1916 (49 page)

The Bishop of Limerick, Edward O’Dwyer, was seen nationally as the hero of the hour. That is all the more surprising as he had not always been
persona grata
in nationalist circles in Ireland. He was a man of apparent contradictions.
⁸⁵
His courage and individualism were never in doubt. He showed both in his reaction to the Rising.

He wrote to his fellow countyman, Michael O’Riordan, on 10 May from the parish of Glenroe in south Limerick. While he shared the
MacRory/Curran thesis about the origins of the Rising, his letter was very revealing of his inner and, as yet, unpublished, thoughts:

You know nearly as much about the genesis of the outbreak in Dublin as we do. The censorship has been very rigid; and it is only now that we are coming to know the simple facts as they happened. I have it from one who ought to know that the immediate cause of the outbreak was that one division of the Irish Volunteers got out of hand, and began the fight, and then the others joined rather than leave the others in the lurch. But there is no doubt that there was a really widespread reorganisation of a physical force body, and that it was only a question of time when they would come out. On Easter Saturday an order was ignored by Eoin MacNeill that the Volunteers were not to assemble on Easter Sunday, and this would point to his apprehending what occurred. Anyhow on Easter Monday large bodies of Volunteers with arms suddenly seized important points in Dublin: the post office O’Connell St, the Four Courts, the Broadstone, [word unclear] St, and Westland Row railway station, but failed in a weak attack upon the Castle. Next day troops were poured in from England, and desperate fighting took place. Asquith in H. of Commons said last night that the casualties among the military amounted to over 500. By all accounts the Volunteers fought with great bravery, but were helpless against artillery, which the military used against the [buildings] which were held by the Irish. The post office was set on fire, I believe by incendiary shells, and burned down and both sides of O’Connell st have been reduced to ruins in the same way. We have not heard the number of casualties amongst the Volunteers but it must be very great. Peirse [
sic
], who was the leader, was wounded, and when it became apparent that they could not succeed surrendered with all his forces…2,000 Volunteers have been deported to England, and it is said that they are to be sent to France. Day after day, for the last week the leaders are being tried, condemned and shot. Peirse [
sic
], a son of count Plunkett, a young fellow named McDonagh, a professor in Nat. University, and I think ten others have been shot. Scores have been sentenced to penal servitude, and no one knows where it all will stop. At Limerick, the Volunteers surrendered their arms without resistance, but whether that will save them from arrest is doubtful. In my opinion it has been reaction against the extreme Britishism of Redmond and co. The national spirit of the young men of Ireland revolted against what has been going on for a year and a half and will do the same again and again. This has been by far the most formidable rebellion since ’98 and the government may bless its stars that the Volunteers in Dublin had not more patience. In another year, no one could tell what might happen. If I were at home, I could get you more details, but here we have not even a newspaper.
⁸⁶

O’Dwyer wrote another letter to O’Riordan, on 18 May:

There is hardly a second opinion in Ireland as to the savagery with which the govt has been acting. But it will do good. The country was being hypnotised by the politicians, but it is being revived these days. Imagine, Sir J.G. Maxwell had the impudence to write to me asking me, in rather peremptory terms, to remove the Revs Mick Hayes and Thos Wall, as being a serous danger to the peace of the realm. I told him to specify his charges against them, and the evidence which he had to support them, and then I would investigate the matter. He then wrote more civilly that he thought I could deal with the case by disciplinary methods. I don’t think he will forget the answer which I sent him yesterday.
⁸⁷

(Maxwell’s first letter had been sent to O’Dwyer on 6 May, and requested that he discipline the two named priests for their part in radical nationalist politics).

