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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 17th Of January 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 17th Of January 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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‘Doc On 1’ with Michael Gannon. Broadcast Friday the 17th Of January 2025 https://www.connemarafm.com/audio-page/
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Next week, the Dáil will meet again and it is expected that Micheál Martin will be elected as the new Taoiseach. Martin will lead the government for the next three years and then hand over power to Simon Harris. The first Dáil met in January 1919 and was made up of mostly young men. They formed their own independent parliament in Ireland after being elected as MPs in the British elections. Only 27 members were present on the day due to some being in jail or on the run. A documentary about the first Dáil will be played in two installments. The first half will be played today. The documentary includes the declaration of the Irish Republic and the events leading up to the formation of the first Dáil. Mae'n dweud... Mae'n dweud... Good afternoon and welcome to this afternoon's broadcasting here on Connemara Community Radio. This Friday the 17th of January 2025. My name is Michael Gannon and this is our weekly documentary hour. Now, as we all know I think by now next week the Dáil will meet again and it is expected that the new Taoiseach for the country will be elected. It is expected that will be Micheál Martin, with his plan to lead the country, lead the government for the next three years and then hand over the reins of power to Simon Harris of Fine Gael for the following year or two years of their mandate in government in the fall. Fine Gael supported by a number of regional TDs including and also the brothers Elie Rey from Kerry. That's the plan at this point and by coincidence the first Dáil of the country met in January, on the 19th of January 2019 and I thought that it would be interesting to listen to a very comprehensive documentary about that first Dáil that was made a long time ago now, made back in 1969. Very detailed piece indeed, it's actually an hour and a half long so our plan is to bring you the documentary in two installments. We'll bring you the first half today, roughly 45 minutes and we'll finish it next week. It's 1969, it's still able at that point to speak to some of the people who were actually members of that first Dáil and actually present on the day. The age profile of that Dáil was very interesting indeed and quite different now really because the majority of those Dáil members on that historic day were very young men, most of them in their 20s. It wasn't at all officially recognised by the world or by the UK of course. It was at all formed because Irish people, men mostly, some women as well, Countess Markievicz being one, had stood for the British elections for MPs from the Irish regions to the Westminster Parliament for those elections. They had stood and they had been elected but they took that as a mandate to set up their own independent parliament or Dáil here in Ireland and that's what they did. There were officially 101 but of course some of them came from the Northern regions and some of them were unionists, some of them were also politicians in the south who did decide to take their seats in Westminster and not attend the Dáil as it was formed in Dublin. But they were all officially deemed to be members. The majority of them, if not them all indeed, were the Sinn Féin men who were elected at that time, the Sinn Féin TDs, there were 69 elected. But on the day there were, as you will hear in the documentary, only 27 present because the majority of those people elected were actually in jail at the time for their revolutionary activities or indeed some of them were on the run at the time and not able to attend in person. So there were just 27 present on that day. So let's go now and let's hear the first half of this documentary made, as I said, in 1969 about the very first Dáil in Ireland which we met in January 2019. Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people and whereas for 700 years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and has repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation and whereas English rule in this country is and always has been based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people and whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 by the Irish Republican Army acting on behalf of the Irish people and whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to promote the common wheel, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to ensure peace at home and goodwill with all nations and to constitute a national policy based upon the people's will with equal rights and equal opportunity for every citizen and whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in the general election of December 1918 seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic. Now, therefore, we, the