On Saturday afternoon 29th July at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon, Patrick Murphy will speak about the split in Cork Nationalism in the early 1900s.
The emphasis for the past decade has been on the Revolutionary period 1913-1923 yet the story of constitutional nationalism and its unique and bitter conflict in pre revolutionary Cork is of interest.
William O’Brien MP. (Wikipedia).
In the present day, John Redmond Street and Great William O’Brien Street are busy thoroughfares located close together on the north side of Cork City, yet how many know about either Mr O’Brien or Mr Redmond or indeed how just over a century ago the vicious riots and violence which broke out between their passionate followers resulted in 90 admissions to the South Infirmary and North Infirmary (The present Maldron Hotel) hospitals on just one night in May 1910.
The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), whose MPs attended Westminster was forever riven with rows and dissension even as it sought Home Rule for Ireland. Later the All For Ireland League (AFIL) founded locally in 1910 and led by Mallow born William O’Brien succeeded in winning eight of the nine seats available in the House of Commons for Cork in the subsequent general and local elections. Largely now based in the county of Cork it acquired seats on many local authority councils, taking control of Cork County Council, and the Cork Corporation.
Cork city and county witnessed pitched violent battles in many villages and towns yet both factions professed a nationalist outlook in supporting Home Rule, both had significant working class support and both leaders had little time for trade unions or socialism. The AFIL urged cooperation between Catholic and Protestant through working together and mutual cooperation.
Then in 1914, Redmond and O’Brien advocated participation by their followers in the First World War as many of their volunteers went off to fight and die in the war, some young men and women stayed at home and began to work towards achieving an Irish Republic.
By 1918, the All for Ireland League was no more and the Irish Parliamentary Party was to follow soon afterwards.
Dr. Patrick Murphy was born in Cork and grew up in Ballyphehane. He attended Sullivan’s Quay school which he left at the age of 15 having failed the Inter Cert. His subsequent education was funded by the British taxpayer after he moved to England in 1984. He has a BA in social science, an MA in social history from the University of Nottingham and a PhD from the University of Liverpool with a thesis on the All for Ireland League.
Pat Murphy.
In 1993 he founded the Nottingham Irish Studies Group which runs courses for the local community in Irish history, Irish literature and the Irish language. He is also Chair of the Nottingham Irish Centre. His article ‘Class, Conflict and Conciliation: The All for Ireland League in Cork 1910-1918’ was published in Saothar 46, The Journal of the Irish Labour History Society (2021).
The Banshee’s Kiss: William O’Brien MP and the All For Ireland League in Cork 1910-1918.
Saturday 29th July at 3.15 pm at the Maldron Hotel, Shandon.
FREE IMAGE- NO REPRO FEE. Photo By Tomas Tyner, UCC.
Dr Angela Flynn is a lecturer in the School of Nursing and Midwifery in UCC. Having worked as a nurse in the NHS in London, she returned to Ireland in 1999. She was shocked at just how unfair and inequitable the Irish health system was and was taken aback by the stark two-tiered system.
Over half the population of Ireland pay for private health insurance because they know that should they need to see a consultant or have scheduled surgery they will languish on waiting lists if they stay as public patients.
Angela decided to examine the history of the Irish health care system that led to this inequity for her PhD, and she used Noel Browne’s Mother and Child Scheme as one of the case studies. She has published a number of papers from this research. Now in 2022, on the 25th anniversary of the death of Noel Browne, Angela will discuss an imagined world where his scheme had been successful and explore the potential health system we could have had.
Background.
Noël Browne was born in Waterford on 20th December 1915. He died in Connemara on the 21st May 1997.
A quarter of a century has passed since the death of Noël Browne, the most controversial Minister for Health in Ireland’s history. His courageous account of early life and a political career of over 40 years can be found in his autobiography ‘Against The Tide’ published in 1986. Written with a rare honesty and integrity, it portrays an often heartbreaking account of the ‘precarious survival’ of early family life against the backdrop of the deathly poverty, illness and the sheer awfulness of daily experience for many poor people in the new Irish State. His earliest memories of witnessing the savagery of the Irish Civil war ensured his abhorrence of violence.
