Weekly News 24th April 2017

24 April 2017

AUCTION OF FINE ITEMS:  An auction of fine items will take place in St. Eoghan’s Centre, Kilmoganny on next Sunday 30th April. The auction begins at 4.00 p.m. For information about the auction contact Biddy at 087 – 983190 or Alycia on 087 – 6757490. Many items will have a reserve price. There is a beautiful collection of assorted items m any of which were kindly donated by a local person. Viewing in St. Eoghan`s Centre, Kilmoganny on Friday 28th April from 12.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. and on Saturday from 11.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. and on Sunday morning from 12.00 noon to 2.00 p.m. Further donations of quality items would be welcome. Proceeds will go to St. Joseph’s Home, Kilmoganny and to the Kilmoganny GAA Field. The day concludes with a Cabaret in Dunphy’s Lounge with music by Gerry Walsh and Dallas.


 PARISH NEWSLETTER CLICK HERE!!


FIRST HOLY COMMUNION will be celebrated in Dunamaggan Parish as follows: in St. Leonard’s Church, Dunamaggan on Saturday next at 11.00 a.m.; in St. Eoghan’s Church, Kilmoganny on Sunday 21st May at 12.00 noon and in Holy Trinity Church, Kells on Saturday 27th May. Thus there will be no 9.30 a.m. mass in Kilmoganny on Sunday 21st May.


 


KELLS HANDBALL CLUB:    In the Finals of the Juvenile Leinster B championships Rachel Doherty (Kells) won out the Girls U14 Singles, Lauren Grace (Kells) was the winner of the Girls U16 Singles, Joseph Prendergast (Kells) won out the Boys U12 Singles and Harry Delaney (Kells) won out the Boys U13 Singles. Congratulations and very well done to all.


In the All Ireland 40 x 20 semi-final of the Ladies Junior B Doubles Aoife Walsh (Kells) and Margaret Purcell (Windgap) lost out to Roscommon’s Siobhan Tully and Linda Connolly.  In the All Ireland 40 x 20 Championship Final of the Intermediate Doubles Brendan Burke (Kells)/Ciaran Neary (Talbot’s Inch) lost out to Shane O’Neill/Sean Kerr (Tyrone) in a very closely fought game on a score-line of 19-21, 21-19, 21-5.


The 40 x 20 Junior Nationals championships take place at Galway venues on 28th/29th April, and the Kells participants are Harry Delaney, Cathal Buckley, John Hayes, Joseph Prendergast, Eoin Brennan and Michael Prendergast. Good luck to all.


 


PAT WALSH MEMORIAL ADDRESS: It was given by Noel Delahunty. It is a privilege to be here today to honour Pat Walsh who fought and died for his beloved country. In doing so we also remember all the men and women who fought in that gallant struggle, not forgetting members of our own families who were involved.


I* was asked here today to say a few words about my Uncle the Rev. P. H. Delahunty, who was involved in an incident in the hall here in Dunamaggan o9n the 1st January 1917. I* am informed by John Holden that it was a single storey building at the time. The situation in the country at the time was that the people who had been rounded up after 1916 were by then released. These men and women had been radicalised during their time in the internment camps in England and Wales.


The Rev. P.H., who was curate in Callan at the time, together with his colleague, the local curate Fr. Henneberry, embraced this shift in attitude.


On the 1st January 191, a concert was held at the parochial hall at Dunamaggan. This event was well supported by7 the local community and the Rev. P. H. Delahunty, C.C. (Fr. Pat) was in the audience. Constable MacCarthy, from the local R.I.C. barrack, Loughbrack, was present, standing inside near the entrance. Acting Sargent Cummings took up a position outside the hall. The positioning of the R.I.C. men was of vital importance, as will become apparent.


The National Archives at Kew do not say if the concert was a Volunteer/Sinn Féin event. However, the happenings on the night and the subsequent actions taken by the British Authorities are fully recorded there.