elected representatives of the ancient Irish people in national parliaments assembled, do in the name of the Irish nation ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command. January the 21st, 1919. Never was a springtime so early. Never did the song of sweet liberty sound so clear. Following this day in the Dublin Mansion House the Irish Republic declared its independence to the world at the first meeting of its first parliament, the first Báil Éireann. It was the end of a road and the beginning of a road the realisation of an old dream and the first promise of a new reality. There was a hundred, three hundred, seven hundred years of history in it giving it sanction, although its immediate authority was but a few weeks old. The young men of the first Báil, and most of them were very young were not parliamentarians by training or tradition. When they offered themselves for election in December 1918 they were, nearly all of them, as new to politics as Sean McEntee was. It wasn't as a politician that I first entered the public scene. It was, as I have said, as a member of the volunteers who, well, for the part I played, had been court-martialed and sentenced to death and then given servitude for life. And it was as a released prisoner that I first stood on a political platform, per se. In East Clare, when Mr de Valera was selected as candidate for East Clare I was one of those who went down and worked with him. Liam O'Brien was a candidate at the general election in Midarmagh. He was one of the unsuccessful ones. He was defeated by his Unionist opponent. But there, as everywhere, it was made clear to the electors that if Sinn Féin were returned, they would not sit at Westminster but would convene a National Assembly in Dublin. That was clear, yes, that was clear. I'm not too certain that it was very clear about the proclamation of the Republic. You know the aims of the movement and the aims of the dog which were published, which had been published, the reaffirmation of the Republic of Easterweek and so on. But among other things in that was the appeal to the peace conference. And I think that was what was stressed. I know I did, and many other speakers that I knew of at the time stressed mainly in their speeches at the public meetings the right of Ireland to self-determination. According to the 14 points laid down by President Wilson, who said that all nations, small as well as great, small and weak as well as great and strong, were entitled to decide upon their own form of government. But that was our plank. The issue we put to the people was to forget all petty local issues, to vote for the candidate who has done for that, no matter who he was or where he came from, no matter what he was like individually, and to form a big body, a unanimous call to the peace conference to allow Ireland to decide its own fate. Campaigning for such a policy was not without risks. Because there was a hostile element in the place at the time, what we used to call the separation people, who were manifest in the early elections, de Valera's own election and Clare and other elections, that is to say, the wives and families of the men who were at the front and who were drawing separation allowances, or a corner of the separation of women, they were very hostile. They thought their husbands' future and their husbands' jobs and their own jobs were in jeopardy. And there was also, of course, those who still remain faithful to the Irish party. But broadly speaking, the people are all overwhelmingly in sympathy with the movement. This sympathy was far from evident at the time of the 1916 Rising. How had the change come about? Here's Hernon the Blind, himself a member of the First Thoig. What happened was, I was through the country from the beginning of the war, and at first everybody nearly was with the parliamentary party. We found it very hard in most places to start volunteer companies, that is to say, companies of what were called the MacNeill volunteers, because everybody believed at first that the war would be over soon, that the Irish parliamentary party had been right in backing the British, and that the country would get its reward in immediate home rule. Then as the war spun out, people began to be doubtful and wonder whether, after all, Britain was going to win, and wonder whether the parliamentary party would get its reward. Then the Rising came, and that produced a fantastic change. From being overwhelmingly with the parliamentary party, the country turned overwhelmingly against it. I've often mentioned the case of Michal Brennan, who was arrested in Easter week in Limerick, and when he was being taken to the station to be deported to England, the soldiers had to use their rifle butts to protect him from the crowd. When we were released from Reading jail at Christmas, he went back to Limerick. When he looked out of the train at Limerick station, he saw the immense crowd and thought perhaps he ought to be making his way out by some back way. The crowd surged up, they caught him, they hoisted him on his shoulders. He was taken with 5,000 people behind him