academy, Ballymena Academy and Trinity College, Dublin, Hanna was first admitted as a solicitor in 1901, being called to the Bar in 1920, taking silk in 1933. He was a member of Antrim County Council from 1908 until 1921. From 1919 until 1922 he was the independent Unionist Member of the UK Parliament for East Antrim, narrowly beating an official Unionist candidate in a by-election, but standing down at the 1922 general election. From 1921 until 1937, he served as an official Unionist in the Parliament of Northern Ireland, first representing County Antrim (1921-1929) and then Larne until his appointment as a county court judge for County Tyrone in 1937. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs from 1925-1937. He only served as a judge for six months, dying soon after his appointment.

He lived at Cyprus Avenue, Belfast with his wife, Sunnie and two children.

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - John Fawcett Gordon

John Fawcett Gordon was a politician in Northern Ireland. He was the Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament (MP) in the Northern Ireland parliament for Antrim (elected 24 May 1921 and 3 April 1925) and Carrick. He served as Minister of Labour (Northern Ireland) in the Craigavon ministry, from 1938.

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - Milne Barbour

Barbour Coat of Arms

Sir John Milne Barbour, 1st Baronet JP, DL (1868 – 3 October 1951) was a Northern Irish politician and baronet. As a member of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland he was styled The Right Honourable Sir Milne Barbour.

Born in Lisburn, County Antrim, he was the son of John Doherty Barbour. He was educated at Elstree School, Harrow School, Brasenose College, Oxford, and Darmstadt, Germany. The members of his family were wealthy linen manufacturers, owners of William Barbour Linen Thread Company of Hilden - the largest linen thread manufacturers in the world , in business he was Chairman of the family company, which exists today in the same factory as Barbour Campbell Threads.

In politics, he served as a Member of Parliament for County Antrim from 1921-1929 and then for South Antrim from 1929 until his death in 1951. In 1921, he was appointed Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Ministry of Finance, and then entered Craigavon's Cabinet as Minister of Commerce in 1937 (where he was perceived as "wrong, inept and palsied") and was promoted, aged 72, to Minister of Finance.

He also acted as High Sheriff of Armagh in 1905 and as High Sheriff of Down in 1907. He was created a Baronet, of Hilden, in the County of Antrim, in 1943. He also served as President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce in 1911, as a member of Belfast Harbour Commissioners from 1914 to 1950, as President of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast and as President of the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society from 1925 to 1930 and from 1931 until his death. He also sat on the Senate of Queen’s University, Belfast.

Barbour married Elise Barbour, a distant relative (b. Paterson, New Jersey, USA in 1873); Lady Barbour died at their home, Conway House, Dunmurry, in 1910. The couple had three daughters and one son, John Milne Jnr., whose aeroplane went missing whilst flying over the Irish sea in 1937. John was a civilian pilot (a former competitor in the King's Cup Race) who would fly home at the weekends from the Barbour factory in Glasgow, where he worked during the week. Barbour's sister, Helen, married Thomas Andrews, architect of the Titanic.

Barbour was a Freemason. He was described by diarist Lillian Dean, later Lady Spender (wife of Sir Wilfrid Spender) as "a curious man who looks like a stage Mephistopheles but is given to preaching in dissenting chapels." A deeply religious man throughout his life he served on as a Member of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland. presented the East Window to Christ Church Cathedral, Lisburn, in memory of his wife and son. The baronetcy became extinct upon his death, Barbour was predeceased by his son.

Barbour Memorial Playing Fields and the Sir Milne Barbour Memorial Garden, both in Lisburn, are named in his honour. A prize cup at the boat club of Queen's University, Belfast is also named in his honour.

Refused to be Members of the Second Dáil - These have no Information

These have no known Information Robert Crawford, David Shillington, Lloyd Campbell, Samuel McGuffin, Robert McKeown, Thomas McMullan, James Cooper, William Coote, William Thomas Miller, Robert Anderson, John Martin Mark, Robert Johnstone, and Hugh Morrison.

For those that do and refused to be part of the First Dáil, I will no repeat their nformation.

Members of the Second Dáil - Séamus Doyle

Séamus Doyle (died 30 April 1971) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Wexford constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was elected as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election but did not take his seat. He did not contest the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Richard Corish

Signatories of the Anglo-Irish Treaty
Richard Corish being one of them
Richard Corish (1889 - 19 July 1945) was an Irish politician.

Born in Wexford in 1889, Corish was educated by the Christian Brothers in the town. Following his education he became a trade union official.

Richard Corish became Mayor of Wexford in 1920 as an Irish Labour Party representative. However, as the Labour Party in the southern 26 counties, later the Irish Free State, chose not to contest the elections in 1921, Corish ran as a Sinn Féin candidate and was elected to Dáil Éireann. (In theory, he was elected to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, established by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. However, all elected Sinn Féin candidates sat in the Second Dáil after the elections.) He ran as a member of the Labour Party in the 1922 election and subsequently. He served in the Dáil and as Mayor of Wexford until his death in 1945.

The death of Richard Corish occasioned a by-election for the Dáil which was won by his son, Brendan Corish. Brendan was later a leader of the Labour Party and a Tánaiste (equivalent to deputy prime minister).

Corish was a member of the Irish National Foresters, and was its High Chief Ranger in 1942.

Members of the Second Dáil - Vincent White

Vincent Joseph White (1885 – 14 December 1958) was an Irish politician and medical practitioner. He first stood for election at the 1918 general election as a Sinn Féin candidate for the Waterford City constituency but was defeated by William Redmond of the Irish Parliamentary Party. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Waterford–Tipperary East constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election but lost his seat at the 1923 general election. He was re-elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD for the Waterford constituency at the June 1927 and September 1927 general elections. He lost his seat at the 1932 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Séamus Robinson

Séamus Robinson (Irish: Séamus Mac Róibín; 6 January 1890 – 8 December 1961), an Irish rebel and later a politician, was born in Belfast.

Robinson joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and later participated in the Easter Rising of 1916. In 1917, he came to Tipperary and together with Seán Treacy, Dan Breen and Seán Hogan, he led the party which took part in an attack on a convoy transporting gelignite at Soloheadbeg in county Tipperary. They shot two policemen dead and stole the explosives, and thus helped to ignite the Irish War of Independence.

Following Hogan's capture in 1919, Robinson took part in his rescue from a train at Knocklong railway station in East Limerick while Hogan was being transported from Thurles to Cork. Throughout the war, Robinson served in the Irish Republican Army, commanding the Third Tipperary Brigade. In April 1921, he became the second in command of the IRA Second Southern Division, under Ernie O'Malley.

In the 1921 general election, Robinson was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin TD for Waterford–Tipperary East. He was opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. When the Irish Civil War broke out over the Treaty, Robinson sent some of his Tipperary men to help the anti-Treaty IRA fighters in Dublin, after a plea from Oscar Traynor. However, the Tipperary contingent arrived too late to take part in the Battle of Dublin. He was critical of the leadership of the anti-Treaty side however, saying that they had no coherent military or political strategy.

After the Civil War, Robinson left the IRA and Sinn Féin and joined Fianna Fáil. Later on, Robinson as elected to Seanad Éireann as a Fianna Fáil Senator. In 1947 he was appointed one of the five founder members of the Bureau of Military History, associated with the history of the independence movement 1913–21. Robinson died on 8 December 1961.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Members of the Second Dáil - Frank Drohan

Frank Drohan (13 August 1879 – 5 March 1953) was an Irish politician. He was elected unopposed at the 1921 elections for the Waterford–Tipperary East constituency as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) in the 2nd Dáil. He resigned from the Dáil on 5 January 1922 and did not vote on the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

The inner relief road outside Clonmel was named in his honour.

Members of the Second Dáil - Eamon Dee

Eamon Dee was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Waterford–Tipperary East constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He stood as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Members of the Second Dáil - Patrick O'Byrne

Patrick S. O'Byrne was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Tipperary Mid, North and South constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He stood as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

Members of the Second Dáil - Thomas O'Donnell

Thomas O'Donnell (died 1945) was an Irish politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Sligo–Mayo East constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. At the 1923 general election, he stood as a Cumann na nGaedhael candidate for the Leitrim–Sligo constituency but he was not elected.

