James Aloysius Burke/ Séamus de Búrca

James Aloysius Burke/ Séamus de Búrca I Clongowes 1905 and 1908-1910

James Aloysius Burke/ Séamus de Búrca (1893-1967), Sinn Féin activist and politician, was a native of Rathnavogue, near Roscrea, County Tipperary, who attended Clongowes in 1905 and 1908-10. He studied at TCD and in 1916 was called to the bar, but never practised. He joined the Irish Volunteers and organised Sinn Féin clubs. Arrested for drilling Volunteer units, he was imprisoned in Belfast in 1918. Later that year he was elected unopposed to represent the Mid-Tipperary constituency for Sinn Féin. He was re-elected to the Dáil, successively for Sinn Féin, Cumann na nGaedheal and Fine Gael, at every subsequent election until his defeat in 1938. He played an active role in the independence struggle, when the press dubbed him ‘the most hunted man in Ireland’. He was smuggled to America, where he raised over a million dollars for Sinn Féin. He was the only Tipperary TD to support the Anglo-Irish treaty in the Dáil. In retaliation, his house was burned by the anti-treatyites. He served as minister for local government and public health in 1923-7, reorganising local authorities, abolishing workhouses and initiating the national trunk-road system. He was in charge of public works in 1927-32, where his principal achievement was the enactment of the state’s national monuments legislation. In the 1930s he was for a time a supporter of the Blueshirts. He was one of the first directors of the Irish National Insurance Company. In 1952 he moved permanently to the south of England. He wrote at least three books on Irish politics and sociology. His Russian-born wife, Zenaide, a wellregarded ceramic artist, was cousin to Prince Felix Yousoupoff, the killer of Rasputin.