to the treaty stone. That was rather typical of what happened all over the country. In the summer after the Rising, the country changed. The country changed. How wide and how deep the change was at first is something for historians to argue about. The by-elections in 1917 were a fair indication that it was no passing mood, no mere emotional reaction. Slowly but surely, Sinn Féin was gaining the support of the mass of the people. And the colossal blunder of the British government in attempting to enforce conscription produced such a united, massive resistance, that when the general election came, a Sinn Féin victory was more than likely. But few believed that it would be such a victory. When the result was announced, the Parliamentary Party, which had once held 85 seats, held only four. The Unionists, 26, and Sinn Féin, 73. On the 7th of January 1919, a private meeting of the newly elected Sinn Féin members was called in the Mansion House. Most of those who were at liberty came to the meeting, at which Sean T. O'Cally took the chair. Sean T. had already been acting as chairman of a sub-committee of Sinn Féin, nominated shortly after the election results, in order to make arrangements for the holding of a National Assembly. It was at this meeting, on January the 7th, that these arrangements were ratified. The name of the Assembly, Dáil Éireann, the date and place of the first meeting, the Mansion House, 21st of January, the agenda, were all decided upon. And it was also decided that Karl Brühl, acting as deputy for Éamon de Valère as president of Sinn Féin, who was still in jail, should preside at the first day's Assembly. Two other decisions were made. One, that all the successful candidates, Unionists as well, and Nationalists as well as members of Sinn Féin, should be invited to the meeting of the Dáil. And, and this was a decision which had fateful consequences, that the Irish form of the word Republic to be used in the Dáil proceedings would not be public, but fair thought. Preparations went on until the very eve of the meeting. And on the morning of the 21st of January, what were the newspapers saying? The Irish Times said, The National Assembly of the Irish Republican Party will meet today in Dublin. We shall not try to anticipate the Irish Government's attitude to this portent, but we may assume that the King's authority will be safe in its hands. Today's proceedings, apart from any question of their legality or propriety, will have much interest for Irishmen of all parties, since today Sinn Féin must tell the country how it proposes to carry out its programme without further evasion or ambiguity. But there was cause for concern. The whole of nationalist Ireland may well await with anxiety an official statement of the Assembly's attitude to the policy and deeds of Messrs. Lennon and Trotsky. It owes this duty to all its supporters, and not least to those ecclesiastics whose example and precept helped create the National Assembly. We do not believe that any party of Irishmen, however reckless or fanatical, will care to traffic with this hideous creed. We are confident that the men and women who voted Sinn Féin never intended to give a vote to Bolshevism. The London Times was not so confident. Irish Labour is revolutionary and avowedly Bolshevist, and nothing that Sinn Féin proposes or aims at would be objected to by Labour on the grounds of its being too extreme or illegal. The whole thing is, of course, childishly illegal, but so long as it is orderly, there will be no interference on the part of the government. And at home, the Freeman's Journal saw the shadow of the Red Menace. The Red Guards were as effective as Cromwell's Slayers, and the government that the Irish workers are asked to admire has as much likeness to a democracy and a republic as the old Venetian oligarchy did. Did these newspapers reflect popular opinion? Leo O'Brien, what was the popular mood? The popular feeling was, you can take them in three sections, there was a mass of the people, of the poor people, shall I say, who were really ignorant, who didn't know what these curious fellows were going to do. So they were quite knowing what they were going to do. And they looked on rather blankly, rather with astonishment, and only gradually came into things. There was another element, of course, which, as I mentioned before, were hostile. These were not only the Irish Party, but of course the unionist element in the country. But thoroughly, there was a mass of the people who knew what they had done, who were definitely decided to support Sinn Féin, and vote Sinn Féin, and they were impressed by the historicity, by the solemnity of this occasion. They knew, they realised, it was a big historical moment, it was a great peak for the past, with the Irish Party, with the attendance at Westminster, with the past from Parnell, and in fact with the past going back to O'Connell, with the whole 19th century nationalist element in the House of Commons. That was a big thing, to end that completely and start this national parliament without waiting for England's permission. Of course, there