Irish Journalism Before Independence: More a disease than a profession 9780719094941

Citation preview

ir ish jou r na lism befor e in depen dence

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 1

28/07/2011 11:23:26

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 2

28/07/2011 11:23:26

Irish journalism before independence More a disease than a profession

Edited by Kevin Rafter

Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 3

28/07/2011 11:23:26

Copyright © Manchester University Press 2011 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 07190 8451 5  hardback ISBN 978 07190 8452 2  paperback First published 2011 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 4

28/07/2011 11:23:26

Contents

Notes on contributors page vii Preface xi James Curran Acknowledgements xv Introduction 1 Kevin Rafter 1 Journalism in Ireland: the evolution of a discipline Mark O’Brien

9

2 How journalism became a profession Michael Foley

22

3 Loyalty and Repeal: the Nation, 1842–46 M. L. Brillman

36

4 Keeping an eye on the Tsar: Frederick Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle 49 Matthew Potter 5 The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan Maurice Walsh

62

6 Mr Russell of The Times 75 Peter Murtagh 7 E. J. Dillon: from our special correspondent Kevin Rafter 8 The Irishness of Francis McCullagh John Horgan

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 5

91 106

28/07/2011 11:23:26

vi

Irish journalism before independence

9 Patriotism, professionalism and the press: the Chicago press and Irish journalists, 1875–1900 120 Gillian O’Brien 10 O’Brennan abroad: an Irish editor in London and America Anthony McNicholas 11 Newspapers, journalists and the early years of the Gaelic Athletic Association Paul Rouse 12 Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival Regina Uí Chollatáin

135

149 160

13 Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal 174 Felix M. Larkin 14 ‘The prose of logic and of scorn’: Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin, 1906–1914 186 Ciara Meehan 15 From the ‘Freeman’s General’ to the ‘dully expressed’: James Joyce and journalism Terence Killeen

200

16 Truce to Treaty: Irish journalists and the 1920–21 peace process 213 Ian Kenneally Index 227

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 6

28/07/2011 11:23:26

Notes on contributors

M. L. Brillman has taught at DePaul University, University of Chicago, University of Mary, and is currently a visiting professor at Florida International University. His research interests include Britain, Ireland, India, and the British Empire. Regina Uí  Chollatáin is a lecturer in the School of Irish, Celtic Studies, Irish Folklore and Linguistics at University College Dublin and a director of Lárionad de Bhaldraithe do Léann na Gaeilge. Her publications include Iriseoirí Pinn (Cois Life, 2008) and she was co-editor of P. H. Pearse: Life and After-life/Pádraic Mac Piarais: Saol agus Oidhreacht (Irish Academic Press, 2009). James Curran is Director of the Leverhulme Media Research Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has held endowed visiting chairs at Penn, Stanford, Stockholm and Oslo universities. He has written or edited eighteen books about the mass media, some in conjunction with others, including (with Jean Seaton), Power Without Responsibility, the seventh edition of which was published by Routledge in 2010. Michael Foley is head of the Department of Journalism and Communications at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He worked for many years as a journalist with The Irish Times. He is the author of articles on media history and media ethics and has worked in media development in eastern and southeastern Europe, North Africa and Palestine. Professor John  Horgan was born in 1940. His career as a journalist from 1962 to 1976 included working with British and Irish newspapers, principally The Irish Times as Religious Affairs Correspondent and as Education Correspondent. At different stages from 1968 to 1983 he was a member of the Seanad Éireann, Dáil Éireann and the European Parliament. He was a lecturer and Professor of Journalism at Dublin City University from 1983 to 2006. He was appointed Press Ombudsman for Ireland in 2007.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 7

28/07/2011 11:23:27

viii

Irish journalism before independence

Ian Kenneally is a historian and writer. He is currently an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences funded scholar, researching a PhD at NUI Galway. He is the author of two books, The Paper Wall: Newspapers and Propaganda in Ireland, 1919–1921 and Courage and Conflict: Forgotten Stories of the Irish at War. Terence Killeen is the author of Ulysses Unbound: A Reader’s Companion to James Joyce’s Ulysses. He is a Research Scholar at the James Joyce Centre, Dublin, and a former trustee of the International James Joyce Foundation. He is a former Revise Editor and Sub-Editor on The Irish Times and the Irish Press and is a lecturer at the James Joyce International Summer School, Dublin. Felix M. Larkin is the author of Terror and Discord: The Shemus Cartoons in the Freeman’s Journal, 1920–1924 (A&A Farmar, 2009). He also edited Librarians, Poets and Scholars: A Festschrift for Dónall Ó Luanaigh (Four Courts Press, 2007). He is vice-chairman of the National Library of Ireland Society, and a founder member of the Newspaper and Periodicals History Forum of Ireland. Ciara Meehan is an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of History and Archives in University College Dublin. She is the author of a history of the Cumann na nGaedheal party, 1923–33 (Royal Irish Academy, 2010). She is currently working on a study of Declan Costello’s Just Society, which examines the policy’s impact on Fine Gael and the development of the Irish party system. Peter Murtagh is a managing editor at The Irish Times. He is a former editor of the Sunday Tribune newspaper in Dublin and was news editor and deputy foreign editor of the Guardian in London. He was Journalist of the Year in Ireland in 1983 and Reporter of the Year in Britain in 1986. He is co-author (with Joe Joyce) of The Boss: Charles J Haughey in Government (Poolbeg, 1983), Blind Justice: The Sallins Mail Train Robbery (Poolbeg, 1984); and The Rape of Greece: The King, the Colonels and the Resistance (Simon & Schuster, 1994). He has edited the annual Irish Times Book of the Year since 1999. Anthony McNicholas is a senior lecturer in the Communication and Media Research Institute of the University of Westminster, where he is Director of the PhD programme. He publishes widely on nineteenth-century Irish journalism and on broadcasting history. He is currently part of a team producing volume 6 of the official history of the BBC, covering the years 1975 to 1987. Gillian O’Brien lectures on Irish history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, on American history from Civil War to Civil Rights and on the history of Dublin City. She has recently returned from Chicago where she was a Fulbright Scholar at the Newberry Library. Her current research

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 8

28/07/2011 11:23:27

Notes on contributors

ix

interests include: urban history, particularly the cities of London, Dublin and Chicago, newspaper history, sensational crime in nineteenth-century America and Ireland in the 1790s. Mark O’Brien is a lecturer in the School of Communications, Dublin City University. He is the author of The Truth in the News? De Valera, Fianna Fáil and the Irish Press and The Irish Times: A History, and is co-editor of Political Censorship and the Democratic State: The Irish Broadcasting Ban. He is a founder member of the Newspaper & Periodical History Forum of Ireland. Matthew Potter is the AMAI (Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland) Fellow in the history of urban government in the Department of History, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick. He is the author of four books and is currently working on the official history of the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland. Kevin Rafter works as Senior Lecturer at the School of Communications in Dublin City University. He was for many years a political journalist with the Irish Times, the Sunday Times, RTÉ and the Sunday Tribune. He is the author of several books including Democratic Left: The Life and Death of an Irish Political Party (Irish Academic Press, 2011), and The Road to Power (New Island, 2011). Paul Rouse is a lecturer in the School of History and Archives in University College Dublin. He is one of the authors of the best-selling book, The GAA: A People’s History (Collins Press, 2009) and he is also a former award-winning journalist with RTÉ’s Prime Time current affairs programme. Maurice Walsh teaches at Kingston University in London. His book, The News from Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and the Irish Revolution, was published in 2008. An award-winning documentary maker, he has been a foreign correspondent in Central and South America and has reported for the BBC from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the United States and Europe. His essays, reviews and reportage have appeared in Granta, the London Review of Books, the Dublin Review and many other publications in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 9

28/07/2011 11:23:27

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 10

28/07/2011 11:23:27

Preface James Curran

When over thirty years ago I – and two colleagues – edited a book on Newspaper History, we inserted an apology in the General Introduction regretting the small number of references to the Irish press. This was due, it was explained, to the relative dearth of research on the Irish press, causing its under-representation to be inevitable.1 This gap was rectified in part by the rapid growth of Irish political history which shed light, as a by-product, on the Irish press. This was followed subsequently by sustained and focused historical investigation into the Irish press itself (something begun years before by the isolated pioneer, Robert Munter). This culminated in the establishment of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland in 2008. Out of this new concentration of interest and expertise has emerged this book. It advances by leaps and bounds the history of the Irish press. One of the themes of this book is an extended discussion about the power of the press. In 1855, when Anthony Trollope was working in Ireland, the press was a relatively new power centre that tended to cloak its public interest rhetoric in folds of bombast. This prompted Trollope, in his first successful novel (The Warden, published in 1855) to write a derisive attack on the press, likening it to Mount Olympus, ‘that high abode of all the powers of type’, and to ‘a pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated’ who ‘issue the only known infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies’. ‘From the palaces of St. Petersburg to the cabins of Connaught’, Trollope added ironically, ‘nothing can escape him’.2 His target was the liberal reform press in London. But it could have found a still more suitable target forty years later in the Skibbereen Eagle, an Irish provincial newspaper described in chapter 4. At one point, the Eagle proclaimed to the world that it was keeping its eye on the Tsar of Russia, having uncovered a dastardly crime in which the Tsar, in cahoots with the Chinese Empress Dowager, had murdered the Emperor of China. The murder, described in gory detail, never in fact took place. But the paper’s sense of destiny, combined with its editorial inaccuracy, turned it into a legend. ‘Our watchful friend, the Skibbereen Eagle’ became the butt

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 11

28/07/2011 11:23:27

xii

Irish journalism before independence

of humour in James Joyce’s Ullysses. The paper also featured in a satirical cartoon in the Dublin Opinion in 1946, in which Stalin explains confidentially to de Valera why the Soviet Union had vetoed Ireland’s application to join United Nations: ‘Between ourselves, Dev, Russia has never quite forgotten that article in the Skibbereen Eagle.’ Yet, if one part of this book deflates the pretensions of paper tigers, another part documents in scholarly detail the influence of the press. This ranges from the political impact of William Russell’s remarkable dispatches from the Crimean War revealing the mismanagement and incompetence of the British military leadership through to the more indirect ways in which the Irish press made a difference: for example, by sustaining the development of a separatist identity through promoting the growth of Irish games and the use of the Irish language, maintaining links with an Irish diaspora supportive of independence and providing the oxygen of publicity for Irish nationalist organisations. Another theme of the book is the nature of Irish journalists – where they came from, what they did, what they thought about their work, and how they connected to their bosses, sources and readers. One thing that strikes you is their heterogeneity: some were born with a silver spoon like William Russell, initially torn between medicine and the law, and others like Arthur Griffith left school at thirteen; some, like James Flanagan, were crusty reactionaries at the heart of the London Establishment and others like the erstwhile editor Martin O’Brennan struggled to feed himself in the Chicago slums; some like Emile Dillon were confident members of an international elite, while others like the Nation trio, Duffy, Davis and Dillon, were grassroots agitators. What, if anything, one wonders, did this motley group of people have in common with one another? The answer depends partly on the period under discussion, and the sector of the press in which they worked. Yet, it is possible to glimpse through these pages elements of a common denominator that linked at least some of them: an occupation that because it lacked a formal qualification was an open path to social preferment and public significance; a trade that required a basic competence in writing, and in its higher reaches great fluency and even eloquence; a lingering outsider status (despite sometimes desperate attempts to belong), whether this took the form of nationalist journalists explaining to angry locals that they were not bailiffs or James Joyce repaying Lady Gregory’s patronage (she secured him a reviewing position) by writing a hostile review of her latest book; perhaps above all, a shared sense that the press should have some kind of public purpose. What form this public purpose should take was viewed very differently. But what comes through in this book is that most journalists did not think – at least at some point in their lives – that journalism was merely a way of putting bread on the table. And they were right to think this, as this volume vividly demonstrates.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 12

28/07/2011 11:23:28

Preface

xiii

In brief, here is a book that illuminates the history of Irish journalism and journalists in an original and engaging way. And it does this in a period, which however subject to fruitful historical revisionism, yet witnessed the drama of a British colony becoming a free nation.

Notes 1 G. Boyce, J. Curran and P. Wingate (eds), Newspaper History (London: Constable, 1978), p. 14. 2 A. Trollope, The Warden (London: Longman, 1855), reproduced in The Literary Network, Anthony Trollope, The Warden, Chapter X1V, Mount Olympus. www.online-literature.com/anthony-trollope/warden/14/ (accessed 12 April 2010).

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 13

28/07/2011 11:23:28

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 14

28/07/2011 11:23:28

Acknowledgements

The idea for this book arose from the inaugural conference of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum at the National University of Ireland, Galway in 2008. Tony Mason and his colleagues at Manchester University Press were enthusiastic about the initial proposal and have worked very hard to bring the project to publication. Thanks are due to all the contributors for their cooperation and efficiency in meeting various deadlines. I would also like to acknowledge support for this publication from the Social Science Publication Fund at Dublin City University, where I joined the School of Communications in September 2010, and also from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire (where I was previously Head of the Department of Film and Media). On a personal level, I would like to say thank you to my three boys – Ben, Brian and Adam – and especially to Oorla for her continuing support and love during an exceptionally busy time. Kevin Rafter Dublin 2011

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 15

28/07/2011 11:23:28

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 16

28/07/2011 11:23:28

Introduction Kevin Rafter

On a Friday afternoon in early December 1908 Mr Alfred F. Robbins, a journalist from London, delivered a lecture in Trinity College, Dublin entitled, ‘The London Correspondent’.1 It was the first in a series of half a dozen talks organised by Trinity College and the Institute of Journalists, and which would continue during the first six months of 1909. The speakers were well-known newspaper men from London, and their topics included the place of the political cartoon in journalism and the role of the special correspondent. The lectures – described as a ‘course’ in journalism by the Provost of Trinity College but labelled a ‘diploma in journalism’ in newspaper reports – would seem to have been unaccredited but motivated by a desire to better understand the profession and its practices. The meetings were very well attended, open to the public but with places reserved for students of the University and members of the Institute of Journalists. The fifth lecture in the series – and the most extensively reported – was delivered on 6 March 1909 by J. A. Spender, the editor of the Westminster Gazette. Spender’s newspaper was probably the most influential evening publication in the United Kingdom at the time, and in an impressive achievement he would hold the position of editor for twenty-six years until his retirement in 1922. Like the other invited speakers, Spender had travelled specially to Dublin to address the Trinity College gathering. His audience included the Lord Lieutenant, the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral and the Countess of Aberdeen. The title of his address was ‘the education of the journalist’. Obviously speaking from first-hand experience as a newspaper editor and a graduate of Oxford University, Spender described how most older journalists were united in seeking as a ‘positive disqualification for any but the leader-writers of a few London papers to have devoted the best years of their youth to getting a degree by academic studies’. In the world of journalism – which had developed from the late eighteenth century into the early years of this new century – graduation was by way of steady ascent from office boy to editor via the newsroom and reporter’s room. This

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 1

28/07/2011 11:23:28

Irish journalism before independence

2

traditional approach was no longer acceptable, Spender argued, as ‘in every University and in every great school there were a certain number of young men who would deliberately adopt or who would drift into journalism as their work in life’. The editor of the Westminster Gazette was interested in exploring what kind of education would be most helpful to the professional man – the gender was always male – working in a newspaper office. ‘The difficulty in relation to the education of the journalist was to know where to begin,’ he observed, ‘the dangers and temptations of the calling were as obvious as they were unavoidable – the dangers of sciolism and shallowness; temptations to conceal ignorance, to pretend knowledge, to talk hastily, loosely, inaccurately.’ To counter these dangers and temptations, Spender proposed ‘some kind of literary and scholarly conscience which would keep the journalist from straying beyond forgiveness’. His ideal study for the journalist included a combination of history, law, natural science and political philosophy. In this way a ‘modern journalist’ would emerge who would not pose as an oracle but as a professional presenting himself as ‘a genial, fallible, sympathetic fellow-creature, to whom nothing human is alien and who has had enough experience at first hand to realise the things about which he is writing’. The sentiments expressed by Spender would most certainly have raised the ire of W. J. Lawrence, a theatrical historian who earned a living as a freelance journalist in Dublin. When the lecture series first commenced in December 1908, Lawrence took great exception to the very idea of a formalised education for members of his profession. He recorded his objections in a letter to the editor of the Daily Mail: As a brother-at-arms with the interests of his calling at heart, I hope you will accord me with a little space to point out to the Council of the new ‘School’ of Journalism the utter futility of the course which they have adopted. It seems to me that they are setting about to prove the truth of a quaint contention I heard uttered by a certain Dublin editor not long after their scheme was formulated. ‘The whole mistake,’ he said ‘arises from the gratuitous assumption that journalism is a profession. As a matter of fact, it is not so much a profession as a disease. It can be caught – not taught. Knack presses the button and experience does the rest. The great desideratum is aptitude, and that is precisely the one thing that cannot be evolved.’2 Whatever early ambitions existed in Trinity College in relation to journalism education they were never realised within the curriculum of the University – journalism continued as a disease: something to be caught and not taught. Indeed, it was another half century before journalism was given a formal place in the Irish higher education system. Since the early 1970s a strong tradition of journalism education has been established in Ireland – and, in

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 2

28/07/2011 11:23:28

Introduction

3

particular, with programmes at Dublin Institute of Technology and at Dublin City University enhancing the craft of the profession has been well served. Until recently less focus has, however, been placed on journalism scholarship and the historical inquiry into journalism. It is not a situation unique to Ireland. American academic Barbie Zelizer asked the potent question: ‘why is journalism not easily appreciated at the moment of its creation, with all its problems, contradictions, limitations and anomalies?’3 The answer to Zelizer’s conundrum, however, may well be in the very question she posed. Journalism is many things. At its core is giving witness and story telling, and a belief that the work produced actually matters, and should be taken seriously. But it is a profession, or to credit Lawrence’s Dublin editor ‘a disease’, of varying personalities and practices. It is a broad church, and it has always been so – as Andrew Marr so delicately put it: ‘a ragged and confusing trade all the way through’.4 James Joyce – himself a one-time journalist as discussed in Terence Killen’s chapter (15) in this volume – immortalised the profession in the pages of Ulysses: ‘Funny the way these newspaper men veer about when they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn’t know which to believe.’ This assessment may in part explain why more often than not journalism has been the source material for academic research rather than a significant discipline of research in itself. The motivation underpinning this volume is to take Irish journalism seriously and to further enhance the idea of journalism as a scholarly exercise rooted in the historical evolution of the profession. It is a moot point whether this stance on journalism scholarship would meet with the same type of hostility provoked over a century ago by the idea of educating journalists in a formal setting. The material in this publication looks at Irish journalism before Independence through an interdisciplinary lens, and this is clearly evident in the backgrounds of the various contributors. The collection does not seek to be a definitive history of journalism in the ‘long’ Irish nineteenth century that extended until 1922. There is no chronological or thematic approach driving the text. Like good journalism this is a volume of stories. And these stories pay tribute to the early years of the profession in all its hues – so on the pages that follow foreign correspondents are joined by local newspaper owners, leader writers, propagandists and artists. There is no easy way to draw a boundary to the historical study of journalism. In an interdisciplinary publication such as this choices must be made. Resultantly, the contributions in this volume are book-ended by two seminal dates in Irish history – the Act of Union in 1800 and the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1922. It is a fair conclusion that journalism as it would be recognised today emerged in this period between the abolition of a Dublin parliament and the partition of the island with two jurisdictions each having a different relationship with the United Kingdom. There was,

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 3

28/07/2011 11:23:29

4

Irish journalism before independence

of course, journalism in Ireland prior to 1800. In his chapter (1) Mark O’Brien recalls that the first newspaper printed in Ireland, The Irish Monthly Mercury (which carried accounts of Oliver Cromwell’s campaign) appeared in December 1649 although it was not until February 1659 that the first Irish newspaper became available. But these early publications were – as Robert Munter concluded – ‘primitive and erratic efforts at journalism’.5 In truth, it is debatable if the output of this early print culture should actually qualify for description as journalism produced by journalists. There is an undoubted connection, a historical trace line, but perhaps this early print work is best seen as a distant relation of the journalism of the nineteenth century. Even the initial publications that would be recognised today as newspapers were poorly designed and operated under strict government control. As recent as 1776 the authorities were issuing orders prohibiting the publication of any news not guaranteed by the government. Indeed, in this period setting up a newspaper in Dublin was not an easy undertaking even with the imprimatur of government. A pro-British newspaper the Volunteer Evening Post was established in Dublin in 1780 with a staff of editors, printers and compositors from England. But the venture met with local opposition – the editor is said to have fled for this life ‘but the printer, less fortunate, fell into the hands of the populace and was carried to the Tenter-fields and tarred and feathered’.6 As the nineteenth century progressed newspapers broke free of governmental control exercised by means of strict libel laws and a repressive taxation regime. The development of modern journalism was assisted by the mid-nineteenth century abolition of press taxes – identified by James Curran as the ‘key breakthrough’ – which made newspapers a less expensive purchase for the wider population.7 Rising literacy standards also expanded the market for newspapers. While newspaper publication had been slow in Ireland – and few of these early newspapers managed to establish a lasting presence – change came with the development of the railways and the expansion of the postal network.8 During the nineteenth century news and time took on a meaning that is easily understood today. The developments in transport, the expansion of the postal service and the advent of the telegraph meant news arrived faster – distances were reduced from weeks to days to hours. For example, in 1707 it took twenty days for news to flow from Portugal to Dublin but with telegraph cables over a century and a half later simultaneous communication was possible, and for the first time information could be sent faster than a person could carry it. These nineteenth-century technological developments and administrative changes gave birth to an industry which remained familiar well into the following century. Indeed, the central tenets of twentieth-century journalism were shaped in this period, and remained in place until the early years of the twenty-first century when a technological tsunami has left in its wake fundamental questions about the very nature of journalism. At this

