Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 21 January 2021

Journeys to a Truce: Donal Óg Presents at Washington D.C.

Following the Burning of Cork and the ramping up of the rounding up of IRA men by crown forces, all active members had to be careful. Lord Mayor of Cork, Donal Óg O’Callaghan had to be extra careful.

From late August 1920, Donal had empowered Cork Brigade IRA member Seamus Fitzgerald in the collection of statistics dealing with raids, imprisonments and atrocities by crown forces. Seamus in his Bureau of Military History witness statement (WS1737) oversaw Dáil Éireann publicity for Cork City and County and acted in conjunction with the Cork Brigade intelligence on a full-time basis on this work. He took up duties in a room on the other side of the corridor to the Lord Mayor’s room where a small contingent of supporting IRA staff were already in place.

Seamus’ duties meant that he collected sworn depositions covering every important phase of enemy activity and prepare them for publication. He studied carefully the Blue Books and other books of Britain and the other war countries covering the First World War One period. Hence his reports and statements became formal and official in their look.

In early January 1921, much of Seamus’s research was taken by Donal Óg O’Callaghan to America, where he placed it before the American Commission of Conditions in Ireland and where it was subsequently published in the report of that body. A great and insightful biography has been recently been published by Cork City Council and written by Dr Aodh Quinlivan who has not only shines a light on a forgotten Lord Mayor such as Donal Óg but also how Cork’s War of Independence story was brought onto the international political stage.

One of Aodh’s excellent research chapters focuses on the aftermath of the Burning of Cork. Donal received deaths threats for being a prominent political member involved in the IRA and as a result was a fugitive moving from house to house. Donal departed Cork as a stowaway on the steamship West Cannon, a cargo ship, with Terence MacSwiney’s brother, Peter. For several days on board, they both hid. When discoveredboth were put to work on board the ship. On reaching New York, Irish American figures and societies fought successfully against their deportation claiming they were political refugees.

The American Commission on Conditions in Ireland was the brainchild of the editorial team at New York’s Nation newspaper. The Commission was established in September 1920 and set up very quickly to collect information for the American public about the conditions in Ireland, which as the Commission noted “increasingly menace the friendly relations that have existed between Great Britain and the United States”. The Nation newspaper was and still is a current affairs publication. In 1920, the newspaper’s owner was Oswald Garrison Villard who was journalist, a civil rights activist, and a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. Villard was also founder of the American Anti-Imperialist League, favouring independence for territories taken in the Spanish-American War. He was a strong advocate of small nations (such as Ireland) and their civil liberties under the rule of law with a focus on economic freedom.

In order to secure an impartial and distinguished body for the American Commission’s investigation, every United States Senator, every State governor, every member of the higher clergy of the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish churches, and the leading educators, journalists, editors, mayors, and publicists of the country were extended an invitation to become members of this committee. Over 150 individuals accepted representing a broad diversity of ethnic groups and political and religious beliefs, and from 36 states of the USA.

The Commission immediately got into communication with the British Embassy in Washington and with Eamon de Valera in Ireland. They also cabled to Ireland’s cities and towns to secure witnesses who might appear before the Commission and give testimony. De Valera had been in New York in January 1920 and made a huge impression on not only Irish America journalists but also those who had an interest in civil rights such as The Nation newspaper. There was also ongoing fundraising across the USA for the establishment of the Dáil Éireann concept.

The report of the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland can be viewed online – an epic 1,130 pages – containing the witness statements from six hearing sessions and up to 14 days of interviews from 18 November 1920 to 21 January 1921. Participants were mainly Irish citizens with some British and American citizens with a direct link to the War of Independence also giving testimony. The opening session of the Commission came three weeks after the hunger-strike death of Cork’s Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney. Terence had generated significant international headlines and motivated the Commission to move at pace collecting its witness statements.

 Terence’s widow Muriel and his sister Mary testified to the Commission at the second hearing on 8 and 9 December 1920. They were shortly followed after by the testimonies at the fourth hearing by Tomás MacCurtain’s sisters in law, Suzanna Walsh and Anna Walsh on 22 and 23 December 1920.

At the fifth hearing, Lord Mayor O’Callaghan gave testimony. He spoke for 11 hours across Thursday 13 January and Friday 14 January 1921 at the Hotel LaFayette, Washington D.C. In a wide ranging and much detailed testimony, Donal drew on the research of his team back in Cork. He proceeded systematically through a multitude of topics from harassment of his public duties, being on the run, to raids and destruction of property, to the murder of Tomás MacCurtain, the Republican Courts, suppression of the press, attacks on women, to the Burning of Cork, to reading the witness statements from residents of Cork.

            Such was Donal’s detailed description, for weeks after he was wanted for a multitude of speaking engagements with sympatisers of the Irish cause for freedom. Donal spent the next eight months in America. The Commission’s report ultimately got stuck in the American political quagmire in the spring and early summer of 1921 by which time talks of a truce between British and Irish sides War of Independence had already begun.

Check out Aodh Quinlivan’s new book, Forgotten Lord Mayor, Donal Óg O’Callaghan, 1920-1924, published by Cork City Council, when Cork bookshops re-open.

Caption:

1083a. Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr Donal Óg O’Callaghan, 1920 (source: Cork Public Museum).