was a smaller element, and these were the faithful old Sinn Féiners, who had read Arthur Griffith, and who knew that that was his policy, the policy of holding an abstention first, and then a national assembly, which would, in every way it could, set out to take the government of the country out of the hands of the administration in Dublin Castle. The 21st of January, 1919, was a day of many memories. One of those who remember it is Sean Ogle Kelly, then a boy of ten. His father, and that's why he's called Sean Ogle, his father, Sean Ogle Kelly, better known as Skillig, was one of Carl Brew's closest associates, and was himself deeply involved in the doings of the day. He was, yes, and he was one of the few deputies who were not in prison at the time, and who happened to be available to attend the first Dáil. He had a couple of tickets. He gave one to my mother, and he gave one to myself, so I had the privilege of being present at the first meeting of the first Dáil on the 21st of January, 1919. I can remember quite clearly, I remember Carl Brew in a raised dais, not on the platform of the Mansion House, not on the stage, but on a raised dais on the floor. Under him, there were three or four secretaries. Beside him was Father Michael of Flanagan, who was called upon by Carl Brew to pray to the Holy Ghost to send all the blessings that they could onto the new Irish nation and onto the new Parliament of Ireland. The work that the Irish people are doing on the day of the Irish National Day is a great work. One of the most difficult things in the world is that, in fact, one of the most difficult things in the world is that, in that year, we will have to put our lives on the line for the work that we are about to do. Now, on behalf of the Irish people, Father Michael of Flanagan calls upon the Holy Ghost to pray to the Holy Ghost to send the blessings on the day of the Irish National Day. And he says, since the work that we are doing here is a great work, we have to put our lives on the line for the work that we are about to do. I now call upon Father Michael of Flanagan. Some, as might have been expected, had business elsewhere. As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as As well as That last voice there saying As well as was the voice of Sean Noonan, sometime Irish ambassador to the United States of America. But in 1919, one of the four clerks appointed to manage the business of the first meeting of Doyle-Aron. He too, like the deputies themselves, was a novice to things parliamentary. Well, after I came out of jail in March 17, I came back to Dublin and was on the staff of Sinn Féin. I was connected with several of the by-elections. I was secretary of the by-election Kilkenny. From there I went to No. 6 Harpeth Street which was the headquarters of Sinn Féin. I was on the staff there. I was with James O'Mara who was director of elections in 1918. And after the elections in December 18, Gavin Duffy asked me to, or told me, that I was to be one of the clerks of the Doyle. There were four clerks. Diarmuid Hegarty, Hristoður Forlór, Paddy Sheehan and myself. My main duty that day was to answer the roll call for the men who were in jail. As you must remember, there were quite a number who were in prison in England. And when their names were called, my job at that time was to reply on their behalf that they were quae glas e gollith. Quae glas e gollith, a phrase that loses all its savour in translation, but explains why so many of the 73 Sinn Féin deputies were detained at His Majesty's pleasure. But those who were free to attend proceeded with the day's business. As Sean O'Callaghan recalls... I remember Count Plunkett very clearly reading the Proclamation of Independence in French. Nous représentons l'élu du peuple hirondais réunis en Assemblée Nationale attendu que le peuple hirondais ait devoir un peuple libre attendu qu'il n'a jamais cessé pendant 700 ans de répudier l'usurpation étrangère et qu'il a mal de foi repoussé par les armes attendu que le gouvernement anglais... I remember Carl Brewer reading it in Irish. Bonno saith gáidh na géinu an annam ná seán na hÉireann abba sinhéan na bhor fé gheasibh an géinu sgáidh a churraibh éim ar gach lír ar gach... I remember that we were... there were about 70 or 80 chairs halfway up the hall for the deputies who were in attendance and behind those chairs there was a rope barrier where invited guests were allowed to sit and also open the gallery of their own room. I remember also volunteers in uniform including David Sears God rest him now acting as, well, not necessarily protectors but guardians of the assembly. These things are still very vivid in my mind particularly the green uniforms worn by these men who were acting as guards of the assembly because at that time Dáil Éireann or the members of Dáil Éireann were not too happy that they would be allowed to meet at all and that at any time the British authorities might move in either the army or the Dublin Metropolitan Police to break up the organisation. The fact that the boy was allowed to proceed was the subject of favourable comment