O’Dwyer’s blistering reply to Maxwell was delayed by the censor but was published on 27 May in the
Cork Examiner
,
and in the Dublin
Evening Mail
on 30 May. The bishop referred to Maxwell’s appeal for help ‘in the furtherance of your work as military dictator of Ireland’. He stated, however: ‘The events of the past few weeks would make it impossible for me to have any part in proceedings which I regarded as wantonly cruel and oppressive.’ O’Dwyer referred to Maxwell’s part in the Jameson raid, describing those who took part as ‘buccaneering invaders’ who were deserving of the ‘supreme punishment’. Turning to those who took part in the Rising, he continued:

You took care that no plea for mercy should interpose on behalf of the young fellows who surrendered to you in Dublin. The first information which we got of their fate was the announcement that they had been shot in cold blood. Personally I regard your action with horror, and I believe that it has outraged the conscience of the country. Then the deporting by hundreds and even thousands of poor fellows without a trial of any kind seems to me an abuse of power as famous as it is arbitrary, and altogether your regime has been one of the worst and the blackest chapters in the history of the misgovernment of this country.
⁸⁸

This was a strong statement from the seventy four year old prelate, who forwarded his reply to Maxwell to Riordan on 31 May.
⁸⁹

The bishop was in fine form when he responded in early June to a resolution of support received from the Limerick board of guardians:

It would be a sorry day for the church in Ireland if her bishops took their orders from agents of the British government. As to the poor fellows who have given their lives for Ireland, no one will venture to question the purity and nobility of their motives or the splendour of their courage. But many blame them for attempting a hopeless enterprise. Yet we cannot help noticing that since Easter Monday home rule has come with a bound into the sphere of practical politics.
⁹⁰

Fr P.J. Roughneen, on holiday in Dublin from his parish in England, wrote to O’Riordan on 9 June, describing the final moments of the leaders of the Rising: ‘Major MacBride refused to be blind-folded, saying: “I have looked down your gun-barrels all my life”, a rosary beads hung from his hands. Pearse’s last words were that Connolly should die in peace with the church; his prayer was efficacious and Connolly died well.’
⁹¹
Thus, the new Catholic image of the leaders of the 1916 Rising was already beginning to take shape at a popular level. Fr Roughneen also spoke very positively of the bishop of Limerick: ‘Dr O’Dwyer of Limerick is the hero of the day; rumour has it that his opponent was one of the Jameson raiders, sentenced to death and afterwards reprieved.’
⁹²

O’Dwyer was enjoying his notoriety. Fr J.J. Ryan wrote to O’Riordan on 23 June:

I was in Limerick Monday and called on the bishop. I never saw him look better – he all energy ‘agin the government’. We are passing through troublous times here at home … There is no leader in church or state as in the Land League days (‘when we were boys’). The nation is in a dream and asleeping. The government were rudely aroused from lethargy in the afternoon of Easter Monday and both of them have been doing many foolish things since … How will the poor country emerge from the present chaos is the question.
⁹³

Meanwhile, Eoin MacNeill had to face court martial. Unknown to him a number of advocates lobbied against his being executed. John Dillon and John Redmond both interceded on his behalf, as they also did on behalf of other leaders.
⁹⁴
But he faced a court martial and a possible death sentence. He sought to enlist the services of the Dublin solicitor John O’Connell, ‘a man of independent position and of high standing in his profession’. But MacNeill wrote that ‘he was afraid to defend me and positively refused to take up my case…. His conduct would be hard to explain in the history of the legal profession in Ireland.’
⁹⁵
MacNeill found an alternative. Maxwell ruled that he would be tried before a general court martial and not a field general court martial. The former allowed him to have his own counsel,
James Chambers KC. Fr Michael Curran was one of the defence witnesses called on his behalf. On 24 May MacNeill was given penal servitude for life. On 31 May, on his way to jail in England, he wrote to his wife Taddie:

We are all in good form and in excellent spirits. We said the rosary last night in Irish…. What I told you about Éamonn Kent fainting is untrue. He did not faint but went to death in full self-possession, RIP. I pray for them all every night. Jas. Connolly died in the true faith. We have reached Taunton. My cash is done, but a fellow-prisoner is standing me an orange.
⁹⁶