About half an hour before the concert was due to end, the compere, Rev. Fr. Henneberry, called on Fr. Pat for a song. Fr. Pat came forward and addressed the audience: “Let all men put their fingers in their ears and let women join in the chorus as I believe they require police protection now in Dunamaggan to attend the Rosary.” He then sang ‘Who fears to Speak of Easter Week’, all five verses, (air –’98). To rapturous applause he was called on to sing the same song again, so he sang the five verses of the song a second time. His opening remarks were carefully chosen as he was aware that the song he was about to sing would be deemed a seditious ballad in contravention of circular 5:7:16, Defence of the Realm Regulations, which meant that not only himself but also any man who remained in the hall and listened while he sang could be charged with a seditious act.  


The volume of documents recorded by the British Authorities concerning this matter, and which are held at the National Archives KEW, are extraordinary. The final memo on the matter is dated February 1917.


The KEW file comprises of 32 documents, 2 were redacted, presumably they refer to person/persons who had assisted the police. The following were involved in the decision whether to prosecute or not: Lord Wimborne, Lord Lieutenant; Henry E. Duke, Chief Secretary; Sir William Byrne, Undersecretary; Lieut-General Bryan Mahon, Commander-in-Chief The Forces in Ireland; R.J.C. Maunsell, Southern Command Cork; Colonel F.H. Stanton, Headquarters Irish Command; The Intelligence Branch Headquarters, Southern District Cork; P. C. Power, County Inspector Kilkenny; H. M. Lowndes, District Inspector, Kilkenny.


It is difficule3 now, a hundred years on, to comprehend why the Crown Forces and authorities at local and Dublin Castle level would have devoted so much time to the investigation of the singing of a Republican ballad in a small rural parish hall. It seems that their reaction boarded on paranoia, unless of course, at a higher level of administration, they regarded Fr. Pat as a major figure in Sinn Féin/I.R.A. and were seeking any opportunity to prosecute him.


As the concert ended Constable MacCarthy immediately advised the acting Sargent that Fr. Pat had sung a seditious ballad and on request, Fr. Pat had repeated the act. The acting sergeant prepared a report and sent it to the District Inspector’s Office, Kilkenny. This set in train a sequence of actions taken by the British authorities. There is a lot of repetition but this is precisely the point, the authorities had wanted to prosecute but had no strategy in place. They were fearful of repercussions, his popularity in the County was a si9gnificant factor and he was also Irish Volunteer/ Sinn Féin President for the south Kilkenny constituency. As a result the case was passed up and down the chain of command as it would appear nobody wanted to make a decision.


In the end the case was settled at the highest level of admi9nistration in Ireland, when the Chief Secretary, Henry E. Dukes, eventually concluded it was a futile exer4cise and decided against prosecuting Fr. Pat. In his decision he directed that in cases of flagrant misconduct by priests proofs should be compiled and reported to the Bishop.


Si9nce the Act of Union in January 1, 1801, which was passed into law with the support of the Irish hierarchy, the British authorities could depend on that body of men to deal with wayward priests. The Chief Secretary seems to have been blissfully unaware of the gulf which had opened between the hierarchy and the people after the execution of the 1916 Leaders. The people were appalled by the brutality and callosity of the executions. No statement was issued by the hierarchy regarding Easter Week and, apart from a couple of exceptions, nor did they condemn these atrocities.


If the concert was a parish affair it would appear that Fr. Pat and his fellow Irish Volunteer, Fr. Henneberry, connived to turn it into an Irish Volunteer event. Fr. Pat was a man who never shied away from any platform which could be used to advance the Republican cause and took pleasure in being a thorn in the authorities’ side. In this he was following the footsteps of Fr. J. O’Flanagan. Both were determined to see how far the boundaries could be pushed before the authorities would be forced to vindicate the law and prosecute a priest.


The scene at Dunamaggan was well rehearsed so that when invited to sing a song, Fr. Pat at first addressed the men in the audience ‘Let all the men put fingers in their ears …’, as he was aware of the scope of the Defence of the Realm Regulations. Women did not feature in the scheme of things at the time. He had the situation well sussed, Constable MacCarthy was inside the hall, acting Sargent Cummings was outside, the men had been advised to put their fingers in their ears so there was nobody who could corroborate MacCarthy’s evidence that Fr. Pat was the person that had sung the rebel song.