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 4

28/07/2011 11:23:29

Introduction

5

contemporary time of tremendous change for the profession it does seem appropriate to go back to examine when it first appeared in its modern guise. The stories, narratives and histories in the volume provide a representation of the emergence of Irish journalism – and a journalism that existed not just on the island itself but, like many other areas of Irish life in this era, one that was shaped and existed in the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. In their respective chapters Mark O’Brien (1) and Michael Foley (2) chronicle the evolution and development of the profession, and the various challenges confronted by this first generation of modern journalists. One of the underwritten but significant developments in the nineteenth century was the emergence of the newspaper reporter. In his history of the media in Ireland Christopher Morash observes that ‘only rarely would an Irish newspaper editor of the eighteenth century venture outside his premises in search of a story’.9 Significantly, newsgathering came to the fore in the nineteenth century as journalists went out and saw with their own eyes. In light of this fundamental shift in how reportage was undertaken it is interesting that Marie Louise Legg in her history of nineteenth-century provincial newspapers should lament the absence of the person in many histories of the Irish media: ‘Yet so much work on the press has tended to be dull and pedestrian. Human life, is missing and the mentality of those who ran the press is absent.’10 Set against Legg’s conclusion, this volume seeks to frame Irish journalism’s past by reference to its practitioners and their practice. In the work of the various contributors there are examples of some great journalism – and some not so great – and readers are treated to studies of foreign correspondents, editors and proprietors, editorial writers, provincial journalism, the evolution of sports journalism and the challenges of Irish language journalism. Several examples of Legg’s ‘human life’ are evident in the pages that follow. William Howard Russell is probably the best known of the Irish-born correspondents who captured dramatic events from far-flung locations for newspaper readers. But there were other remarkable Irish men who proceeded to the top of their profession as foreign correspondents including Francis McCullagh as told here by John Horgan. And like so many later journalists – including the current author – these men, and in the nineteenth century they were primarily men, came to their career through a variety of routes. Many stumbled into journalism as was the case of E. J. Dillon at the Daily Telegraph. Others, including Arthur Griffith and Michael Cusack, saw newspapers as a means of promoting their chosen cause. For Cusack – as Paul Rouse explains – sport was a means to promote a Gaelic revival. Like so many other facets of Irish life in the nineteenth century, journalism stretched beyond the shores of the island. The hours were long and the financial rewards mixed. In his chapter (10) Anthony McNicholas traces

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 5

28/07/2011 11:23:29

6

Irish journalism before independence

the successes and failures of one journalist as he sought to build a career in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Gillian O’Brien (Chapter 9) provides a flavour of the individuals who having left Ireland made careers as journalists in the United States including Margaret O’Sullivan, a woman succeeding in a man’s profession – and what this study also clearly shows is how even across the Atlantic the growth of nationalism in Ireland was central to the story of Irish journalism in the nineteenth century. The great political debates about Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom and a possible future as an independent entity serve as a backdrop – or indeed are centre stage – in several chapters, including M. L. Brillman’s focus on the role of The Nation in Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Movement (3), the research on Arthur Griffith respectively from Felix M. Larkin and Ciara Meehan (14) and Ian Kenneally’s work on the War of Independence period (16). Those who prospered and those who failed in Irish journalism in the years from the passing of the Act of Union to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty were idealists and ideologs; they were businesspeople and entrepreneurs; they were adventurers and rogues. But whatever their motivations and their differences, they worked only in print – they were newspaper men and women – in an era before the arrival of broadcast. They benefited from technological change from printing presses to telegraphy. Ironically, today a digital revolution is again transforming the profession and its practices in a manner last experienced in the nineteenth century. In these initial decades of the twenty-first century it is no longer so easy to answer questions such as ‘what is journalism?’ and ‘who is a journalist?’. So perhaps to better understand the present – and to speculate about the future – it is appropriate to revisit and to review the past.

Notes 1 The quotations in this passage relating to journalism lecture series are taken from newspaper reports between December 1908 and March 1909. A notice on the Robbins was included in The Irish Times on 5 December 1908; a report of the Spender meeting was published in the same newspaper on 8 March 1909. 2 W. J. Lawrence, Evening Mail, 17 December 1908. My thanks to Martin Molony who included this quotation in a paper ‘W. J. Lawrence: An Irish Freelance Journalist of the Early Twentieth Century’ delivered at the inaugural conference of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland, 1 November 2008. 3 B. Zelizer, Taking Journalism Seriously: News and the Academy (London: Sage, 2004), p. 1. 4 A. Marr, My Trade: A Short History of British Journalism (London: Macmillan, 2004), p. 6. 5 R. Munter, The History of the Irish Newspaper 1685–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 8.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 6

28/07/2011 11:23:30

Introduction

7

6 A. Andrews, The History of British Journalism, Volume 1 (London: Adamant Media, 2005, reprint of edition of 1859), pp. 294–5. 7 J. Curran, Media and Power (Oxford: Routledge, 2002), p. 4. 8 Munter, p. 8. 9 C. Morash, A History of the Media in Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 68. 10 M. L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press, 1850–1892 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 13.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 7

28/07/2011 11:23:30

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 8

28/07/2011 11:23:30

1

Journalism in Ireland: the evolution of a discipline Mark O’Brien

While journalism in Ireland had a long gestation, the issues that today’s journalists grapple with are very much the same that their predecessors had to deal with. The pressures of deadlines and news gathering, the reliability and protection of sources, dealing with patronage and pressure from the state, advertisers and prominent personalities, and the fear of libel and state regulation were just as much a part of early journalism as they are today. What distinguished early journalism was the intermittent nature of publication and the rapidity with which newspaper titles appeared and disappeared. The Irish press had a faltering start but by the early 1800s some of the defining characteristics of contemporary journalism – specific skill sets, shared professional norms and professional solidarity – had emerged. In his pioneering work on the history of Irish newspapers, Robert Munter noted that, although the first newspaper printed in Ireland, The Irish Monthly Mercury (which carried accounts of Oliver Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland) appeared in December 1649 it was not until February 1659 that the first Irish newspaper appeared. An Account of the Chief Occurrences of Ireland, Together with some Particulars from England had a regular publication schedule (it was a weekly that published at least five editions), appeared under a constant name and was aimed at an Irish, rather than a British, readership. It, in turn, was followed in January 1663 by Mercurius Hibernicus, which carried such innovations as issue numbers and advertising. As Munter noted, its readership was limited to the Protestant land-owning class and one of its main sources of news was the Court of Claims that redistributed the estates forfeited to the Crown after the 1641 rebellion. Following the Licensing Act of 1662, which stipulated that newspapers could only be printed under licence, entrepreneurs began to supply subscribers with hand-written letters from correspondents (scriveners) who lived close to sites of news such as parliament or the courts. In time these letters were set in type and in 1685 Dublin witnessed the establishment of The News-Letter, which was published three times a week and posted to subscribers.1

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 9

28/07/2011 11:23:30

10

Irish journalism before independence

Up until the mid-1700s newspapers, and by extension journalism, were part of the diverse activities of stationary shops and printers. They were not so much a new entity, more an extension to an existing business. The eventual growth of advertising was what determined the course of newspaper development. Publishers initially used surplus space in their newspapers to promote their own publications and services and other adverts slowly began to trickle in, first for the return of lost property or strayed animals and then, more significantly, for the sale or lease of land. Eventually, newspapers began to solicit adverts and they increased in size and in importance to the stationer’s business. While they gradually took a more regular shape they remained an elite form of communication, aimed primarily at the English-speaking, Protestant population. And, since readers bought directly from the publisher, print-runs were small and only large urban areas – Dublin, Belfast and Cork – could sustain newspapers. In terms of journalism, as Munter put it, ‘a journalistic ethic grew up which was the product of two things: the general attitude of the public and the policy of the Irish government, the former by and large a positive and constructive element, the latter a negative and restrictive one’.2 Newspapers were judged by the veracity and freshness of their news and many titles proclaimed their wares in such terms. Pue’s Occurrences declared that it carried, ‘the most Authentic and Freshest Transactions from all Parts’ while the Dublin Mercury offered ‘a Greater Variety of Authentic News, impartially collected, than in any other Advices now extant’.3 Then, as now, rumours abounded and publishers had to thread a wary line between publishing false stories and giving competitors an advantage by being too cautious. As an example, George Faulkner of Faulkner’s Dublin Journal was once forced to publish the following: ‘We have a hot report about the Town that a certain Gentleman lately Barberously murder’d his own Wife and two children, but I forebear to name him till I know its full certainty.’4 Newspapers were generally one-person operations and there was little or no demarcation between proprietor, printer, editor or journalist. News came from a variety of sources; coffeehouses, political clubs, courts, markets, and the crews of incoming ships all provided publishers with news. The most important source, however, were the newspapers that arrived from London. All local publishers scanned these publications and, depending on their need for content, reproduced entire articles or summaries of events. As Munter observed, a rather strange journalistic ethos existed among the Dublin papers: ‘To copy a part or the whole of an English paper was an everyday occurrence and was considered a fair business practice; to copy from another Dublin paper was condemned – not as piracy, but as passing stale news on to the public.’5 In terms of pre-nineteenth-century politics, the Irish Parliament retained absolute privilege over its proceedings and both houses (Lords and Commons) had powers of compellability, examination, interrogation

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 10

28/07/2011 11:23:30

Evolution of a discipline

11

and detention.6 While the most frequent charges against publishers were breaches of privilege and contempt, charges of libel and seditious libel were also common.

Charles Lucas and political journalism By the mid-1700s the increased circulation of newspapers, coupled with political strife among Dublin politicians, resulted in journalism becoming sensitised to the demand for political commentary. The rise of political reformer Charles Lucas, his battles with Dublin Corporation and the House of Commons and the role of the press in the controversies that followed, indicate the growing power of journalism in influencing public opinion. In 1742 Lucas began a campaign for municipal reform and published a series of pamphlets that exposed the internal machinations of Dublin Corporation. By 1747 this campaign had extended to include charges against parliament and the judicial system. Wary of making a martyr of Lucas, Dublin Castle published The Tickler, the aim of which was to ridicule Lucas. A by-election for the House of Commons in 1748–49 increased further the political temperature. Lucas launched a newspaper, The Censor, to promote his manifesto, much of which was based on political reform and legislative independence for Ireland. As Munter points out, the appearance of these two political journals forced the regular press to sit up and take note of their campaigns, and the way in which political comment and controversy were now features of public discourse: With the Tickler and the Censor the age of the political journal was introduced into Ireland, and Lucas as much as any individual can be said to have been responsible for the actual emergence of the political newspaper, for it was the controversy that he touched off which forced a public and eventually a newspaper press to respond.7 Lucas touched a nerve with the public; he also made the House of Commons nervous. Summoned before the House in October 1749, Lucas was sentenced to imprisonment as an enemy of the state. Although he fled the country the episode left an indelible mark on Irish journalism. It was during this controversy that the phrase ‘the freedom of the press’ was added to the Irish journalistic vocabulary: Irish newspapers, and by extension, Irish journalism had moved from its cautious beginnings to keeping a wary eye on political institutions. As political and economic pressures – the American war of independence, the success of the Irish parliament in winning a measure of legislative independence, and the growing aspirations of Irish Catholics – came to the fore in the 1770s and 1780s, the role of the newspaper as a medium for public debate, and of journalism as a means of keeping an eye on the doings

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 11

28/07/2011 11:23:31

12

Irish journalism before independence

of government, continued to evolve. So too did governmental methods for controlling journalism. In 1771 the government conceded the right of printers to publish verbatim accounts of parliamentary debates but in 1774 it imposed a stamp duty on newspapers. This added to the tax on advertising introduced in 1712 and the tax on newsprint imposed in 1757. These taxes were directed against opposition newspapers that did not benefit from government patronage in the form of official announcements that were exempt from the advertising tax or bribery in the form of direct subsidisation or payments to editors. The favouritism exercised by the authorities in Dublin Castle also extended to the distribution of news. The express copies of the London newspapers – which were critical in terms of content for Irish papers – were only distributed to newspapers in favour with Dublin Castle. Thus not only did the authorities bestow an economic advantage on newspapers that were ‘on its side’, it also bestowed a journalistic advantage. In 1807 the Evening Post asked why, since the express delivery from London was paid for out of the public purse, the Correspondent, a Castle newspaper, was the sole beneficiary. Laughingly, the Correspondent denied the receipt of official favours: it was first with the news, it claimed, by virtue of its efficiency as a news gathering operation.8

Journalistic autonomy As momentum built up behind Daniel O’Connell’s Catholic Association, Michael Staunton established the Morning Register in 1824. Staunton was a former editor of the Freeman’s Journal and had established an unsuccessful Catholic newspaper – the Dublin Evening Herald – in 1821. In Brian Inglis’ account of the development of the press in Ireland, Staunton is credited with radically altering the practises of Irish journalism. Staunton insisted that the newspaper’s emphasis be on reports of events in Ireland rather that the traditional practices of ‘lifting’ content from the London papers or reproducing, verbatim, unedited dispatches from abroad. This change required hiring a newsroom of reporters so that comprehensive coverage could be given to newsworthy events around the country. Staunton achieved his objective, and he essentially forced other Dublin newspapers to do likewise. Staunton also sought to put journalism on a dignified footing. During King George IV’s visit to Dublin in 1821, he was to be given a tour of the Dublin Society and passes were sent to the city’s newspapers that allowed reporters access to the street outside. Staunton complained that no journalist could be expected to subject himself ‘to this inconvenience and, indeed, indignity’.9 The situation was rectified and reporters were allowed inside the venue. Staunton is also credited with improvements in the appearance and readability of newspapers in the 1820s. New layout and better print quality combined with reportage of O’Connell’s countrywide

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 12

28/07/2011 11:23:31

Evolution of a discipline

13

monster meetings and his election victory in 1828 set new standards for Irish newspapers that others were forced to follow.10 Such was Staunton’s influence on Irish journalism that after his election as Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1847 his peers presented him with an ‘illuminated address’ that praised him as ‘the man who, if he be not the father by right of years, does yet, so far as its efficiency is concerned, deserve the title of CREATOR OF THE IRISH PRESS’.11 In contrast to Staunton, O’Connell had a different view of journalism. He demanded uncritical coverage of his political manoeuvrings and expected that his speeches would appear verbatim in newspapers. Very often, proprietors and journalists found themselves caught in a ‘cat and mouse’ game between O’Connell and the authorities who viewed his speeches as seditious. In 1825, the reporters who had been present at one of his speeches were summoned to give evidence against him. They refused. The editor of the Star declared ‘he would not permit his reporter to be the accuser of anyone’; the Morning Post reporter said he did not think ‘the press the proper medium though which the business of a common informer should be transacted; the Freeman’s Journal reporter said he could not remember what O’Connell had said and he did not have his notes with him in court; the Saunders’ News-Letter reporter stated he had been asleep when O’Connell had spoken the supposedly seditious words and so had based his report on the notes of another reporter. The case against O’Connell duly collapsed.12 The unity of these reporters in refusing to act as witnesses indicated a growing sense of professional solidarity and journalistic objectivity. This is all the more pronounced given that some of the journalists worked for newspapers that were not supportive of O’Connell or his campaign. Despite such actions, O’Connell retained a rather poor opinion of journalists and in terms of winning the favour of reporters sent to cover his speeches he was not the most tactful. In 1826 he engaged in a public row with reporters present at a Catholic Association meeting: In the middle of a speech he broke off to accuse them of interrupting him, threatening them with expulsion from the hall. Not, he continued, that he had any desire to be reported by them; indeed, he would much prefer that they should not report him, for he ‘never in his life saw anything so shameful, so disgraceful, as the brevity, the inaccuracy and the imperfection of the reports’. The editor of the Evening Post, who was present, intervened to protest that there surely could be no designed misrepresentation. O’Connell agreed. The fault, he said, rose not from intention, ‘but from total incapacity’.13 In response, the reporters held a meeting, refuted the allegation that O’Connell had been misrepresented and claimed he was abusing the press to disguise his own political inconsistency. Whatever the truth of the matter,

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 13

28/07/2011 11:23:31

Irish journalism before independence

14

Charles Gavan Duffy, who arrived in Dublin to take up a position at the Morning Register, found that journalism was not quite what he had expected: The Dublin journalists, when I came to know them, were a marvel to me. They resembled nothing I had associated in day dreams with the profession I was about to embrace … I thought of a publicist as a man somewhat combative and self-willed perhaps, but abundantly informed, and with settled convictions, for which he was willing to face all odds … But the society into which I was now introduced swarmed with the gipsies of literature, men who lived careless, driftless lives, without thought of to-morrow. The staff of the journals which supported O’Connell had slight sympathy with his policy, and few settled opinions or purpose of any sort … To the reporters, for the most part, public life was a stage play, where a man gesticulated and perorated according as his role was cast by his stage manager … The dream I had had of journalism as a mission had a rude awakening.14 As if to prove O’Connell’s poor view of reporters and their abilites, in his memoir Duffy recounted the activities of Christy Hughes, then the doyen of Dublin reporters. Having been dispatched to cover one of O’Connell’s annual after-dinner speeches to a Dublin charity, Hughes, ‘having relished the good things at dinner too keenly, lost his note-book containing the report of O’Connell’s speech’. Using the magpie’s memory that is the stock of any good reporter, Hughes ‘made good the deficiency by turning back to the speech of the previous year, cutting it out of the file of the Freeman and republishing it; and nobody, it was said, discovered the substitution, not even O’Connell himself ’.15 Reporters, in turn, had a poor view of editorial staff. When Duffy was promoted to the editorial ranks, Hughes mockingly consoled him by noting that ‘when a fellow is found too stupid to be a good reporter they immediately make him an editor’.16

Pressures on journalists Throughout the 1830s Irish journalism continued to flex its autonomy. In May 1838 the country’s first representative body (a ‘press association’) for journalists was established. A meeting of editors and reporters passed a series of resolutions stating that the interest and respectability of the Dublin press would be advanced by such a body, and that it would help to bridge the disparity between the standing of the literary profession and its influence. A committee of two members from each daily paper, one from each evening and weekly paper, and optional ex-officio membership for proprietors was established. The Morning Register welcomed the association by noting that, ‘want of a cordial intercommunication and co-operation has left the individual members of the press a place in the social scale far below

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 14

28/07/2011 11:23:31

Evolution of a discipline

15

that to which their collective influence upon society and the importance of their profession justly gives them claim’. However, the association seems to have little impact on Irish journalism: Charles Gavan Duffy blamed a lack of public spirit on the part of editors for its demise.17 The failure of this body probably had much to do with the newspapers’ dependence on advertising – including the patronage bestowed by O’Connell. This dependence was amply demonstrated in an ugly incident in 1839 when O’Connell clashed directly with the editors of newspapers that were sympathetic to him. Having revived his campaign for Repeal of the Act of Union O’Connell found it stirred little interest among the press. The issue had died in 1834 as O’Connell had concentrated on reform rather than repeal, and editors were wary of giving his new campaign blanket coverage. Advocating the break up of the Union was considered seditious and some editors, particularly Michael Staunton at the Morning Register, believed an objective rather than a sycophantic press would be more beneficial to O’Connell. Such views did not sit well with O’Connell: in an after-dinner speech in 1839 he criticised the press for failing to give his campaign the coverage he felt it deserved. Staunton attempted to reply but was shouted down, and, as O’Connell continued speaking, the reporters walked out to a crescendo of hisses and volleys of leftover dinner.18 The following day, the Freeman’s Journal and the Morning Register, which were generally sympathetic to O’Connell, expressed disgust at the incident and the Register published an advert signed by the reporters (including Charles Gavan Duffy) who had been present to the effect that: having respect to our own character, and holding the independence of the press, to be the foundation of public liberty, and considering that a mean submission under the circumstances would be a surrender of those principles which Mr O’Connell professes a desire to establish, we hold ourselves justified in total suppression of all the proceedings which took place upon the occasion.19 O’Connell’s response to this boycott was swift: the Repeal Association contacted the various newspaper proprietors to remind them of the advertising which it purchased. The subsequent edition of the Pilot published O’Connell’s speech, which, it claimed, had been omitted ‘by mistake’. The Freeman’s Journal sacked the reporter it had sent to the function and published O’Connell’s speech. In an open letter to the readers of the Morning Register Staunton informed them of O’Connell’s actions, but given that the association’s adverts were one of the few sources of advertising revenue for liberal newspapers, Staunton settled relations with O’Connell. At a subsequent Repeal Association meeting O’Connell accused the reporters of ‘political impertinence in taking what I said to themselves, and refusing to publish the proceedings’.20

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 15

28/07/2011 11:23:32

Irish journalism before independence

16

In 1840 the press established a minor victory in terms of access to meetings of public authorities. That year, the north and south Dublin Poor Law boards decided to allow reporters into their meetings. Shortly afterwards, the Poor Law Commissioners ordered that the boards cease this practice. In their view while the decisions of the boards had to be made public, the deliberations leading to decisions should be kept private. The fear was that board members might be unduly swayed by pubic opinion and that publication of debates might drive capable individuals from the board because their ‘well-considered judgment could be liable to be borne down by the fluency of members more practiced in public debate and speaking under the existing influence of having what they say reported in the newspapers’.21 Faced with opposition the Commissioners bowed to pressure and declared that reporters could be admitted but could also be excluded if any member of the board objected to their presence. This new situation allowed newspapers to draw attention to the meetings from which reporters had been excluded. It also allowed for some misunderstandings to occur: in October 1841 the chairman of the north Dublin board complained of misrepresentation of a board meeting in the Freeman’s Journal. He subsequently had to concede that no reporter had been present at the meeting and that information (or misinformation) had been passed to a reporter by a board member. This situation, the Pilot declared, would not have occurred if reporters had been present. While journalists did not establish an absolute right to report on the meeting of any public body, from the 1840s onwards readers certainly became accustomed to seeing accounts of these meetings in newspapers. Many public bodies realised that excluding reporters only aroused suspicion.22