On 6 June 1916 Archbishop Walsh left for respite care in Co. Wick-low, where he remained until 6 September. In his absence Fr Bowden, administrator of the pro-cathedral, took over his duties as chairman of the National Aid Fund. The archbishop kept himself well informed of political developments, and the shifting pattern of public opinion. On 29 June, for example, he wrote a public letter announcing that he was sending on £1,000 of the amount subscribed in America ‘in aid of the sufferings from recent troubles in Dublin’.
⁹⁷

In Rome O’Riordan and Hagan were sufficiently concerned about the drift of events in Ireland to fear a possible British-inspired statement being issued from the Holy See. There was evidence that the British had stepped up their efforts to secure such a
démarche
.
On 16 June the rector wrote to the cardinal secretary of state, Pietro Gasparri:

Being the rector of an ecclesiastical college I am generally detached from the day to day politics and also other like questions. I confirm however that some representation has been made, and is to be made, to the Holy See on the part of the British government regarding the revolution in Ireland and in particular regarding the attitude of some members of the clergy in this area. I don’t know if this is true. But I feel compelled to turn to you to make you aware that I am able to give you information in this regard in the form of official documents, private letters coming from reliable sources in Ireland. And I will also refer to the personal consequences for the revolutionaries (even though their acts had failed). And from the agents of the military regime of the government who punished them and afterwards, and even up to this moment, the current popular sentiment found among all classes – from this bloody episode an attitude emerges that is completely contrary to what can be traced in newspapers and politicians. I can say this with certainty, that all classes in Ireland resent profoundly the conduct of the agents of government; and amongst whom are Protestants and also a lot of people who did not have sympathy for the rebellion and not even for the ideal of the revolutionaries. The Irish in England from what I can gather and referring to the most popular Catholic newspaper there, the
Catholic Times
,
participate in same feeling … I also heard from trustworthy sources that there is more anger at what has happened in America than in Ireland. Things being as they are, I feel an obligation to put myself at your disposal, your eminence, in order to help you in any way I can in these circumstances.
⁹⁸

Both Hagan and O’Riordan, well supplied with cuttings from home, set about documenting the events of the Rising from a Catholic perspective. There the matter rested until early September when the fruits of their combined labours were ready for presentation to the Holy See.

Episcopal opinion had been very significantly radicalised, as may be seen by the statement of Cardinal Michael Logue to the Maynooth Union (a gathering of priests) on 22 June, when he referred to ‘late lamentable occurrences’. Perhaps a little naïvely, he believed that ‘not one in five hundred of their [Irish Volunteers] members ever foresaw what any inner body was driving at – the organisation of a rebellion.’ He rejected the false accusations against the clergy put forward by police at the official inquiry, that the Rising was ‘to some extent patronised by the younger clergy’. The cardinal believed that to be ‘a calumny’ on them. He did not think that there was any sympathy amongst the priests as a general body. Such allegations were gathered up by the police from suspicions that had been ‘fished up by their subordinates in the different parts of the country, and these suspicions are founded on the most futile and the most absurd grounds’.
⁹⁹
The usually mild Logue also rejected similar accusations against teachers, and went on to accuse the British authorities of mis-managing the affair. The public authorities had muddled things, he said, adding:

No person would find fault with them for defending the rights of the state or for punishing moderately and within the laws of humanity those who violated the laws of the state; but they sent emissaries through the whole country and picked up every man who belonged to the Irish Volunteers, although it was the firm conviction that the great body of Volunteers knew nothing about it. They picked all these men up as suspects, took them away from their businesses, their families and their friends, and sent them away to England, either to jails or concentration camps. That was the greatest act of folly any government could have been guilty of. They should have let the matter die out like a bad dream – and it was a dream – so painful that it was not likely to be repeated, without going to these extreme measures.
¹⁰⁰