The Dunamaggan affair is a significant snapshot of that period of time when the Irish Volunteers/I.R.A. progressed from passive resistance movement and were becoming radicalised. The change posed an enormous political problem for politicians, police and military who were tested by the dilemmas of whether to jail or not to jail. Contests such as these were the very marrow of revolution, shaping the experience for all concerned. Fr. Pat was in the vanguard of these changes:



  • There were some priests who ignored their ordinary and gave material support to the Republican cause

  • The hierarchy, with a couple of exceptions, condemned the Republican side, while at the same time believing they still had control over the people

  • The authorities had no strategy in place to deal with the rebel priest

  • The local bench could not be relied upon to convict Irish men charged with political offences

  • The authorities were fearful that prosecution of a priest would arouse bitter feelings against the Military and Police authorities

  • Incidents like Dunamaggan were a threat to the Parish administrative elite, the Parish Priest and the local R.I.C. Sergeant.


All would change in 1920 with:



  • The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act

  • The arrival of the Black and Tans

  • The arrival of the Auxiliaries


And the Rev. P. H. Delahunty, C. C. would be one of the first victims.


The ballad was composed by Sr. M. Columba Gibbons in the Navan Loreto Convent. Her fami9ly, men and women, were deeply involved during Easter Week 1916. Anxious to know about their wellbeing, unbeknownst to her Superior who did not approve of the Rising, she made contact with a Dublin man who was a travelling Irish teacher, Seamus O’Murchadha, who visited the convent and gave her national papers which her family had asked him to deliver to her. She wrote the ballad on an envelope, signed it ‘Colm’ and gave it to Seamus who brought it to Dublin where he typed it, disseminated the original and it caught on very rapidly. Fearing that if ‘Colm’s’ identity became known it would land her in trouble with the Superior she asked Seamus not to reveal ‘Colm’s’ true identity. As a result, it was assumed, for some time that ‘Colm’ was a man. She later disclosed the facts to her family. She was sister to Mrs Kitty O’Doherty, who, a number of days before Easter Week, was sent by Thomas Clarke to Kilkenny to collect grenades from Peter de Loughry who refused to hand them over as he took his orders only from MacNeill.


W. E. H. Lecky, in his History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, 1913 Vol. V Ch XII p140 wrote “There are periods, both in private and public life, when the ablest of men experience what gamblers call a run of bad luck. At such times the steadiest of hand seems to lose its cunning and the strongest judgment its balance, and mistake follows mistake. Some fatality of this kind appears to have hung over Irish Legislation in those critical years.”


Does this seem familiar today?


 


THE SONG WHICH MEN COULD NOT LISTEN TO OR SING 100 YEARS AGO. The song The Irish Rebellion 1916, written by a Loreto nun in Navan, which was sung 100 years ago in Dunamaggan was once again sung last Sunday by Thomas O’Callaghan. When sung in 1917 it was an offence for men to listen to it or sing it but not so for women. The words are as follows:


Who Fears to speak of Easter Week,


Who dares it’s fate deplore?


The red-gold flame of Erin’s name,


Confronts the World once more,


So, Irishman, remember them,


And raise your head with pride,


For great men and straight men,


Have fought for you and died.


 


The Spirit-wave that came to save,


The peerless Celtic soul,


From earthly stain of greed and gain,


Had caught then in its roll,


Had swept them high to do or die,


To sound a trumpet call,


For true men, though few men,


To follow one and all.


 


Upon their shield, a stainless field,


With virtues blazoned bright,


With Temperance and Purity,


With Truth and Honour dight,


So now they stand at God’s Right hand,


Who framed their dauntless clay,


Who taught them and brought them, The Glory of today.


 


The storied page of this our age,


Will save our land from shame.


The ancient foe had boasted, lo,


That Irishmen were tame,


They’d bought our souls with paltry doles,


And told the world of slaves,


That lie, men, will die, men,


In Ireland’s Hero Graves.


 


The brave who’ve gone to linger on,


Beneath the tyrant’s heel,


We know they pray another day,


With clang of clashing steel,


And from their cell their voice swell,


And loudly call to you,


Then ask, men, the Task, men,


That yet remains to do.