Members of the Second Dáil - Francis Ferran

Francis Patrick Ferran (died 10 June 1923) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician and medical practitioner. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Sligo–Mayo East constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was elected as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election but did not take his seat. He did not contest the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - James Devins

James (Séamus) Devins (1873 – 20 September 1922) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Sligo–Mayo East constituency.He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was re-elected as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD to the 3rd Dáil at the 1922 general election. His death in September 1922 "at the hands of former comrades" would indicate that he was a casualty of the Irish Civil War.

His grandson Jimmy Devins currently serves as a Fianna Fáil TD for Sligo–North Leitrim.

Members of the Second Dáil - Frank Carty

Francis (Frank) Joseph Carty (3 April 1897 – 10 September 1942) was a leader of the IRA in the fight with the Black and Tans in the Irish War of Independence, and a long-serving Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála (TD).

Carty's first escape from confinement came on 26 June 1920, when he was rescued from Sligo Jail.

On 15 February 1921, Carty next escaped from prison in Derry. The rescue party was led by Charles McGuinness. Carty was taken from the city in a boat belonging to a Norwegian fisherman named Oscar Nolde.

Following recapture, Frank Carty was later involved in an incident in Glasgow, Scotland when on 4 May 1921, members of the IRA attempted to free him from a prison van in a failed escape attempt. One Inspector was killed by gunfire, and another was wounded. Following the incident, thirteen people were brought to trial, but were acquitted by the jury, which accepted their plea of alibi.

Carty was first elected in the 1921 general election to the 2nd Dáil, and was re-elected in eight successive general elections. In common with other TDs opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, he did not take his seat in the 3rd Dáil or in the 4th Dáil, returning to Leinster House only as a founder member of Fianna Fáil, when he followed Éamon de Valera into the 5th Dáil, taking his seat on 12 August 1927.

He remained active in local politics, being elected to Sligo County Council in 1928 for the Tobercurry ward. He was re-elected in August 1942, only a month before his death, after which his Dáil remained vacant until the 1943 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - William Stockley

Professor William F. P. (Frederick Paul) Stockley, M.A. D.Litt., (29 June 1859 – 22 July 1943) was an Irish academic and Sinn Féin politician and Teachta Dála.

Born in Templeogue, then in Co Dublin, he was the son of Mr. John Surtees Stockley, RHA, he was educated at Rathmines School.

Among his classmates were Douglas Hyde and Louis Claude Purser.

In 1893, he graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, before taking a senior moderatorship in modern English literature.

From 1896 to 1903, he was professor at the University of Ottawa and at the University of New Brunswick. In 1905, he was appointed professor of English at University College, Cork. He occupied the chair until his retirement in 1931.

He was president of the Cork Literary and Scientific Society from 1913 to 1915 and President of the Cork Library Committee from 1913 to 1930.

He was author of several books including English Visitors to Ireland from Raleigh to Newman, Newman, Education, and Ireland, Studies in Irish Biography and Introduction to the Dream of Gerontius.

Stockley was a member of Sinn Féin. He was an alderman of the Cork Corporation from 1920 to 1925. In 1920, an attempt was made on his life by police agents. In the 1921, he was elected a Sinn Féin member to the Second Dáil for the National University of Ireland constituency. He voted against the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and refused to accept the legitimacy of the Irish Free State.

He retained his seat, as an Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate, in the 1922 general election. Along with others, he maintained that the Irish Republic continued to exist and that the rump Second Dáil, composed of anti-Treaty TDs who refused to take their seats in the Free State parliament, was the only legitimate governmental authority in Ireland. He was defeated in the 1923 general election and subsequent 3 November 1923 by-election.

In 1938, he was one of seven remaining abstentionist Second Dáil TDs who transferred the "authority" of what they believed was the Government of the Irish Republic to the IRA Army Council.

In 1892, Stockley married Violet Osborne, daughter of Mr. William Osborne, RHA, of Dublin. She died in 1893. In 1908, he married Marie Germaine Kolb, daughter of Max Kolb, of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Munich. They had two daughters: Violet Annie Alice, who was a member of staff at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and Sophia, who married Seamus Mallin of Dublin. His brother was the Very Rev. Canon J. J. G. (Joseph John Gabbett) Stockley of Lichfield Cathedral. At his death, at the age of 84, Stockley resided at Arundel, Ballintemple, Cork. He is buried in St. Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork.

Members of the Second Dáil - Michael Hayes

Jacob's Biscuit Factory

Michael Hayes (1 December 1889 – 11 July 1976), was a senior Irish politician. He was elected as a Pro-Treaty Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin South at the 1921 general election and at each election until 1933. He served as Minister for Education during 1922. He was also Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann between 1922 and 1932 and served in Seanad Éireann between 1938 and 1965.
Hayes was born in Dublin, and educated at the Synge Street CBS and at University College Dublin (UCD). He later became a lecturer in French at the University. In 1913 he joined the Irish Volunteers and fought in Jacob's Factory during the Easter Rising in 1916. He escaped capture but was arrested in 1920 and interned at Ballykinlar. In 1921 he was elected to Dáil Éireann, becoming Minister for Education the following year.

He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty during the crucial debates in 1922. That same year he was elected Ceann Comhairle of the first Dáil of the Irish Free State. He held that post for ten years until 1932. The following year Hayes lost his Dáil seat in the General Election, but was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1938. He remained a Senator until 1965, acting as leader of government and opposition there. Hayes became Professor of Irish at UCD in 1951.

Members of the Second Dáil - Ada English

Dr Ada (Adeline) English (Irish: Eithne Inglis; 10 January 1875–27 January 1944) was an Irish revolutionary politician and psychiatrist.

English was born in Caherciveen, Co Kerry, to Patrick and Nora (nee Malvey or McCandle) of Mullingar, County Westmeath. She had four siblings, including two brothers, Pierce (who became a doctor in Castlerea) and Frank (who became a bank official). Her father was a pharmacist and a member of the Mullingar Town Commissioners while her grandfather, Richard, had been Master of the Old Castle Workhouse in the town.

She was educated at the Loreto Convent in Mullingar and graduated from the Royal University of Ireland (she attended Queen's College Galway) in 1903, reputedly as one of the first female psychiatrists in Ireland. She served at the Mater, Richmond, and Temple Street hospitals in Dublin. For a short period, she had an appointment at a London hospital before, in 1904, taking the position of assistant RMS at Ballinasloe Lunatic Asylum (now St Bridget's Hospital), Ballinasloe, and also worked part-time in Castlerea Mental Hospital. She developed occupational therapy to a high degree and under her direction Ballinasloe was the first mental hospital in Ireland to use electric convulsive therapy.

In October 1914, she was appointed to a lecturership in mental disease in University College Galway, a position she retained until February 1943. In 1921, she was offered the position of RMS of Sligo Mental Hospital by Austin Stack, Secretary of State for Home Affairs, but she decided to stay in Ballinasloe, where she was later appointed, in 1941, to the position of RMS. She retired from this position in December 1943.

Through her contacts with people like Thomas McDonagh, Patrick Pearse (who had once tutored her in the Irish language), Arthur Griffith and Liam Mellows, her belief in Irish nationalism grew and her rational and passionate arguments in its favour had a profound influence on the future Bishop of Clonfert, Dr. John Dignan, who arrived in Ballinasloe in the same year as English.

She was Medical Officer for the Irish Volunteers from its inception and worked at Athenry during the 1916 Rising. She was also a prominent member of Cumann na mBan. She was arrested in 1920 by Crown forces, spending six months in Galway Jail (she had been sentenced to nine months but was released due to ptomaine poisoning before completing her sentence).

In May 1921, she was elected unopposed to Dáil Éireann for the NUI constituency as a Sinn Féin representative.

