I Die In a Good Cause - Thomas Ashe: A Biography

Thomas Ashe died on 25 September 1917, after being forcibly fed during a hunger strike in Mountjoy prison.

Although incarcerated for his political views, he was being treated as a common criminal and was fighting to gain the status of political prisoner. His death helped revitalise the fight against British rule in Ireland, a fight in which he had already played an extraordinary part. It was Ashe who led the Volunteers at Ashbourne during the 1916 Rising, forcing over sixty RIC men to surrender after five hours of fighting. His Fingal men were the last body of Volunteers to surrender when the Rising ended.

www.mercierpress.ie Cover picture courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

MERCIER HISTORY

Irish Publisher - Irish Story

SEÁN Ó LÚING

This is the classic biography of an exceptional man prepared to pay the ultimate price for the freedom of Ireland, a resolve demonstrated by the words he spoke the day before his death: ‘Even though I do die, I die in a good cause.’

I DIE IN A GOOD CAUSE

‘His death would tell the world the spirit that was left in Irishmen, and … that nothing but freedom would satisfy the Irish people, and that they were ready to perish, one after the other, rather than submit to be conquered.’

CONTENTS Foreword 5

Introduction 9 1 Ancestry

11

2 Family and Environment

19

4

37

3 In De La Salle The Teacher

5 The Community Leader 6 Thoughts of an Idealist

7 Holidays and a Kerry Journal 8 The Gaelic League

9 A Journey to America

30 48 56 63 71 86

10 The Irish Volunteers

100

12 Ashbourne

122

11 ‘There will be glorious days for Ireland yet’

113

13 The Echoes of Kilmainham

133

15 Lewes Jail

160

17 Ashe and Collins

181

14 Dartmoor

16 After the Rising

18 Strike and Release 19 Return to Kinard

20 At Casement’s Fort 21 A Prisoner Again 22 Court Martial

142

172 189 195 203 211 222

23 Mountjoy Jail: Prelude to Tragedy

233

25 Fifty Hours

250

24 The Assault on the Prisoners

26 The Ordeal of the Stomach Pump 27 I Die in a Good Cause

28 The Funeral of Thomas Ashe 29 The Verdict of a Jury

30 Thomas Ashe: Man and Heritage Appendix I: Casement’s Fort Oration

Appendix II: Affidavit of Edmund J. Duggan

238 256 267 278 293 301

306

314

Appendix III: Ashbourne Roll of Honour

319

Appendix V: Poems and Letter

322

Appendix IV: Members of the Jury

321

Endnotes 327 Sources 334

Acknowledgements 342 Index

345

FOREWORD Our father, Seán Ó Lúing, was born in Ballyferriter, West Kerry, on 16 May 1917, only a few months before the death of Thomas

Ashe on 25 September of that year. From an early age, he was aware of the legacy of Thomas Ashe, having first heard of him from his grandfather, Daniel Manning, who travelled to Dublin

to attend his funeral, and whose son Patrick was in Jacob’s Factory during the Easter Rising.

In Seán’s poem ‘I gCuimhne Thomáis Ághas’ in Bánta Dhún

Urlann, published in 1975, he wrote:

Fadó riamh, nuair bhí Clochar agus Riasc ar an imeall ba shia dem aithne, Chuala tuairisc Thomáis Ághas á lua ar bhéal mo sheanathar …

Long ago, when Clochar and Riasc were the farthest border of my acquaintance, I heard the story of Thomas Ashe from my grandfather’s lips …

After attending St Brendan’s Seminary in Killarney from 1929

to 1934, Seán studied Latin, modern Irish and archaeology at University College Dublin, graduating in 1938. He taught for some years in Portarlington. Later, while teaching history in

the University Tutorial Institute (Darragh’s College) in Dublin, he developed his interest in modern Irish history. He joined the

Translation Section of the Houses of the Oireachtas in 1943. He

researched regularly in the National Library, happily adjacent, and 5

I DIE IN A GOOD CAUSE

published his first book, Art Ó Gríofa, a biography of Arthur Griffith, in 1953.

His first published essay on Thomas Ashe, ‘Tomás Ághas’, ap-

peared in the Irish-language periodical Feasta in September 1961.

His lecture of 25 September 1967, at an event commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Ashe’s death, was published as ‘Léacht

Chuimhneacháin: Tomás Ághas’ in the November 1967 issue of Feasta. An article, ‘Thomas Ashe’, appeared in the Capuchin

Annual (1967), which noted that ‘he is at present working on a full length life of Thomas Ashe’.

I Die in a Good Cause was published in May 1970. In the Ack­

nowledgement, he wrote that ‘my gratitude goes first and foremost to his sister Nora Ashe. Without her help it is the plain truth to

say that this book could not have been written.’ Sadly, Nora Ashe died on 20 January 1970, before the book was published. The author recalled, however (in an interview in 1994 with his former

colleague Áine Ní Chonghaile), ‘do léigh sí é mar chlóscríbhinn

agus bhí sí sásta leis’. [‘She read the typescript and she was happy with it.’]

He had known Nora Ashe for a long time, and in a short

memoir (in the National Library collections: MS 42,176/1) he re-

called many visits to 156 Rathgar Road, where she spent her years of retirement with her companion Mrs Agnes Fitzgibbon of Sligo:

I had known Nóra Ághas since I was a student at St. Brendan’s Seminary, Killarney, abt. 1932, having been introduced to her by my uncle Father James Manning (St Augustine’s Parish Des Moines) who was a great friend of hers. I afterwards used to visit her at her home in Clontarf … but visited her most frequently when she retired to Rathgar Road.