Journalism in the aftermath of the famine During the second half of the nineteenth century Ireland’s population became more urban centred. This was a legacy of the famine but also a result of railway construction. In 1850 Ireland had roughly 400 miles of railway; by 1870 this had increased to almost 2,000 miles.23 Newspapers and journalism thrived in this era, and the development of towns along the railway routes prompted the development of the provincial press. As Richard Comerford pointed out, the railway not only carried people and goods it also carried ideas and allowed the postal service to operate at new levels of efficiency and frequency. The railway also facilitated the expansion of the telegraph as the railway lines provided secure routes for telegraph poles and wires. The completion of a submarine cable from Howth to Holyhead in 1852 incorporated the Irish telegraph into the wider system of the British Empire and allowed for the transmission of news almost instantaneously. From this time parliamentary news appeared in Dublin newspapers as quickly as it did

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 16

28/07/2011 11:23:32

Evolution of a discipline

17

in the London papers. As a result, Dublin papers grew in popularity from the 1850s onwards: in 1882 the Irish Times informed readers that it was printing from ‘sixteen to seventeen or more columns of debates, comprising nearly forty thousand telegraphed words per night’.24 Reform of the so-called knowledge taxes also added to the development of the newspaper industry. The tax on advertisements was abolished in 1853, stamp duty was abolished in 1855, and the tax on newsprint was abolished in 1861. Greater literary also helped. The establishment of a network of Catholic secondary schools around the country assisted in increasing literacy rates: in 1841, 47 per cent of the population aged five and upwards were described as literate; by 1881 this figure had risen to 75 per cent.25 Political reform also empowered more and more people. Successive electoral reform in 1850 and 1867 extended the franchise and the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872 removed the power of landlords to intimidate tenants into voting for particular candidates. As more newspapers were established the number of journalists employed increased. In the 1861 census editors, authors and reporters accounted for 259 people. These numbers increased to 388 in 1881, 651 in 1891, 807 in 1901 and 1,108 in 1911.26 Irish newspapers and journalism evolved alongside major political debates and constitutional change and the sector provided an attractive profession for those of average means who were interested in politics. As M. L. Legg put it, ‘growing numbers of nationalists saw journalism as a respectable way to live because, unlike law, it could not be seen as supporting the government’.27 The growth of the Irish newspaper industry worried the government in London: it was particularly concerned about the Fenian press that emerged in the 1860s. In 1863 the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) leader James Stephens established the Irish People, ‘a goldmine of separatist declamation’.28 The failed IRB rising of March 1867 resulted in a clampdown on the press and the imprisonment of several journalists. A. M. Sullivan of the Nation and Richard Piggott of The Irishman were both sent to prison for the publication of seditious material.29 Piggott, in particular, irked the government with the publication of a series of articles on the ill-treatment of Fenian prisoners; a series that included the story of how prominent Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa had been handcuffed continuously (meals and night-time excluded) for thirty-five days as punishment for emptying his chamber-pot over the governor of the prison.30 After the unsuccessful 1867 rising, attention turned to land reform – a campaign that politicised journalism as never before. Throughout the 1880s the press played a central role in the growth of the Land League and its campaign for land reform: a process helped by the fact that many newspaper proprietors and editors were senior Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) politicians. Since land was at the heart of the political struggle it was also at the centre of journalistic life: land sales, evictions, boycotts, crop raids, Land League meetings and attacks on landlords dominated the work of

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 17

28/07/2011 11:23:32

18

Irish journalism before independence

journalists. Coverage of such events was interpreted as incitement to violence by the London government. One writer went so far as to describe the role of the Irish press in the land war as ‘journalistic terrorism’.31 Interestingly, in contrast to O’Connell during the Repeal campaign, Home Rule leader and champion of land reform, Charles Stewart Parnell cultivated the company and trust of reporters. As Irish Times reporter Andrew Dunlop recalled, ‘Mr Parnell, so far as my experience went … was always civil and courteous to journalists. He frequently travelled in the same compartment with the reporters when going to or returning from a meeting in the country’.32 But as with the O’Connell’s campaigns earlier in the century, journalists often found themselves caught between the Land League and the authorities, and, during the land war, there existed a strong sense of professional solidarity. Sharing transport from town to town, covering the same campaign meetings, court cases and evictions brought them together in a spirit of mutual defence and camaraderie. When, at one function, Dunlop expressed a fear of being asked leave, his colleagues assured him that should that happen then they would leave also.33 As well as straddling the fine line between reporting the Land League’s resolutions and avoiding charges of conspiracy, there was the threat of physical violence. Reporters, who were generally outsiders, had to make sure that they were not mistaken for bailiffs at evictions. In his memoir, Dunlop recounted how, at one eviction the crowd mistook him for a bailiff, and how, at another, he was thrown into a river with a cry of ‘Down wid ye’ by a man who had offered to carry him across.34 The importance of shorthand to a journalist could not be overstated. Dunlop described it as ‘the “open sesame” to journalistic work’35, while Bodkin observed ‘if a man can write even a hundred words a minute and read them at sight he is worth a trial as a reporter’.36 Journalists were conscientious too – sometimes to the point of extremity. On joining the Freeman’s Journal, Mathias Bodkin was told the story of the diligent reporter who, when crossing Carlisle Bridge, witnessed a man sink in the mud of the river Liffey and responded thus: ‘Hastily he glanced at his watch as the head of the victim vanished. “My poor fellow”, he exclaimed with professional sympathy, “you are unfortunately too late for the evening paper, but I’ll give you a good par. [paragraph] to-morrow”.’37 Bodkin was later sent to a circus to cover a trapeze artist who, on this occasion, having been propelled by a huge spring towards the centre of the dome, missed both the trapeze and the safely net and ended up in the orchestra’s pit. As Bodkin stood ‘dizzy with the horror of the scene, not knowing if the victim were alive or dead’ a fellow journalist whispered in his ear: ‘That will make a good par. for the Press Association if we get it off at once.’38 Given their distinctive role and skills, their strong sense of solidarity and the dangers they faced in doing their job, it was not surprising that

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 18

28/07/2011 11:23:33

Evolution of a discipline

19

thoughts turned to a representative association. The formation of the National Association of Journalists of Great Britain in 1884 prompted Irish journalists to meet in 1886 to discuss the establishment of a similar body in Ireland.39 The Association of Irish Journalists (AIJ) was founded in February 1887 to ‘incorporate the profession of journalists in Ireland for their mutual advantage … [and] … to represent the status of the profession and protect its interests’.40 James A. Scott, editor of the Irish Times, was a leading proponent of the association and noted that before it came into being journalists were: utterly unknown to each other; they were jealous of each other; they were often looked upon as in antagonism to one another – they were regarded as people who had no recognised positions. The term Bohemian was very frequently applied to them. Now they had got beyond that. They considered themselves entitled to be regarded as a profession as well as other professions.41 The AIJ brought journalists from all four provinces together and one of its first tasks was to establish a benevolent fund for the relief of distress caused by illness or the death of members. The former editor of Parnell’s United Irishman – and Land League activist – William O’Brien was elected AIJ president in 1888. The following year the association split. It met in February 1889 to consider the imprisonment of a reporter – William Reeves – who had been imprisoned for refusing to give evidence in court. But the meeting also passed an unscheduled motion of sympathy on the imprisonment of its president, William O’Brien, for Land League activities. Two days later, the Ulster members, and a substantial number of Dublin reporters resigned in protest at the AIJ having involved itself in political matters.42 These reporters established Irish branches of the Institute of Journalists in 1890. The latter organisation was, from 1907 onwards, replaced by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). Despite the infighting, the emergence of representative organisations helped consolidate journalism as a profession at the cusp of the twentieth century. In a sense, just as Parnell had politicised the press in Ireland, his fall from grace heralded the de-politicisation of the press. At the very least, it coincided with the rise of the ‘new journalism’ as espoused by T. P. O’Connor.43 The O’Shea divorce that brought down Parnell split the Irish Parliamentary Party; it also split the nationalist press that had demonstrated a united front during the land war. The eventual realignment of the press resulted in William Martin Murphy launching the Irish Independent in 1905. Ireland’s first halfpenny paper, the Independent was a wholly commercial enterprise that owed much to T. P. O’Connor’s view that journalism should reflect readers’ tastes and lifestyles rather than solely report on political developments. In 1888, O’Connor had launched the Star, in which he promised:

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 19

28/07/2011 11:23:33

Irish journalism before independence

20

plenty of entirely unpolitical literature – sometimes humorous, sometimes pathetic; anecdotal, statistical, the craze of fashions, and the arts of housekeeping – now and then a short, dramatic and picturesque tale. In our reporting columns we shall do away with the hackneyed style of obsolete journalism; and the men and women that figure in the forum or the pulpit or the law court shall be presented as they are – living breathing, in blushes or in tears – and not merely by the dead words that they utter.44 This ‘new journalism’ coincided with innovations in printing technology and a growth in advertising that heralded the rise of the mass circulation newspaper. In journalistic terms there was a gradual shift away from concentrating solely on the political issues of the day and a move towards personalised reporting, human-interest stories and interviews. Verbatim reports of parliamentary speeches were replaced by compressed summaries. There were also changes in layout: the paragraph replaced the lengthy column while headlines and crossheads were introduced to break up the masses of text on each page. The success of the Irish Independent demonstrated a marked demand for this ‘new journalism’. By 1914 it had a circulation of 100,000 compared to 34,000 for the Irish Times, which remained the voice of southern unionism. Nonetheless, the connections between politics and journalism continued. The cultural nationalist and independence movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s had their own publications and journalists were leading proponents of both traditions. The political press made a potent resurgence with the establishment of the Irish Press in 1931. But as the decades passed and the NUJ established negotiating rights with newspaper proprietors in 1947, there was greater emphasis on journalism as a profession. Agreed terms and conditions of employment and shared norms of objectivity facilitated greater journalistic independence and career mobility. By the 1960s the era of the politically partisan press had truly ended and journalism as a distinct profession had been firmly established in Ireland.

Notes 1 R. Munter, The History of the Irish Newspaper, 1685–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp. 6–7, 12. 2 Ibid., p. 92. 3 Ibid., p. 93. 4 Ibid., p. 94. 5 Ibid., p. 97. 6 Ibid., p. 189. 7 Ibid., pp. 184–5.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 20

28/07/2011 11:23:33

Evolution of a discipline

21

8 B. Inglis, The Freedom of the Press in Ireland 1784–1841 (London: Faber & Faber, 1954), p. 117. 9 Ibid., pp. 167–9. 10 Ibid., p. 176. 11 Ibid., pp. 167–9. 12 M. MacDonagh, Daniel O’Connell and the Story of Catholic Emancipation (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1924), pp. 135–7. 13 B. Inglis, ‘O’Connell and the Irish Press 1800–42’, Irish Historical Studies, 8: 29 (1952), pp. 19–20. 14 C. G. Duffy, My Life in Two Hemispheres (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898), pp. 27–8. 15 Ibid., p. 30. 16 Ibid., p. 34. 17 Ibid., p. 27. 18 The Pilot, 23 January 1839, cited in Inglis (1952), p. 24. 19 Register, 23 January 1839, cited in Inglis (1952), p. 25. 20 Ibid., pp. 25–6. 21 B. Inglis, 1954, pp. 219–20. 22 Ibid., pp. 219–20. 23 R. Comerford, The Fenians in Context, Irish Politics and Society 1848–82 (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1985), pp. 374–5. 24 Irish Times, 20 March 1882, p. 4. 25 L. M. Cullen, Eason & Son: A History (Dublin: Eason, 1989), pp. 5–7. 26 Ibid., p. 7. 27 M. L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press 1850–92 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 72. 28 R. Comerford, p. 109. 29 Ibid., p. 149. 30 Ibid., pp. 171–2. 31 I. S. Leadam, Coercive Measures in Ireland (London: National Press Agency, 1880), p. 29, cited in Legg, p. 157. 32 A. Dunlop, Fifty Years of Irish Journalism (Dublin: Hanna & Neale, 1911), p. 30. 33 Ibid., p. 39. 34 Ibid., pp. 62–3, 137–8. 35 Ibid., p. 3. 36 M. Bodkin, Recollections of an Irish Judge: Press, Bar and Parliament (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1914), p. 28. 37 M. Bodkin, p. 29. 38 Ibid., pp. 29–30. 39 Irish Times, 18 September 1886, p. 6. 40 Irish Times, 7 February 1887, p. 6. 41 Irish Times, 19 September 1887, p. 9. 42 Irish Times, 18 and 25 February, 1889, p. 6. 43 See T. P. O’Connor, ‘The New Journalism’, The New Review, 1 (1889), pp. 423–34. 44 Star, 17 January 1888, cited in A. Havighurst, Radical Journalist, H. W. Massinghim 1860–1924 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), pp. 18–19.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 21

28/07/2011 11:23:34

2

How journalism became a profession Michael Foley

It was not inevitable that in 1922 Ireland would emerge from more than a century of political and social struggles as a democracy, but it did for many and complex reasons, one of which was the press and how it evolved throughout the nineteenth century. Understanding how the press and journalism developed tells a lot about social development in Ireland, and also sheds light on a media that came of age in a colonial context that was very different from journalism in the two other main English speaking countries, Britain and the United States. As part of the United Kingdom since the Act of Union in 1801, Irish journalists and editors were, of course, integral to debates surrounding freedom of expression and liberty of the press that had been part of British intellectual discourse since Milton. There was also another intellectual stream in Ireland, which derived from the republican ideals of the French Revolution, the Rights of Man, and the right to freedom of thought and opinion. Despite such debates, however, the British authorities entertained reluctantly the notion of a free press within the United Kingdom and, especially, Ireland. Thus an increasingly professionalised journalism developed in Ireland in the context of a struggling public sphere and a political partisan press, which was ironically often politically engaged. All these factors had a profound effect on how independence developed in the new century. Journalism, to appropriate Jean Chalaby’s term, was an ‘invention’ of the Victorian era, and while there are many similarities between the journalistic cultures of the two islands, there are also significant differences.1 The similarities are all the more evident when one recalls the many highly influential Irish journalists, such as William Howard Russell, James J. O’Kelly and T. P. O’Connor, who worked in Britain. Irish journalism was, however, influenced by much more than the journalism of London. Historically, not only had Irish journalists worked in North America and Australia, but many worked as foreign correspondents in far-flung corners of the Empire for British newspapers. All these factors, geographical and

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 22

28/07/2011 11:23:34

How journalism became a profession

23

ideological, influenced how journalism developed as a professional practice in Ireland at a time of seismic change. The nineteenth century opened with the Act of Union, followed by a series of major, often dramatic political and economic developments: Catholic Emancipation which allowed Catholics to take their seats at Westminster; the Repeal movement which sought the restoration of a local parliament in Dublin; the Famine of the 1840s; the Land War; the rise of both militant and constitutional nationalism; the political debates surrounding Home Rule; the struggles of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster; and the rise and fall of Charles Stewart Parnell; the War of Independence; and, in 1922, Irish independence itself followed by the trauma of civil war. Journalists in Ireland worked as professional recorders of these events, working for a politicised press and a tradition of political engagement into the twentieth century, not unlike journalism in Europe. Given the political and social conditions in Ireland it was inevitable that journalism and the press would evolve both at a different rate and in a different direction to that of Britain which was, from the 1850s onwards, an increasingly commercial press, whose development is trenchantly analysed by James Curran and Jean Seaton in their pioneering work on the British media, Power Without Responsibility.2 In Ireland colonial conditions and the state of Irish capitalism delayed many of the economic developments within the media that took place in Britain.3 But it was not just political turmoil that underpinned the development of journalism in Ireland, there were other social factors as well: the establishment of the national school system and the growth in literacy; the abolition of stamp duty; changes in print technology; improved transport; growth of urbanisation following the famine; improving telegraphy; and increasing advertising revenue were the major factors in what Raymond Williams has called the ‘long revolution’. In Ireland, even the most humble journalists reported on historic events, often at some danger to themselves. Andrew Dunlop – whose memoir of his time in Irish journalism from the 1860s to the early years of the twentieth century provides a rare and invaluable source of journalistic practice in this era – gives an account of covering an eviction and the risk of being mistaken for a pernicious process server who delivered the eviction notice. It was the practice at the time to bring down special bailiffs from Dublin, men who were not known in the locality, so that the identity of the process server might be more difficult to ascertain. One result of this, however, was that any civilian who was a stranger ran a risk of being mistaken for a process server.4 The illustrated newspapers made much pictorial mileage out of these events. Towards the end of the Land War, the Illustrated London News, for instance, thought it worth recording the treatment of one of its Special Artists in

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 23

28/07/2011 11:23:34

Irish journalism before independence

24

Ireland showing him being drummed out of an Irish town by a crowd brandishing sticks, who had probably mistaken him for a process server. The dangerous situation was uncharacteristically understated in its caption: ‘Our Special Correspondent Misunderstood by the Crowd’.5 Increasing sectarianism in Northern Ireland, especially in Belfast, offered further differences between the working experiences of Irish journalists compared to their British colleagues. For Irish journalists covering political events, sectarian violence and riots were part of the job. The reaction of a visiting journalist from England, F. Frankfort Moore, is interesting in that he was evidently shocked at the experiences of his Irish colleagues. Moore was so taken aback at the risk of working as a reporter in Belfast in the 1880s that he suggested they be paid danger money. As he put it himself: I chanced to be in Belfast at the time of the riots in 1886, and in my experience of the incidents of every day and every night led me to believe that British troops have been engaged in some campaigns that were a good deal less risky to the war correspondents than the riots were to the local newspaper reporters. Six of them were more or less severely wounded in the course of a week. I am strongly of the opinion that the reporters should have been paid at the ration of war correspondents at that time.6

Catholic Emancipation, Repeal and the creation of a public sphere The journalist taking a shorthand note at a public meeting was, in effect, facilitating the development of a public sphere within which political debates took place. From the end of the eighteenth century right up into the twentieth century, campaigns for political and social change were often linked with newspapers and other forms of journalism. Additionally, the protagonists were often themselves political activists, Members of Parliament or members of revolutionary organisations. As Joep Leerson explains: Printing was revolutionised by the invention of the rotary press in 1811; paper manufacture likewise by the invention of mechanised paper production in the 1790s and the introduction of wood pulp as an ingredient. As a result the production costs of printed matter plummeted in the decades following 1810 – that is to say, precisely at the time when Catholic Emancipation redefined the accessibility and distribution of Ireland’s public space and public sphere.7 The winning of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 was a constitutional revolution achieved by mobilising public opinion. The Catholic Association, established by O’Connell was a mass-movement, funded by the so-called

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 24

28/07/2011 11:23:34

How journalism became a profession

25

‘Catholic Rent’, the penny-a-month subscribed by thousands of people around the country. By the 1820s, the Catholic gentry – of which O’Connell was a member – together with commercial interests in the towns, had evolved a ‘liberal Catholic’ politics; as Roy Foster explains, O’Connell’s lieutenants, ‘prosperous farmers, businessmen, the urban merchant community and newspaper editors were much in evidence.’8 O’Connell’s own understanding of the press’s role is evident in his grasp of the part played by editors in campaigns for Catholic Emancipation and, later, the Repeal Movement. The extent to which O’Connell advocated the development of the press and used it to his political advantage is striking, The Cork Examiner, for example, founded in 1841, actively supported O’Connell. The newspaper was first published by John Francis Maguire, who was an MP and supporter of O’Connell in the House of Commons. The example of Maurice Lenihan is also instructive. He was the sort of middle class Catholic who was the backbone of the Catholic Association. Lenihan worked for a number of Munster newspapers, before being urged by O’Connell to start a newspaper in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, advocating repeal. O’Connell himself announced the founding of the Tipperary Vindicator in 1844.9 It would be a mistake to view the development of the press in Ireland, and with it journalistic practice, as one forward move towards greater freedom and influence. The attitudes of British governments towards issues such as press freedom might have been changing slowly in Britain, but in Ireland, the authorities were still highly reluctant to entertain any move toward press freedom, and harassment and repressive legislation was used against the press throughout this period. By 1880, most newspapers, both Dublin dailies and the weekly provincial newspapers, were identified politically. About one third of the provincial newspapers had declared themselves as nationalist. This brought with it popularity in terms of readership, but their association with movements, such as Repeal, the Land League and other reform movements, meant the same newspapers were victims of the legislation to close newspapers, destroy printing presses and arrest proprietors for printing what was claimed as seditious material. In Dublin, there was the moderately liberal, Dublin Evening Post, the conservative Dublin Evening Mail and, from 1859, the liberal unionist, Irish Times. The two most influential newspapers were, however, The Nation and the Freeman’s Journal, two nationalist newspapers. The Nation was the paper of Young Ireland, a movement that resembled European romantic nationalist movements, such as Mazzini’s Young Italy. The Nation achieved a readership possibly as high as 250,000 by 1843. Due to its availability in reading rooms, its actual circulation would, of course, have been considerably less. The Freeman’s Journal was the most influential nationalist newspaper up until the 1890s. Its support for Home Rule was such, that by the 1890s, it was almost considered the official organ of the Irish Parliamentary Party, with

