Terence MacSwiney

Terence MacSwiney
File:Macswiney.jpg
Teachta Dála
In office December 1918 – October 1920
Constituency	Mid Cork
Lord Mayor of Cork
In office March 1920 – October 1920
Constituency	Cork County Council
Personal details
Born	(1879-03-28)28 March 1879 County Cork, Ireland
Died	25 October 1920(1920-10-25) (aged 41) Brixton Prison, England
Resting place	Saint Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork
Spouse	Muriel Murphy
Relations	Mary MacSwiney (sister) Seán MacSwiney (brother) Ruairí Brugha (son-in-law)
Children	Máire MacSwiney

Terence Joseph MacSwiney (Template:PronEng; Irish: Traolach Mac Suibhne) (28 March 1879 – 25 October 1920) was an Irish playwright, author and politician. He was elected as Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence in 1920. He was arrested by the British on charges of sedition and imprisoned in Brixton prison in England. His death there in October 1920 after 74 days on hunger strike brought him and the Irish struggle to international attention.

Background

MacSwiney was one of eight children. His father, John MacSwiney, of Cork, had volunteered in 1868 to fight as a papal guard against Garibaldi, had been a schoolteacher in London and later opened a tobacco factory in Cork. Following the failure of this business, he emigrated to Australia in 1885 leaving Terence and the other children in the care of their mother and his eldest daughter. MacSwiney's mother, Mary Wilkinson, was an English Catholic with strong Irish nationalist opinions. He was born in Kilmurray, County Cork and moved to the Cork city as a child. He was educated by the Christian Brothers at the North Monastery school in Cork city, but left at fifteen in order to help support the family. He became an accountancy clerk but continued his studies and matriculated successfully. He continued in full time employment while he studied at the Royal University (now University College Cork), graduating with a degree in Mental and Moral Science in 1907.

In 1901 he helped to found the Celtic Literary Society, and in 1908 he founded the Cork Dramatic Society with Daniel Corkery and wrote a number of plays for them. He was educated as an accountant and also was a playwright, poet, and writer of pamphlets on Irish history. His first play The Last Warriors of Coole was produced in 1910. His fifth play The Revolutionist (1915) took the political stand made by a single man as its theme.

Political activity

Bust of Terence MacSwiney in Cork City Hall

MacSwiney's writings in the newspaper Irish Freedom brought him to the attention of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. He was one of the founders of the Cork Brigade of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, and was President of the Cork branch of Sinn Féin. He founded a newspaper, Fianna Fáil, in 1914, but it was suppressed after only 11 issues. In April 1916, he was intended to be second in command of the Easter Rising in Cork and Kerry, but stood down his forces on the order of Eoin MacNeill. Following the rising, he was interned under the Defence of the Realm Act in Reading and Wakefield Gaols until December 1916. In February 1917 he was deported from Ireland and interned in Shrewsbury and Bromyard internment camps until his release in June 1917. It was during his exile in Bromyard that he married Muriel Murphy of the Cork distillery-owning family. In November 1917, he was arrested in Cork for wearing an Irish Republican Army (IRA) uniform, and, inspired by the example of Thomas Ashe, went on a hunger strike for 3 days prior to his release.

In the 1918 general election, MacSwiney was returned unopposed to the first Dáil Éireann as Sinn Féin representative for Mid Cork, succeeding the Nationalist MP D. D. Sheehan. After the murder of his friend Tomás Mac Curtain, the Lord Mayor of Cork on 20 March 1920, MacSwiney was elected as Lord Mayor. On 12 August 1920, he was arrested in Dublin for possession of seditious articles and documents, and also possession of a cipher key. He was summarily tried by court martial on 16 August, sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Brixton Prison.

Hunger strike

In prison, he immediately started a hunger strike in protest at his internment and the fact that he was tried by a military court. Eleven republican prisoners in Cork Jail went on hunger strike at the same time. On 26 August, the cabinet stated that "the release of the Lord Mayor would have disastrous results in Ireland and would probably lead to a mutiny of both military and police in South of Ireland." MacSwiney's hunger strike gained world attention. The British government was threatened with a boycott of British goods by Americans, while four countries in South America appealed to the Pope to intervene. Protests were held in Germany and France as well.

Attempts at force-feeding MacSwiney were undertaken in the final days of his strike. On 20 October 1920, he fell into a coma and died five days later after 74 days on hunger strike. His body lay in Southwark Cathedral in London where 30,000 people filed past it. Fearing large-scale demonstrations in Dublin, the authorities diverted his coffin directly to Cork and his funeral there on 31 October attracted huge crowds. Terence MacSwiney is buried in the Republican plot in Saint Finbarr's Cemetery in Cork. Arthur Griffith delivered the graveside oration.

Aftermath and legacy

File:Macswineyfuneral.jpg

MacSwiney's funeral in Cork on 31 October 1920.

A collection of his writings, entitled Principles of Freedom, was published posthumously in 1921. It was based upon articles MacSwiney contributed to Irish Freedom during 1911–1912. Jawaharlal Nehru, in particular, was influenced by MacSwiney's example and his writings. Principles of Freedom was translated into various Indian languages including Telugu.

The famous Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh was an admirer of Terence MacSwiney and wrote about him in his memoirs. While in prison during his trial he went on hunger strike to protest the conditions in which Indian revolutionaries were being kept who gave a violent response to the British Raj (unlike Gandhi's followers who were given fair treatment and good food in prison). Bhagat Singh, in his interview with the Tribune newspaper clearly mentioned MacSwiney as one of his inspirations. When Bhagat Singh's father petitioned the British government to pardon his son, Bhagat Singh quoted Terence MacSwiney and said ""I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release" and told his father to withdraw the petition. He was executed on March 23, 1931, with two of his comrades, Rajguru and Sukhdev, for killing a British officer. He is also famous for throwing a bomb in the British Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi, India.

His sister Mary MacSwiney took on his seat in the Dáil and spoke against the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. His brother Seán MacSwiney was also elected in the 1921 elections for another Cork constituency. Seán also opposed the Treaty.

In 1945 his only child, Máire MacSwiney, married Ruairí Brugha, son of the anti-Treaty Teachta Dála Cathal Brugha, and later a TD, Member of the European Parliament, and Senator. Máire MacSwiney is the author of a memoir History's Daughter: A Memoir from the Only Child of Terence MacSwiney (2006).

A collection relating to Terence MacSwiney exists in Cork Public Museum. His portrait, and a painting of his funeral mass, by Sir John Lavery are exhibited in Cork's Crawford Municipal Art Gallery.

There is also a Secondary School named after him in the north side of Cork City, with a room dedicated to his memory.

Writings

• The music of freedom by 'Cuireadóir'. (Poems, The Risen Gaedheal Press, Cork, 1907)
• Fianna Fáil : the Irish army : a journal for militant Ireland (Weekly publication edited and mainly written by MacSwiney; Cork, 11 issues, September to December 1914)
• The revolutionist; a play in five acts (Dublin, London, Maunsel and Company, 1914).
• The ethics of revolt : a discussion from a Catholic point of view as to when it becomes lawful to rise in revolt against the Civil Power by Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne. (Pamphlet, 1918)
• Battle-cries (Poems, 1918)
• Principles of freedom (Dublin, The Talbot Press, 1921)
• Despite fools' laughter; poems by Terence MacSwiney. Edited by B. G. MacCarthy. (Dublin, M. H. Gill and Son, 1944)

Quotes

• "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will conquer." (Some sources replace "conquer" with "prevail")
• "I am confident that my death will do more to smash the British Empire than my release." (On his hunger strike)
• "I want you to bear witness that I die as a Soldier of the Irish Republic." His last words to a visiting priest.

Bibliography

• Francis J Costello, Enduring the Most: The Biography of Terence McSwiney. Dingle: Brandon Books, 1996.
• Robert Welch (ed), The Oxford Companion to Irish Literature. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1996.
• Máire MacSwiney Brugha History's Daughter: A Memoir from the Only Child of Terence MacSwiney. Dublin: The O'Brien Press, 2006.

Terence Mac Swiney's private papers are held in the University College Dublin Archives (IE UCDA P48b, P48c). There are also manuscript papers and copies of his published writings in the National Library of Ireland (MSS 35029–35035).

See also

• Families in the Oireachtas
• Kevin Barry
• List of imprisoned members of the Oireachtas

External links

• Works by Terence MacSwiney at Project Gutenberg
  • Ebook of Principles of Freedom at Project Gutenberg
• Template:Worldcat id
• Terence MacSwiney: Lord Mayor of Cork, by Daniel Corkery