She voted against the Anglo-Irish Treaty, voicing her opposition to it in the Dáil on 4 January 1922. She began by stating her opposition to the position of the British monarch in the agreement:

I credit the supporters of the Treaty with being as honest as I am, but I have a sound objection to it. I think it is wrong; I have various reasons for objecting to it, but the main one is that, in my opinion, it was wrong against Ireland, and a sin against Ireland. I do not like talking here about oaths. I have heard about oaths until my soul is sick of them, but if this Treaty were forced on us by England — as it is being forced — and that paragraph 4, the one with the oath in it were omitted, we could accept it under force; but certainly, while those oaths are in it, oaths in which we are asked to accept the King of England as head of the Irish State, and we are asked to accept the status of British citizens—British subjects—that we cannot accept. As far as I see the whole fight in this country for centuries has centred round that very point. We are now asked not only to acknowledge the King of England's claim to be King of Ireland, but we are asked to swear allegiance and fidelity in virtue of that claim ... Ireland has been fighting England and, as I understood it, the grounds of this fight always were that we denied the right of England's King to this country.
She was also one of the few speakers to voice her opposition to the Partition of Ireland:

The evacuation of the English troops is one of the things that are being held up to us as being one of the very good points in the Treaty. It would be a very desirable thing, indeed, that the English troops evacuated this country, if they did evacuate it, but I hold that Ulster is still part of Ireland and I have not heard a promise that the British troops are to evacuate Ulster. They are still there. I understand they are to be drawn from the rest of Ireland and, as I read the Treaty, there is not one word of promise in it about the evacuation of the British troops.
In the course of the same speech she also explained that she had been elected as an Irish republican and would remain so:

I credit my constituents with being honest people, just as honest as I consider myself — and I consider myself fairly honest — they sent me here as a Republican Deputy to An Dáil which is, I believe, the living Republican Parliament of this country. Not only that, but when I was selected as Deputy in this place I was very much surprised and, after I got out of jail, when I was well enough to see some of my constituents, I asked them how it came they selected me, and they told me the wanted someone they could depend on to stand fast by the Republic, and who would not let Galway down again. That is what my constituents told me they wanted when they sent me here, and they have got it.
She also rejected the claim made by male supporters of the Treaty that women were opposed to it for emotional reasons:

I think that it was a most brave thing to-day to listen to the speech by the Deputy from Sligo [referring to Alexander McCabe] in reference to the women members of An Dáil, claiming that they only have the opinions they have because they have a grievance against England, or because their men folk were killed and murdered by England's representatives in this country. It was a most unworthy thing for any man to say here. I can say this more freely because, I thank my God, I have no dead men to throw in my teeth as a reason for holding the opinions I hold. I should like to say that I think it most unfair to the women Teachtaí because Miss MacSwiney had suffered at England's hands.
She stood again for the National University of Ireland in the Irish general election, 1922, to elect the Third Dáil but lost her seat, being replaced by the independent William Magennis. She assisted anti-Treatyites during the Irish Civil War and reportedly served with Cathal Brugha in the Hamman Hotel in Dublin in July 1922. She maintained her opposition to the Treaty and refused to recognise the legitimacy of the Irish Free State. Along with other members of the rump Second Dáil, she played a part in Comhairle na dTeachtaí during the 1920s which saw itself as the "true" government of the Irish Republic.

She died in 1944 in Ballinasloe and is buried in Creagh Cemetery.

Members of the Second Dáil - Eoin O'Duffy


General Eoin O'Duffy sitting at a desk, looking at a map

Eoin O'Duffy (Irish: Eoin Ó Dubhthaigh; 20 October 1892 – 30 November 1944), was in succession a Teachta Dála (TD), the Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army, the second Commissioner of the Garda Síochána, leader of the Army Comrades Association and then the first leader of Fine Gael (1933–34), before leading the Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. He once proclaimed himself the "third most important man in Europe" after Adolf Hitler and fellow fascist Benito Mussolini.

Eoin O'Duffy was born Owen O'Duffy in Lough Egish, near Castleblayney, County Monaghan. O'Duffy did an apprenticeship as an engineer in Wexford before working as an engineer and architect in Monaghan. In 1919 he became an auctioneer. O'Duffy was a leading member of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ulster in the 1910s. A stand in a ground in Clones, County Monaghan, is named after him.

In 1917, O'Duffy joined the Irish Republican Army and took an active part in the War of Independence. In February 1920, he (along with Ernie O'Malley) was involved in the first capture of a Royal Irish Constabulary barracks by the IRA in Ballytrain, in his native Monaghan. He was imprisoned several times but became director of the army in 1921. In May 1921, he was returned as a Sinn Féin TD for the Monaghan constituency to the Second Dáil.

In March 1921 he was made commander of the IRA's 2nd Northern Division. Following the Truce with the British in July 1921, he was sent to Belfast. Following the rioting known as Belfast's Bloody Sunday, to was tasked with liasing with the British to try to maintain the Truce and also to defend Catholic areas against attack.

In January of the following year, he became IRA Chief of Staff, replacing Richard Mulcahy. O'Duffy was the youngest general in Europe until Francisco Franco was promoted to that rank.
In 1921, he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He served as a general in the Free State Army in the ensuing Irish Civil War and was one of the brains behind the Free State's strategy of seaborne landings into Republican held areas. He successfully took Limerick city for the Free State in July 1922, before being held up in the Battle of Killmallock south of the city. The enmities of the civil war era were to stay with O'Duffy throughout the rest of his political career.

After the initial phase of the war, O'Duffy became Commissioner of An Garda Síochána (the Civic Guard) when the Irish Free State was established in 1922.

Following a general election in 1933, Éamon de Valera dismissed O'Duffy as Garda Commissioner. In the Dáil de Valera explained the reason for his dismissal,
"he [O'Duffy] was likely to be biased in his attitude because of past political
affiliations".
The true reason, however, appears to have been the new government's discovery that in 1932, O'Duffy's was one of the voices urging W.T. Cosgrave to resort to a military coup rather than to turn over power to the incoming Fianna Fáil administration. O'Duffy refused the offer of another position of equivalent rank in the public service.

In July 1933, O'Duffy became leader of the Army Comrades Association, which had been ostensibly set up to protect Cumann na nGaedhael public meetings, which had been disrupted under the slogan "No Free Speech for Traitors" by Irish Republican Army men newly confident since the elections. O'Duffy and many other conservative elements within the Irish Free State began to embrace fascist ideology, which was very much in vogue at that time. He immediately changed the name of this new movement to the National Guard. O'Duffy was an admirer of the Italian leader Benito Mussolini and his organisation adopted outward symbols of European fascism, such as the straight-arm Roman salute and the distinctive blue uniform. It was not long before they became known as the Blueshirts.

In August 1933, a parade was planned by the Blueshirts in Dublin to commemorate Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, both of whom had died 11 years earlier. This was a clear imitation of Mussolini's March on Rome and was widely perceived as such despite claims to the contrary by Blueshirt apologists. De Valera feared a similar coup d'état and as a result the parade was banned. By September, the Blueshirts were declared an illegal organisation. To circumvent this ban, the movement once again adopted a new name, this time styling itself the League of Youth.
O'Duffy and some of his men also made an appearance at the 1936 International Fascist conference in Montreux where he argued against antisemitism.

In September 1933, Cumann na nGaedhael, the Centre Party and the Blueshirt movement merged to form Fine Gael. O'Duffy, though not a TD, became the first leader, with former President of the Executive Council, (prime minister) W. T. Cosgrave serving as parliamentary leader. The National Guard, now rechristened the Young Ireland Association, was transformed from an illegal paramilitary group into the militant wing of a political party. However, meetings were often attacked by IRA men. O'Duffy proved to be a weak leader - he was a military leader rather than political, and he was temperamental. In September 1934, O'Duffy suddenly and unexpectedly resigned as leader of Fine Gael as his extreme views and poor judgement became an embarrassment to his party. He went on to form the National Corporate Party.

The Blueshirt movement had begun to disintegrate also, so much so that by 1935 the organisation no longer existed. In June 1935 O'Duffy launched the unabashedly fascist National Corporate Party. The following year the General organised an Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Despite the declaration by the Irish Government that participation in the war was ill-advised and unsupported, 700 of O'Duffy's followers went to Spain to fight on Franco's side (around 250 other Irishmen went to fight for the Republicans). O'Duffy's men saw little fighting in Spain and were sent home by Franco, returning in June 1937.