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 25

28/07/2011 11:23:35

Irish journalism before independence

26

Home Rule and land reform the only issues considered of any importance editorially. Bill Kissane argues in Explaining Irish Democracy that a civil society developed in nineteenth century Ireland, which had profound implications for the development of Irish politics: If civil society is a sphere in which democratic practices can develop, in which an autonomous public opinion can be formed, and in which people acquire the skills that make them effective citizens in a modern polity, then the development of Irish civil society should be regarded as a precondition of the emergence of Irish democracy between 1918 and 1922.10 Kissane does not include journalism or the media in his analysis, other than mentioning the Institute of Journalists as one of the organisations beginning to regulate professional life in the second half of the nineteenth century. But there is little doubt that the press and journalists were involved in the development of this civil society, with newspapers reporting on activities of the many civic, community, professional, self-help, political, cultural and other organisations, which, Kissane argues, were the foundations of Irish civil society. Journalists were in the forefront of creating an autonomous public opinion that was necessary for the development of democratic practice. A major factor in the growth of newspapers was, of course, the political situation in Ireland. Political events and the role of newspapers in expressing popular viewpoints allowed some to flourish, but others, failing to read public opinion accurately or holding political viewpoints that had fallen out of favour, just disappeared. As John Horgan sees it: It was a journalistic landscape which had evolved dramatically in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the old network of small Protestant owned papers, situated for the most part in garrison towns was supplemented, challenged and in some cases obliterated by the growth of nationalist papers whose success was based partly on rising education and income levels among the Catholic population, and partly on developing forms of political self expression from the Land War in the 1880s onwards.11 The Nation itself grew out of a split within the Repeal Movement. Other publications were associated, or became associated, with particular political organisations, such as the Freeman’s Journal and the Irish Parliamentary Party and Parnell. Unionist newspapers including The Irish Times voiced the other viewpoint in Ireland, that of defence of the Union and the link with Great Britain.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 26

28/07/2011 11:23:35

How journalism became a profession

27

Professional journalists and journalistic practices So who were these Irish journalists? According to British sources, such as the novelist William Thackeray in his novel Pendennis, they were lovable rogues, hard drinking hacks, but dishonest and not to be trusted.12 The reality was somewhat different. What emerges from memoirs and other accounts is of journalists coming from the emerging urban middle classes, especially the Catholic middle classes. Journalism offered paid employment for young men whose background did not include a private income, and who could not necessarily attend for religious reasons the country’s only university, Trinity College, Dublin.13 For young men who were politically aware and interested in parliamentary politics journalism was an ideal occupation. As Legg notes: ‘Journalism was a respectable profession unconnected with the problems of land ownership and the governing powers.’14 Far from being the hacks of English prejudice, many Irish journalists were idealistic men who saw in journalism a respectable way of influencing events. Commenting on the role and place of the journalist in Irish society towards the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Declan Kiberd compares the distinction made in Britain between the journalist and the artist or literary writer. He suggests that the chasm between the two that exists in many cultures did not so exist in Ireland. The major debates of the Irish revival were conducted in the pages of the Daily Express and United Irishman. Contributing journalists belonged to a profession for which a university degree was not a prerequisite, which accounts for the democratic tone and suspicion of aristocracy in these exchanges. Many supported movements for ‘self-help’, whether in adult education or Abbey Theatre, on principles first laid down by Jonathan Swift. He had shown in his brilliant polemics that it was quite possible to close the gap between journalism and art.15 Mathew Bodkin was one such boy who became a journalist and later a barrister and then an MP. Bodkin worked for the Freeman’s Journal, while reading for the Bar, a route to a professional qualification popular among middle class Catholics. ‘While learning law and eating dinners I contrived by the influence of Bishop Duggan to get a place as an unpaid probationer on the reporting staff of the Freeman’s Journal.’16 The legendary journalist and Member of Parliament, T. P. O’Connor,17 who worked for Saunder’s Newsletter in Dublin, the Telegraph in London and founded the Star, the Sun and T. P.’s Weekly, learnt shorthand in Galway, while attending Queen’s College, Galway. In his biography of O’Connor, Henry Hamilton Fyfe gives an account of the attractions of journalism for a boy of a particular class: The expense (unavoidable at that time) of going to London to ‘eat his

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 27

28/07/2011 11:23:35

Irish journalism before independence

28

dinners’ – that is to keep his terms at an Inn of Court – put an end to this dream of becoming a barrister. His hopes of a Civil Servant appointment were as effectively blasted. He looked around and saw that in Ireland then ‘there was always a good deal of what is called official note-taking – that is to say, the reporting of governmental commissions, of state trials and the like’. The shorthand reporters who did this were paid at the rate of eight pence for every seventy-two words. During the latter part of his attendance at Queen’s College O’Connor had been learning shorthand.18 Following graduation O’Connor was employed as a reporter on Saunder’s Newsletter, which he described as a ‘good old stout State and Church full-blown Protestant organ’, at a salary of two pounds a week.19 While the Irish press remained a political press long after the English press had become more or less wholly commercial, journalists themselves had absorbed ideas that we can now see as an emerging professional identity. Accuracy, of necessity, was a major factor in the professionalisation of journalism. The use of criminal libel, defamation, and the need to cover highly controversial political trials encouraged the use of shorthand to ensure accuracy. In his novel, White Magic, Bodkin, gives an account of a young man seeking a post in a fictitious Dublin newspaper, the Free Press, obviously a thinly disguised Freeman’s Journal. It is clear from this account that for all his accomplishments, including attending one of Ireland’s foremost boys’ schools, the editor is seeking skill in shorthand: ‘What can you do?’ said Grayle shortly, with an abrupt change of manner.20 ‘Very little, I’m afraid,’ said Gerald shyly. He had not the faintest notion what he might be expected to do. ‘He took first place at Clongowes,’ broke in Dr Burton. ‘He was their best all round boy at books and games, and the captain of the eleven.’ Grayle smiled. ‘Have you ever written anything?’ ‘English composition and English poetry’. ‘You won’t find much poetry about this place, I’m afraid. You don’t know anything about shorthand, of course?’ ‘A little.’ ‘What do you mean by a little. Can you take a speaker down?’ ‘If he’s not too fast.’ ‘Well, we’ll try. No time like the present. There’s a pencil and a notebook there on the table.’ ‘You’ve got a knife? All right. Point the pencil on both sides for fear of accidents. We’ll start when you are ready.’21

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 28

28/07/2011 11:23:35

How journalism became a profession

29

Bias and impartiality At a time of passionate and often violent political activity, many journalists consciously tried to forge a profession, engaging with issues of bias and impartiality, while being employed by a politically aligned press. Journalists often saw themselves as both politically aligned in their private lives, engaging with political controversy, while protesting their impartiality in what they produced professionally. Dunlop, for instance, while insisting on his impartiality in covering events associated with repealing the Union, was also the author of five pamphlets written for the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, the political association of Unionist businessmen, academics and landowners, founded in May 1885 to organise resistance to Home Rule.22 In relation to one employment position, Dunlop declared that: It was well known that my political views were not those of the conductors of the Freeman’s Journal, but it was equally well known that whatever might be the views I entertained my employer could depend on my giving fair and impartial reports.23 And again, Dunlop recounts his experience on the Freeman’s Journal and what was expected of him, as a reporter: ‘My experience on that journal [the Freeman’s Journal] at that period was, that its conductors desired that the members of the reporting staff should give unbiased reports.’24 In fact, the only complaint Dunlop has against any newspaper he worked for, at least professionally, is against a newspaper with which he would have been closely aligned politically. It was when working for The Irish Times that he complains about the sub editors in a way instantly recognisable to any reporter today. His copy was changed, an act he clearly believes was contrary to correct professional behaviour. He was covering the murder of a land agent in the west of Ireland and saw, when he read his newspaper, that an addition had been made to his story. Clearly Dunlop viewed himself as a professional with his own reputation independent of the newspaper that employed him. This is a very unusual course for a sub-editor to adopt; for although as long as journalism is conducted on the anonymous system, the editor or it may be the proprietor of the newspaper is the person responsible to the public for what appears in its columns, the writer being responsible only to his employer; yet when a representative of a newspaper is sent on a mission such as I was entrusted with on this occasion, his identity necessarily becomes known, all the more so in my case because I was well known in Loughrea, and, to a limited circle – to those from whom he has been acquiring information for example – he is looked upon as the responsible individual.25

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 29

28/07/2011 11:23:36

Irish journalism before independence

30

Dunlop, as a Unionist, was not unique in working successfully for newspapers that hardly reflected his own politics. T. P. O’Connor, as noted previously, worked for the Protestant Saunders Weekly, while Arthur Malley, also an Irish Parliamentary Party MP, was able to move from the Unionist Sligo Star to the nationalist Sligo Champion.26 The veteran Fenian, John Devoy, a journalist in Chicago and New York, recounts in his memoir how editorial writers simply wrote to order and not necessarily from conviction.27 Writing about his fellow Fenian, William O’Donovan, who worked for The Irish Times, Devoy observed: After his Spanish experience William O’Donovan returned to Dublin and became an editorial writer on The Irish Times. It is one of the anomalies of daily journalism in every country (including America), that the editorials are largely written by men who don’t agree with the policy of the paper, but write to order. While William O’Donovan, a Fenian, was writing Tory editorials for The Irish Times, Jack Adams, Atheist, was doing the Catholic articles in the Freeman’s Journal. O’Donovan and Adams used to meet at supper in the Ship Tavern in Abbey Street and have a good laugh over their articles, of which they didn’t believe a word.28 While political passions might sometimes test it, there is no doubt that by the 1870s, regardless of the political affiliations of the newspapers that employed them, reporters had developed a sense of professional solidarity.

Journalism as a profession By the end of the nineteenth century, Irish journalists displayed traits that would indicate a growing professional consciousness. They had a skill in shorthand, a professional adherence to impartiality, and were aware of new developments within journalism, such as the interview, a new form of writing that was becoming increasingly popular. According to Dunlop: My idea of what an interview should be, if the matter is one of a controversial nature, is that the interviewer should place himself in antagonism to the interviewed, so that the points in controversy may be clearly brought out, and fully discussed. Only in this way can the truth be elicited, and the merits or demerits of each side exhibited.29 Irish journalists had a clear view of themselves as a distinct category of workers. They joined the Institute of Journalists in great numbers and exhibited solidarity with each other but as long time journalist, J. B. Hall observed: It has often impressed itself on me during my elongated experience

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 30

28/07/2011 11:23:36

How journalism became a profession

31

that reporters are apt at times to overlook the peculiarly and, indeed, exceptionally important and responsible position which they occupy, and have a tendency to put up with indignities which are possibly the result of this same want of self assertion. Too often they forget that as representatives of the Press they are entitled to be regarded as the most important arbiters of the situation in which their profession places them.30 A recognisable workplace organisation had also emerged, with similar practices and even its own jargon. Terms such as ‘morning town’ and ‘night town’, denoting particular work shifts, are still in use in newsrooms today. Bodkin, commenting on a typical, if rather idealised, day in the Freeman’s Journal, which, he says could be applied to any Dublin newspaper of the day. In the Freeman’s Journal, as in every well-regulated Irish newspaper office, there is a chief reporter, whose duty it is to set tasks to the rest. He knows, in his own expressive phrase ‘what’s on’. He keeps a record of all public proceedings. He has an instinct for news. Each morning the reporters meet the Chief in the reporters’ room, are duly ‘marked’ in a Doomsday Book, for their respective tasks, and are dispatched through the city and country on their news gathering missions. Wherever there is anything interesting to be seen or heard the reporter is there, nothing escapes his all-pervading activity. He writes for a busy and curious public not a word too few, not a word too many, so that he who runs (for tram or train) may read and understand.31 From the middle of the nineteenth century, journalists in Ireland had forged a professionalism based on concepts of impartial reporting, common skills and membership of a professional body. Such were deemed necessary to ensure employment in a small media market. Journalists could move from newspaper to newspaper, regardless of the editorial line, or ownership. In other words impartiality had become an economic necessity, ensuring employment regardless of one’s religion or politics, and allowed journalists to move from nationalist to unionist newspapers without a crisis of conscience. The number of journalists engaged in politics was substantial. At one time the Irish Parliamentary Party in Westminster had more journalists within its elected ranks than any other political party, rising from one in 1880 to 15 in 1895. And of course, politically engaged journalists also worked outside Westminster: John Devoy, Joseph Clarke, Edmund O’Donovan, Arthur Griffith and Bulmer Hobson. Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, the two leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, were also, at various times, journalists and editors. By the 1890s and the first years of the twentieth century, great changes were beginning to take place and factors such as the growing influence of

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 31

28/07/2011 11:23:36

32

Irish journalism before independence

republicanism, the Irish Republican Brotherhood and other physical force movements, with their clandestine press, and the damage done to the Irish Parliamentary Party by the Parnell split, had implications for the Irish media. The Freeman’s Journal suffered from the split in the IPP at Westminster. It had, from the 1890s, become an instrument of party policy, but managed to limp along for another two decades until finally absorbed by its rival, the Irish Independent, in 1924. The merging of a number of newspapers associated with the Irish ­Parliamentary Party or Parnell, including the United Ireland,32 resulted in the businessman, William Martin Murphy, buying the Irish Independent which he re-launched in 1905. He had looked towards the popular journalism of Lord Northcliffe for his inspiration and sent his editor, T. R. Harrington, to London to study the popular press. Murphy had his own political views and was not afraid to use his newspapers to express them, particularly as the employers’ leader during the great labour dispute, the Dublin Lockout of 1913. However, there is no doubt that his entry into the newspaper industry meant the slow end of the dominance of a political press in Ireland. As Ireland entered the twentieth century, and with independence from Britain in 1922, the newspaper market was comprised of The Irish Times representing the Protestant and still mainly Unionist population, and the Catholic middle classes represented by the conservative nationalist Irish Independent, and its sister newspapers. A range of small, often clandestine newspapers served the more radical republican tradition that would have to wait until 1931 for a national offering when Eamon de Valera founded the Irish Press. The Freeman’s Journal limped along until 1924, when it was incorporated into the Irish Independent. It had found itself out of step with a more radical nationalism, following the collapse of the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1918, and also found itself unable to compete with William Martin Murphy’s Irish Independent.

Conclusion As Ireland shifted from a colonial to a post-colonial society, the growing professionalisation of journalists, with their sense of solidarity, a common ideology in impartial reporting, along with a professional confidence as displayed in various journalistic memoirs, meant they were well placed to make the transition from being a politically engaged group of workers to a professional group working for a post-colonial, less politically aligned press, one more concerned with nation building. Irish journalists were influenced by debates about freedom of expression and the press and democracy that had been part of British and European discourse and adapted them to Ireland’s colonial situation. If Britain was reluctant to extend a tolerance of the press to Ireland, the Act of Union made

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 32

28/07/2011 11:23:36

How journalism became a profession

33

it difficult to apply a double standard with any consistency. This allowed journalists to work within and contribute to an embryonic public sphere and a growing civil society, which led to a democratic culture that was the result of reporting events, whether it was O’Connell’s monster meetings, the activities of the Irish parliamentarians, the Land League, the co operative movement, cultural developments, or the Gaelic League and other areas of civic engagement. The size of the Irish media, its role as a creator of public opinion and the need to develop a labour market, meant the journalist, however politically engaged, used such concepts as impartiality as a protection against being the victim of political and editorial change, and as a means of selling his labour to as wide a market as possible. It could also be argued that to adopt objectivity was itself a radical position in a colonial context, in that it set journalists in opposition to a state whose actions, whether in legislation or within institutions such as the courts of law would rarely be viewed as legitimate. The act of being ‘objective’ might itself be viewed as being partisan, in that it allowed the nationalist press to remain adversarial by simply not legitimising the colonial state. Following Irish independence, the political role of the journalist shifted, becoming one of nation building and giving credibility to the new state. Even the pro-unionist Irish Times adopted the official names of the institutions of the new State, such as Taoiseach, for Prime Minister and the Dail, for parliament. In a similar vein, the Irish Press – founded by de Valera, to give support to his new constitutional political party, Fianna Fail – was forced to plough a delicate furrow between partisanship and professional norms, well aware that to fall too far on either side would threaten the credibility of the new venture. But by this time, the professionalised journalist was now well placed to play a legitimising function within a post-colonial Ireland.

Notes 1 J. K. Chalaby, The Invention of Journalism (London: Macmillan, 1998), p. 3. 2 J. Curran and J. Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain (London: Routledge, 1997). Curran and Seaton argue that far from the traditional Whig view of press history, a political press and the repression that went with it gave way to an increasingly commercial press funded by advertising. This, they argue, was far more effective in ridding Britain of its radical political press than censorship and repression. 3 To suggest the British press had become a commercial press is not to suggest it was non-ideological, but simply that it tended to support the status quo and reflected minor differences within that. The Irish press, on the other hand, reflected the fundamental divisions within a colonial society. 4 A. Dunlop, Fifty Years of Irish Journalism (Dublin: Hanna & Neale, 1911), p. 62. 5 Illustrated London News, 25 December 1886.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 33

28/07/2011 11:23:37

34

Irish journalism before independence

6 F. F. Moore, A Journalist’s Notebook (London: Hutchinson, 1895), p. 220. 7 J. Leerson, Hidden Ireland, Public Sphere (Dublin: Arlene House, 2002), pp. 37–8. 8 R. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600–1972 (London: Allen Lane, 1988), p. 299. 9 M. L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press, 1850–1892 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 40. 10 B. Kissane, Explaining Irish Democracy (Dublin: University College Press, 2002), p. 113. 11 J. Horgan, Irish Media: A Critical History since 1922 (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 6. 12 Thackerary’s Pendennis, introduces Captain Charles Shandon, the editor of the fictious Pall Mall Gazette: ‘He was one of the wittiest, the most amiable and the most incorrigible of Irishmen.’ Shandon was based on William Maginn, a brilliant but hard drinking Corkman who was a writer for the Standard.’ 13 The provision of university education was a highly controversial issue throughout the late nineteenth century. In 1845, Parliament passed the Colleges Act, which established the Queen’s Colleges in Belfast, Cork and Galway. They were condemned as ‘Godless’ by the Catholic hierarchy. Later a Catholic college was founded in Dublin, by Papal authority, but it could not confer degrees. In 1908, the National University was established with colleges in Dublin, Galway and Cork. 14 M. L. Legg, p. 23. 15 D. Kiberd, Irish Classics (London: Granta, 2000), p. 464. 16 M. Bodkin, Recollections of an Irish Judge: Press, Bar and Parliament (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1914), p. 26. 17 T. P. O’Connor was the only member of the Irish Parliamentary Party to sit at Westminster for an English constituency. As well as working as a journalist and editor, he was one of the founders of the so called New Journalism, see T. P. O’Connor, ‘The New Journalism’, The New Review, October 1889, pp. 423–34. 18 H. Fyfe, T. P. O’Connor (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1934), p. 25. 19 Ibid., p. 25. 20 The real editor of the Freeman’s Journal was Sir John Gray. Bodkin worked as a journalist for the Journal. In his novel the fictitious newspaper is called The Free Press, and the editor is John Grayle. 21 M. Bodkin, p. 129. 22 A. Dunlop, p. 121. 23 Ibid., p. 46. 24 Ibid., p. 46. 25 Ibid., p. 180. 26 I am indebted to Dr Mark Wehrly for information concerning newspapers in Sligo and Arthur Malley provided in an unpublished conference paper to the 2nd annual conference of the Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland, at Dublin Institute of Technology, November 2009. 27 Fenians, a militant nationalist movement founded in New York by John

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 34

28/07/2011 11:23:37

How journalism became a profession

35

O’Mahony in 1858, linked to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) a militant, secret organisation in Ireland. 28 J. Devoy, Recollections of an Irish Rebel (New York: McGlinchy, 1969 edn), p. 370. 29 A. Dunlop, p. 233. 30 J. B. Hall, Random Records of a Reporter (Dublin: Fodhla Press, 1929), p. 164. 31 M. Bodkin, pp. 28–9. 32 United Ireland, founded by Parnell in 1881, had as its first editor, William O’Brien.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 35

28/07/2011 11:23:37

3

Loyalty and Repeal: the Nation, 1842–46 M. L. Brillman

First published in 1842 by Charles Gavan Duffy, Thomas Davis and John Blake Dillon, the Nation, in Duffy’s own words, ‘was not a journal designed to chronicle the small beer of current politics, but to teach opinions … here was a journal which was not a commercial speculation, but the voice of men to whom the elevation of Ireland was a creed and a passion’.1 The Nation was the newspaper of choice for the Repeal Association’s reading rooms throughout Ireland. The Repeal Association, with Daniel O’Connell at the helm, was Ireland’s most serious effort to that date to repeal the Act of Union of 1801, which had abolished the Irish Parliament and had created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Nation was the most effective propagator of nationalism in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland and became an important Repeal ally. The lifespan of the Nation newspaper with regard to Repeal can roughly be periodised in three stages: as a strong Repeal pillar in 1843; loyal O’Connellites in a wounded movement in 1844–45; and rebels expelled by their master into the political wilderness in 1846. Duffy recalled in 1880 that the Nation ‘was not an echo of the Association or its leader, but struck out a distinct course for itself ’.2 This viewpoint is, however, emblematic of Young Ireland’s ex post facto observations in the consolidation of their mythology. The writers in the Nation, who have become synonymous with the Young Ireland party, largely created this myth in their memoirs and recollections.3 The received wisdom is that Young Ireland remains an integral part of the revolutionary tradition that includes in apostolic succession the United Irishmen of 1798, Young Ireland in 1848, the Fenians of 1867, and the Easter Rising of the Republican Brotherhood in 1916. In actuality, the weapons of the Young Irelanders in the 1840s were not the pike or the rifle, but rather the words and ideas they formulated in their remarkable newspaper, the Nation. Until the summer of 1846, when O’Connell forced them to secede from the Repeal Association, they were not only impeccable and insistent constitutional nationalists, but even after their secession most remained so. Those few, furthermore, who participated in the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 36

28/07/2011 11:23:37

Loyalty and Repeal

37

1848 rising were more involved in an act of desperation rather than even a revolutionary gesture. The Nation had ‘distinct’ ideas from its contemporaries and was far more successful in promoting them, but between 1843 and 1846 the newspaper’s status was as a function of the Repeal Association. It was a crucial instrument in linking Repeal to the Irish people, and the fact that it had any audience at all was because it followed O’Connell’s lead. Indeed, O’Connell cast such a gigantic political shadow over the whole movement that the backers of the Nation could do nothing but pledge their full support. Regardless of how Duffy remembered the events in later years, there is abundant evidence in the Nation to indicate that the newspaper was one of moral force, constitutional politics, and unequivocal loyalty to O’Connell.