in the following morning's Irish Times. The Irish government's wisdom in permitting the Republican Party to hold its national assembly yesterday was justified in the event. The saying in one sense was futile and unreal but in another it conveyed a very grave warning for the Irish people. Dave Boyle was described as a solemn act of defiance of the British Empire by a body of young men who have not the slightest notion of the Empire's power and resources. The Freeman's Journal was hardly more friendly a most momentous gathering if it was not merely an exhibition of political fireworks. If the proceedings were seriously meant and if there is any intention to attempt to carry the decisions into effect we greatly fear that we are on the eve of one of the most tragic chapters in the history of Ireland. In Britain, the Daily News said No one who is not determined to deny patent facts can refuse to acknowledge that behind the Declaration of Independence at Dublin yesterday fiercely and earnest is a solid mass of almost all Irish opinion outside Ulster. No one can study impartially the history of the last few years without admitting that it is the policy or want of policy of the British government which has driven the Irish people to this extremity. In America, The World commented They may fly the revolutionary flanks they may conduct their proceedings in Gaelic as far as the delegates know how they are assured of full protection by the British government which they are required by their contingents and odds to defy and denounce. The Daily Express and Irish Daily Mail described the proceedings as nothing but vague idealism nothing but empty phrases the whole thing is so ludicrous that we can scarcely regard it as what Sinn Féin really aims at. This is by play designed it may be to cover the sinister designs of the real leaders of the movement of revolt. On the 23rd of January the Times had this to say History will probably date the definite decline of the Sinn Féin movement from the day when its National Assembly was opened in Dublin. As to the noise supporters the Irish Times had them summed up The crowd was composed of young men and women many of whom wore that dark and dull expression which seems to go with Sinn Féin. But Sinn Féin felt neither dull nor dark Sean O'Cally remembers the day as one of joy and hope. It was a day of great hope a day of great excitement because thousands of people were trying to force their way into the Loan Room the Mansion House The Mansion House then had to be controlled by volunteers outside the gates not controlled by the police but by volunteers like the stewards and the civil rights marches in the North are trying to control their followers rather than depending on the police of the North to do the work that they should be doing. The Declaration of Independence Three major documents were read at the Boyle's first meeting The Declaration of Independence An Appeal to the Free Nations of the World and the Democratic Programme which was the Declaration of Social Policy The Irish Labour Party had for a number of reasons not contested the general election but there were close traditional and personal links between many members of the New Doyle and leaders of the Labour and Socialist Movement It was to one of these leaders, William O'Brien that Sean T. O'Cally turned when it was decided that the Doyle Agenda should include a statement of social intent O'Brien, in turn, discussed the matter with Tom Johnson and Cottle O'Shannon And the three of us got together and we agreed on what would be the I'd call the general name of the document Johnson was given the task of drawing up the draft along with my assistance My assistance was largely taking some things from Pearse's last pamphlet, The Sovereign People which showed the influence of James Connolly on Pearse, especially on Pearse's last years I added that and perhaps one or two other things and that document then was handed back to Sean T. O'Cally The rest of the story, we knew nothing about it but Johnson and I were in the gallery at the opening of the Doyle when the three documents were adopted They were all done in Irish O'Cally and Pearse Beakley did the democratic programme To tell the truth, I can't tell I can't remember whether we called it the democratic programme or whether somebody else called it the democratic programme But anyhow, Johnson and I noticed that there were some changes in the thing as originally drafted and handed to Sean T. O'Cally We didn't know how those occurred until years afterwards The programme, as finally promulgated was more social than socialist Some of the more radical expressions in the first draft were removed or rewritten by Sean T. at the insistence of some of his colleagues Still, it was, for all that a remarkably progressive document for its time And if its provisions had been fully implemented one could not refer today to what a contemporary scholar has called the social revolution that never was Hernon the Blind puts it rather sharply No, no, I never found anybody who took the slightest interest in it It was the Labour Party secured the