O'Duffy returned to Ireland from Spain in disarray. He retired from politics completely, apart from a low-level dalliance with Nazism. He is thought to have met with IRA figures and members of the German consulate in the summer of 1939.

In the summer of 1943, O'Duffy approached the German Legation in Dublin with an offer to organise an Irish Volunteer Legion for use on the Russian Front. He explained his offer to the German ambassador as a wish to "save Europe from Bolshevism". He requested an aircraft to be sent from Germany so that he could conduct the necessary negotiations in Berlin. The offer was "not taken seriously". By this time, his health had begun to seriously deteriorate and he died on 30 November 1944, aged 52. He was afforded a state funeral by the government. Following requiem mass in the Pro-Cathedral, he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

It was alleged, in 1999, that O'Duffy had had a homosexual liaison with the flamboyant actor Micheál Mac Liammóir in the 1930's.

Following his return from fighting for the nationalists against communism in Spain, O'Duffy authored a book.
  • Crusade in Spain (1938)

Members of the Second Dáil - Daniel O'Rourke

Daniel O'Rourke (died 21 March 1971) was an Irish politician and teacher. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Mayo South–Roscommon South constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected unopposed as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. He resigned his seat on 29 November 1922. He stood as a Fianna Fáil candidate at the September 1927 general election but was not elected.

He was elected as a Fianna Fáil TD at the 1932 general election for the Roscommon constituency but lost his seat at the 1933 general election. He was re-elected at the 1937 and 1938 general elections but again lost his seat at the 1943 general election. He was re-elected at the 1944 and 1948 general elections but once again lost his seat at the 1951 general election. At the 1951 Seanad election, he was elected on the Labour Panel. He stood unsuccessfully at the 1954 and 1957 general elections.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Members of the Second Dáil - Tom Maguire


Tom Maguire (28 March 1892 – 5 July 1993) was an Irish republican who held the rank of commandant-general in the Western Command of the Irish Republican Army and led the South Mayo flying column.

Tom Maguire of Cross, Co. Mayo was a remarkable man. As General Officer Commanding the Second Western Division of the Second Western Division of the Irish Republican Army, he was a guerilla leader in the 1919-1923 phase of the War of Independence.

In May 1921, he led an ambush on a Royal Irish Constabulary patrol in Tourmakeady, County Mayo, killing four. Maguire's flying column then made for the Partry Mountains. The long held account of the following action claimed that the column were surrounded by over 700 crown forces guided by aeroplanes. Maguire was wounded and his adjutant killed, but the column managed to escape with no further casualties. British casualties were not revealed but were long believed to have been high. Some recent research however has raised the possibility that less than forty British soldiers were in the vicinity and that Maguire's column was forced to abandon their weapons with only one British officer was wounded.

In 1921, he was elected a member of the Second Dáil Éireann for South Mayo-South Roscommon. Following on the defection of Cumann na nGaedheal/Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, who accepted partition and the Leinster House assembly, the All-Ireland Dáil continued to function. It had among its members some brilliant men and women, who have been largely written out of history by those who abandoned the Republican ideal.

Maguire was involved in numerous other engagements including the Kilfall ambush.

In the 1921 elections to Dáil Éireann, Maguire was returned unopposed as Teachta Dála (TD) for County Mayo as a Sinn Féin candidate. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and apart from saying "Níl" ("no" in English) when the vote was called, did not participate in any substantial way in the Dáil treaty debates. He was returned unopposed in the 1922 general election. In the 1923 general election, Maguire faced a contest and succeeded in securing the second of five seats in the Mayo South constituency, winning 5,712 votes (a share of 17.82 percent). He was a member of the army executive which commanded rebel troops during the Irish Civil War. Maguire was captured by Free State forces and was told that he would be executed, but his life was spared, possibly because of his prominence as a Republican. While in prison his brother, Sean Maguire, aged 17, was executed by the Free State.

Maguire remained a TD until 1927. He had initially indicated a willingness to contest the June 1927 general election as a Sinn Féin candidate but withdrew after the Irish Republican Army threatened to court-martial any member under IRA General Army Order 28, which forbade its members from standing in elections. (Despite this ban, IRA officers Seán Farrell (Leitrim–Sligo) and Dr John A. Madden (Mayo North) contested the election, the latter successfully).

Maguire subsequently drifted out of the IRA. In 1932, a Mayo IRA officer reported that Maguire, now firmly aligned with Sinn Féin, refused to call on men to join the IRA when speaking at republican commemorations. When challenged on this, Maguire claimed that, as the IRA “were no longer the same as they used to be”, he disagreed with the organisation.

In December 1938, Maguire was one of a group of seven people, who had been elected to the Second Dáil in 1921, who met with the IRA Army Council under Seán Russell. At this meeting, the seven signed over what they believed were the authority of the Government of Dáil Éireann to the Army Council. Henceforth, the IRA Army Council perceived itself to be the legitimate government of the Irish Republic and, on this basis, the IRA and Sinn Féin justified their rejection of the states of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and political abstentionism from their parliamentary institutions. According to J. Bowyer Bell, in the Secret Army, "With the possible exception of Tom Maguire, who went along, the Dáil members felt that the IRA request gave them the moral recognition so long denied by all factions and that their conditional devolution of power would in turn give the IRA the moral basis for the impending campaign" of 1939-1945.

Tom Maguire was steadfast in his allegiance to the Republic proclaimed in 1916 and established by the will of the people of all Ireland in 1919. He died in 1993 at the age of 101 years. His life story is the story of the struggle for Irish freedom and democracy during almost all of the twentieth century.
 
When the majority of IRA and Sinn Féin decided to abandon abstentionism in the 1969/70 split, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill sought and secured Maguire's recognition of the Provisional IRA as the legitimate successor to the 1938 Army Council. Likewise in the aftermath of the 1986 split in the Republican Movement, Maguire signed a statement in 1986 but was issued posthumously in 1996, he conferred this "legitimacy" on the Army Council of the Continuity IRA (who provided a firing party at Maguire's funeral in 1993). In The Irish Troubles, J. Bowyer Bell describes Maguire's opinion in 1986, "abstentionism was a basic tenet of republicanism, a moral issue of principle. Abstentionism gave the movement legitimacy, the right to wage war, to speak for a Republic all but established in the hearts of the people."

Although the 1938 conferring has been crucial to the ideology of republican legitimatists, its validity was rejected by the overwhelming majority of the Irish people in 1938, 1969, and 1986. In 1986 "a delegation from the [Gerry] Adams leadership" asked for his support, but Maguire rejected them. Republican Sinn Féin is the only party in Ireland which subscribes to the view that the seven-member Army Council of the Continuity IRA is the legitimate government of the Irish people.

Tom Maguire is often mistakenly cited as having been the last surviving member of the Second Dáil at the time of his 1969 statement and at the time of his death in 1993.

However, anti-Treaty Second Dáil TD Eamon de Valera lived until 1975 and pro-treaty Carlow-Kilkenny TD, Gearóid O'Sullivan, was the last surviving member of the Second Dáil, living over a year longer than Maguire. O'Sullivan died in August 1994 at the age of 103. However republicans would argue that they had broken their pledges to the Irish Republic thus leaving Maguire as the sole surviving member. The last IRA veteran of the Tan War/Irish War of Independence, Dan Keating, died in 2007.

Members of the Second Dáil - P. J. Ruttledge

Patrick J. Ruttledge (1892 – 8 May 1952) was a senior Irish politician. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1921 as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Mayo North and West. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and joined the Republican forces. He was re-elected to the Dáil again in 1923 for Mayo North and in a further ten elections until 1951. In 1926 Ruttledge was a founder-member of Fianna Fáil. He joined the cabinet of Éamon de Valera in 1932, serving as Minister for Lands & Fisheries, Minister for Justice and Minister for Local Government and Public Health. Ruttledge died in 1952 during his final term in the Dáil.

Members of the Second Dáil - Thomas Derrig

Thomas Derrig

Thomas Derrig (Irish: Tomás Ó Deirg; 26 November 1897 – 19 November 1956) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician.

Derrig was born on 26 November 1897, in County Mayo.