The tone of the Nation today Launched in Dublin on 15 October 1842 by Duffy, Davis and Dillon, the weekly newspaper was similar to its contemporaries in format, scope of news coverage, and service as an organ for the Repeal Association. The Nation, however, was unique in its ability not only to breathe life into a movement that had been stagnant since its re-inception in 1840, but also to evoke national sentiments. While the Nation’s editors echoed O’Connell’s cry for Repeal, their aims, as outlined in their prospectus, were more ambitious. The objective of the newspaper was to foster a public opinion in Ireland, and make it ‘racy of the soil’. The Nation preached a tenet, which was embodied in the title of the journal: that Ireland was a distinct nation and as such should be independent of Great Britain. To the Young Irelanders who contributed to the Nation, a nation meant a cultural state of mind defined by a common literature, history, and language, all of which informed a collective consciousness. Real independence could be achieved only through Repeal of the Union and a regeneration of a Gaelic identity. In its first edition on 15 October 1842, the Nation declared that its means for raising national consciousness were threefold. First, it was necessary to jettison religious bigotry. This proved a difficult task in a country seething with inveterate animosity, sectarianism, and mistrust, but the Nation’s editors filled its pages with the pluralistic idea that freedom could only be achieved through the complete unification of the Irish people regardless of class, creed, or religion. Though he was a middle-class Protestant, in the Nation and at Repeal meetings Davis voiced his contempt for Orange bigotry, and promoted ‘a love for all sects’. If Ireland needed any predominant religion, Davis believed it should be ‘haughty impartiality’.4 Second, the new publication declared that nationhood could only be attained through education. ‘Educate that you may be free,’ Duffy maintained, ‘it is education which will enable you to take advantage of opportunities.’5

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 37

28/07/2011 11:23:37

Irish journalism before independence

38

An informed public constituted a prerequisite for self-government. The newspaper’s drive for education was enhanced through an alliance with the temperance movement which had been founded by Father Theobald Mathew in Cork in 1838. By 1842, the Total Abstinence Society was in the process of transforming Irish society through moral regeneration. Duffy discerned in the movement a model for a similar one in education, and the editor intentionally patterned the Repeal reading rooms and mechanics’ institutes after the temperance halls of Mathew’s society. The Nation therefore sought to increase the literacy of the people through the establishment of public spaces and reading rooms formed to disseminate knowledge more widely. Abstinence and reading were the keys to gaining knowledge, and acquiring knowledge was the key to freedom. Through the medium of education, the Nation prophesied the destruction of the political and intellectual fetters imposed by the Union. The third means of heightening national consciousness came through poetry, balladry, history, and to a lesser extent, language. Native literature would cultivate the Irish imagined community through its romantic imagery. The Nation, however, contained rather poor poetry, and several scholars have underscored the inferior quality of the verse.6 Even O’Connell, who was hardly un homme de lettres, complained of the Nation’s ‘poor rhymed dullness.’7 The following stanza by Thomas MacNevin, an early Nation contributor, is representative of the general fare: Then arise! – for no longer shall slavery sully Thy beautiful brow, our own Erin – no more Shall the foreigner proudly set heel on thy bosom, Since a “Nation” has risen thy rights to restore.8 The creation of high literature was not the intention of the Nation’s editors. Their purpose was to extend a sense of national pride and to recall – and even to reinvent – the glory and tradition of a Gaelic past, while conciliating Orange and Green. Most of the poetry in the Nation contained a patriotic appeal. Even if it was inferior as art, the verse played a fundamental role in the birth of modern Irish nationalism. What the balladry and poetry lacked in style and content, it more than compensated for in feeling. The newspaper struck a chord, which resonated in the public mind. One final, but largely unsuccessful cultural nationalist effort sponsored by Davis was the promotion of the Irish language. While still extensively in use in many parts of pre-Famine Ireland, by 1842 English had largely replaced Irish as the dominant language. Davis, however, was the only member of the Nation staff who genuinely encouraged the revival of the Irish language. In 1843, he contributed multiple articles on ‘Our National Language.’ Davis maintained that ‘a people without a language of its own is only half a nation. A nation should guard its language more than its territories.’9

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 38

28/07/2011 11:23:38

Loyalty and Repeal

39

The newspaper’s immediate popularity in October 1842 was largely a function of its ability to resonate with Ireland’s pre-Famine national identity. To realise the ultimate goal of Repeal, the Nation aimed to fuse the political and cultural in the regeneration of the Irish popular mind. The people would benefit from the fruits of non-sectarian unity, education, and a return to their Gaelic heritage through poetry and history, and the effort to revive the Irish language. A note from Dillon to Davis in 1843 concerning his birthplace of Ballaghadereen, Co. Mayo aptly demonstrated the widespread impact. ‘I am astonished,’ he reported, ‘at the success of the “Nation” in this poor place. There is not in Ireland perhaps a village poorer in itself or surrounded by a poorer population. You would not guess how many “Nations” came to it on Sunday last? No less than twenty-three. There are scarcely so many houses in this town, and such houses!’10 An anonymous supporter of the Repeal Association recorded how much he looked forward to reading the Nation. ‘My calendar for the week,’ he explained, ‘dates from the time the “Nation” arrives till the day I may hope for another “Nation”. I often walk three miles to the post-office to bring it home a few hours earlier than it would otherwise reach us.’11 A Dublin tradesman told how he spent his leisure time reading the Nation. ‘I work hard all the week,’ he confessed, ‘and on Sunday I am repaid by lying in bed an additional hour or two to read the “Nation”.’12 Other editions of the Nation appeared in Paris, Florence, Madrid, Buenos Aires and various cities in America and Australia. Irish culture had always been oral, and many illiterate people gathered to have the Nation read to them. Indeed, assessing an exact circulation and readership has remained inconclusive because published copies of the Nation were read and heard by an indeterminate number of people. The Nation’s immediate success was due mainly to O’Connell’s early support. The newspaper filled four to eight weekly columns with proceedings of Repeal Association meetings and O’Connell’s speeches. Although the Nation did not take an official stand on Repeal in its first five issues in 1842, it quickly became O’Connell’s most effective and enthusiastic organ. By early 1843, which became known as the Repeal year, the Nation galvanised a languid Repeal movement, and its ability to reach Irish public opinion was a tremendous asset for O’Connell. Editorials expanded on O’Connellite themes including the land question and British imperialism. The newspaper became, in effect, the weekly voice of O’Connell, the Liberator. ‘People of Ireland!’ it exclaimed, ‘in sustaining O’CONNELL you sustain the most important concernments of your native land. In sustaining O’CONNELL you are not conferring a favour, but discharging an imperative duty.’13 For many in Ireland in 1843, this weekly boost in morale conveyed a sense that Repeal was indeed a living faith and that self-government was attainable. While O’Connell’s leadership, the ubiquitousness of the Association, and

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 39

28/07/2011 11:23:38

40

Irish journalism before independence

the mass gatherings called Monster Meetings were all vital to the Repeal machine, the Nation succeeded in sustaining the movement by tapping an ever-widening and enthusiastic audience. The Nation was not only essential for disseminating O’Connellite rhetoric, it also enhanced the growth of the Repeal movement. In addition to publishing the entire proceedings of Association meetings, the Nation also listed members, answered their inquiries, and collected and printed the weekly amount of the Repeal rent. In fact, there was little traditional ‘news’ to be found in the pages of the Nation in 1843. International coverage was still borrowed from other journals, but sporting and financial reports were seldom included in 1843 as compared with the end of 1842. Most of the newspaper content during the Repeal year consisted of accounts of Repeal meetings, editorials dealing with Irish and British issues, poetry and balladry, and advertisements. At Monster Meetings the Nation’s staff, among other journalists, processed subscriptions and memberships. Duffy later pointed out that the editors of the Nation ‘bore the same relation to O’Connell as heads of public service bear to the cabinet’.14 Whether or not Duffy’s later claims that the Nation planned Monster Meetings at historic sites, procured bands and banners, and assembled the people in an orderly fashion were apocryphal, the Nation undoubtedly played a significant role in Repeal’s organisation. The apogee of the Nation’s efficacy as a Repeal organ and the peak of Repeal agitation itself ran simultaneously throughout the charged atmosphere of the summer of 1843. That the Nation included O’Connell’s speeches, Repeal Association reports, letters to the editor, and first-hand accounts of Monster Meetings rendered it a necessary ally to Repeal. There were, of course, some differences between O’Connell and the editors of the Nation; for example, they diverged on political subjects including the Poor Law, the Corn Laws, and Chartism. Yet the differences were subsumed in the general enthusiasm for Repeal as the Nation became more and more valuable to the movement. By mid-1843 many people provided their reasons for being Repealers. Some felt a certain Irish pride, while others were pleased with the peaceful conduct of the agitation. In a letter dated 7 May 1843 a Banbridge, Co. Down solicitor, John Mitchel – far from being the firebrand rebel that he would become by 1845 – asked Duffy to propose his admission to the Association, and referred to the Repeal agitation as ‘the most peaceable, legal, and constitutional popular movement that any country has ever witnessed’.15 On 21 June 1843 P. Hennessy, Repeal warden for Feakle, Co. Clare, claimed that his parish contained ‘as sober, as peaceable, and as fixedly determined ardent Repealers as can be found in any other part of Ireland’.16 In describing the meeting at Kilpeacon, Co. Kerry on 2 July 1843 Maurice O’Connell, the eldest son of the Liberator and Repeal inspector for Munster, also noted the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 40

28/07/2011 11:23:38

Loyalty and Repeal

41

peaceful conduct of the participants. His report, printed in the Nation on 15 July 1843 underscored ‘another evidence of the impossibility of checking the constitutional movement of a people who defy coercion, because they are determined not to violate the law’.17 Hugh Daly, parish priest for Kilbride, Co. Wicklow, promised on 2 October 1843 a week before the Clontarf meeting, that members of his parish would not be ‘idle spectators’.18 Not only did many want to support Repeal, but they also testified to their active commitment to the movement in the Nation. By 1843 the mainstream official press began to notice the significance of the Nation as an increasingly powerful voice for Repeal. Unionist journals often hyperbolically warned the government about what they perceived to be a dangerous insurrectionist posture promoted by the Nation. ‘The young Irish agitators,’ the Dublin Morning Post maintained alarmingly in July 1843, ‘were a far more serious set of men than their fathers. They thought more and drank and joked a great deal less. They were full of the dark vices of Jacobinism. They looked forward to the slaughter of those they hated as the greatest enjoyment they could experience’.19 The London Times worried later in 1843 that the effective and wholly constitutional methods of O’Connell were ‘as nothing compared to the fervour of rebellion which breathed in every page of these verses’.20 Such charges by the English and Unionist press were obviously exaggerated. Although the verse and editorials of the Nation had become somewhat more strident than the speeches of O’Connell, the writers of the newspaper essentially remained faithful to the lead given by O’Connell and his constitutional programme. Nevertheless the fact that opposition newspapers took an increasingly keen interest in the Nation demonstrated that they judged the publication to be representative of the ever-widening public support for Repeal agitation. Perhaps English recognition of the hazards posed by the political rhetoric of the Nation best exemplified itself in a witty comment made by Chief Justice Plunkett who presided over the Court of Chancery. While reading the journal Plunkett was asked, ‘What is the tone of the Nation today?’ Plunkett pointedly replied, ‘Wolf Tone.’21 By October 1843, the effect of Monster Meetings, aided and abetted by the Nation, proved to be so threatening that Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister, decided to take action. An advertisement in the Nation made a reference to ‘Repeal Cavalry’ to be present at the 8 October meeting at Clontarf. The notice was sufficient for the Duke of Wellington to strengthen English garrisons with an additional 30,000 troops and accompanying artillery. On 7 October 1843 the government issued a proclamation banning the Clontarf meeting. O’Connell heeded the prohibition and cancelled the meeting to prevent bloodshed although the weekly edition of the Nation had already been printed complete with a Clarence Mangan poem entitled ‘March to Clontarf ’: ‘Again we march in moral might,/With hope of freedom bright

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 41

28/07/2011 11:23:38

Irish journalism before independence

42

before us,/To ask in peace our country’s right,/From those who long have trampled o’er us.’22

‘Thought, courage, patience will prevail’ Following the Clontarf prohibition, as Repeal began to decline and O’Connell’s arrest, the Nation towed the party line of the Association. The editors of the Nation collectively endorsed O’Connell, in large part to avoid impairing the unity of the movement. To remonstrate publicly with O’Connell’s decision concerning Clontarf would have damaged Repeal much more severely than did Dublin Castle’s proclamation. ‘The man who dares to adopt any policy not sanctioned by O’CONNELL,’ an editorial on 14 October 1843 declared, ‘will deserve the deepest execration. Nothing but evil to those they love and ruin to themselves, could come of violence. Be peaceful – be patient … Trust in O’Connell, and fear not.’23 In a poem entitled ‘We Must Not Fail’ in that same edition, Davis encouraged his readers by assuring them that ‘thought, courage, patience will prevail’.24 By the close of 1843, the newspaper attempted to keep a wounded movement effective through loyalty to O’Connell, reiterating the message of patience. In subsequent years, however, Young Irelanders were more critical of the decision to cancel the Clontarf meeting. Yet despite such historical revisionism after many decades of reflection, in 1843 the editors of the newspaper publicly endorsed O’Connell’s position. In truth, the Nation was in a difficult place. On one hand the newspaper had been one of the paramount reasons for the movement’s success in 1843, while on the other, its writers maintained ‘the one aim of their lives was that the National cause should triumph’.25 Although what had succeeded in the drive for Catholic Emancipation in 1829 failed in 1843, the threat of violence was as much a part of O’Connell’s political strategy as it had been of Henry Grattan’s in 1782. O’Connell consistently abjured violence, but the use of militant rhetoric and the tactic of radical confrontation remained effective as coercive threats, which fostered a sense of solidarity among those defying authority. To fight a British army with pikes was never a viable option, but the possibility of violence was almost as menacing as a real battery. The threat of force was O’Connell’s bluff. His Repeal movement may have developed into one of radical agitation, but it remained strictly one of non-violence. Yet the prospect of a listless, drifting movement widened the gap between O’Connell and the Nation, and brought into a sharper light their differences. The most significant and inherent difference between O’Connell and the editors of the Nation lay in their conceptions of Ireland. O’Connell rooted himself firmly in the present. His politics and free-trade beliefs made him practical in pursuing the greatest good for the greatest number. He was a parliamentarian who when not agitating in Ireland, was often at

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 42

28/07/2011 11:23:38

Loyalty and Repeal

43

Westminster fighting for radical reform in the House of Commons. As the most formidable Irish barrister and MP of his day, O’Connell was both a shrewd and serious risk taker. He regarded a renewed Whig alliance in July 1846 as the best way to redress Irish grievances at that moment. He was an amalgam of pragmatism and common sense, with the ability to keep his priorities straight. In a word, O’Connell’s political genius was his grip on objective reality. On the other side the Nation was also very effective in the present, but the editors of the newspaper strove especially to evoke the past. In cultivating its tenets of non-sectarian unity, Young Ireland looked to Wolf Tone and the United Irishmen of 1798. In the soulful and sincere, if amateurish poetry, published in the Nation the editors of the newspaper attempted to reawaken Ireland’s national identity by incorporating literary and historical elements into its pages. Drawing from Irish poetic tradition, much of the verse in the newspaper took the form of stories of a glorious Gaelic past and odes to fallen Irish heroes. These intrinsic philosophical differences – and later open political and religious disagreements – led to a series of tensions, reconciliations, and the eventual demise of the Nation–O’Connell alliance. Differences that were inconsequential in 1843 became full-blown confrontations when given cause to illuminate them. The Federalist and Queen’s Colleges imbroglios of late 1844 and 1845 developed into significant quarrels, and eventually set the stage for the final dispute over the use of physical force as a means of resistance in the summer of 1846. In the autumn of 1844, shortly after his release from Richmond prison, O’Connell declared his preference for Federalism over Repeal, which constituted a much more limited form of Irish self-government. What upset the Nation about this announced preference was that it signified a repudiation of Repeal. Duffy, without the consultation of his colleagues, responded in a letter published in the Nation addressing O’Connell’s endorsement of Federalism. The significance of this response lay in the fact that for the first time a member of the nationalist movement openly challenged O’Connell. The controversy was short-lived, lasting only a month, by which time O’Connell retracted the Federalist plan. The divisions, however, were further exacerbated in late 1844 and early 1845 as accusations of religious indifference and even anti-Catholicism were levelled against the newspaper. These charges were further inflamed by the introduction of the Queen’s Colleges Bill in the winter of 1845. This legislation was aimed at establishing a middle-class non-denominational university in Ireland in order to afford Catholics and Presbyterians greater opportunities for higher education. O’Connell, however, favoured denominational colleges to ensure the religious orthodoxy in the instruction given to young Irish Catholics. The editors of the Nation, by advocating mixed colleges, were acting in keeping with their tenets of non-sectarian and comprehensive education. This disagreement

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 43

28/07/2011 11:23:38

44

Irish journalism before independence

constituted the most significant dispute to date as the opposition voiced in the pages of the Nation escalated into an outright confrontation in Conciliation Hall between Davis and O’Connell in May 1845. Each of these issues, taken individually, was significant but not necessarily fatal to Repeal cohesion as some sort of reconciliation – however makeshift – followed each rift. Nevertheless, the disputes marked a progression in the demise of the Nation–O’Connell alliance, and were precursors to the controversy that embroiled both sides in 1846. The issues showed that two parties now existed in the national movement. On one side was Old Ireland represented by O’Connell while on the other side was Young Ireland represented by the Nation. Despite the vicissitudes, and twists and turns, of 1844–46, however, the Nation remained staunchly loyal to both the cause of Repeal and its leader, and especially to constitutional methods of agitation. By 1846, as in 1843, the Nation contained a few articles of a militant flavour. The most notable example of physical-force language after the Clontarf démarche was Mitchel’s celebrated November 1845 ‘Railway Article’ in which he pointed out that British rail could be destroyed by Irish explosives – and for which Duffy, as editor, was prosecuted for seditious libel in the summer of 1847. For the most part, throughout 1845–46 physical force innuendoes were few, and the Nation stood-by O’Connell’s pacific line. As momentum for Repeal declined, the editors of the Nation realised that even the threat of violence was no longer a viable means of sustaining the movement. The Nation’s mode of agitation in 1845–46 remained one of moral force: reason and public opinion with O’Connell the undisputed leader. ‘Remember,’ an October 1845 editorial had plainly pointed out, ‘OPINION is your sole weapon. Force you must put out of the question.’26 Duffy still maintained in 1846 that the policy of the newspaper was educational and religious conciliation rather than conspiracy and violence. O’Connell appeared to remain unconvinced by Duffy’s avowal, and after the ‘Railway Article’ attempted to keep the Nation and its Young Ireland supporters on the margins of Association proceedings throughout the spring of 1846. The Nation, however, continued to mitigate any appearance of disloyalty to O’Connell. The journal distinguished between opposing viewpoints and factionalism. An article entitled ‘Are We Factions?’ attempted to dispel further any notion that the Nation sought to undermine O’Connell. Young Irelanders ‘are accused of insubordination to the Leader of the Repeal movement—a lie, monstrous and ludicrous to those familiar with the working machinery of our cause’.27 Even after the Queen’s Colleges dispute in 1845, when O’Connell had thrust separate party status upon Young Ireland and the Nation, they did not abandon Repeal. The editors understood that Repeal never had a chance without him. O’Connell, in his turn, needed to determine unilaterally the priorities of the movement. He manufactured his casus belli by amending his

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 44

28/07/2011 11:23:39

Loyalty and Repeal

45

Peace Resolution. The original Resolution of 1840 was a legally formulated doctrine, which the Nation group had accepted. The amended Resolution, which was introduced on 13 July 1846, emphasised the moral dimension of peaceful agitation, and was in substance not much different from the first, with the exception that violence in the case of self-defence was completely denied. O’Connell believed that Young Ireland would not accept the new Resolution, and, on these grounds, would quit the Association. The Nation group certainly had no intention of inciting a rising in the summer of 1846, but the requirement that they could never use force to counter unprovoked aggression rendered O’Connell’s amendment unacceptable. The truth was that O’Connell’s alteration of the Resolutions did not change his understanding of the meaning of peace. Why, then, had O’Connell not banned the Nation from Repeal reading rooms when it had earlier indulged violent rhetoric? When the movement was strong, the Nation was a useful ally. As Repeal declined as a political force after Clontarf, the Nation was of less use, and even became a hindrance. For O’Connell, insofar as the Nation was concerned, it was never really a question of violence, but one of power. Ironically, most of the militant rhetoric had come from the pen of Davis, who had died of scarlatina in September 1845. Physical force simply provided O’Connell with the pretext for forcing Young Ireland to secede from the Association. The amended Peace Resolution of 1846 was O’Connell’s ultimate attempt to draw a line between Old and Young Ireland and also with the Young Irelanders gone he sought to secure the leadership of the movement for his son John. The death of Davis in 1845 had left a void where there had been a connection with the Protestant middle class. O’Connell had regarded Davis as a potential ally who might even have encouraged Repeal support from Protestants. William Smith O’Brien, another prominent Protestant Repealer, did not really serve this purpose, and in the absence of a credible liaison with the Protestants, the Nation became excess baggage. These conjectures, whatever their validity, however, were really only window-dressing for the real reason for O’Connell’s desire to jettison the Nation group. The break between the two sides cleared the political way for a renewed alliance between O’Connell and Lord John Russell’s Whig ministry, which was formed in July 1846. If O’Connell was to postpone Repeal in favour of a Whig alliance, instruments of provocation such as Monster Meetings, even if peacefully conducted, were no longer tenable. The position of the Nation as O’Connell’s principal political ally was also untenable because it was not prepared to postpone Repeal in the interests of a Whig alliance. The newspaper editors believed that O’Connell had abandoned his ‘Repeal and no surrender’ stance of 1843, and that minimal concessions to Ireland were unacceptable. It was not surprising that the Nation opposed Russell, for he had never been a friend to Repeal. The Prime Minister was also vehemently

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 45

28/07/2011 11:23:39

Irish journalism before independence

46

anti-Nation. But O’Connell considered Repeal moribund, and since early 1844, he had been willing to settle for something less. If the final demise of Repeal came with the Young Ireland secession from the Association in late July 1846, the second O’Connell–Whig alliance was the most significant nail in the coffin. Young Ireland, undoubtedly, would have stood by O’Connell until the end, had he not altered his priorities. Although Young Ireland had remained unequivocally loyal to O’Connell, in the end he forced their secession; for in postponing Repeal, he eliminated the Nation’s raison d’être for supporting him. In making Young Ireland a liability, O’Connell protected his political base of the Catholic bourgeoisie and the clergy. In the ensuing months the Nation proved that it could survive without O’Connell, but that it could not thrive without him. The newspaper was suppressed after the insurrection of July 1848, revived by Duffy in 1849, and then sold to another Young Irelander, A. M. Sullivan, in 1855. Though the Nation remained in print until 1897, the newspaper was never again able to recapture either the imagination of the Irish people or the influence it had possessed in the mid-1840s.

