Thomas ‘Tom’ Kettle

Clongowes 1894-1897 I Thomas ‘Tom’ Kettle

Thomas ‘Tom’ Kettle (1880-1916), politician, poet, academic and soldier, was a native of Dublin who attended Clongowes in 18947, where he was a gifted scholar, debater and athlete. He went on to University College Dublin, where his speaking prowess secured his election as auditor of the Literary and Historical Society. After a gap year at the University of Innsbruck improving his French and German, he graduated in 1902. He was called to the bar in 1906. He was an ardent nationalist and a leading intellectual of the Home Rule movement, which he enthusiastically supported. He became a political journalist, editing the pro-Home Rule paper The Nationist for a time, before being elected MP for East Tyrone in a 1906 by-election. His oratory in the House of Commons and on a fund-raising tour of the USA suggested him as a future party leader. However, after securing the professorship of national economics at UCD, he retired from active politics. Although he contributed to the debate on the economics of Home Rule, his deteriorating health prevented him making a major academic contribution, and he was prone to neglect his teaching duties. Nevertheless he published more than ten books and pamphlets, and made numerous contributions to journals and newspapers on Irish politics together with literary reviews, poetry, essays, philosophical treatises and translations from German and French. He supported enfranchisement of women, the workers in the 1913 lockout and the Irish Volunteers on whose behalf he travelled to the Continent to buy arms. In 1914 he followed Redmond’s exhortation to support the war effort, which he saw as a struggle for the survival of European civilisation against barbarism. He was particularly outraged by the German destruction of the library at the University of Louvain. Initially employed as a recruiting officer, he demanded and eventually obtained a posting to the front. He was killed in the 16th (Irish) Division’s assault on Ginchy during the latter stages of the Somme battle, while serving as a captain in the 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He was a major constitutional nationalist, gifted with impressive oratorical skill, an incisive mind and great wit, but the radicalisation of Irish politics after 1916 saw his fame decline. However, in 1937 his admirers eventually erected his bust in St Stephen’s Green, Dublin.