The Easter Rebellion of 1916 is today regarded as one of the more
important, if not the most important event in Irish history. It was not always so. When Pearse and his colleagues marched
through Dublin and seized the G.P.O. and other buildings, they did so despite
confusion amongst the ranks of the Irish Volunteers and lack of support from
the general public. The rebellion was
initially condemned by most of the public bodies in Ireland, as well as by the
Irish Hierarchy. On Sunday, May 7th,
days after eight of the rebel leaders
had been executed, the Archbishop of Cashel, Dr. Harty, addressing the
congregation in St. Michael’s Church in Tipperary was moved to say, “Our country has passed through a time of
great sorrow and I am especially glad to find that the people of the whole
Archdiocese of this town of Tipperary in particular, showed great common sense
and great patriotic judgment and that they did not allow themselves to get
mixed up in anything that was against the interests of the country. We all know the people of Ireland at large do
not want any revolutionary measures.”
On the following Friday, 12th May, James Connolly and Sean
McDiarmada were the last of the rebel leaders to be shot by firing squad in
Kilmainham Jail. With their deaths a
total of fourteen men, including Thomas Kent at Victoria Barracks in Cork, had
paid the ultimate penalty for their involvement in the rebellion.
The British Intelligent notes for 1916 stated:- “The main result of the Rebellion, so far as County Kildare was
concerned, was the stoppage of recruiting ………before the rebellion recruiting
was very fair and some districts decidedly credible, after the Rebellion it was
distinctly bad.” The reference here
was to recruitment for the British Army to fight overseas in the 1914-18 War.
The minute book of Athy Urban District Council makes no reference
whatsoever to the events in Dublin over Easter week but significantly just
weeks previously on 3rd April 1916 the Council by six votes to three
passed the resolution “that we have
absolute and entire confidence in Mr. John Redmond, the Irish leader and the
Irish Parliamentary Party.”
Following the rebellion the Athy Board of Guardians on the proposal of
Thomas J. Whelan, Chairman, seconded by T. McHugh, resolved:- “That we the members of Athy Board of
Guardians, while condemning the recent revolution in Dublin, wish to record our
opinion that a sufficiently deterrent example has been set by the executions
already carried out and now that the country has settled down we are of the
opinion that trial by civilian laws should be resumed and we appeal for
clemency for our misguided fellow countrymen.” At the same time the Naas Board of Guardians
unanimously passed a resolution expressing strong condemnation of “the revolt against the legally constituted
authority of the country”.
The Leinster Leader of 6th May, 1916 reported:- “People
met in the streets of the town and discussed the situation with all the
seriousness which the situation warranted, and alarm was the prevailing feeling
manifested.” I have not found any
reference to the involvement of Athy men or women with the Irish Volunteers in
the Easter Rebellion in Dublin and there is no record of any military-type
activity in the South Kildare area during that period. William Keegan of Ballyroe Lodge, Athy was
however involved in the Rising as a member of the Officer Training Corps
attached to Trinity College Dublin. One local
wag has suggested that while there was no Athy men in the G.P.O. it is quite
possible that given the high level of local recruits for the British Army from
August 1914 onwards that there may have been several Athy men in British
uniforms shooting into the G.P.O.
The first evidence of republican activity in South Kildare was
noticed when flags mysteriously appeared on telegraph poles in the area
following the release of prisoners from Frongoch and from Lewes Prison in
December 1916. Local Sinn Fein
sympathisers put on a concert in the Town Hall on 18th January 1917
to raise funds for the family of men “who
without being charged were torn from their homes and interned”. The following month a local drama group
called “Athy Hibernian Players” made
their first stage appearance with the play, “The
O’Carolans”, and significantly the players and audience stood to attention
at the end of the performance for the singing of “A Nation Once Again”. This
was clearly a public identification with the Republican cause and the drama
group included John Colman, Joseph Murphy, J.B. Maher, Michael May, Joseph May,
Joseph Whelan, W.G. Doyle, T. Corcoran, Robert Webster, J. Webster and C.
Walsh.
On Thursday, 19th July 1917 the local Sinn Fein Club
which had been established in June held a concert in the Town Hall in aid of
the families of those killed during the Easter Rebellion. Arthur Griffith, paying his first visit to
Athy, addressed the audience. Just days
previously J.J. Bergin, a long time member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians,
announced he was a supporter of Sinn Fein and claimed that Sinn Fein was the
only hope for Irish Nationalism. Towards
the end of 1917 the Pipers Band, organised by J.J. Bergin just before the commencement
of the World War, became embroiled in controversy following the bands
involvement in a local Sinn Fein Rally.