Conclusion The discussion above dispels the traditional Young Ireland myth that it formed an independent party because O’Connell made all the wrong decisions. The radical, insurrectionary indictment of Young Ireland by O’Connell – among others – stuck, and further manifested itself in the subsequent long drawn-out fiery rhetoric, arrests, deportations, and an abortive rising in July 1848. The myth of Young Ireland was further enhanced by Duffy, John Mitchel, P. J. Smyth, William Dillon, Michael Doheny and John O’Leary, among others. They added their ex post facto observations for some seventy years after the events. In the final analysis, however, Young Ireland was extraordinarily over-romanticised. Duffy, in particular, sublimated his own role with great dexterity in order to underscore the independent spirit and patriotic achievements of the Young Ireland movement. He retold the events of the 1840s in an urbane and apparently impartial voice to which a younger generation of nationalists were very receptive. The literature and rhetoric of the Nation produced a similar result. John O’Leary, the Fenian leader of the 1860s, nostalgically recalled the impact of the Nation on the youth of the 1840s. In leading article, essay, and poem we read, from week to week, the story of Ireland’s sufferings under English rule; and now and then we heard of other countries groaning under alien domination, and of their efforts, successful or unsuccessful, to shake it off. At first perhaps, the teaching of the Nation was not directly unconstitutional, though

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 46

28/07/2011 11:23:39

Loyalty and Repeal

47

indirectly, it certainly was so from the beginning. From ceasing to ‘fear speak of ’98’ to wishing to imitate the men of that time the transition was very easy indeed to the youthful mind. Many, if not most, of the younger among us were Mitchelites before Mitchel, or rather before Mitchel had put forth his programme.28 But if this assessment was the great lesson to be learned from the Nation, then O’Leary and others from the 1840s had been reading in an extremely selective fashion. They were certainly not reading the editorials, letters to the editor, or accounts of Repeal Monster Meetings. If they had, they could not have overlooked the Nation’s message that the success of Repeal was contingent upon fidelity to O’Connell and his constitutional methods of agitation. Whatever the Young Ireland myth has become, the fact is that the Nation did sustain enthusiasm for the national movement to a greater degree than did its contemporaries. While this was particular to the 1840s, the impact of the Nation must also be viewed through a wider historical lens. The Nation neither invented nationalism, nor did it live to see it full grown, but the newspaper carried and shaped that nationalism in a turbulent, transitional, and crucial period. The story of Young Ireland has often been dogmatically and romantically retold, and appearances have often triumphed over reality. The Nation, while it had been associated with Repeal, not only developed its own identity and ideology, but also loyally followed the lead of Daniel O’Connell virtually to the bitter end.

Notes 1 C. G. Duffy, Young Ireland (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1884), p. 65. 2 Ibid., p. 69. 3 While not exactly an interchangeable term with the writers of the Nation, many members of Young Ireland were regular contributors to the newspaper. 4 M. Brown, The Politics of Irish Literature: From Thomas Davis to W. B. Yeats (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), p. 50. 5 Duffy, p. 60. 6 See D. Corkery, Synge and Anglo-Irish Literature (3rd edn) (Cork: University Press, 1947); G. K. Clark, The Making of Victorian England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 26; Brown, pp. 58–72. 7 Brown, p. 63. 8 Nation, 22 October 1842. 9 Nation, 1 April 1843 and 30 December 1843. 10 Duffy, p. 70. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Nation, 25 February 1843. 14 C. G. Duffy, My Life in Two Hemispheres (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1903), pp. 1, 89.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 47

28/07/2011 11:23:39

48

Irish journalism before independence

15 Nation, 7 May 1843. 16 Ibid. 17 Nation, 15 July 1843. 18 Nation, 7 October 1843. 19 Duffy, p. 104. 20 Ibid., p. 105. 21 C. Pearl, The Three Lives of Gavan Duffy (Kensington, Australia: New South Wales University Press, 1979), p. 31. 22 Nation, 7 October 1843. 23 Nation, 14 October 1843. 24 Ibid. 25 Duffy, p. 137. 26 Nation, 18 October 1845. 27 Nation, 20 June 1846. 28 O. MacDonagh, States of Mind: A Study of the Anglo-Irish Conflict, 1780–1980 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 97.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 48

28/07/2011 11:23:40

4

Keeping an eye on the Tsar: Frederick Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle Matthew Potter

One of the most curious episodes in the history of Irish journalism was the world-wide fame attained by the Skibbereen Eagle, a small provincial newspaper which in 1898 declared that it was keeping an eye on the Tsar of Russia, at that time one of the world’s most powerful rulers and the autocratic sovereign of one sixth of the land surface of the earth. This episode has resulted in the phrase entering the English language as an example either of absurd self-importance or plucky courage and plain-speaking. It was referenced in James Joyce’s Ulysses when J. J. O’Molloy referred to ‘Our watchful friend, the Skibbereen Eagle’.1 The phrase also featured in a famous cartoon in the celebrated satirical journal the Dublin Opinion in 1946, which depicted Stalin and de Valera seated together in conversation. Stalin justifies the Soviet Union’s recent veto of Ireland’s application to enter the United Nations by saying: ‘Between ourselves, Dev, Russia has never quite forgotten that article in the Skibbereen Eagle.’2 Although both the episode and the quotation are well-known, paradoxically the details surrounding them are not. Interestingly the newspaper in question was never officially titled Skibbereen Eagle although it will be referred to as such throughout this chapter. The story of the Eagle and its eccentric proprietor Frederick Peel Eldon Potter (commonly known as Fred, and no relation of the current author) is an example of how a nineteenth century provincial newspaperman could combine the roles of entrepreneur, employer, propagandist, politician and social reformer as a result of – and in tandem with – his activities in the print media.3

Skibbereen in west Cork The nineteenth century was characterised by the twin phenomena of Ireland’s absorption into the United Kingdom and the development of an Irish nation in the modern sense of the word, particularly after 1850.4 In contrast to the Famine decade of the 1840s, Ireland enjoyed a period of economic

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 49

28/07/2011 11:23:40

50

Irish journalism before independence

prosperity in the succeeding quarter century (1850–75). Cities and towns saw the rise to prominence of a middle class of shopkeepers and publicans, frequently and derisively known as the ‘shopocracy’. In turn, the children of this upwardly mobile and (outside of Ulster) overwhelmingly Catholic rural and urban bourgeoisie formed a new class of Catholic professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, priests, journalists, teachers and bureaucrats. This successful bourgeoisie gained significant political power in the 1880s, when they fought the Land War against the ruling elite, and provided the mass support for Parnell and his Irish Parliamentary Party. Essentially, they became the ruling class in Ireland outside Ulster in the 1880s where they established a total hegemony over parliamentary representation, took control of much of the local government system, and dismantled the position of the old landed elite.5 In the same period, the Catholic Church established an unparalleled authority over its flock. This power rested on a number of foundations, most significantly an increasing association with nationalism from the 1820s onwards. The decades after the Famine also witnessed a revolution in the Irish newspaper industry.6 Increasing literacy, economic growth in the 1850s and 1860s, political mobilisation as a result of O’Connellism and Fenianism, and the development of infrastructure particularly the railway, telegraph and steamship resulted in a larger and more sophisticated readership with increasing access to the print media. In addition, the abolition of the tax on advertisements in 1853, the abolition of stamped newsprint in 1855 and the abolition of the tax on newspapers in 1861 drastically reduced costs and prepared the way for the mass circulation penny press. The extent of this revolution can be measured in the increase in the number of Irish provincial newspapers from 65 in 1850 to 103 in 1865 and 120 in 1879.7 In addition, the number espousing nationalist views greatly increased, particularly from the 1870s onwards both as a result of the foundation of new, explicitly nationalist newspapers and changes in the political stances of existing titles.8 Of the thirty-one newspapers founded between 1880 and 1892, no fewer than twenty claimed to be nationalist, compared to only four conservative, three liberal and the remainder neutral or independent. Among the most celebrated of the new nationalist foundations were the Leinster Leader (1880), Midland Tribune (1881), Drogheda Independent (1883) and Limerick Leader (1889).9 Secondly, several existing titles changed their allegiance from liberal or neutral to nationalist. Legg puts the number of such newspapers at twenty including The People (Wexford), Waterford Daily Mail, Tuam Herald, Sligo Champion and Mayo Examiner. This rapidly expanding nationalist press was predominantly read by farmers and shopkeepers, the very sinews of the new nationalism.10 Some newspaper proprietors were also active politicians including the owner of the Skibbereen  Eagle.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 50

28/07/2011 11:23:40

The Tsar, Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle

51

Skibbereen in the second half of the nineteenth century was a typical Irish market town.11 Situated on the River Ilen in west Cork, it was physically remote from the leading cities of Dublin, Belfast and even Cork City but enjoyed more prominence than many other urban centres, due to being the seat of a poor law union (from 1840 to 1923) and of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ross (from 1850 to 1954). In 1861, Skibbereen gained self-government with the establishment of a board of town commissioners which became an urban district council in 1899. The town had suffered in the 1840s but ‘phoenix-like, [it] had risen from the ashes of the famine’ in the ensuing decades.12 The population continued to decline steadily – from 3,713 in 1861 to 3,208 in 1901 – but Skibbereen still benefited from the mid-Victorian economic boom.13 By the end of the 1860s, ‘a gasworks, buttermarket, general markets, a town hall, a lecture hall, a convent, a new water scheme and a new street had been built’.14 The Great Depression (1873–96) fuelled the growth of nationalism in Skibbereen as it did throughout Ireland, but the town continued to progress and was home to a flourishing civil and associational culture. In addition, the west Cork region had a vibrant political life and produced a higher than average number of major political figures. It had an unusually large Protestant population, particularly in towns such as Bandon, Kinsale and Skibbereen with a long tradition of conservative politics.15 As late as 1926, the Protestant percentage in the population of these three towns was 13.3 per cent, 10.8 per cent and 9 per cent respectively which was much higher than similar towns in north and east Cork such as Mallow (3.7 per cent), Fermoy (3 per cent) and Mitchelstown (3.9 per cent).16 Paradoxically, however, west Cork was also a hotbed of nationalism. The leading Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa was born near Skibbereen and was a shopkeeper in the town in the 1850s. In the 1880s, a large and prominent group of nationalist MPs from the area emerged including the Healy brothers Tim, Thomas and Maurice; the Sullivan brothers T. D., A. M. and Donal; the Harrington brothers Tim and Ned, and William Martin Murphy. They became known as the Bantry Band.17

The Potter family Fred Potter was the third son of John William Potter (1804–74), a native of south Wales who had come to live in Ireland in 1828 and moved to Skibbereen some years later, where he established himself as a printer. John William Potter’s family were prominent in public life (including politics and journalism) in south Wales and in 1844 some of his relatives founded the Pembrokeshire Herald. Other relatives were involved in journalism in London and Australia. Fred Potter was born in 1839 in Dublin and after undergoing some training as a printer in London, returned to Skibbereen.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 51

28/07/2011 11:23:40

52

Irish journalism before independence

In 1857, he joined his father John and brother John Junior in establishing the Skibbereen and West Carbery Eagle or South-Western Advertiser a name it retained for ten years. A prospectus was produced to advertise the new publication to which O’Donovan Rossa contributed a short poem. The newspaper was later known as the West Cork and Carbery Eagle or South-Western Advertiser (1867–69); West Cork Eagle and County Advertiser (1870–84); Eagle and County Cork Advertiser (1885–99); County Cork Eagle and Munster Advertiser (1900–22). From 1862 John Senior and from 1866 John Junior ceased their involvement with the newspaper, leaving Fred as the chief proprietor and controller for most of the following forty years.18 Potter’s reign at the Eagle coincided with the formation of what might be termed the classic Irish nationalist identity: Catholic, Gaelic and rural. On the face of it, Potter would seem to have been out of synch with these developments and thus not particularly well placed to ride on the crest of the newspaper revolution. He was Protestant, not Catholic; of British not Irish extraction and lived and worked all his adult life in an urban, not a rural setting. In addition, Potter’s political beliefs were in many respects quite different from those prevailing at the time. In practice, however, his religion proved to be no more of a hindrance than it was to the careers of Butt, Parnell and other prominent Protestant nationalists; his British heritage seemed to have featured little in his public persona and at any rate, Irish nationalism was aligned with British liberalism for most of the period and many Irish public figures were urban-based, despite their strong rural connections. While Potter’s ideology may have differed from the prevailing consensus, it was also similar enough to prevent any open breaches. After all, the Irish Parliamentary Party and its constituency organisations was a sufficiently broad church to accommodate a wide variety of seemingly polarised factions, including former Fenians and ex-Whigs; labour activists and major employers; cultural nationalists and Anglophile gentry.19 Above all these considerations, Potter was a born newspaperman and entrepreneur. Initially, the Eagle was a monthly publication but later became a weekly appearing every Saturday. After he gained sole control, Potter carried out a major reorganisation in 1867, reducing the price from 2d to 1d (thus creating the ‘Penny Eagle’) and placing far greater emphasis on Irish and local news. As a result, Potter claimed that the circulation increased from 2,000 to 3,000. Emboldened by this, he joined with a businessman named Daniel Gilman in publishing a daily national Cork-based newspaper named the Irish Daily Telegraph and Southern Reporter which appeared from 1871 to 1873 and was supported by the Cork Liberal Club. However, it collapsed ignominiously due to the withdrawal of the Cork Liberals and the financial mismanagement of Gilman. Despite this setback, Potter was able to make good use of the experience gained in a larger forum to effect improvements in the Eagle, including the use of commissioned articles and the inclusion of

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 52

28/07/2011 11:23:40

The Tsar, Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle

53

a woman’s page that was later to be compiled by his daughter Mary, one of the few female journalists in Ireland at the time. Although Potter supported Home Rule, the Eagle adopted an independent political stance which was probably a commercially sound decision in the circumstances. Nevertheless, the perceived pro-British and Protestant tone of the Eagle resulted in the establishment a second newspaper in Skibbereen in 1889, the much more strongly nationalist County Cork Southern Star (later known as the Southern Star), which was edited for a time by D. D. Sheehan (1873–1948), nationalist MP for Mid-Cork from 1901 to 1918. Inevitably this competition placed the Eagle under pressure and the rivalry between the two publications was intense.20

Keeping an eye on the Tsar Bizzarely, Potter’s most flamboyant strategy to boost sales was his fixation with the Emperor of Russia. The phrase ‘keeping an eye on the Tsar of Russia’ actually owed its origins to another Cork newspaper, the Cork Chronicle, whose editor Jack Bellew was in the 1820s credited with annoying the Tsar by keeping a vigilant eye on him. In 1870, in the course of a libel trial involving another newspaper, it was alleged by the infamous Judge William Keogh that the Skibbereen Eagle had been keeping an eye on Lord Palmerston in the 1850s and 1860s. Potter replied to the Judge’s sneering remarks by reminding him that O’Donovan Rossa had also come from Skibbereen.21 In the 1890s, Potter began to use the issue of imperialism to cleverly tap into the zeitgeist. Despite the anti-British rhetoric of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the self-image of Ireland as a conquered country, the Irish were very much part of Western expansion in the nineteenth century – as soldiers and administrators in the service of Britain, as emigrants to the Anglophone world and beyond and as missionaries for the major Christian churches in Africa and Asia. In addition, there was a great deal of popular interest in the ‘Scramble for Africa’ and imperial expansion in other parts of the world and Irish provincial newspapers reported extensively on all of the major episodes such as the Zulu War, the death of Gordon at Khartoum and the Fashoda crisis.22 Russia was one of the most ambitious and successful of the imperialist Western powers. Despite comparative socio-economic and political backwardness, the country was to the forefront of European expansion throughout the nineteenth century.23 By the 1890s the Russian Empire was second in size only to that of Britain with territories in Europe and Asia, and the country even intervened briefly in Africa.24 During this period, Russia and Britain waged a cold war – known as the ‘Great Game’ – over the vast territory of Eurasia, with the main focus on the modern flashpoints of the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and Tibet. Britain’s global ­predominance

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 53

28/07/2011 11:23:41

54

Irish journalism before independence

was based on naval supremacy, while its army was comparatively weak compared to those of other European powers. British fears of Tsarist expansion were largely based on the possibility that Russia alone of the great powers could threaten India overland and thus pose an existential threat to the British Empire. There was also an ideological element to the nineteenth century cold war, with Britain regarding herself as the nursery of liberty and parliamentary government, while Russia ruled by an autocratic Tsar was widely perceived to be the embodiment of reaction, tyranny and militarism.25 In the 1890s, the focus of Russian ambition was the decadent Chinese Empire, ruled by Emperors of the Ching or Manchu dynasty. Once the world’s largest and richest state, China at this period was in decline and was subjected to increasing western interference. Tributary states such as Vietnam and Burma were conquered by western imperialists, peripheral parts of the Empire itself were annexed by Russia in 1858–60 and even the Chinese heartland was reduced to a semi-colonial status. It seemed to many observers in the late 1890s that China was on the verge of following Africa on the road to partition with the spoils shared by Britain and Russia, and the other imperialist powers in China, France, Germany, Japan and the United States.26 Incredibly the editor of a small newspaper at the periphery of the western world managed to shoulder his way into a leading role in the unfolding drama. Potter’s motives for doing so seem to have been threefold. Firstly, the Eagle was locked in a bitter battle for circulation with the County Cork Southern Star. Secondly, as an ambitious and flamboyant man, Potter was also motivated by the desire to play a part on a larger stage than Skibbereen, an ambition that had been earlier thwarted by the collapse of the Irish Daily Telegraph. Thirdly, it must be remembered that the Protestant and Anglophile Potter had a genuine allegiance to British constitutional liberties and shared the widespread western belief that Russia was the incarnation of cruel despotism. While it is difficult to establish which, if any of these motives was paramount, the outlandish, exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek tone which Potter frequently employed when writing about Russia leaves the distinct impression that he did not always take the matter seriously and that he was, perhaps, indulging in a sort of prolonged practical joke. Potter’s attention was drawn to two crises involving Russia and China in 1898. The first occurred in March, when the Russians leased the port of Lushunkou on the Liaodong Peninsula from the Chinese government and renamed it Port Arthur. They also obtained permission to build a railway linking Port Arthur to the Chinese Eastern (or Manchurian) Railway, which formed part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, then in the course of construction. Russia hoped to incorporate the whole of Manchuria into her sphere of influence, something which alarmed both Britain and Japan.27