He was educated locally and at University College Galway. During his time in college he organised a corps of the Irish Volunteers. After the 1916 Easter Rising, he was arrested and imprisoned. After his release he graduated from college and became headmaster in a technical college in Mayo.
During the Irish War of Independence Derrig was interned at the Curragh Camp. While there he was elected a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for Mayo North and West.

Derrig took the republican side during the Irish Civil War. He was later captured by the Irish Free State army. While in custody of the Criminal Investigation Department (Ireland) he was severely injured, having an eye shot out by CID detectives.
According to http://www.reformation.org/jesuits-in-ireland.html,
"Thomas Derring was Minister for Education from 1932 until 1939 and again from 1943 until 1948. He worked closely with de Valera and the Roman hierarchy to ensure an endless supply of male and female children to the reformatories.

Upon entering, all the children were given numbers and the "schools" were run with military precision.

Most of the young boys and girls committed to the reformatories were orphans or came from broken homes. Judges sentenced them to the prisons until they were 16 years old.
The monks (who took vows of poverty) got a substantial sum from the government for every child thus incarcerated.

Slave labor and the substantial sums that they received from the government made the reformatories veritable gold mines. These institutions for boys and girls were found all over the country."
At the June 1927 general election, he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for Carlow–Kilkenny. In Éamon de Valera's first government in 1932 Derrig was appointed Minister for Education. Derrig initiated a review of industrial and reformatory schools and the rules under the Children Act 1908, resulting in the critical 1936 Cussen Report, which he shelved. His lack of action was noted in 2009 when the Ryan Report examined the subsequent management of these "residential institutions"; Derrig was the first minister to seek a report that could have resulted in much-needed reforms. It has been suggested that he did not want to follow British law reforms in the 1920s and 1930s because of his strong anti-British views, and that Irish children had suffered needlessly as a result.

From 1939 to 1943 he served as Minister for Lands. He was re-appointed to Education in 1943 until 1948. Between 1951 and 1954 he became Minister for Lands again.

Thomas Derrig died in Dublin on 19 November 1956, seven days before his 59th birthday.

Members of the Second Dáil - Peter Hughes

Peter Hughes (died 24 June 1954) was a senior Irish politician. He was first elected to Dáil Éireann in 1921 as a Sinn Féin TD for Louth. As a supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 he later went on to join Cumann na nGaedhael. He was appointed to the Cabinet in 1924, serving as Minister for Defence until 1927. Although he was a member of the government he lost his Dáil seat at the general election in 1927, and failed to be elected in the two subsequent elections.

Members of the Second Dáil - Justin McKenna

Justin McKenna (9 June 1896 – 23 March 1950) was an Irish politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Louth–Meath constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He stood as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

Members of the Second Dáil - James Murphy

James Edward Murphy (28 December 1887 – 7 October 1961) was an Irish politician. A draper, he was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Louth–Meath constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. At the 1923 general election, he was elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD for the Louth constituency. He was re-elected at each subsequent general election until he lost his seat at the 1937 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Seán Mac Eoin

Seán Mac Eoin Burial Site

Seán Mac Eoin Work Site Ballinalee, Ireland
Seán Mac Eoin

Seán Mac Eoin (30 September 1893 – 7 July 1973) was an Irish Fine Gael politician and soldier. He was commonly referred to as the "Blacksmith of Ballinalee".

Seán Mac Eoin was born in Ballinalee, County Longford, Ireland in 1893. He worked as a blacksmith.

He came to prominence in the War of Independence as leader of an Irish Republican Army (IRA) flying column. In November 1920, he led the local column in attacking Crown forces in Granard during one of the periodic government reprisals, forcing them to retreat to their barracks. The next day, he held the village of Ballinalee against superior British forces, forcing them to retreat and abandon their ammunition.

At the Clonfin ambush, Mac Eoin ordered his men to care for the wounded British, at the expense of captured weaponry. This earnt him both praise and criticism, but became a big propaganda boost for the war effort, especially in the United States. He was admired by many within the IRA for leading practically the only effective column in the midlands.

He was captured at Mullingar railway station in March 1921, imprisoned and sentenced to death for the murder of an RIC Inspector. According to Oliver Gogarty, Charles Bewley wrote Seán's death-sentence speech. While in prison, Michael Collins organised a rescue attempt. Six IRA Volunteers, led by Paddy O'Daly, captured a British armoured car and, wearing British army uniforms, gained access to Mountjoy Jail. However, Mac Eoin was not in the part of the jail they believed, and after some shooting, the rescue party retreated.

Within days, Mac Eoin was elected to Dáil Éireann in the general election of May 1921, as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Longford–Westmeath.

Mac Eoin was eventually released from prison after Collins threatened to break off treaty negotiations with London unless he was freed (It was rumoured that Sean Mac Eoin was to be the best man at Collins' wedding).

In the debate on the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Mac Eoin seconded Arthur Griffith's motion that it should be accepted.

Mac Eoin joined the Irish Free State's Irish Army as a senior officer in charge of the Midland Division. In the Irish Civil War, he pacified the west of Ireland for the new Free State, marching overland to Castlebar and linking up with a seaborne expedition that landed at Westport. He was appointed Chief of Staff of the Army in February 1929.

In 1929, he resigned from the Army and was elected to Dáil Éireann, again as a TD for Longford–Westmeath. From 1948 to 1951 he served as Minister for Justice, and from 1954 to 1957 he was appointed Minister for Defence. Mac Eoin stood unsuccessfully as Fine Gael candidate for the Presidency in 1945 and 1959. Mac Eoin retired from politics in 1965, and died in Dublin on 7 July 1973. He is buried in St. Emers Cemetery, Ballinalee.

There is currently a controversial plan to demolish his home, Rose Cottage in Balinalee, County Longford and replace it with ten houses. This house served as his headquarters during the Battle of Balinalee in 1920. The plan is facing local opposition from historical groups and residents.

A modified plan for the site which includes the existing dwelling with non original extensions removes is applied for by the Co. Leitrim owned developers.

Members of the Second Dáil - Lorcan Robbins

Lorcan Robbins (also called Laurence and/or Robins; Irish: Lorcán O Roibín) (1884/5–1939) was an Irish Sinn Féin activist and politician. He was the son of Laurence Dalton Robins, a farmer from Tullaghnageeragh near Moate in County Westmeath, who worked undercover for Sinn Féin under the alias "Richard Dalton".

When the First Dáil established a separatist Irish Republic in 1919, the younger Robbins worked in the Dáil government's Department of Finance. He was nominated as a Sinn Féin candidate in the Longford–Westmeath constituency in the 1921 general election. Arthur Griffith suggested that, if elected, he be excused attendance at the Dáil in order to continue working for the Department of Finance; Michael Collins overruled Griffith. Robbins and the other Sinn Féin candidates were returned unopposed as TDs to the Second Dáil.

On 7 January 1922, he voted in favour of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. On 11 January, he was appointed Assistant Minister for Local Government in the post-Treaty Dáil government, although this appointment was never ratified by the Dáil. He lost his Dáil seat at the 1922 general election, although he remained an Assistant Minister until the Dáil government was merged with the Provisional Government in September.

Members of the Second Dáil - Kathleen O'Callaghan

Professor Kathleen (Kate) O'Callaghan (née Murphy; 1888 – 16 March 1961) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician and academic. Educated at the Royal University of Ireland and Cambridge, before entering politics she was a member of Cumann na mBan. She was the widow of Michael O'Callaghan, Mayor of Limerick and an IRA officer, who was killed in her presence by British forces in 1921.

She was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) at the 1921 elections for the Limerick City–Limerick East constituency. She voted against the Anglo-Irish Treaty and sided with Éamon de Valera. She was re-elected at the 1922 general election, this time as an Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD. In accordance with Sinn Féin abstentionist policy of the time, she did not take her seat in the 3rd Dáil. She lost her seat at the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - William Hayes

William Hayes was an Irish politician and farmer. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Limerick City–Limerick East constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected unopposed as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. He did not contest the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Francis Bulfin

Francis Bulfin (12 February 1874 – 22 March 1951) was an Irish Cumann na nGaedhael party politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) in the 1920s.