Both parents, Joseph (1923) and Mary Therese (1929) died of tuberculosis (TB) and many of his seven siblings contracted the killer disease, Noel who also had TB was one of three to survive, while his sisters Annie, Eileen, Una and Jody, his brother all eventually succumbed.
Official figures show that from 1921 to 1950, 114,000 Irish people died of the disease. Scarcely an Irish family remained untouched and many families were completely wiped out.
Browne was fortunate to be “adopted” by the Dublin surgeon Neville Chance and his family who ensured Noel gained entry to Trinity College and eventually became a doctor.
He realised quickly that the only way to change Ireland’s disastrous health system was to become directly involved in political action. Browne, by now a committed socialist was elected to Dail Eireann in 1948 as a Clann na Poblachta TD. The Clann, led by Sean McBride with ten TDs joined a Coalition government. To the surprise of many he was appointed Minister for Health on his first day in the Irish parliament.
The Tuberculosis (TB) Scheme was based on a 1946 White Paper produced by Dr James Deeny the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health while Dr Jim Ryan’s Health Act of 1947 and the Health (Financial Provisions) Act 1947 gave a legal and financial basis for a no means test principle for the health care of Mothers and Children. Dr Noel Browne to his everlasting credit ensured the treatment of TB was fully implemented. He also acknowledged that his authority for the Mother and Child Scheme arose from that Health Act of 1947.
He commenced a massive hospital construction project, free X-ray screening for tuberculosis patients and set in motion systems to eliminate tuberculosis with the aid of Streptomycin. The blood transfusion service was set up.
Browne set a frenetic pace within the department, he was indeed a man in a hurry witnessing the immediate and positive impact of the National Health Service (NHS) introduced by the UK Health Minister Aneurin Bevan in July 1948.
Unprecedently and uniquely for a politician, he decided to actually implement the health reforms contained in the Irish 1947 Health Act, fully aware that he would “only have one crack at it”. However his proposal to introduce free medical care for children under 16 and their mothers in order to reduce child mortality which became known as the Mother and Child Scheme was vigorously opposed by the Catholic Hierarchy which it described as ‘the free-for-all Mother And Child Scheme’ and Irish Medical Association (I.M.A) which condemned it as ‘the socialisation of medicine’.
Browne refused to concede to the concessions demanded by the Church and the establishment and once he lost the support of his leader in Clann na Poblachta, Sean MacBride who requested his resignation he was eventually forced to resign on 11th April 1951.
Now a political outsider, he never regained access to political power again to drive positive structural change in the health system.
Later many of the changes Browne had helped to introduce made a real difference to ordinary people and the arrival of vaccines and new drug treatments helped to reduce significantly the death rate. This fell by half within a few years and was down to 15% of the 1940 levels by 1960. The death sentence of a TB diagnosis was no more.
While aspects of his health scheme were eventually put in place, his initial opportunity to construct a NHS type universal health care system for Ireland was lost and the two tier private and public health system remains in place.
Noël Browne. Source: Houses of the Oireachtas.
Noel Browne remained in politics, moving in and out of various political parties, marginalised by those in the political power, ignored by others, always controversial, passionate from the back benches, sometimes caught up in roundabout arguments of the Left yet adored by many radicals as an uncompromising advocate for the social justice and a universal free health system.
John Horgan’s book Noël Browne, Passionate Outsiderportrays this complex man in a warts and all analysis with empathy, understanding and some criticism.
Browne’s love story with Phyllis Harrison, was told by Phyllis in her publication Thanks For The Tea, Mrs. Browne – My life with Noel.
Written with love and affection, sadness and struggle, courage and quiet passion, Phyllis describes their life together as “a stormy passage” and the difficulties they faced through over fifty years of married life. The couple even tried farming, an episode described with some humour in an Amateur Farmer’s Journal. Browne was originally informed that he had six months to live when they married back in 1944, he again suffered a relapse after his appointment as Minister and occasionally ran his department from his sick bed.