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 54

28/07/2011 11:23:41

The Tsar, Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle

55

Potter quickly leapt on the band wagon set in motion by these events. On 2 April 1898, the Eagle carried an editorial fulminating against the Tsar, raging that ‘this wicked enemy of the human race, has succeeded in raising his hideous flag on Port Arthur and planting his iron heel and cloven hoof on the heathen Chinese’.28 However, Potter did not think very much of the latter either and went on to state that they were ‘filthy degenerate creatures, who, it must be admitted, are fitting companions for the tallow-eating “knouting” barbarian’.29 Potter concluded his article by reminding ‘this inhuman monster’ – the Tsar – that ‘he must look out for squalls, for the liberty-loving and tyrannyhating Eagle has today its eye as fiercely fixed upon this wretch as it had on his cowardly great grand-sire Nicholas, who shrank before its piercing gaze and abandoned the Crimean War as its bidding’.30 (This last was a piece of poetic licence as, in fact, the Eagle was not founded until the year after the Crimean War ended.) It is ironic that the object of all this obloquy was the then thirty-year-old Nicholas II whose personality helped precipitate the Russian Revolution due to weak and ineffectual rule rather than any display of exceptional and masterful tyranny. A second crisis began on 21 September 1898 when the dominant figure in the Chinese government Dowager Empress Cixi overthrew Emperor Guangxu in a coup d’etat. The reactionary Dowager Empress took the Emperor prisoner and ruled in his name until both of them died in 1908.31 Initially, it was rumoured that the Emperor had been murdered and that Russia had been the instigator of the whole business. Potter quickly intervened and published a slashing editorial of 5 November 1898, in which he condemned the Tsar’s ‘fiendish tricks’ which he alleged were driving his ‘aged and respected grand-mama, Victoria, by the Grace of God, almost mad’.32 Potter then proceeded to give a graphic account of the murder of the Emperor of China by the evil duo of Tsar and Empress Dowager: ‘They commenced operations by burning his eyes and setting fire to his pig-tail. Next, they cut off his monkey nose; then removed his pearly teeth, pulled out his tongue, chopped off his ears, denailed his toes and cut his throat. They smashed all his bones and thirteen of his ribs, and finally subjected the poor creature to a process of slow poisoning, causing a lingering death which lasted a month.’33 Afterwards, Potter breathlessly told his readers, the body was ‘burned in the Dowager’s cooking stove’.34 He concluded by expressing his hope that ‘the Lord of Hatfield (Prime Minister Lord Salisbury) guard and deliver us from this cloven-footed monster’.35 This incredible farrago is noteworthy for three reasons: firstly, the Emperor of China was not dead at all and indeed had ten years of life ahead of him; secondly, Potter’s world-view which cast the British monarch and government in a favourable light compared to the brutal and bloodthirsty Tsar would not have struck a chord with the decidedly Anglophobe ideology

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 55

28/07/2011 11:23:41

Irish journalism before independence

56

of Irish nationalism which regarded British and Russian tyranny as equally oppressive and, thirdly, he had included just about every racist stereotype of China in his account (though it is fair to add that such caricatures of east Asia survived in western popular culture into the second half of the twentieth century). Nevertheless, the episode brought Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle undying fame. He was to capitalise on it for the rest of his life, by referring constantly in future issues of the Eagle to his non-existent agents in St Petersburg and Peking relaying information on the nefarious deeds of the Tsar and his minions back to the newspaper’s head office in Bridge Street, Skibbereen, which he renamed the Eagle Watch Tower. Thus, in the Eagle of 5 September 1899 he stated that ‘it will still keep its eye on the Emperor of Russia and all such despotic enemies … of human progression and man’s natural right’.36

Understanding Potter’s interest in international politics To the modern observer, it may seem odd that a provincial newspaper in west Cork should be so concerned, indeed obsessed with such remote and exotic figures as the Tsar of Russia and the Empress Dowager of China. In fact, while undoubtedly excessive, Potter’s coverage of world affairs was not unusual in provincial newspapers of the period. Most carried articles from the major news agencies or the prominent British dailies such as the Times and national, British and international items competed for space with local news. However although sales of the Eagle continued to remain buoyant, the ‘Eye on the Tsar’ episode did not result in Potter becoming a major figure on the national stage and from that point of view, may be considered a partial failure. While outrageous, this episode was not an isolated event and does not even do full justice to the sheer exuberance of Potter’s career. Like most provincial newspapermen, he was also an entrepreneur who diversified into a variety of other areas. He was the leading auctioneer in west Cork for over forty years, with offices in Skibbereen, Bandon and Cork City. It was a profession to which ownership of a newspaper (with the resultant ability to advertise one’s own business) and his extrovert personality lent itself. One of his advertisements contained a typical piece of Potter theatricality, a very bad poem redeemed only by its brevity which read: I am the auctioneer that I am Where’s there another like me? Not in the County of Cork will you find One equal to F. P. E. P. He also followed his father in conducting a thriving printing business, the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 56

28/07/2011 11:23:41

The Tsar, Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle

57

Eagle Printing Works located in Cork City, which he founded in 1888 and which employed a staff of thirty at its peak. (It survived until 1982.) Both Potter’s auctioneering and printing enterprises could be neatly combined with proprietorship of the Eagle and each supported the other in a successful synergy. By contrast, a third business venture was a comparative failure. In 1885, Potter opened a new hotel in Bridge Street, Skibbereen which he named the Eldon Hotel in honour of his young son. Although it quickly became the leading hotel in the town, Potter retained ownership for only a year and sold it to the Connell family in 1886. (At the time of writing, the Eldon Hotel continues to trade successfully.)37 Potter’s politics were as idiosyncratic as his career and personality. His attitude to the land question was strongly influenced by the philosophy of the American social reformer and economist Henry George (1839–97) who believed that land belonged to the nation as a whole but as nationalisation would be difficult in a society based on private property, instead advocated a single tax on land and other unearned income that would replace all other taxes.38 Although George’s teachings, sometimes known as Georgism, had a major influence on Michael Davitt who favoured land nationalisation, they won few converts in the Irish land movement which was overwhelmingly in favour of peasant proprietorship. Nevertheless, Potter tirelessly promulgated George’s teachings in his newspaper and in public addresses when he accompanied George himself on tours of Ireland and Britain. Thomas Nulty (1818–98), the Catholic Bishop of Meath also favoured George’s ideas and when he issued a pastoral letter advocating Georgism, Potter paid for it to be published in the form of a pamphlet.39 Potter supported Home Rule but opposed Fenianism and cherished the connection with Britain. It was but a short step from reporting political events to participating in them and, like many provincial newspaper proprietors, Potter was also an active politician. He was a longstanding member of the Skibbereen Town Commissioners, though not continuously. His philosophy of local government was typical of that espoused by the old Protestant urban elites. He believed that party politics had no place in the local state and that instead substantial independent figures should be elected to local authorities and concern themselves with providing efficient, economical services to their constituents. By contrast, nationalists regarded local government as an important forum to promulgate their views in the absence of national self-determination. Potter’s non-political stance and complex ideological positions probably hindered rather than helped his career as a town councillor.40 Potter regarded himself as a strong supporter of the urban and rural working classes and even claimed to be a socialist which as a follower of Henry George would have been perfectly logical. As a result of the significant widening of the urban local government franchise, the 1899 local

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 57

28/07/2011 11:23:41

58

Irish journalism before independence

elections resulted in the first major electoral breakthrough for organised labour in Ireland.41 Potter stood unsuccessfully for re-election to Skibbereen Town Commissioners, and in his election address stated that, ‘I thoroughly understand the labour question, having for years given it close study.’42 He went on to state that ‘I am in sympathy with all those who have to work, for I am a worker myself, and know what the trials and troubles a life of toil means.’43 However, his position has been more accurately characterised as that of ‘a paternalistic and benevolent capitalist’ although it is only fair to point out that several other employers throughout the country stood as labour candidates in 1899, on the grounds that they were familiar with the problems of their employees.44 Significantly, Potter opposition to the co-operative movement – which he regarded as being detrimental to small businesses – was more typical of the attitude of the small town shopocracy towards any perceived threat to their local hegemony.45 Potter died on 4 September 1906 at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in the cemetery in High Street, Skibbereen. The rival Southern Star published a warm and generous tribute, describing him as ‘the pioneer of journalism in this part of the country’.46 He had married twice and had five children. His only son Eldon inherited the Eagle but was a prominent barrister and was never actively involved in running the business. In 1907, it passed into the control of the Eagle Ltd, in which Eldon Potter was the largest single shareholder but did not have a controlling interest. Under its new owners, the Eagle supported William O’Brien’s All for Ireland League (AFIL) while the Southern Star supported John Redmond’s mainstream Home Rule Party. During the First World War, the collapse of the AFIL and the rise of Sinn Féin produced a new alignment, with the Star supporting the latter and the Eagle the Redmondites. As a consequence of its strong opposition to Sinn Féin, the Eagle premises was attacked and vandalised by an armed gang in 1917, the paper was boycotted and its editor Patrick Sheeny was attacked by armed and masked men in May 1920. These blows proved fatal and after sixty-five years, Fred Potter’s Eagle ceased publication in 1922. Seven years later, in 1929 the company that owned the newspaper was purchased by the Southern Star which was renamed the Southern Star, incorporating the Skibbereen Eagle a designation which it retains to the time of writing. Symbolically, the old Protestant tradition of west Cork had been subsumed by the Catholic nationalism of the newly independent Irish state.

Conclusion Milne and Legg have separately listed the main factors which ensured the success of a provincial newspaper.47 First, it had to adopt the political views of the majority party in its catchment area. The Eagle was ostensibly independent in its political views but Potter was a staunch liberal before 1870

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 58

28/07/2011 11:23:41

The Tsar, Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle

59

and thereafter adhered to Home Rule. He also gave strong though idiosyncratic support to the campaign for land reform and labour. Secondly, the publication needed to spread its costs by also publishing a daily newspaper. Potter’s attempt to do so in the 1870s with the Irish Daily Telegraph experiment was a disastrous failure but then so were most such attempts outside the main cities. Thirdly the proprietor had to have a prominent political profile locally and, as mentioned, Potter was a member of the Skibbereen Town Board for many years. In addition, Potter’s penchant for self-publicising did much to keep the Eagle afloat. According to circulation figures compiled by Dublin Castle in 1892, the Eagle enjoyed a circulation of 2,500 which was one of the highest in the country outside the major cities and towns.48 In 1869, Potter wrote in the Eagle that we are not Tories, we are not Whigs, we are not Radicals, we adopt no name of partisanship. We take a plain practical view of society. We believe it to be knit together by common interests and common duties. We hold that the term ‘People’ means not this class or that class … but the rich and the poor, high, low and middling are all essential constituents of that great compound, the ‘People’.49 Judging by the circulation figures, his readership was broadly based in accordance with this generous philosophy and ensured that from their vantage point on the Eagle Watchtower, Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle bestrode the stage in Skibbereen, in west Cork and intermittently the wider world for some forty years.

Notes 1 J. Joyce, Ulysses (London: Penguin, 2000), p. 176. 2 Reproduced in Southern Star, 14 September 1946. 3 See L. O’Regan (ed.), Southern Star Centenary Supplement 1889–1989 (Skibbereen: Southern Star, 1989). 4 See P. Bew, Ireland: The Politics of Enmity 1789–2006 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); D. George Boyce, Nineteenth-century Ireland: The Search for Stability (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1990). 5 See S. Clark, Social Origins of the Irish Land War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); P. H. Gulliver and M. Silverman, Merchants and Shopkeepers: A Historical Anthropology of an Irish Market Town, 1200–1991 (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1995). 6 See M. L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press, 1850–1892 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999). 7 Ibid., pp. 130–57. 8 Ibid., pp. 119–47. 9 M. Byrne, ‘The Provincial Press in the South Midlands: From Mission to Mammon 1831–2004’, Offaly Heritage 3 (2005), p. 125.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 59

28/07/2011 11:23:42

60

Irish journalism before independence

10 Legg, pp. 125–8. 11 See E. Daly, Skibbereen and District, Fact and Folklore (Skibbereen: Inspire Print and Design, 2007). 12 P. Cleary, ‘Nineteenth-century Skibbereen’, Seanchas Chairbre 2 (December 1983), pp. 64–5. 13 The Census of Ireland 1861–1901 (Dublin: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1863–1902). 14 Cleary, p. 65. 15 I. d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics in Cork 1812–1844 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1980). 16 Census of Population 1926 (Dublin: The Stationery Office, 1928). 17 F. Callanan, The Parnell Split (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 1991), pp. 236–7; Callanan, T. M. Healy (Cork: Cork University Press, 1996), p. 8. 18 See O’Regan. 19 P. Maume, The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life 1891–1918 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1999). 20 See O’Regan. 21 Ibid. 22 See K. Kenny (ed.), Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); S. Howe, Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); P. Gray (ed.), Victoria’s Ireland? Irishness and Britishness 1837–1901 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004). 23 P. Longworth, Russia’s Empires: their Rise and Fall: From Prehistory to Putin (London: John Murray, 2006); D. Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals (Newhaven: Yale University Press, 2002); D. Geyer, Russian Imperialism: The Interaction of Domestic and Foreign Policy, 1860–1914 (Newhaven: Yale University Press, 1987). 24 P. J. Rollins, ‘Imperial Russia’s African Colony’, Russian Review, 27: 4 (1968), pp. 432–51. 25 See K. Nielsen, Britain and the Last Tsar: British Policy and Russia 1894–1917 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 51–110. 26 For a detailed account of these events, see J. K. Fairbank (ed.), The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 10: Late Ching 1800–1911, Part One (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978) and J. K. Fairbank and K. Ching Liu (eds) The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 11: Late Ching 1800–1911, Part Two (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 27 For Russo-Chinese relations at this period, see D. Schimmelpenninck Van Der Oye, ‘Russia’s Ambivalent Response to the Boxers’, Cahiers du Monde Russe, 41: 1 (2000), pp. 57–78. 28 Eagle and County Cork Advertiser, 2 April 1898. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 See S. Seagrave and P. Seagrave, Dragon Lady: Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China (New York: Vintage Books, 1993). 32 Eagle and County Cork Advertiser, 5 November 1898. 33 Ibid.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 60

28/07/2011 11:23:42

The Tsar, Potter and the Skibbereen Eagle

61

34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 See O’Regan. 38 C. A. Barker, Henry George: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1955). 39 T. Nulty, The Land Question: Letter of the Most Reverend Dr. Nulty to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Meath (Dublin: Joseph Dollard, 1881). 40 See O’Regan. 41 A. Mitchell, Labour in Irish Politics 1890–1930: The Irish Labour Movement in an Age of Revolution (Dublin: Irish University Press 1974), pp. 18–20; Irish Times, Irish Independent, Freeman’s Journal and Cork Examiner, 17–25 January 1899. 42 Eagle and County Cork Advertiser, 14 January 1899. 43 Ibid. 44 See O’Regan. 45 Ibid. 46 Southern Star, 8 September 1906. 47 M. Milne, ‘Survival of the Fittest? Sunderland Newspapers in the Nineteenth Century’ in J. Shattock and M. Wolff (eds), The Victorian Periodical Press: Samplings and Soundings (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1982), pp. 193, 214–16; Legg, pp. 77–9. 48 Legg, p. 127. 49 West Cork and Carbery Eagle or South-Western Advertiser, 2 January 1869.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 61

28/07/2011 11:23:42

5

The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan Maurice Walsh

From his three years as a sub-editor on The Times of London, Graham Greene remembered, ‘the slow burning fire in the sub editors’ room, the gentle thud of coals as they dropped one by one in the old black grate’. For Greene the gently soporific memory of the fireplace in the subs room was a symbol of ‘the peaceful life’.1 He knew of no one at the newspaper who had ever resigned or been sacked and so when he left in 1929 – after his first novel, The Man Within, turned out to be a spectacular success – the editor was reluctant to let him go.2 In Greene’s time, John Woulfe Flanagan was one of the institutions in the placid, library-like offices of The Times and one of those who had never left. Flanagan was the newspaper’s chief leader writer on foreign affairs for thirty-four years, and he was still coming to the office in the days before his death at the age of seventy-seven in November 1929. He would remove his coat and waistcoat before sitting down to work, looking more like a man who was about to embark on strenuous manual work than write a leader on international affairs. He would take down a volume of Shakespeare which he kept in his room to read while he awaited instructions from the editor on the subject and thrust of that night’s foreign leader.3 But the scholarly serenity of the old man chiselling out some well-crafted sentences on the Locarno Treaty concealed a figure who had once been at the centre of The Times tempestuous relations with Ireland. For it was the same John Woulfe Flanagan – Catholic Loyalist – who wrote the first series of articles entitled ‘Parnellism and Crime’ in an attempt to smear the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster. Flanagan was born on 6 April 1852 into a loyalist Catholic family with deep roots in Co. Roscommon. His father, the Rt Hon. Stephen Woulfe Flanagan QC, was a judge of the High Court and of the Irish Landed Estates Court; his mother, was the daughter of another prominent Irish lawyer. He was sent to public school in England and became a student at Balliol College in Oxford in 1871 where, three years later, his prize-winning essay on ‘The Portuguese in the East’ was published. He was called to the bar by Lincoln’s

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 62

28/07/2011 11:23:42

The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan

63

Inn in London in 1877 and also became a member of the Irish Bar. In 1881 he became High Sheriff of Roscommon and a magistrate for Roscommon and Sligo.4 By this time he had married Mary Emily Sheil, the daughter of Major General Sir Justin Sheil and they had a son, John Henry. They family lived at 21 Tedworth Square in London, even though Flanagan still owned property in Roscommon; he was, in other words, an absentee landlord. During his stint as a magistrate at the height of the Land War Flanagan would daily send teasingly affectionate notes to his wife from Roscommon peppered with observations on local life. On 14 March he wrote from ‘Mr Curly’s, Church Street, Roscommon’ to commend his lodgings: ‘Here I am in first rate quarters clean and comfortable just like Bretagne – you know I never can spell that word in English!’5 In the summertime after crossing the Irish Sea for a court sitting he wrote to his wife on arrival at Greystones in Co. Wicklow, asking if she could send a flower to the courthouse in Roscommon to match his blue coat so he could wear it on the bench the following day.6 By Flanagan’s own estimation it was politics – and the conflict then raging between landlords and tenants – which prevented him from living permanently in Roscommon. One letter to his wife from the courthouse in Roscommon swiftly moved on from holding up the delights of Irish country living – ‘I have had real fresh eggs of the kind you don’t appreciate’ – to a confession of attachment to the county where he was brought up: ‘I feel as I always do here, how much I should like to live in my own country if … the Land League would allow.’7 However the Land War did not seem such an obstacle to his brother, Edward, who was still living in Roscommon and making terms with the Land League to the extent of accepting its estimation of a fair rent (the so called Griffith’s Valuation) much to Flanagan’s disgust. ‘Edward has been at his old tricks over here, writing to the Freeman praising Parnell!!! And worst of all – though this I only know in confidence – he has taken Griffith’s Valuation! I am very much annoyed about it all of course. It is too bad that he should be helping these ruffians to kill us.’8 When he discovered three days later that his brother was on the verge of joining the Land League he confided to his wife that, ‘our living under the same roof could lead to nothing but unpleasantness’.9 Familial tension over politics rather than simply politics may have been the reason why in the years that followed Flanagan spent more and more time in London. By the mid-1880s there are no more letters from Roscommon; Flanagan began working as a journalist in London. He contributed to an evening newspaper, the St James’s Gazette and also offered his services to the conservative politician, W. H. Smith, then at the War Office, who was in the market for a man who could provide ‘the gist of the contents of the newspapers to keep him abreast of what is in the air from day to day’.10 Nothing came of this particular job but Flanagan ended up proffering advice to Smith on Ireland for the first eight months of 1887, warning him against

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 63

28/07/2011 11:23:42

64

Irish journalism before independence

appointing a well-known Irish landowner to a sensitive post in Dublin Castle because the candidate possessed ‘neither the moral courage, nor the judgment, nor the ability indispensible in that position in days like these’.11 This was a reference to the resumption of the Land War in Ireland which had abated after the reforms introduced by Gladstone’s Liberal government in 1881. By the mid-1880s agricultural prices had fallen again, tenants found themselves unable to pay even the judicial rents which had ended the first land war and evictions were increasing. Leaders of the Land League devised a ‘Plan of Campaign’ whereby tenants on an estate would make a collective offer to pay reduced rents; if the landlords refused, the money would be paid into a fund to defend the tenants from eviction proceedings. Throughout the winter of 1886–87 Irish Members of Parliament addressed mass meetings of tenants, urging them to use their collective power to resist the landlords and make them too frightened of popular feeling to order evictions. The response of the new Conservative government – elected when Gladstone’s administration had fallen over Home Rule for Ireland – was to introduce a Crimes Bill in March 1887 which gave the authorities in Dublin sweeping powers to suppress the land agitators and their leaders. Accounts of police brutality towards protesting tenants competed with the image of desperate landlords under siege in their estates, plagued by the nightly intrusion of cattle maimers and the threat of worse violence. It was during this time that Flanagan began to contribute to The Times. His views about the Land League would have been in tune with the thinking behind the Conservative coercion policy – that the disorder in Ireland was the outcome of a criminal conspiracy which reached all the way to Parnell and his colleagues in the House of Commons; and he was about to become a pioneer in The Times’s last great assault on Irish politicians. The Times’s first notable entanglement with the Irish issue came in the mid-nineteenth century as Daniel O’ Connell, strengthened after winning Catholic Emancipation in 1829 pushed ahead to repeal the Act of Union. O’Connell’s mass mobilisation of Irish Catholics, assisted by the clergy, was regarded by the newspaper as vulgar demagoguery; his attempted alliance with English republican radicals was deemed treacherous. The newspaper lumped the Whigs, the radicals and the Irish together under the label the ‘Destructives’, and O’Connell was regarded as the greatest of them.12 He was characterised as, ‘the worst being in human form that ever disgraced the floor of the English Senate.’13 For his part O’ Connell identified Thomas Barnes, the editor of The Times as the ‘prime traducer’ of Irish Catholics14 and his newspaper as ‘that vile journal … which exhibited the foulest instance of political tergiversation that had ever disgraced the press of England’.15 By the time of the Famine in the 1840s, The Times and Ireland had still not been reconciled to each other. The newspaper was heavily critical of government delays in bringing food to the starving.16 But it worried about how the Irish