13 January 2021, “In a response to a question posed by Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy, it was confirmed that Cork City Council is in the process of appointing a contractor and that it is anticipated that repair works for Parliament will be completed by mid to late February”, Repair works to be carried out at busy Cork bridge following partial collapse,Repair works to be carried out at busy Cork bridge following partial collapse (echolive.ie)

Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,

Cork Independent, 14 January 2021

Journeys to a Truce, 1921: The Trial of Fr Dominic

Following the sad events of Terence MacSwiney’s funeral on 31 October 1920, the Lord Mayor’s Capuchin chaplain Fr Dominic O’Connor received death threats in Cork. For his own safety, the Father Provincial sent him to Kilkenny and then to Dublin. Fr Dominic arrived in Dublin in November 1920. He rarely left the house and during part of that time he also became unwell.

On 16 December 1920, a party of military raided the Capuchin Franciscan Monastery situated at Church street, Dublin. Fr Aloysius in his Bureau of Military History witness statement (WS207) records that the raid on the Monastery took place about 10.20pm on the night of 16 December and continued till close on 4am on 17 December. There were circa 300 soldiers engaged in the operation and some sixty fully armed men occupied the Monastery. The soldiers got over the railings, gates and walls — armoured cars and care with powerful searchlights patrolled the streets adjoining. All apartments of the house were minutely searched. The church, confessionals and sacristy were all visited and presses and desks within opened. Books, documents, miscellaneous and private letters were thoroughly examined. Beds and even waste paper baskets were examined.

Fathers Dominic and Albert were placed under arrest and given about a half an hour to prepare, being under guard during that time. At about 1.30am they were taken to Dublin Castle under armed escort. Father Albert was released after a few hours and was home by 4.30am but Father Dominic was detained. On 23 December he was removed after curfew hours in an armoured car to the Old Prison, Kilmainham.

Father Dominic remained in solitary confinement. Fr Aloysius succeeded in obtaining permits to visit him and to converse with him daily in presence of a guard. He arranged to provide him, during the period of his detention prior to his trial, with some extras in food and with necessary clothing. But Fr Dominic had to conform to the ordinary prison diet and to sleep on the floor with merely a small mattress under him. He was to be kept within his cell under lock and key except for an hour’s exercise, morning and evening. After the first week he could celebrate Mass nearly every morning.

 No notification of the charge was made until late on Wednesday 5 January 1921. Fr Dominic had no opportunity of consulting a solicitor until 6 January whilst the court martial was fixed for 10.30am on 8 January. The lack of a forthcoming charge and that he was a priest meant that the detention of Fr Dominic became a large media story, not alone in Ireland, but in many other countries.

On 9 January 1921, Fr Dominic, was charged before a Field General Court Martial at Kilmainham Courthouse.  The Cork Examiner of the time, through their reporter, records that at Kilmainham Court, though the proceedings were open to the public, the attendance was of limited nature. In the precincts of the building several soldiers were on duty, and every person seeking admission to the courthouse was carefully searched. Prior to the opening of the court Fr Dominic was detained by four armed soldiers in a passage leading to the court.

For security reasons, when the court assembled the press representatives and public were requested to retire and the order was carried out. Fr Dominic was then accompanied by his solicitor as they entered the space. After a short time, the press and public were again admitted, and the proceedings commenced. The Court consisted of three military officers assisted by a Judge Advocate or legal adviser.

Fr Dominic was charged on two counts – that he was making a letter statement in a house in Brixton London “to cause disaffection to his Majesty” and secondly that whilst in Dublin he had in possession a “memorandum tablet” or notebook containing statements – the publication of which would be likely “to cause disaffection to his Majesty”.

Fr Dominic’s solicitor Mr O’Connor noted that he was instructed not to appear on Fr Dominic’s behalf. Fr Dominic denied the jurisdiction of the court to try him. At that stage Mr O’Connor then left the court room.

Father Dominic then took the stand and refused to recognise the Court, giving as his reasons that he was an ecclesiastic who could only be tried by an ecclesiastical court, and as an Irishman he objected to the court not being constituted “by the will of his fellow-countrymen”. He critiqued that in the first charge it was only random words on a letter the prosecution had and in the second charge, the notebook held the statements of Terence MacSwiney who was in the later stages of his 74-day Hunger Strike. The trial was detailed and still ended with the charges against Fr Dominic.

At the conclusion of the evidence the Court closed, and Father Dominic remained in custody awaiting the proclamation of his sentence, which was not announced to him until 29 January. The sentence was five years’ penal servitude, with two remitted, i.e. three years’ penal servitude.

On 31 January 1921 Father Dominic was led handcuffed under military escort to a boat at Dún Laoghaire and in the same manner from Holyhead to London. In the prison at Wormwood Scrubbs his clerical attire was taken from him and he was garbed in ordinary criminal convict clothes, and handcuffed. He was taken to Parkhurst Convict Prison in the Isle of Wight. There he was bound by the conventional convict regime regarding dress, diet, and labour (though his hair and beard were not cut).

Fr Dominic was released in a general amnesty in January 1922 pursuant to ratification by Dáil Éireann of the Anglo–Irish treaty.

Missed one of the 51 columns last year, check out the indices at Kieran’s heritage website, www.corkheritage.ie

Caption:

1082a. Fr Dominic O’Connor, c.1920 (source: Irish Capuchin Provincial Archive)

Question to the CE:

To ask the CE for an update on repair work on Parliament Bridge on its north-western side? (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

Motions:

That the public lights within the lamps on the National Monument on the Grand Parade be repaired (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

That the public lights within the lamps on South Gate Bridge be repaired (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

To get a report on the status of the Traffic Operations review of the current demand for EV charging points on public roads and in public spaces, as began last year (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).

To review traffic speeds on the main road outside Foxwood and Monfield, Garryduff and to erect further slow down signs and mind children signs as appropriate (Cllr Kieran McCarthy).