Noël Browne retired from politics in the early 80s, daughters Ruth and Sue raised, he and Phyllis moved to an isolated cottage in Connemara on the west coast of Ireland where he wrote his memoirs Against The Tide, which became a best seller. Some former political colleagues received blunt assessments of their actions and when coupled with a gripping narrative, the book remains a very rare and raw account of Irish life and politics.
Former Labour Party Minister for Health, Barry Desmond in his memoir “Finally and InConclusion” discussed Noel Browne in a chapter “An icon Revisited”. He acknowledged that Browne emerged with “considerable credit” but strongly criticised “Against the Tide” for some aspects of its personal criticisms of some individual politicians on the left in Ireland, especially in the chapter The Left in Ireland.
Historian Joe Lee in Ireland 1912-1985 Politics and Society has described Noel Browne’s career as among “the personal tragedies of recent Irish politics”.
While admitting that he brought “idealism, energy and ability to his task” and accepting that “his vision was generous” and decent which would have argued well for his ideal health service, he added that “his talents were largely squandered as the rest of his public career was to be passed in growing frustration and rancorous recrimination”.
Did Noel Browne indeed underestimate those in the political game “protecting their privileges, their pockets and their power”? JJ Lee suggests he did but that Browne exacted sweet revenge in “Against the Tide” as he became the first former Minister to publish detailed memoirs with portraits of his colleagues “etched in vitriol” which consigned that Costello government to the opprobrium of many observers.
However did Noel Browne really underestimate the extent of Church opposition to his scheme to provide free assistance to mothers and their children?. Many of the Cabinet were members of the secretive right wing Catholic Knights of St. Columbanus. These included Richard Mulcahy, (Minister for Education) Sean Mac Eoin,(Minister for Justice) Joe Blowick (Minister for Lands) and William Norton (Minister for Social Welfare and leader of the Labour Party 1932-1960). Even Taoiseach John A. Costello had been a Knight. Brendan Corish, Labour party leader from 1960-1977, was appointed Secretary of the Department of Local Government, was also a Knight.
Browne was criticised by several commentators for destroying records on his departure from his Department relating to the Mother and Child Scheme however his actions were more understandable if one considers that the conservative Knights were also well represented both across the higher echelons of key Civil Service departments where they controlled general policy and promotion networks within their departments, and in the medical professions, where they controlled medical appointments to hospitals. Did Noel Browne ever really stand a chance?
Yet if Bill Norton’s planned Social Welfare Bill and Sean Mac Eoin’s effort to legislate to solve adoption issues both failed to pass the McQuaid veto on legislation, then Browne must have realised that his chances of legislating for the Mother and Child scheme without a means test passing the “commandos” of the Knight of St Columbanus were also negligible.
Browne also strongly opposed the violent activities of various Republican groups and challenged their basis for espousing socialism or social democracy. His views on contraception, censorship, abortion and homosexuality and his savage attacks on the Catholic Church, while prescient of later social battles, alienated many potential allies in the Labour Party and the Left generally.
His successful efforts to end the scourge of TB and his exposure to a new generation of Church control of the State remain his major achievements.
But his passionate dream of providing access to a decent health service for all citizens of the Republic of Ireland based on need remains to be achieved.
‘He lies in the clean sandy soil by the Atlantic shore, where he liked to sit every afternoon, seagulls and screaming curlews flying above him’
Phyllis Browne.
On Saturday afternoon 30th July at 2.30 Angela Flynn will discuss the Mother & Child Scheme, imagine if it had been successful and explore the potential health system we could have had.
As 2022 signals a return to real festival events, we are happy to announce that Luke Dineen will once again speak at this year’s Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Labour and trade union historian Luke has appeared at many of our festivals and is one of the most popular contributors.
He brings to life the often forgotten history of the trade union movement in Cork and its proud contribution to bettering the lives of ordinary people.
Dr. Luke DineenLuke receiving a presentation from Ann Piggott of the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
Luke, who was awarded a PhD in labour history from UCC will speak on the “Cork General Lockout of 1923”.