Bulfin was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1921 general election to the 2nd Dáil as a Sinn Féin TD for the Leix–Offaly constituency. He was re-elected as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD to the 3rd Dáil at the 1922 general election, and as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD to the 4th Dáil at the 1923 election.

He lost his seat at the June 1927 general election, and did not stand again.

Members of the Second Dáil - Joseph P. Lynch

Joseph P. Lynch (died 1954) was an Irish politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Leix–Offaly constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He stood as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Members of the Second Dáil - Andrew Lavin

Andrew Lavin was an Irish politician and farmer. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Leitrim–Roscommon North constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was elected as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. He was elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD for Roscommon constituency at the 1923 general election. He lost his seat at the June 1927 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Thomas Carter

Thomas Carter (29 March 1882 – 11 September 1951) was an Irish politician whose career spanned two different time periods and political parties. A shopkeeper, he was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Leitrim–Roscommon North constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected unopposed as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. He was re-elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD for the Leitrim–Sligo constituency at the 1923 general election. He resigned on 30 October 1924 and the subsequent by-election held on 11 March 1925 was won by Samuel Holt of Sinn Féin.

Carter returned to politics in 1943 when he was elected as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Athlone–Longford constituency at the 1943 general election. He was re-elected as a Fianna Fáil TD at the 1944 general election, and after constituency boundary changes he was elected for Longford–Westmeath at the 1948 general election. He retired from politics at the 1951 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Christopher Byrne

Christopher Michael Byrne (1886 – 5 September 1957) was an Irish TD and Senator whose career in the Oireachtas came in two distinct periods separated by a decade's gap and a change of party.

Byrne was first elected to the Second Dáil as Sinn Féin TD for Kildare–Wicklow, at the 1921 general election. He was re-elected the following year as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate, and returned at the 1923 general election as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD for the Wicklow constituency.

He stood as an independent candidate at the June 1927 general election, but lost his seat. He was again unsuccessful as an independent at the next election, in September that year and at the 1932 general election. He did not stand in 1933, but was a Fianna Fáil candidate at the 1937 general election. He did not win a seat on that occasion, but in the subsequent elections to the 2nd Seanad in 1938, he was elected on the Administrative Panel and re-elected later that year to the 3rd Seanad.

At the 1943 general election, he returned to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for Wicklow. However, he lost his seat at the 1944 general election, to his Fianna Fáil running-mate Thomas Brennan. Byrne stood again in the 1948 general election, but was not re-elected. He then retired from national politics.

Members of the Second Dáil - Edmund Roche

Edmund Roche was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the Second Dáil for the Kerry–Limerick West constituency at the 1921 elections. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was re-elected unopposed at the 1922 general election to the Third Dáil as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD but did not take his seat. He did not contest the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Thomas O'Donoghue

Thomas O'Donoghue was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Kerry–Limerick West constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was re-elected unopposed as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD to the 3rd Dáil at the 1922 general election though he did not take his seat. He was re-elected at the 1923 general election for the Kerry constituency and again did not take his seat. He did not stand at the June 1927 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Patrick Cahill

Patrick J. Cahill (died 12 November 1946) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician and newspaper editor. Paddy, as he was known, was the leader of the Kerry 1st Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. His units operated in and around Tralee during the Irish War of Independence. Due mainly to his status in that organization, he was chosen to run unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Kerry–Limerick West constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was re-elected unopposed as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD to the 3rd Dáil at the 1922 general election though he did not take his seat. He was elected as a Sinn Féin TD at the 1923 general election for the Kerry constituency. He did not stand in the June 1927 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Joseph Whelehan

Joseph Whelehan (died 29 October 1968) was an Irish politician and university professor. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Galway constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was elected as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. He did not contest the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - George Nicolls

George Nicolls (died 11 May 1942) was an Irish politician and solicitor. He was first elected at the 1921 elections for the Galway constituency as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil. In January 1922, he was appointed Assistant Minister for Home Affairs in the Fourth Ministry.

Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, he sided with Michael Collins and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected at the 1922 general election as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD. At the 1923 general election, he was re-elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD. In the 4th Dáil, he was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence and served from 1925–1927.

Members of the Second Dáil - Patrick J. Hogan

Patrick Hogan (1891 – 14 July 1936) was a senior Irish politician.

He was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1921 election as a Sinn Féin candidate in the Galway constituency. He was re-elected as a TD for Galway in 1922, 1923, June 1927, September 1927, 1932 and 1933 general elections.

As a supporter of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 he later joined Cumann na nGaedhael (from 1933 Fine Gael). In 1922 he was appointed to the Cabinet of W. T. Cosgrave as minister for Land and Agriculture. He served in government until 1932.

He was killed in a car accident in Aughrim, Co. Galway, in July 1936, while still a serving TD.

His daughter, Brigid Hogan-O'Higgins was also a Fine Gael TD for several Galway constituencies, from 1957 to 1977.

Members of the Second Dáil - Cathal Ó Murchadha

Cathal Ó Murchadha (English: Charles Murphy; 16 February 1880–28 April 1958) was an Irish politician and republican. He was born in Albert Place East, Dublin. He was a member of the Boland's Mills Garrison under the command of Éamon de Valera during the 1916 Rising and was interned in Frongoch after the Rising. He was manager of Arthur Griffith's newspapers, Nationality and United Irishman, and looked after these during Griffith's periods of imprisonment.

He was elected to the 2nd Dáil in the 1921 Irish elections as a TD for the Dublin South constituency representing Sinn Féin. He was not re-elected in the 1922 election, was again elected to the 4th Dáil in the 1923 general election but did not take his seat. He was defeated in the June 1927 general election.

Following the Treaty, he sided with the anti-Treaty side. He was imprisoned a number of times and took part in a hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison. He was officer commanding of the republican prisoners in Harepark Internment Camp, The Curragh, Co Kildare.

He served as an Alderman for Sinn Féin on Dublin City Council.

He was president of Sinn Féin from 1935 to 1937. He was one of the seven signatories of the document which transferred the supposed authority of the Second Dáil on 17 December 1938 to the Army Council of the IRA.

He was married to Nan Funge of Courtown Harbour, Co Wexford, and they had five children.
His brother-in-law had founded the printing firm Elo Press.

At the time of his death, on 28 April 1958, he was living at 217 South Circular Road, Dolphin's Barn, Dublin.

Members of the Second Dáil - Daniel McCarthy

Daniel McCarthy (died 1957) was an Irish politician. McCarthy was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála at the 1921 elections for the Dublin South constituency. He subsequently went on to support the Anglo-Irish Treaty, becoming a member of Cumann na nGaedhael when the party was founded. McCarthy joined the government of W. T. Cosgrave as Parliamentary Secretary to the President in 1922. He served in that post until 1924. He did not contest the June 1927 general election and subsequently retired from politics.

Members of the Second Dáil - Philip Cosgrave

Philip Cosgrave (died 22 October 1923) was an Irish Cumann na nGaedhael party politician who was a Teachta Dála (TD) in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Dála.

He was first elected in the 1921 general election for Dublin South West, and after that constituency's abolition for the 1923 general election he was re-elected for the new Dublin South constituency. Cosgrave's death only eight weeks after winning his seat in the 4th Dáil triggered a by-election for his seat. It was held on 12 March 1924 and won by the Cumann na nGaedhael candidate, James O'Mara.

His brother, W. T. Cosgrave, was President of the Executive Council (Prime Minister) of the Irish Free State and his nephew, Liam Cosgrave was Taoiseach from 1973 to 1977.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Members of the Second Dáil - Kathleen Clarke

Kathleen Clarke
Kathleen Clarke, née Daly (Irish: Caitlín Uí Chléirigh; 11 April 1878 – 29 September 1972) was a member of Cumann na mBan, and one of very few privy to the plans of the Easter Rising in 1916. She was the wife of Tom Clarke and sister to Ned Daly, both of whom would be executed for their part in the Rebellion. She would later become a member of Sinn Féin and later a Fianna Fáil politician who served as a TD for the Dublin Mid constituency and was the first female Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Born Kathleen Daly in Limerick, she was married to Tom Clarke, signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, one of those executed for his part in the Easter Rising in 1916. She preferred to be known as Caitlín Bean Uí Chléirigh (Kathleen, Mrs Clarke) and had this inscription on her headstone. Tom Clarke had met her uncle, John Daly, while in prison, and married Kathleen, 21 years his junior, on his release in 1898. Her younger brother, Edward Daly, was also executed for taking part in the rising.