adoption of it I don't think anybody, practically speaking bothered with it afterwards It was regarded as some sort of a hoisting of a flag but it wasn't considered significant in the struggle that was commencing If the first boy was not unduly preoccupied with social affairs economics was one of its major concerns If the boy was to be more than the exercise in window dressing which its enemies accused it of being it had to get down to work its task being nothing less than the replacement of British government in Ireland by a national administration To do this job, money was badly needed which gives point to the importance of Michael Collins' appointment as Minister for Finance The money was raised both at home and in America In June 1919, Sean Noonan who was by then Private Secretary to the President accompanied Mr. de Valera to the United States Well, perhaps accompanied is not quite the word Mr. de Valera went at the stowaway Michael Collins, to whom I went to get my transportation orders advised me to go to Liverpool and see Neil Kerr who was the head centre of the IRB at that time I accordingly went to Liverpool having got £5 at No. 6 Hackett Street to bring me to New York saw Neil Kerr and the following day we went down to the docks and lo and behold the Aquitaine was signing on a crew inside of an hour I was a member of the Seamen's and Firemen's Union the Secretary of which incidentally was also an IRB man I had a new name I was James Smith and I was registered as such at the Board of Trade I then signed on as a fireman on the Aquitaine and a couple of days afterwards we sailed from Southampton to New York where I jumped ship and linked up again with Mr. de Valera I travelled through America with him and later on when we were in Portland, Oregon Mr. James O'Mara who had been Director of Elections here in 1918 came out to direct the bond drive then Mr. de Valera and James O'Mara decided that I should go with Mr. O'Mara to run the bond drive with him I was made registrar of the bond drive and we raised roughly six million dollars It was a fantastic achievement I suppose it was the Irish by and large who did it all In the main it was Mr. O'Mara and other men there Joe McGarrity in particular were very active and the old clan of Gale in New York too and committees were set up in practically every state of the Union monies were collected there deposited in a bank account in that state and eventually transferred to one account in New York and from there it was withdrawn and sent home There were two loans The first loan raised roughly oh I suppose around five million perhaps, you know, about five million then that was closed down and a second loan was launched and Mr. Stephen O'Mara brother of James came out to run it but then the treaty came along and that second loan folded up Now when you were doing all this work Mr. Noonan you and your colleagues were working of course in the name of the Irish Republic Did you feel that the authority under whom you were working was donated? Oh definitely No doubt about it That was the parliament set up by the vote of the people and we took that vote as law that was our law Doyle Aaron was our master We worked for them through them for the country During the three years 1919, 1920 and 1921 the First Doyle held twelve sessions In the first year four of these were public but all the others were private and at times, for obvious reasons, secret The remarkable thing is that against the tumultuous background of those years so much constructive work was done The outstanding example being that of the Sinn Féin or Republican courts Conor McGuire later to become Chief Justice of Ireland was deeply involved in the work of these courts and indeed he claims that it was in his native Mayo that it all began The first recollection I have of the idea of setting up courts being mentioned was when I was chairman of the Courier-Counselor Office Sinn Féin in Mayo We had four solicitors sympathetic with Sinn Féin actively so Pally Rutledge being of course the principal one and we conceived the idea that it would be possible to accept a leader a leader of the Doyle which early in 1919 indicated its wish that the arbitration that we should try the setting up of arbitration courts we decided to have a go at it and we arranged that we would set up courts and follow more or less the procedure of the British courts the Petty Sessions and the County Court and then later the Assizes and at first it was an effort that we didn't hope to gain, to succeed but we found that people curious enough were rather anxious that we should take over the administration of justice and once we got the courts going we had no trouble in getting either local men who were prepared to suggest justice or in persuading litigants to come to the courts sometimes the courts were much more than mere persuasion used to induce litigants to transfer their cases but directly the courts began to function and they saw that justice was being administered we had no trouble at all and in the end of course it's a good deal later we took all the business away from the County