The end of the Civil War in May 1923 encouraged the Cork Employers’ Federation (CEF) to demand wage reductions across a wide range of workplaces in the city. Discussions and negotiations with the unions failed to resolve the issues and by July 1923, the ITGWU dockers were on strike. The employers insisted on wage reductions of up to 25% and further reductions in workers allowances which the unions refused to accept.
On 20th August 1923, most businesses in Cork closed, the Cork Lockout had begun, over 6000 workers were either on strike or locked out by their employers.
It was part of a wider effort by employers in other cities and towns across Ireland to bring about wage cuts.
Despite large marches, sackings, mass unemployment and growing signs of serious shortages of food and coal stocks, John Rearden, a solicitor and secretary of the CEF refused to compromise and the impasse dragged on in the city.
Recently elected TD and UCC Registrar Alfred O’Rahilly acted as arbitrator in the dispute and agreed a resolution with Trade Union leader Jim Hickey.
Alfred O’RahillyJames Hickey
Most workers went back on reduced wages by mid November and while at the end of the day, both sides accepted compromises, the trade unions suffered most as the lockout used up much of their financial resources in strike pay, Payments to strikers by the ITGWU were almost £24,000 representing 15% of all the union’s expenditure for 1923. Membership fell to a third of its 1923 level by 1928. Employers still retained the right to hire and fire at will.
The final result of the 1923 Cork Lockout set the Cork trade union movement back many years. On a political level, the new Free State government had clearly signalled to the trade union movement, that it no longer needed to encourage their support in the new independent Ireland. The Irish government instead aligned with the new state already established business class, whose pragmatic rapprochement with the changed political order reflected the inherent conservatism of the real victors in the Irish Civil War. Labour would have to wait again!
Luke Dineen will speak at the Shandon Maldron Hotel at 11.30 am on Saturday 30th July. All are welcome.
Sources:
Article by Luke Dineen ‘Class War in Cork’: The Cork General Lockout of 1923′ in Saothar 46. (Journal of the Irish Labour History Society 2021).
Article by Francis Devine, The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union in Cork City and County 1918-1930. (Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society Volume 124, 2019).
Cork Community Television, Sunday 28th November at 7:00 pm.
We are proud to present Dr. Sean Pettit’s lecture entitled “The Cork City of Mary Harris” which he gave to the 2016 Spirit of Mother Jones festival. Sean was a much loved and respected teacher and UCC lecturer who became widely known as a writer, broadcaster and a man with an intimate knowledge of the people and streets of Cork.
Sean Pettit and Richard T. Cooke.
His publication This City of Cork1700-1900 (1977) is long regarded as a classic. He believed that the best way to appreciate and experience the City was to go out and about on the streets. In his introduction he argued that “the main emphasis is on the people who made it, and on how they lived”. He did not neglect giving a raw and realistic account of the sick, the poor and the social problems through history in the City especially in the context of the Famine era into which Mary Harris was born in 1837.
Sean with Richard T. Cooke, and Ann Piggott of the Cork Mother Jones Committee at the 2016 Festival.
Dr. Pettit with the aid of his large collection of photographs and prints captivated the vast attendance on that lovely Friday afternoon in July 2016 on the north side of Cork city. Sadly Sean passed away suddenly just a few months later on November 23rd 2016.
Left: Dr. Sean Pettit with Aruba, and Richard. Right: Dr. Sean Pettit’s leading a walking tour.
The introduction to “The Cork City of Mary Harris” will be given by his good friend Richard T Cooke. Richard is a founding member of the Cork Mother Jones Committee, himself a writer, singer and broadcaster and the author of many publications including My Home By The Lee (1999).
Left: Sean with friends at Shandon. Right: Sean and Richard at the English Market.
Dr. Sean Pettit……..An Extraordinary Teacher will be shown on Cork Community Television, livestream on www.corkcommunitytv.ie or Virgin Media 803 on Sunday evening 28th November at 7:00 pm as part of the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2021.
The official launch of the tenth annual Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will be held in University College Cork on Thursday 14th October 2021 in conjunction with the UCC Department of Community and Civic Engagement and Community Week.
Mona Polacca.
The Cork Mother Jones Committee is also delighted to collaborate with The Center for Earth Ethics in New York for a special Zoom event hosted by University College Cork later that evening at 5pm local time on Thursday 14th October featuring an interview with Mona Polacca, a Native American spiritual elder from Arizona. All are welcome to register for this event.
According to James Nolan of the Cork Mother Jones Committee.
“We are very happy to work with the UCC Department of Community and Civic Engagement and The Center for Earth Ethics in New York to help bring this outstanding and interesting event to Cork.“
“We hope it will attract a large audience of young people and students to the ideas and thoughts of the Native American community as to the way we are treating the Earth. Mona Polacca will explore our connections to Mother Earth and the Environment from a Native American perspective. We wish to thank University College Cork for its cooperation to present this relevant and challenging discussion, which will be repeated later at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival in November.“
“The tenth Spirit of Mother Jones Festival will be held from the 25th November to 28th November and it will be largely available to all as it will be shown on Cork Community TV (see www.corkcommunitytv.ie). We are optimistic (subject to the Covid-19 provisions at that time) to have a number of live events in and around Shandon during the period.“
“Among the topics which will be discussed at this year’s festival will include an account by UCC historian and author, Donal Ó Drisceoil of the life and death of Cork republican, trade union organiser and socialist Tadhg Barry of Blarney Street who was killed on the 15th November 1921, just over 100 years ago.“
“In addition, historian Anne Twomey will discuss the life of Muriel MacSwiney in an interview “Muriel MacSwiney….an Unlikely Rebel”. From the Mother Jones archives, Richard T Cooke will introduce the late Dr Sean Pettit’s presentation about his beloved Cork to the festival on 29th July 2016.“
“Many other talks and documentaries from the last nine years of Mother Jones festivals will be shown on Cork Community TV over the weekend. The full programme of events will issue later”.“
The full Spirit of Mother Jones Festival 2020 programme from Friday 27th November 2020 to Monday 30th November 2020 is now available. All events are free to view on Cork Community TV and everybody is welcome over the course of the weekend. We hope that you enjoy the 2020 programme.
Friday 27th November
3:00 p.m. The Dynamic Role of Labour Unions in the Wake of Covid-19 and the Safe Keeping of Front-Line Workers” A Partner Event with University College Cork Civic Engagement and the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival Speakers: Phil Ní Sheaghdha (INMO), Ann Piggott (ASTI), Dr Edward Lahiff (IFUT) Co-ordinated by Dr John Barimo. Click Here for direct webinar access at the time of the event. 7.30 p.m. Introduction by Cllr Joe Kavanagh, Lord Mayor of Cork “What Did the Women Do Anyway?” A discussion with Anne Twomey of the Shandon Area History Group
Saturday 28th November
11.00 a.m. Tadhg Barry Remembered Documentary film by Frameworks Films in collaboration with the Cork Council of Trade Unions. 2:30 p.m. “Ahawadda to Dáil Eireann: the amazing story of Sean Dunne, union organiser” Discussion with historian Diarmuid Kingston 3:30 p.m. “And the World Turns Away” Discussion with Peadar King 7:00 p.m. “Cork Burning” A power point presentation by Michael Lenihan 8:00 p.m. An evening with Jimmy Crowley at the Firkin Theatre Sunday 29th November Mother Jones Festival Archives 11:00 a.m. 2:30 p.m. 4:00 p.m. 8:10 p.m. “The story of Hillsborough” with Margaret Aspinall (2013) “Error of Judgement” with Chris Mullin (2015) “One Woman’s Fight for Justice” with Louise O’Keeffe (2018)
Sunday evening with the Cork Singers’ Club
(Zoom and live on Cork Singers’ Club Facebook page) If anyone wishes to participate email John Murphy dublinhill6@gmail.com
Monday 30th November Mother Jones Commemoration Day: 90th Anniversary 3:00 p.m. 4:00 p.m. 7.00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. “Ellen Cotter and Inchigeela in the 1800s” by Joe Creedon (2019) “The story of Mother Jones” by Professor Elliott J Gorn (2019) Mother Jones and her Children Documentary by Frameworks Films “Shandon in the time of Mother Jones” Narrated by Kieran McCarthy 8:30 p.m. Mother Jones: America’s Most Dangerous Woman By Rosemary Feurer 8:45 p.m. “Mother Jones visits Shandon in 1920” With Joan Goggin 9:00 p.m. The legacy of Mother Jones. Tributes to Mother Jones Times and Link at http://www.corkcommunitytv.ie or Virgin Media 803 on the box. Check the schedule on Cork Community TV for final times and repeats.