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 64

28/07/2011 11:23:43

The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan

65

seemed immune to acquiring the Anglo-Saxon virtues which might have helped them to avoid famine: they have come amongst us, but they have not become of us. They have earned our money; but they have carried back neither our habits nor our sympathies, neither our love of cleanliness nor our love of comfort, neither our economy nor our prudence. Is this distinctive character incapable of subjugation or change?17 When Home Rule became the central question in British politics in the mid-1880s Ireland appeared to have failed to succumb to either of these remedies. Parnell seemed to be more of a threat than O’Connell was forty years previously because of his alliance with Gladstone. The Conservatives wanted to destroy Parnell by exposing him as the Godfather of agrarian crime in Ireland; by association the Liberals would be discredited as well.18 The Times became a willing instrument in this enterprise and John Woulfe Flanagan was the man chosen to do the work. The first part of Flanagan’s series – which achieved fame under the title ‘Parnellism and Crime’ – appeared on 7 March 1887. In ‘A Retrospect: Ireland’ Flanagan declared that the respectable leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Land League were in fact the accomplices of murder. ‘Murderers provide their funds, murderers share their inmost counsels, murderers have gone forth from the League offices to set their blood work afoot, and have presently returned to consult the “constitutional leaders” on the advancement of the cause.’19 In an accompanying editorial The Times attacked the ‘flabby sentimentalism of the age which refused to see that Parnell and his colleagues were evil’.20 The articles themselves consist of well-selected extracts from speeches and newspaper reports some of which go back six years. The tone is an almost perfect blend of the barrister and the leader-writer: crisp, prosecutorial, with heavy dashes of moral outrage and bombast. Thus, Flanagan writes of the Irish Parliamentary Party being ‘in trade and traffic with avowed dynamiters and known contrivers of murder’.21 The articles are based on a method that Flanagan put to use in his work for The Times for years after the original series was published. He would comb the press for incriminating speeches or statements by the Parnellites. He particularly favoured the Parnellite newspaper United Ireland or The Irish World published in New York by the Fenian, Patrick Ford. His assumption was that the farther away they were from the House of Commons the less guarded the Irish Parliamentary Party MPs would be in their support for violence. Flanagan was scrupulous about correcting errors that crept into the articles. Suggesting changes for the reprint of the article in pamphlet form he wrote to the editor, George Buckle: ‘I think the enemy might very fairly say that the revised section was intended to mislead … It would be an awful pity to give them a decent grievance.’22 The newspaper was clearly pleased with

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 65

28/07/2011 11:23:43

66

Irish journalism before independence

Flanagan’s work. Buckle wrote to MacDonald in triumph declaring that he had convicted Parnell’s deputy John Dillon of the ‘grossest falsehoods’ and marvelling at how ‘Flanagan is certainly wonderful at scenting out the truth about these ruffians.’23 Within weeks of the articles appearing in 1887, The Times had collected them in a pamphlet of sixty-seven pages which went on sale for one penny. Just over a month later it had printed 300,000 copies of Parnellism and Crime.24 But the reality was that Flanagan’s series fell flat in the circles where The Times had hoped it would have the greatest impact. In Westminster Parnellism and Crime appeared to have provoked only indifference. By the time the third edition of the pamphlet was published Buckle was complaining that MPs were evading their responsibility ‘by silently ignoring charges of the utmost gravity brought forward in the columns of The Times’.25 The weakness in Flanagan’s articles was not just that they were based on old speeches and newspaper cuttings but that they failed to show how the extreme language used by Land League and Irish Parliamentary Party leaders was anything more than political rhetoric. Often Flanagan’s examples of inflammatory talk appeared naïve: he quoted a speech by Matthew Harris, MP for East Galway, made while standing beside Parnell, in which Harris was reported to have said that ‘if the tenant–farmers of Ireland shot down landlords as partridges are shot in the month of September, Matt Harris never would say one word against them’. But rather than connecting this statement to subsequent outrages Flanagan was then forced to acknowledge that ‘At the close of the meeting, Mr Harris craftily qualified this atrocious statement.’26 It was the apathy that greeted Flanagan’s articles which encouraged The Times to seek out more damaging material on Parnell. When the Dublin journalist Edward Houston brought the newspaper letters from Parnell in which he admitted condemning the Phoenix Park murders of the Chief Secretary for Ireland and a senior civil servant only for expediency they seized the correspondence with zest. The letters were, in fact, a forgery written by journalist Richard Piggott, and when this was confirmed at a Special Commission set up to investigate the case, the reputation of The Times was severely damaged. The hearings – which lasted 128 days – cost the newspaper at least a quarter of a million pounds, and were partly responsible for its serious financial difficulties over the next twenty years.27 The strain and humiliation of appearing before the Commission and defending the newspaper were said to have caused the death of the manager, J. C. MacDonald in December 1889.28 When he appeared before the Commission, MacDonald refused to disclose the names of the authors of the ‘Parnellism and Crime’ articles saying they were the work of ‘several writers’.29 Flanagan had never been consulted about the veracity of the forged letters and indeed, the official history of The Times regretted that he had not been asked to assess them since ‘his acquaintance with Dublin life

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 66

28/07/2011 11:23:43

The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan

67

and journalism, which had its shady as well as its attractive side, would have enabled him to warn his seniors of the pitfall that lay before them’.30 In any case the Piggott forgery affair did not appear to do Flanagan any harm because he was appointed to the staff at the beginning of 1895 on a salary of £100 a month.31 Flanagan wrote to the manager of The Times, Charles Frederick Moberly Bell thanking him for his support and mentioning the ‘handsome and kind’ letter that Buckle had sent him. ‘With us Orientals that goes a long way’, he wrote to Moberly Bell. ‘We bask in these honorific ceremonies and expressions as we bask in the sun when we get it. They sweeten all things – and even given an added sweetness to the backsheesh [sic].’32 Flanagan regularly referred to himself as an ‘Oriental’ in his correspondence with Moberly Bell, and Bell reciprocated. This private joke had its basis in a rumour that Bell, who had been born in Egypt and spent a long time there as a correspondent, was indeed an ‘Oriental’, and that ‘the curved beak of his nose’ proved his origins (long after his death Bell’s sister wrote to The Times in 1924 to refute the Oriental myth).33 The fact that Flanagan should be on such intimate terms with Bell is curious in itself, given that Bell had a reputation for being fearsome and irascible, unapproachable and caustic.34 Their jokey correspondence indicates that Bell held Flanagan in high esteem. But it also reveals how Flanagan played the outsider in various guises: Irishman, reactionary landowner, Papist. Responding to a letter from Bell asking if he has work to do on a Sunday, Flanagan points out that as a Catholic he will be going to Mass. ‘Sunday is an awkward day for us Papists to be in strange houses because … in this heathen land that generally means going two or three miles [to find a church]. That is all right in summer when I have my cycle but in this weather it means … making a nuisance of yourself to your host.’ Flanagan recalled a Sunday he spent in Bell’s house when John Walter, the proprietor of The Times was a fellow guest. When Flanagan announced that he was off to Mass on his bicycle Walter ‘looked very black and sternly asked “Are you a Jesuit?!!”. Mrs Bell … burst out laughing but I don’t think that W saw the fun. I have always regretted that I did not promptly declare I was the general of the Society [of Jesus], living in disguise under a dispensation given to tap the secrets of The Times!’.35 The role most congenial to Flanagan – when he had established himself as a veteran leader-writer – was that of sarcastic reactionary. As legislation passed by the British government engineered a revolution on the land in Ireland, transferring estates from landlords to tenants and as the New Liberals in Britain began chipping away at the privileges of the wealthy and the House of Lords, Flanagan set himself firmly against change. In 1897 he chided Bell about how ‘both your English parties have combined to rob my children of their share of [my wife’s father’s] savings – in the name of the Four Cardinal Virtues and of all else that is unctuous – in order to bribe the Land League’. Irish landowners, he proclaimed, were the new destitute. ‘We

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 67

28/07/2011 11:23:43

68

Irish journalism before independence

shall have to start an ‘English garrison’ famine fund before long. And yet you expect us “friendlies” to be loyal to you!’36 Flanagan was doing his best for his besieged companions in London, both in the columns of The Times and behind the scenes. He wrote to the Marquiss of Dufferin & Ava appealing to him to use his influence with the cabinet to stymie land reform (‘As the eldest son of the late Judge Flanagan I take an hereditary interest in Irish land questions’), lamenting that English conservatives neither understood nor cared about the issue.37 At The Times he kept up the fight for a cause that was already lost. In ‘The Latest Irish Land Bill’ in June 1909 Flanagan denounced both Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’ and the introduction of compulsory purchase of Irish landlord’s estates as a ‘campaign against a form of ownership hitherto held in all civilised states to be the indispensible basis of social stability and economic well-being’. It was, he wrote, ‘a manifest negation of the first principles of private property as private property has been understood for centuries everywhere except in Oriental despotisms’.38 His work was well appreciated. Mr R. W. A. Holmes wrote from the heartland of Irish unionism, the Kildare Street Club in Dublin: ‘More power to you! I have just got The Times of today and read your article … the best I have ever read from your hand, and that is saying a great deal … everyone who has anything to lose in this country ought to bless you for it … no one with ordinary intelligence or honesty could read it without foaming with indignation.’39 The Dubliner, Unionist MP for Cambridge – and Classics scholar – Samuel Henry Butcher commended Flanagan in terms which suggest how marginal they both now felt in England: ‘You have put up a splendid fight for us in The Times and all Irish Unionists are grateful. Even the most stolid Englishman cannot now say that an Irish Land Bill is a thing beyond his intelligence.’40 Radical though the reforms might have seemed to Butcher, the actual transfer of land from landlords to tenants in Ireland was so slow that agitation had revived, particularly in the west. Large groups of men would drive cattle and sheep from farms they wanted divided and occupy the fields.41 H. F. Considine, deputy inspector general of the Royal Irish Constabulary – and like Flanagan a former Resident Magistrate – described to his old friend a tour he had undertaken in the midlands and the west in the summer of 1909. He had visited Flanagan’s farm in Roscommon which was attracting the attention of the anti-ranch campaign. The agitation seemed to be coming from only a few people, he reported, since ‘no desire exists to interfere with you’, but in the event of trouble ‘the surrounding people were likely to back the agitators even though not themselves personally interested’. All was quiet for the moment, Considine told Flanagan, because the locals eventually expected ‘a slice at least’ of his land to be given to them under the land acts. Considine had reached the same conclusion as Butcher:

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 68

28/07/2011 11:23:43

The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan

69

‘The English people take no interest as a body in Ireland – they are sick of our growling, complaints and disloyalty and with the fleet and the army expenses … they have little inclination to add to their burdens [with] Irish landowners.’ Considine himself had sold everything except the demesne and 425 acres but he could tell that his neighbours thought he had retained too much. ‘The fact is my dear old friend, the greed of the people for land is overwhelming – nothing at present satisfies them – and where it will end it is difficult to say.’42 For Flanagan anxiety about Ireland was matched by turmoil at The Times. The newspaper’s failure to adapt to the revolution in style and layout represented by Alfred Harmsworth’s Daily Mail left it in dire financial straits by the turn of the century. It was Harmsworth who rescued it in 1908 but the price was continual pressure from the new proprietor for innovation in production and news. Unlike the Mail, The Times did not demand purer milk, better housing, wholemeal bread, better roses and bigger sweet peas.43 But Harmsworth did embark on a campaign by memorandum to do away with its ‘priggish slackness’.44 Harmsworth constantly harassed Flanagan’s old friend Moberly Bell with schemes and ideas. He was particularly fascinated by the United States and more American news began appearing in The Times – much to Flanagan’s disapproval. ‘American politics and politicians (though disgusting) are important but I fancy that there are very few educated Europeans who care about … American “society” news,’ he wrote to Moberly Bell. ‘We don’t write about the personal and social doings of the leaders of great European societies, whose names at least are familiar to Englishmen and who are supposed to have an instinctive taste in such matters. Why not leave the Yankees also to the AP?’ Once again, Flanagan was unabashed in avowing his distaste for modern times. ‘You know I am a narrow-minded fossil living like a hermit between this room and my … den and for all I know of the company our readers may revel in such information as the price of … theatre suppers and the quality of the victuals consumed at them. But … I don’t care a d[amn] for anything except to make the paper better.’45 More American news was not the only challenge that Flanagan faced at The Times. There were signs that his status in the newspaper was in decline. For one thing, although he was the leader writer on foreign affairs the paper’s policy on Empire and diplomacy was now dominated by the head of the foreign department, Valentine Chirol, the future Conservative MP, L. S. Amery and Edward Grigg, the chief exponent of the ‘New Imperialism’ which envisaged an Empire where the Dominions would have a bigger say. Flanagan now worked under Grigg’s direction.46 There were also signs that his judgments on events in Ireland no longer commanded attention. When a third Home Rule bill was introduced in the House of Commons in 1912 its passage into law was inevitable because the veto power of the Lords had been

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 69

28/07/2011 11:23:44

70

Irish journalism before independence

removed; the unionists of Ulster threatened civil war to resist it. This should have been Flanagan’s moment. But although the policy of the new editor of The Times, Geoffrey Dawson was to ‘kill the bill’ he appears to have relied far more on The Times correspondent in Dublin, John Healy (editor of The Irish Times) for guidance than on Flanagan. Indeed, at one point, he confided to Healy as the crisis came to a head that he lacked ‘a first-class leader-writer to grapple with the political situation.’47 About the same time, Flanagan was writing to Dawson to try to persuade him that self-government for Ireland was impossible because the ‘Celts and Saxons’ there were incompatible. ‘Colonial analogies are apt to mislead … The real terrible difficulty in Ireland is that roughly the divisions of English v Irish, Protestant v Catholic, landlord v tenant, rich v poor, educated v uneducated all coincide. I do not think that has been the case in any society in which self-government has succeeded, or – in my opinion – can succeed.’48 But to Flanagan’s evident disillusionment self-government for Ireland became a reality over the following decade, and The Times supported it. The fundamental unionism of The Times was shaken by the First World War and the new order that prevailed after it – both in British politics and in the rest of the world. From 1919 under a new editor, Henry Wickham Steed, who had been the newspaper’s correspondent in Vienna and Berlin, The Times supported an Irish settlement and allowed its reporters to be extremely critical of the campaign to suppress Sinn Féin and the IRA. Steed made the connection between his espousal of self-determination for European minorities and the situation in Ireland – assisted, according to his memoirs, by his experience of meeting the American delegation at Versailles. ‘[It] was not until I came into close and almost daily contact with members of the American peace delegation in Paris, and met also a number of American public men unattached to it, that I understood the urgency of an Irish settlement if Anglo-American cooperation were to be possible in the future.’49 It is not clear from Flanagan’s surviving papers how he responded to this change in The Times policy. Steed evidently held him in high esteem as a leader writer, describing Flanagan in his memoirs as ‘that splendid literary veteran … who wields one of the finest pens in England.’50 But the two men exchanged no revealing letters. The semi-bitter sarcasm of his earlier correspondence gives some clue that he must have greeted the change with a despairing fatalism. His obituary suggests as much: ‘He was throughout life a devout member of his church and – until his spirit was broken by what he regarded as successive English surrenders to Home Rule and Sinn Féin – a fierce loyalist.’51 By this stage Flanagan held most politicians in contempt and feared the direction the world was taking. When Lloyd George replaced Asquith as prime minister in the middle of the First World War, Flanagan confided to his brother that he feared the new government would ‘launch

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 70

28/07/2011 11:23:44

The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan

71

into all sorts of socialism on the plea of “winning the war”’. He spared no politician, liberal, conservative or unionist: L[loyd]. G[eorge]. is an ignorant … sentimental demagogue; Milner a doctrinaire though a man of great ability; Carson utterly unacquainted with European affairs; [Bonar]Law ditto and a second rate man and Henderson ‘Labour’! And these (I had forgotten[Lord] Curzon, who is chiefly remarkable for his boundless self-conceits) have in their hands almost unlimited power over ‘liberty and property’ in these islands. It is a revolution, an alarming one at that. However, there is nothing for it now but to back them.52 But for all his dyspepsia Flanagan remained the consummate leader writer. The general election in December 1923 produced a hung parliament and opened the way for Flanagan’s nightmare, a Labour government. When Geoffrey Dawson (who returned as editor of The Times following Steed’s dismissal in 1922) set out his ideas for the leader which should appear on New Year’s Day 1924, he instructed Flanagan to avoid the ‘terrified speculation’ that had appeared in other newspapers about the impending catastrophe of rule by Labour. ‘I think it far better in the circumstances that a Labour Government should be placed in a position of responsibility as soon as possible,’ Dawson wrote in a note to Flanagan. ‘I think The Times should disassociate itself altogether from the panic-stricken plutocrats who are publicly anticipating disaster.’53 Flanagan, who we might surmise from his own views would be more in sympathy with those panic-stricken plutocrats, duly obliged. ‘There is no valid reason to doubt that the Labour leaders possess their share of natural intelligence, strong common sense, the sense of fair play and of public duty which are the birthright of the countrymen,’ The Times leader read on 1 January 1924. ‘They will make mistakes, as all Ministers make mistakes, but they will work under the eye of a majority in Opposition strong enough to defeat them in dangerous adventures.’54 By the early 1920s, the troubles in Ireland had become a personal as well as a political disaster for Flanagan. His brother, James, the Resident Magistrate for Newry who was shot by three men as he left Newry Cathedral after Mass in June 1922. That same month, his sister, who was a nun in the Sisters of Charity in Gardiner Street in Dublin wrote to him describing the terror of being trapped in the centre of the city when the Free State forces assaulted Republican positions in the Four Courts Press. ‘The firing was very intense for about ¾ of an hour but the day has been fairly quiet,’ she wrote. ‘I don’t quite know what is going on but the Republicans have taken two hotels unpleasantly near us … The Four Courts Press have not yet been blown up and I am told the water supply has been cut off so they may give in before it is blown to bits … If I could only face death with the courage dear old Jim

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 71

28/07/2011 11:23:44

72

Irish journalism before independence

did I would not mind getting a bullet but I must confess I am a real coward and everything combined is making me a bit “jiggy” at present.’55 His last years seem to have been lonely; he lived for his work in his office in Printing House Square. He died on 16 November 1929 ‘in active service’ – as the The Times obituary put it – of the newspaper where he had spent most of his working life.

Notes 1 G. Greene, Fragments of Autobiography (London: Penguin, 1991), p. 125. 2 Ibid., p. 141. 3 ‘Obituary: Mr J. W. Flanagan: A Great Servant of “The Times”’, in The Times, 18 November 1929, p. 17. 4 Ibid. 5 Letter from John Woulfe Flanagan to Mary Emily Flanagan 14 March 1881, Papers of John Woulfe Flanagan, National Archives, Dublin [hereafter referred to as JWF Papers] 1189/4/4. 6 JWF to Mary Emily Flanagan, 6 July 1881 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/4/4. 7 JWF to Mary Emily Flanagan, 15 March 1881 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/4/4. 8 JWF to Mary Emily Flanagan, 14 March 1881 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/4/4. 9 JWF to Mary Emily Flanagan, 17 March 1881 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/4/4. 10 For St James’s Gazette see correspondence with J. Greenwood, 6 and 7 December 1886 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/2/2. For approach to W. H. Smith see correspondence with Wilfred Burton [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/2/3. 11 JWF letter to W. H. Smith, 12 February 1887 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/2/3. 12 The History of The Times Vol. I: The Thunderer in the Making 1785–1841 (London: The Times, 1950), pp. 358–60. 13 Ibid., p. 367. 14 Ibid., p. 365. 15 Ibid., p. 366. 16 M. Fegan, Literature and the Irish Famine 1845–1919 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), p. 36. 17 The Times, 1 September 1846 quoted in M. De Nie, ‘The Famine, Irish Identity, and the British Press’, Irish Studies Review, 6: 1 (1998), p. 28. 18 F. S. L. Lyons, ‘“Parnellism and Crime”, 1887–90’ in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Series, Volume 24 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1974), p. 125. 19 Parnellism and Crime Third and Revised Edition (London: The Times, 1887), p. 15.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 72

28/07/2011 11:23:44

The leader writer: James Woulfe Flanagan

73

20 The Times, 7 March 1887, p. 9. 21 Parnellism and Crime, p. 56. 22 JWF to G. E. Buckle 25 April 1887, Parnell File SB/Parnell/2/1/3, The Times Archive, London. 23 G. E. Buckle to John McDonald 2 May 1887, Buckle Papers GEB/1/2/7, The Times Archive, London. 24 Letter from John McDonald to JWF, 26 April 1887 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/2/2. 25 Parnellism and Crime, p. 59. 26 Ibid., pp. 17–18. 27 F. Harcourt Kitchin: Moberly Bell and His Times: An Unofficial Narrative (London: Philip Allan & Co., 1925), p. 73. 28 The History of The Times Vol. 3: The Twentieth Century Test 1884–1912 (London: The Times, 1947), p. 88. 29 J. MacDonald, Diary of the Parnell Commission Revised from the ‘Daily News’ (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1890), p. 145. 30 Parnellism and Crime, p. 51. 31 Correspondence between JWF and John Walter [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/7/7. 32 JWF to Charles Moberly Bell 1 January 1895, Moberly Bell Papers CMB/1, The Times Archive, London. 33 F. Harcourt Kitchin: Moberly Bell and His Times: An Unofficial Narrative (London: Philip Allan & Co., 1925), pp. 81–2. 34 Ibid., pp. 1–2, 22, 86, 281. 35 JWF to Charles Moberly Bell, 31 December 1908, Moberly Bell Papers CMB/1, The Times Archive, London. 36 JWF to Charles Moberly Bell, 28 January 1897, Moberly Bell Papers CMB/1, The Times Archive, London 37 JWF to Marquiss of Dufferin, 28 June 1896 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/8/10. 38 The Times, 11 June 1909, p. 11. 39 R. W. A. Holmes to JWF, 11 June 1909 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/18/9. 40 S. H. Butcher to JWF, 30 August 1909 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/18/9. 41 See F. Campbell, Land and Revolution: Nationalist Politics in the West of Ireland 1891–1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 42 H. F. Considine to JWF, 21 August 1909 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/18/9. 43 J. Chalaby, ‘Northcliffe: Proprietor as Journalist’, in P. Catterall, C. SeymourUre and A. Smith (eds) