One Easter, over 30 years ago Michael Gove first attracted my attention, declaring, in
THE TIMES that the 1916 Insurgents were “a squalid gang who betrayed Ireland.”
I dismissed him at the time as a “Stupid Boy” like Private Pike in “Dad’s Army.” No
jury tried the Insurgent Leaders shot by the British Army, and even Prime Minister
Asquith, on the 11th May 1916, the day before his gunmen shot Sean MacDiarmada
and the wounded James Connolly to death in Kilmainham Gaol, declared in the
House of Coomons that the “Rebels” had waged a clean fight.
Having had nearly three years to consider the Rising, the Irish electorate gave
the unrepentant surviving “Rebels” a landslide mandate to make good the promise
of their 1916 Proclamation, and fifty years later surviving “Rebels” held the Ceremonial
Presidency, and top Cabinet posts in the Irish State.
The first rebel shot by firing squad was Thomas MacDonagh. Not even the bitterest
of “revisionist” commentators or strumpet academics has ever said anything disparaging
about him. About 65 years ago I found a postcard written in October 1904 to his nine-year old god -daughter, Aileen Kennedy, (my aunt) which revealed his sweet nature.
It was written from Fermoy, where he was teaching, to Kilkenny, where my grandfather,
Patrick Kennedy, ran a school. He and my grandfather, 12 years his senior, had been
next-door neighbours in Cloughjordan, County Tipperary.
The postcard depicted the fine bridge over the Munster Blackwater built by James
Augustus Joyce, Grandfather of the novelist.
It was addressed to Eibhlin Ni Cinneide, Ag An Ard Scoil, Cill Chainnigh, and had
a stamp depicting Edward the Caressor, who had just signed the Entente Cordiale
a conspiracy which had already unleashed 120 years of conflict. Anyhow MacDonagh
asked my aunt how she was getting on with her Irish and whether my father, the 5 years
old had learned any. Years later he coached her for her Matric,
Secondary teachers were very generally graduates, such as Grandfather and Mac Donagh, and very poorly paid. In 1909 both of them were instrumental in setting up
the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland. Grandfather was its First President
and served two Consecutive terms. MacDonagh was its first General Secretary. Mac
Donagh was a poet admired by Yeats, and a university Lecturer. At its first Dublin
Conference in the Round Room in the Mansion House, one of the ushers was a young
University Lecturer, “Ed. de Valera.” I wonder what happened to him?.
My younger brother worked for some years in a bank in Derry, and is a keen GAA man.
He kicked a ball sometimes with brothers of Martin Mc Guinness. Martin became Minister
for Education at Stormont. My brother went to Martin’s funeral and noted a woman wearing a Chain of Office,. He learned that she was President of ASTI, succesor to our
Grandfather. Secondary teachers are today very well paid.
But my father remembered in his youth being given a half-crown by the penurious but
large-hearted Thomas Mac Donagh.
Fascinating article. It was because of the piracy of people like Gove that good decent Irish people had to strike a blow for Irish freedom. May they rest in peace.
“ one of the ushers was a young
University Lecturer, “Ed. de Valera”
DeValera was never a University Lecturer
Unless A few months spent as a part time Mathematics Teacher
At St. Patrick’s College Maynooth is deemed sufficient.