We are at critical juncture for trade unions and worker’s rights during this period of economic stress, joblessness, and wealth concentration. Education and healthcare professions are among those front-line workers who now face increased health and safety risks. Join Dr Edward Lahiff (IFUT National Executive) in conversation with Ms. Ann Piggott, President of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) and Ms. Phil Ni Sheaghdha, General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) on the role of Unions in leading the way forward.
With both health and education sectors providing vital services to society, panellists consider how the global pandemic will reframe issues of labour rights and workplace safety over the next decade.
To Register: (see below)
This event will be hosted live and broadcast using Microsoft Teams.
SPEAKERS:
· Dr. Edward Lahiff (moderator), Branch Chair of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) at University College Cork.
· Ms. Phil Ni Sheaghdha, General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO);
· Ms. Ann Piggott, President of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI);
Organised by Dr. John Barimo in partnership with University College Cork Civic & Community Engagement.
There will be a couple of ways for people to register and attend the Live Event webinar.
1. You can pre-register with Eventbrite. Eventbrite is programmed to send email reminders 24-hours and 1-hour before the event, so less likely to forget. Click Here to Register
2. Click Here for direct webinar access at the time of the event.
IMPORTANT: This event will be broadcast on Microsoft Teams. If you have not used Microsoft Teams in the past, please allow yourself a few extra moments before the event. *You do not need to download the MS Teams app. When you click the link to join simply (1) select option ‘Join on Web Instead’. (2) On next screen select ‘Join Anonymously’.
Photos: Phil Ni Sheaghdha, Ann Piggott, Dr. Edward Lahiff, Dr. John Barimo.
The Revolutionary period and the subsequent creation of the Irish Free State and later the Republic has given rise to some amazing family stories. Very few can surpass the story of Sean Dunne, a Trade Union organiser, mentored by Jim Larkin and later Labour Party TD.
Filmed in West Cork, this discussion with local historian and author Diarmuid Kingston reveals the account of the Ahawadda Ambush (located on the road to Ring outside Timoleague) on 10th May1920, in which three Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) lost their lives in an ambush. This was the greatest loss of life of old RIC members in a single ambush in West Cork during the War of Independence.
Among them was Constable Edward Dunne from Co Laois. He was 32 years old, married to Bridget Coppinger, a school teacher with two children. Their young son Sean, was born in December 1918 in Timoleague. Constable Edward Dunne was buried quietly in Raheen in Co Laois.
The Old Courthouse in Timoleague, where the bodies of the three RIC constables were taken following the Ahawadda Ambush.
Sean grew up in Waterford and Wicklow and in the late 30s was arrested and served time in the Curragh Internment Camp for Republican activities. He came under the influence of Jim Larkin and the Workers’ Union of Ireland and became one of the most effective union organisers in rural Ireland in the 1940s, founding the Federation of Rural Workers (FRW), which had up to 20,000 members at its height.
As its General Secretary, he organised countless strikes among rural workers and was instrumental in campaigning for and obtaining the weekly half day for his members in the early 1950s.
Later he was elected a TD for the Labour Party, when he was just 28 years old, and became one of the most colourful elected public representatives in the Dail. He had the record of being ejected from two parliaments, Dail Eireann and Stormont, as well as British Labour Party conferences.. Once labelled “an extreme communist” by Sean MacEntee,
Sean Dunne was described by one political correspondent as being “in daily conflict with Authority on cases of social justice, on the side of the lost nobodies of the world”.
Dunne was a serious and witty orator and had a sharp turn of phrase when required. When the Fianna Fail party which in government under Taoiseach Jack Lynch established a secretive business financial support group known as An Taca (1966-1969). Dunne led the charge when he compared the organisation to the “Costa Nostra”.
“I was supplied with a list of the Capo Mafiosi…..is that what one would call them, the captains of the Mafia?.”
He then named Charles J Haughey, the Minister for Finance as the leader of An Taca. It was devastating criticism and contributed to the decline of the business ‘clique’ which provided financial support to Fianna Fail.
He retained his republican views although his socialist principles remained undimmed. Very opposed to colonialism, Dunne was one of the very first to raise the appalling treatment and torture by the British army of the Kenyan people in their efforts to defeat the Mau Mau uprising in the early 50s.
With the aid of an extremely loyal working class support base he was elected to the Dáil in 1951 and 1954 elections but he ran into financial trouble and was declared bankrupt in 1956.
Sean Dunne married Cora Ryan in June 1956, Cora was one of eight children of Seamus and Agnes Ryan from Co Tipperary. The Ryans had initially set up the Monument Creameries in 1919 and had turned it into a very successful enterprise comprising 33 shops selling fresh foodstuffs around the Dublin area. The business was run by Agnes Ryan, following the death of her husband in the 1930s.
A subsequent appeal by Dunne to the Supreme Court was successful in November 1957, but it was too late to save his Dáil seat as he could not stand in the March 1957 election. Cora and Sean struck for London where they worked for 3/4 years before returning. Having burned many bridges with the Irish Labour Party, he instead stood and was elected as an Independent Labour TD, with the support of Labour party activists from all over Dublin. The Labour Party could not ignore his support of their own members and he was readmitted to the party in 1963 and he was re-elected to Dáil Eireann in 1965 and 1969.
His famous Leabhar Ballyfermot which he always carried contained the details of his constituents’ problems. Trade union organiser, writer, playwright, orator, Irish speaker and campaigner for social justice, this west Cork born politician died suddenly following the General Election in 1969.
His funeral at the Pro-Cathedral was attended by President Eamonn De Valera, Taoiseach Jack Lynch, Fine Gael Leader Liam Cosgrave and the Cabinet and thousands of workers.
He had travelled a very long road in life and his virtual State funeral was in stark contrast to that of his father who was buried quietly in a graveyard in Co Laois almost 50 years earlier.
Brendan Corish gave his graveside oration.
“Sean Dunne’s death has robbed the Labour movement of one of its strongest personalities, the working people of Ireland of one of their most formidable defenders and Dail Eireann of one of its most able parliamentarians.
His entry into politics coincided with his long and bitter struggle to organise the rural workers of Ireland into a trade union and establish their entitlement to just wages and humane conditions
His identification with the causes of the defenceless and lower paid sections of the community were legendary, springing from his youth and his association with Big Jim Larkin under whom he served his trade union apprenticeship.
Sean Dunne lived a full life, became a legend in his own lifetime, a privilege given to few men”
Sean Dunne born in Timoleague in West Cork on 18th December 1918, died on 25th June 1969, aged 50. Son of an RIC father and teacher mother. Active Republican. Imprisoned and Interned. Labour and Trade Union organiser. General Secretary of the Federation of Rural Workers (FRW) Elected to Bray Town Council and Wicklow County Council. Elected to Dail Eireann 1948 Labour Party TD Dublin County. Elected to Dublin County Council Re-elected to Dail Eireann 1951 and 1954. Elected Alderman to Dublin City Council Elected to Dail Eireann Independent Labour TD 1961 Re-elected to Dail Eireann Labour Party TD 1965 and 1969. Freelance Journalist. Playwright and Orator. Achieved the Half-Day for rural workers.