Kathleen and Thomas were the parents of three children.

After her marriage she became active in politics was a founder of Cumann na mBan in 1914.
She was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin TD to the Second Dáil in the May 1921 elections. She spoke against the Anglo-Irish Treaty in the Dáil debates in December 1921 and January 1922. She failed to be re-elected in the 1922 general election but was re-elected to the short-lived 5th Dáil in the June 1927 election. She again lost her seat in the September 1927 election and did not regain it. She contested the 1948 general election on behalf of Clann na Poblachta.

Following her failure to be elected to the Dáil in 1927, she was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1928 and retained her seat in two subsequent elections until it was abolished in 1936. She was Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1939–1941. Following her death aged 94 in 1972 in Liverpool, she received the rare honour of a state funeral.

She is buried at Deansgrange Cemetery, Dublin.

Members of the Second Dáil - Seán McGarry

Seán McGarry

Seán McGarry (fl. 1908–1925) was a 20th century Irish nationalist and politician. A longtime senior member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), he served as its president from May 1917 until November 1918 when he was one of a number of nationalist leaders arrested for his alleged involvement in the so-called German Plot.

An active member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, McGarry was a close friend of Bulmer Hobson and was frequently arrested or imprisoned by British authorities for his activities with the IRB during the early 1900s. McGarry participated in the 1916 Easter Rising as an aide-de-camp to Tom Clarke and sentenced to eight years penal servitude for his role in the failed rebellion.

He was sent to Frongoch internment camp in Wales, but was eventually released. McGarry assisted Michael Collins in his efforts to reorganize the Irish Republican Brotherhood and, at the Volunteer Executive Meeting held in late 1917, he was elected General Secretary of the Irish Volunteers.

On the night of 17 May 1918, McGarry was arrested along with seventy-three other Irish nationalist leaders and deported to England and held in custody without charge. The day following their arrest, he and the others were charged with conspiring "to enter into, and have entered into, treasonable communication with the German enemy". In his absence, Harry Boland was selected for the Supreme Council and became his successor as president of the IRB.

He was only imprisoned a short time when he took part in the famous escape from Lincoln Jail with Seán Milroy and Éamon de Valera on 3 February 1919. He and Milroy had managed to smuggle out a postcard, a comical sketch of McGarry to his wife, allowing a copy of the key to their cell to be made. They were later assisted by Harry Boland and Michael Collins who awaited them outside the prison. A month later, McGarry gave a dramatic speech at a Sinn Féin concert held at the Mansion House, Dublin before going into hiding.

Throughout the Irish War of Independence, McGarry served as a commander and was eventually elected to Second Dáil in the 1921 elections as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) representing Dublin Mid. He, like the majority of those in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and was involved in debates against de Valera during the controversy, most especially discussing the status of Sinn Féin as a political entity.

He was re-elected as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD in the 1922 general election, siding with the Free State government during the Irish Civil War. According to Frank Henderson, as told to Ernie O'Malley, Liam Lynch and other members of the Éamon de Valera's Anti-Treaty faction began planning the assassination of McGarry among other TDs supporting the Public Safety Bill.
“...Seán McGarry was often drunk in Amiens St. and the boys
wanted to shoot him and the Staters there but I wouldn't let them...”
On 10 December 1922, shortly before the first meeting of the Free State parliament, a fire was deliberately set by the Irregulars at his family home resulting in the death of his son. He was one of four others targeted by the anti-Treatyites during the December Free State executions. De Valera publicly denounced the attack.

McGarry was re-elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD in the 1923 general election for Dublin North. Dissatisfied and disillusioned with the Free Staters, he resigned from the Cumann na nGaedhael after the Irish Army Mutiny and defected to Joseph McGrath's National Group. He resigned his seat in October 1924 and tried to retain his seat as a National Group candidate in the by-election but was defeated by Oscar Traynor.

Members of the Second Dáil - Margaret Pearse

Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Pearse, who were active in political debate around both the Treaty and the rights of women to vote and hold office.

Margaret Pearse (née Brady; 1857 – 1 January 1932) was an Irish politician. She was born in County Meath and moved to Dublin, and in 1877 married James Pearse (his second marriage), a Dubliner who was originally from Birmingham. She was the mother of Patrick Pearse, one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916, who was executed soon after the rising. Another son Willie Pearse was also executed after the 1916 Easter Rising.

She joined Sinn Féin after the Rising and gave support and endorsement to candidates during the 1918 Westminster election. She was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin County constituency at the 1921 elections.

She strongly opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, as did all the female TDs. She stated during the Treaty debate that:

"I rise to support the motion of our President for the rejection of the Treaty.
My reasons for doing so are various, but my first reason for doing so I would
like to explain here today is my son's account. It has been said here on several
occasions that Patrick Pearse would have accepted this Treaty. I deny it. As his mother I deny it, and on his account I will not accept it.'
"
Later she continued in a similar vein:

"Always we had to be on the alert. But even the Black and Tans alone would not
frighten me as much as if I accepted this Treaty; because I feel in my heart -
and I would not say it only I feel it - that the ghosts of my sons would haunt
me."
Following the ratification of the Treaty, she left the Dáil with the other anti-Treaty deputies. She was defeated at the 1922 general election. She supported those who opposed the Treaty during the Irish Civil War and continued to be a member of Sinn Féin until 1926. In 1926 she left the party conference with Éamon de Valera and became a founder member of Fianna Fáil. She never stood for election again.

At the launch of The Irish Press newspaper she was asked to press the button to start the printers rolling. At many public occasions she stated that were her sons alive they too would have joined Fianna Fáil. Accordingly Patrick Pearse is recognised as the spiritual figurehead of the party to this day.

Margaret Pearse died in 1932. Her daughter, Margaret Mary Pearse, also joined Fianna Fáil, and served as a TD in the 1930s and later as a Senator.

Members of the Second Dáil - Séamus Dwyer

(James J) Séamus Dwyer (c.1882 – 20 December 1922) was an Irish politician. He was elected unopposed at the 1921 elections for the Dublin County constituency as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) in the 2nd Dáil. He voted in favour of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He stood as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

He was shot dead at his shop in Rathmines on 20 December 1922.

Members of the Second Dáil - Michael Derham

Michael James Derham (1889 – 20 November 1923) was an Irish Sinn Féin and later Cumann na nGaedhael politician who served for two years as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin County constituency.

He was returned unopposed as one of six Sinn Féin candidates at the 1921 elections to the new House of Commons of Southern Ireland, which had been established under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. In common with the other Sinn Féin members elected, he did not take his seat in the short-lived new Commons, sitting instead in the revolutionary Second Dáil.

Derham was re-elected as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election, and as a candidate for the new Cumann na nGaedhael party at the 1923 general election. He died less than three months later, in November, triggering Dáil Éireann's fourth-ever by-election, which was won on 19 March 1924 by the Cumann na nGaedhael candidate, Batt O'Connor.

Members of the Second Dáil - Samuel O'Flaherty

Samuel O'Flaherty (died 22 May 1930) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He first stood for election at the 1918 general election as a Sinn Féin candidate for the Donegal East constituency but was defeated by Edward Kelly of the Irish Parliamentary Party. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Donegal constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He was re-elected unopposed as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election but did not take his seat. He lost his seat at the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Joseph McGinley

Joseph P. McGinley was an Irish Sinn Féin politician and medical practitioner. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Donegal constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was elected unopposed as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. He did not contest the 1923 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Patrick McGoldrick

Patrick McGoldrick (12 August 1865 – 26 April 1939) was an Irish politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Donegal constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was elected unopposed as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the 1922 general election. He was elected as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD at the 1923 general election. He lost his seat at the June 1927 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Seán Nolan

Seán Nolan was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He stood as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

Members of the Second Dáil - Seán Moylan

Seán Moylan (19 November 1888 – 16 November 1957), was a Commandant of the Irish Republican Army and a senior Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician. After the Irish War of Independence he also served under Taoiseach Éamon de Valera as Minister for Lands (1943–1948), Minister for Education (1951–1954) and Minister for Agriculture (1957).