6

FOREWORD

She was one of the best conversationalists I ever met, and her range of knowledge was wide and varied. She was an excellent teacher and when in Rathgar Road would give lessons in Irish, gratis, so eager was she to give instruction in the language, which was the primary love of her life … She knew practically everyone who had been in the national movement, and could be as sharp in her criticism as she could be sincere in her praise. She was proud of the Ashe family tradition and would enumerate the parts of Ireland where they had settled, from Antrim to Cork …

She was at home in any company, a good mixer and talker, with great human sympathy.

Her brother Gregory was also of great help – ‘Agus ar ndóigh, fuaireas an-chuid eolais ó dheartháir Thomáis Ághas, Griaire,’ he

told Áine Ní Chonghaile. ���������������������������������������������������� [‘And of course, I got a lot of information from Thomas Ashe’s brother Gregory.’]

I Die in a Good Cause is dedicated ‘Do Ghearóid agus Róisín’.

In 1970, the year of its first publication, we were entering our

teens. On several occasions we accompanied our parents to meet Miss Ashe and Mrs Fitzgibbon in the high-ceilinged drawing

room in Rathgar. We recall our father’s frequent visits to the Na-

tional Library, and research notes, in his strong clear handwriting, covering the dining-room table at home.

He was a loyal and conscientious correspondent, and for over

fifty years wrote regularly to his brother Paddy in Kerry and to

his friends in England, the O’Briens, with whom he had stayed in

Portarlington. He also corresponded regularly with a number of

greatly valued friends in Germany, including his fellow translators Heinrich Sasse and John Marin. As he said, ‘Ní thogann sé ach

cúig nóiméad cárta poist a scríobh.’ [‘It takes only five minutes to write a postcard.’]

7

I DIE IN A GOOD CAUSE

He enjoyed researching and writing, and though happy in

company was equally happy to find companionship in books. One

evening, when we were both occupied, we asked him if he minded being on his own. ‘Ach ní bheidh mé im’aonair,’ he replied. ‘Nach

féidir liom an tráthnóna a chaitheamh i gcuideachta Catullus, nó Hóiméir?’ [But I won’t be on my own – can’t I spend the evening in the company of Catullus, or Homer?]

Dad met his future wife, Marie Sloane from Wexford, when

they were working in Leinster House. They married in 1949. Theirs

was an exceptionally happy marriage. Our mother quietly supported our father in every way, and her death in 1988 was a source

of great sorrow to him. Eventually, he returned to his stu­dies and

writing, and these, along with his many interests, inclu­ding sport, music, film, and travel, sustained him, as did the support of his family and friends.

It is strange to think that our father was born one hundred

years ago, for he never seemed old to us. He was a loving husband and father, and a courteous, considerate and gentle man. He had

a profound religious faith, and enjoyed life. We often recall his advice to us – ‘Bainigí taitneamh as an saol!’

Gearóid Ó Lúing Róisín Ní Lúing

8

INTRODUCTION The tragic and avoidable death of Tom Ashe at the age of thirtytwo on 25 September 1917, from botched forced feeding while on hunger strike in Mountjoy prison, not only removed him from the

centre stage of Irish life, but in large measure from the national historical memory, at least outside his native Kerry and the area around

Lusk in North Dublin where he was a school principal before the

1916 Rising. It is hard not to believe that had he survived his name

would now feature far more prominently, given the central role he would likely have played in the War of Independence, perhaps

indeed in the Civil War (although who can tell if there would have been one – or at least the one that occurred – had he lived) and possibly even in government. Yet, if cut off, like Michael Collins, far

before his potential prime, Ashe remains one of the most remarkable personalities in Irish history, as is abundantly clear from Seán Ó Lúing’s biography of nearly fifty years ago, now happily reissued.

Ashe and Collins had much in common, however different the

routes by which they reached Easter Week. They got on well, and

it was their co-operation – even with Ashe in an English jail – that

largely ensured Sinn Féin ran a candidate in the important 1917 Longford by-election, despite the hesitation of the more cautious de Valera.

It is nevertheless quite possible that Ashe would have been a

member of de Valera’s Sinn Féin cabinet, perhaps indeed of the

Treaty negotiating team, for in some ways, and despite his regard for

Collins, he was temperamentally and culturally closer to de Valera.

9

I DIE IN A GOOD CAUSE

Lacking something of Collins’s eventual elasticity, he might then have been a crucial vote against acceptance of the Treaty terms as

they stood, and we would know whether Lloyd George was bluffing or not in his threat of immediate and terrible war had the Treaty delegation refused to sign unanimously on the dotted line.

This, of course, is all speculative. Who can know how he might

have revised his own views during the War of Independence? He was

president of the Supreme Council of the IRB at the time of his death; how may his attitude have changed – or not – during the subsequent

struggle? That one can speculate endlessly about the myriad ‘what-ifs’ itself testifies to his stature. His vision of an independent Ireland, as far as one can tell, was generally tolerant and inclusive towards the

unionist population, and smacked remarkably little of localism by the

standards of the time, perhaps even of today. He was a native Irish speaker, with a wide range of cultural interests, and it would have

been intriguing to see what his attitude towards the blinkered policies for reviving the language as a vernacular might have been.

However problematical it must always be to speculate on the

possible futures of lives prematurely terminated, it can certainly be

surmised that, like some of the 1916 leaders, he had much more to

offer at the time of his tragic death than he had already achieved.

What can be said without exaggeration is that his personality re-

mains among the most attractive, and his record among the most impressive, of any fighter for an independent Irish state and a dis-

tinctive Irish culture. This timely reprint of an important work on so distinctive a figure deserves to be warmly welcomed, both for itself and for the stimulus it promises to provide for further meditation on issues of enduring importance.

Professor J. J. Lee 10