In this film documentary discussion with Diarmuid Kingston, we look at the Ahawadda Ambush and we examine the subsequent life of Sean Dunne T.D. Diarmuid is the author of Beleaguered (A History of the RIC in West Cork during the War of Independence) and has written extensively on the period. The film will be shown during the forthcoming Spirit of Mother Jones festival and forms part of our contribution to Cork Commemoration 1920-23.
Bucolic dreams of some politicians and the sentimental views of the Irish countryside idyll by writers masked the growing community tensions between the multi-acre farming class which had purchased their farms and the many rural landless labourers and their families who existed in poverty..
Yes Ireland was now free as in the “Irish Free State; but it became a very cold place for those who did not fit in with the new conservative vernacular of church, education and land ownership. And all that really mattered in rural Ireland was land, land and land!
For those men who did not emigrate and found work with farmers or in the agricultural co-operatives, Sean Dunne by organising them into a trade union and by organising strikes, helped to provide many labourers and rural workers with a semblance of class allegiance and in the radical few his activities encourages the stirrings of a radical political identity in the 40s and 50s.
Social issues began to be raised and discussed by emboldened elements of the unionised workforce in the rural bastions of smug conservatism. Unfortunately it took another generation of their sons and daughters who survived the emigration culls and their subsequent movement to urban Ireland to join in the transformational changes in Irish society and its supporting institutions from the 1980s onwards. Sean Dunne had helped to light the fire!
Update: On Saturday August 13th 2022, relatives of the three RIC men killed at the Ahawadda Cross ambush of May10th 1920 unveiled a memorial to remember the events outside Timoleague on that Monday afternoon.
Originally postponed due to Covid-19, the dignified ceremony took place in the presence of a gathering representing families on both sides of the ambush. Following a blessing of the monument, local historian Diarmuid Kingston gave an account of what took place on the nearby road.
Constable Edward Dunne, the father of labour and union activist Sean is listed among those who died on that day. Perhaps one day, the people of Timoleague will erect a monument to one of their famous sons!
Historian, Diarmuid Kingston alongside the plaque.The large attendance present.
Site of the Ahawadda Ambush.
The Grave of Charlie Hurley at Clogagh Cemetery. Hurley led the ambush at Ahawadda Cross and was later killed on the 19th March 1921 in a confrontation with the British Army.
Peadar King is a journalist and documentary film maker and is well known as the producer of the documentary series for RTE “What in the World”. His latest book published recently by Liffey Press, War, Suffering and the Struggle for Human Rightsis a powerful indictment of war and chronicles human rights abuses in times of conflict. Peadar interviews people from war zones whose descriptions of the impact of war and the horrible devastation which follows are heart breaking.
He states that “all wars are based on lies” and uses the Irish phrase “Chroi Bhriste” to describe the unspeakable horror endured by those who suffer.
The very human accounts in this book of the results of war are taken from interviews with the ordinary people and they paint in graphic detail the indiscriminate destruction of bombs on people and their communities.
Have we become inured to war? We can now watch versions of wars on our TVs and computers, but to many it’s more virtual clickbait with neither the impacts, the questions, context nor explanation sought nor provided.
Yet, Europe, the UK, the USA, Russia and China supply 75% of all weapons used in these wars which are fought over power, resources and oil and in the near future…. fresh water supplies!
“And The World Turns Away” features a discussion with Peadar King and will be shown during the Spirit of Mother Jones Festival.
Beginning on Saturday 1st August, the Cork Mother Jones Committee in conjunction with Cork Community TV are making available on television, some of the talks and presentations, which have been delivered at the Spirit of Mother Jones Festivals and Summer Schools since 2012.
The original series of Mother Jones annual lectures, will be shown on Saturday next while during the month of August, further talks delivered over the years at the Summer School will be televised. These will feature Margaret Aspinall, Louise O’Keeffe, Fr. Peter McVerry, Chris Mullin, Anne Twomey and many others.
These are free to view, thanks to Frameworks Films and Cork Community TV, for allowing us to celebrate Mother Jones during August.
The 2020 festival will be held in late November 2020. Further talks and speakers, will be televised during the November Festival.