The band had always had use of the A.O.H. premises in Duke Street for
band practice but were asked to move out when the local A.O.H. took exception
to the bands involvement with Sinn Fein.
The secretary of the A.O.H., Peter P. Timmons, made clear the division
between the A.O.H. and the developing Sinn Fein organisation when he wrote to
the local newspaper:- “The A.O.H. as a body refuses to be
identified, even in the most remote degree with the republican lunacy.”
The threat of conscription in the early months of 1918 brought many
more recruits into the ranks of Sinn Fein.
Not all however were imbued with the convictions of those who had
started the organisation and as soon as the fear of conscription passed, so too
did their involvement with Sinn Fein.
The organisation however continued to flourish and in June 1918 it held
a public meeting in Emily Square to protest against the arrest of the Sinn Fein
leaders. Presiding at that meeting was
Michael Dooley of Duke Street who was one of the principal organisers of Sinn
Fein in the locality. Another man who
was to play a prominent part in Nationalist politics at local level was James
Joseph O’Byrne of Duke Street. A school
teacher married with four children, he was arrested on 16th August
1918 for the reading of a Sinn Fein statement at a public meeting in Emily
Square the previous day. The statement
issued after the Cavan by-election victory under the name of Michael
O’Flanagan, Vice President and Acting President of Sinn Fein, claimed that both
sets of belligerents at the Versailles Peace Conference would have to support
self determination for Ireland “which has
at last emerged into the full sunlight of national consciousness and no power
on earth can drive us back.” The
arresting officer, Sergeant Heffernan of the local R.I.C., at O’Byrne’s
subsequent court martial in Maryborough gave evidence that on 15th
August he saw a group of men, numbering about 200 in Emily Square, addressed by
J.J. O’Byrne who stood up on a chair.
For about fifteen minutes O’Byrne read from the statement which had been
circulated by Sinn Fein headquarters in Dublin and which all local Sinn Fein
organisations were required to read at public meetings throughout Ireland. O’Byrne, who had come to Athy approximately
two years previously to teach in the local Christian Brothers school, was
sentenced to one year in jail. Other men
from Athy who were imprisoned for involvement with Sinn Fein during the War of
Independence included J.B. Maher, Joe May and Eamon Malone. J.B. Maher will be remembered as “Bapty” Maher who married a sister of
the Irish patriot, Kevin Barry. Joe May
of Woodstock Street was imprisoned in Ballykinler Camp. He later worked in St. Vincent’s Hospital and
died in April 1961. His wife, Hester,
was a daughter of Michael Dooley of Duke Street, who was one of the principal
organisers of Sinn Fein in this area during the War of Independence. Another of his daughters married Eamon Malone
who for a period was Officer in Command of the Carlow Kildare Brigade of the I.R.A. Malone was imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail.
The names of those men from Athy who participated in the War of
Independence have not to my knowledge been positively identified or
recorded. My own research over the past
20 years or so has identified the following but there may be many more whose
names should also be included.
John and Paddy Hayden of Offaly Street
Joe May and Jack Bradley of Woodstock Street
Paddy Keeffe and Billy Browne of Ardreigh
Mick Carroll of Shrewleen Lane
Jack Delahunt of Chapel Hill
Mick Curtis of Castlemitchell
Peter Lamb of Blackparks
Jim Bradley and Joe Walsh of Barrack Street
Bill Nolan of St. Michael’s Terrace
Michael Dunne of Barrow Quay.
I have not included the names of the Barrowhouse or Ballylinan men,
nor those from Kilmead, Kilcrow and elsewhere in South Kildare but will do so
in a later article.
I end this article with the names of the men killed in action in
this area during the War of Independence and the subsequent Civil War.
John Byrne, Gracefield, Ballylinan - died in Luggacurran
R.I.C. Barracks on 20th April 1920
John Lacey and William Connor, Barrowhouse - killed at
Barrowhouse on 16th May 1921
Thomas Dunne, Carlow Gate, Castledermot - killed at
Castledermot on 16th June, 1922
Sylvester Sheppard, Monasterevin - killed at Levitstown
on 4th July 1922
Laurence Sweeney, Stillorgan, Co. Dublin - killed in
Castledermot on 5th July 1922
Edward Byrne, Hacketstown and Patrick Allison, Carlow
and James Murphy of Baltinglass - killed at Graney on 24th October
1922
I understand that on Sunday, 30th April an Easter
rebellion commemoration ceremony will take place in Emily Square at 3.00
p.m. Last weeks article showed two
photographs from the commemoration held in the same Square in 1966. None of the veterans who were then on parade
are alive today but we can do justice to their memory and those of the men of
1916 by recalling and celebrating their involvement in the cause which gave us
the freedom we enjoy today.
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