Court and we in 1920 took away all the business from the Assize Court one court, Conor Maguire recalls as crucial it involved a case of land agitation in the village of Kilmain there were two men one who held 50 acres and the other 40 and they were looked on in that part of the country as ranchers and the usual type of agitation began against them digging graves outside their houses boycotting them and this happened as a matter of fact right in the historic boycott neighbourhood only a few miles away boycott had been given the word boycott to the language and we were following a well known tradition but they were, I should say boycotting and we were hopeful to get the trouble adjusted before the local Sinn Féin Court Were you involved in the case yourself? I was involved acting for the agitators and they were anxious of course to come before the local court hoping to get a better deal there Father Healy, the parish priest of Kilmain came to me and told me that his friends the two men who were being boycotted would never go to a local court but he made the offer that I could get the people of Dublin to send down somebody to act in the capacity of arbitrator or judge that he believed they would bear his wishes and go before such a tribunal Arthur Griffith, however, was reluctant to act fearing that even if the court were held without hindrance it would be impossible to enforce the verdict if it went against the agitators I told them that I thought Common and Tom McGuire would ensure that it would be carried out and I saw him and asked him he told me yes, it's acceptable so I wrote to Dublin and told them asked them to send somebody down Arthur Commer later the Minister of Agriculture Kevin was just a practicing lawyer at the time and we held the court in the town of Ballinrobe and it was the first open Shintray court held anywhere everybody was full of interest in it and after about fortnight they gave their judgement against my clients in favour of the two raptures and the reason they gave was that there were 500 acres and lands of the majestic sport nearby which would quite well accommodate every agitating tenant how the verdict was enforced is another story but enforced it was with the assistance of the volunteers this is a program about the first doyd, not about the Anglo-Irish war it is however to be noted that the conduct of that war was brought under the control of the doyle once the oath of allegiance to the republic and the doyle was introduced in August 1919 and administered not only to deputies and officers of the doyle but also to the volunteers. There may be argument about the effectiveness of the control but the significance of the oath was as Liam O'Briain reminds us of the highest importance. The volunteers to the country engaged in conflict with the black and tans and these did not consider themselves to be rebels although the cry of up the rebels was to be heard, it was rather an ignorant cry they were, they considered themselves to be the soldiers of a constituted authority, soldiers acting with the authority of a government established in Dublin, a regularly established government representing the majority of the people and elected by the majority of the people. This was very very important for their morale and also for their conscience if you like when they had to do terrible deeds they could always say superior orders, the government On the question of international recognition for the Irish Republic high hopes had as we've heard been placed on the Versailles Peace Conference. This however turned out to be for Ireland damp squib The envoys of the first doyle however did do very valuable work both in Europe and America and on another level Carl O'Shaughnessy and Tom Johnson made Ireland's case heard at the social and labour international meeting held in Bern early in 1919. It happened that Ramsey MacDonald who was the leader of the British delegation a very influential international man made a speech but it was really the ordinary British labour speech on Ireland about home rule, about supporting home rule. Johnson my colleague said to me send up your name and answer MacDonald I sent up my name and I answered MacDonald, told about the rising told about colony, told about the setting up of the doyle and all that and about the support that we were given to it and the good relations between the insurrectionists and ourselves and that had a very good effect particularly afterwards when people spoke to me what they were very much interested in was that when some other subject nationalities like the Czechs and others had set up governments in exile the Irish had set up not only a government at home but a parliament at home called Darlene Darlene Darlene Darlene Darlene Darlene Darlene Darlene Darlene Darlene A jubilee is a time for celebration we keep the past for pride but it is also a proper time for reassessment to help us to look at the first law 50 years afterwards. Here are two historians, Kevin Nolan and John Murphy. Kevin, how do you see the first doyle as an expression of popular will? Of course this is one of the very difficult