Moylan was born in Kilmallock, County Limerick in 1888. He was educated locally and was from a strong republican background which saw him join the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association. He trained as a carpenter's apprentice and worked in Dublin. In 1914 Moylan joined the Kilmallock company of the Irish Volunteers but left in 1914 when his apprenticeship finished and he moved to set up a business in Newmarket, County Cork. There he joined the local company of the Volunteers again.

Following reorganisation after the Easter Rising, Moylan was appointed Captain of the Newmarket Company. During the Anglo-Irish War he was Commandant of the Cork No.2 Battalion of the Irish Republican Army and led the Active Service Unit in North Cork during 1920. He had risen to the rank of Officer Commanding the Cork No.2 Brigade when he was captured and interned in Spike Island in May 1921. Moylan was elected to Dáil Éireann, while in prison, as a Sinn Féin TD to the Second Dáil. He was released in August 1921 to attend the Dáil. Moylan opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and left the Dáil with the other Anti-Treaty deputies following its ratification.

Moylan fought on the Republican side in the Civil War. The north and west Cork area proved to be some of the last areas to fall to the pro-Treaty forces. He was Director of Operations of the Anti-Treaty forces. In 1926 Moylan originally opposed the setting up of Fianna Fáil but joined the new party later that year. He was elected a Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North at the 1932 general election. He rose rapidly through the party ranks and was appointed a Parliamentary Secretary in 1937. He was appointed to the Cabinet in 1943 as Minister for Lands. Moylan remained in this office until 1948 when the party went into opposition. He served as Minister for Education from 1951 until 1954, when Fianna Fáil lost power again. Moylan lost his Dáil seat at the 1957 general election but was elected to Seanad Éireann later that year. He was later appointed to the Cabinet as Minister for Agriculture, making him the first Senator to be appointed a Government Minister.

Seán Moylan died suddenly on 16 November 1957, just a few months after taking office and, it is rumoured, just hours after handing in his resignation over an agricultural disagreement.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Members of the Second Dáil - Seán Hales

Sean Hales (died 6 December 1922) was an Irish political activist in the early 20th century. Hales was born in Ballinadee, County Cork, where he and his brothers Tom, Donal and Robert (Bob) were involved in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence.
At the 1921 elections, Hales was elected to the Second Dáil as a Sinn Féin member for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency. Despite originally being anti-Treaty, Hales was persuaded by Michael Collins to join the pro-Treaty side and he voted for the Treaty.

At the 1922 general election, he was elected to the Third Dáil as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the same constituency. Shortly afterwards, the Irish Civil War broke out between the pro-Treaty faction, who were in favour of setting up the Irish Free State and the anti-Treaty faction, who would not accept the abolition of the Irish Republic.

On 6 December 1922, Hales was killed by anti-Treaty IRA men as he left the Dáil. Another TD Pádraic Ó Máille was also shot and badly wounded in the incident. His killing was in reprisal for the Free State's execution of anti-treaty prisoners. In revenge for Hales' killing, four republican leaders, whom the Free State held in custody, were executed on 8 December. See also Executions during the Irish Civil War.

According to information passed on to playwright Ulick O'Connor, an anti-Treaty IRA volunteer named Owen Donnelly of Glasnevin was responsible for the killing of Hales. Seán Caffrey, O'Connor's informant and adjutant of IRA unit at the time of the shooting, stressed however that Donnelly had not been ordered to shoot Hales specifically but was following the general order issued by Liam Lynch to shoot TDs or Senators if they could.

Members of the Second Dáil - Daniel Corkery

Daniel (Dan) Corkery was an Irish politician and Commandant in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the War of Independence. From Macroom, County Cork, Corkery was one of the main IRA officers during the Coolavokig Ambush in February 1921.

At the 1921 elections he was elected unopposed to the Second Dáil as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency. An anti-Treaty member from January 1922, he did not take his seat in the Third Dáil. He was elected to the 4th Dail at the 1923 general election for the new Cork North constituency, again as an anti-treaty republican. After his re-election at the June 1927 general election as independent republican, he joined the newly created Fianna Fáil party and took his seat with other Fianna Fáil deputies in August 1927.

Corkery was re-elected as a Fianna Fáil TD at the September 1927 general election, but lost his seat at the 1932 general election. He re-gained his seat at the 1933 general election, but did not contest the 1937 general election. In 1938, he was elected to the revived Seanad Éireann and continued as a Senator until 1948.

Members of the Second Dáil - Seán MacSwiney

Seán MacSwiney was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was born in Cork city. He was the brother of Terence MacSwiney and Mary MacSwiney.

His brother, Terence, then a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) and the Lord Mayor of Cork, died on hunger strike in 1920. He was elected at the 1921 elections for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency and became a member of the Second Dáil. His sister Mary was elected for the Cork Borough constituency at the same election. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it (as did his sister Mary). He was defeated at the 1922 general election.

Members of the Second Dáil - Séamus (James) Fitzgerald

Séamus (James) Fitzgerald was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Cork East and North East constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He stood as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

Members of the Second Dáil - Daniel O'Callaghan

Daniel (Donal) O'Callaghan was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Cork Borough constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He stood as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election but was not elected.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Members of the Second Dáil - Mary MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney (pronounced 'MacSweeney'; Irish Máire Nic Suibhne) (27 March 1872 – 8 March 1942) was an Irish politician and educationalist.

Born in London,to an Irish father and English mother, she returned to Ireland with her family at the age of six and was educated in Cork. After working at private schools in England and France, at the age of twenty, she studied for a Teaching Diploma at Cambridge University, which was normally reserved for men, and worked at Hillside Convent, Farnborough and the Benedictine Convent, Ventnor.

On the death of her mother, she returned to Cork to look after the younger members of her family and took a post at St Angela’s Ursuline High School where she had been a pupil. Influenced by her staunchly republican brother, Terence MacSwiney,she joined the Gaelic League and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, and was a founder member of Cumann na mBan when it was formed in 1914 in Cork and became a National Vice-President of the organisation. In 1916 she was arrested and imprisoned following the Easter Rising and also was dismissed from her teaching position for her republican activities. Several months later, upon her release from prison, she and her sister Annie founded Scoil Íte, modelled on Padraig Pearse's St. Enda's School, and she remained involved with the school for the rest of her life.

She supported the Irish war of independence in 1919-21. After the death of her brother Terence in October 1920 on hunger strike during the height of the Black and Tan War she was elected for Sinn Féin to the Cork Borough constituency (taking her seat in Dáil Éireann) in 1921. Another brother Seán was also elected to the Dáil in a different Cork constituency. She gave evidence in Washington, D.C. before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland. For nine months she and Terence's widow, Muriel, toured America lecturing and giving interviews.

She strongly opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, debated in December 1921-January 1922, preferring to resume the war: 'This matter has been put to us as the Treaty or war. I say now if it were war, I would take it gladly and gleefully, not flippantly, but gladly, because I realise that there are evils worse than war, and no physical victory can compensate for a spiritual surrender.' On 21 December she spoke for three hours criticising the agreement from all angles.

During and after the Irish Civil War she was interned and went on hunger strike twice. She retained her seat in the 1923 election and along with other Sinn Féin members she refused to enter the Dáil. She later broke with Éamon de Valera and Fianna Fáil over their entry to Dáil Éireann in 1926, and continued to maintain a hardline republican position until her death. She lost her seat in the 1927 election.

In December 1938, MacSwiney was one of a group of seven people, who had been elected to the Second Dáil in 1921, who met with the IRA Army Council under Seán Russell. At this meeting, the seven signed over what they believed was the authority of the Government of Dáil Éireann to the Army Council. Henceforth, the IRA Army Council perceived itself to be the legitimate government of the Irish Republic and, on this basis, the IRA and Sinn Féin justified their rejection of the states of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and political abstentionism from their parliamentary institutions.