questions to answer but a very important one. The easy cliche way of answering it is to say that the popular will elected the first republican doyle but of course one has to say to ask the question in turn to what extent the people were consciously republican in 1918 to what extent was the result an expression of anger, discontent, disillusionment at the whole pattern of home rule politics and British government policy before and after 1916 and I think the answer must surely lie something along these lines. Some people were positively, consciously republican others were disillusioned but prepared to somehow see in sane a new approach to the whole problem of the government and the future of Ireland and perhaps in all revolutions that is as much as one can expect. That you would have some who are conscious, who have a clear political programme and that others are prepared either to accept it allow it and to follow them. But I don't think one can push the thing much beyond that point. John Murphy? Yes, I agree with Kevin. There was of course the hard residual element of white Athenian, white guy tradition who definitely in voting for Champagne were voting for a republic but there was also a great mass of people who were rejecting the parliamentary party, rejecting Westminster, rejecting Dublin Castle and who were voting without a doubt for independence but to interpret their vote as a vote for an Irish republic per se is I think putting an interpretation of the facts which a historian cannot really guarantee, which you can't stand over. You've been listening there to a documentary from 1969 about the first day of the first stall, of the first Irish stall which met in the mansion house in January 2019. That's the first half of the documentary because we'll be able to bring you the second half next week. It's a fascinating piece of work and a fascinating look back and very timely given that our own stall which is I believe going to be the 34th stall is due to meet again next week, early next week and it's more than likely now that we will have a new Taoiseach and a new government. There's a few sticky issues to be sorted out either before the day or on the day. I think it's the new Cian Corda who has to sort that out. There's the strange situation where a number of TDs, independents and the Healy brothers, a number of them are voting for the programme for government and going to vote for the new Taoiseach but at this point in time want to sit on the opposition benches and to have speaking time which is speaking time reserved for the opposition so it's interesting how some people want to sit on both sides of the table so we'll see how that issue is sorted over the coming days. Now looking at the local participation in that first stall back in 1919 I'm having a look here and I can see actually the first TD elected for our own area here in Connemara was Pádraig Ó Máile from Kiln Milfkin from Winterolm there between Mam and Lina and he was one of two brothers, perhaps three of them, there was Pádraig and Tomás and they might have been in Michon as well they were scholars, they were farmers, they were revolutionaries they became academics then as well, Tomás in particular Pádraig went into politics and he lived until 1946 and across the way then in Galway East the elected TD for Galway East was Liam Mellows and very interesting and very sad, very tragic connection really between those two men, they were of course both revolutionaries for the cause of Irish independence but then they went to different sides of the Treaty divide Pádraig was a pro-Treaty man and Liam Mellows was an anti-Treaty man and Liam Mellows was executed indeed by the pro-Treaty forces at that time a few years after the sitting of this First Dawn Liam Mellows wasn't there on the day because he was on the run he was sadly executed a few years later and that was a reprisal for an attack on Pádraig O'Malley who was shot and badly wounded and the next day of the reprisal Liam Mellows and others who are executed in reprisal for that killing. Now unfortunately then for Pádraig O'Malley a story did spread that it was Pádraig O'Malley himself that had requested or perhaps even ordered that execution. It was something that he strongly denied. At the time he wasn't even in a position to do so really because he was badly wounded and recovering in hospital fighting for his life indeed but he always denied it and the Mellows family also denied that Pádraig O'Malley had any hand act or part in the execution of Liam Mellows. So very sad and tragic period at the beginning of our First Dawn and of our independence. I wonder what those men would make of some of the issues that the current Dawn are dealing with and preparing for their first meeting or their second meeting but the first meeting to form a government which will take place next week. Beidh moith again with you in the next two days for this wonderful play about another week. We'll be back in a little while to talk about it and I'll see you in another week with another story. . . . . . . .
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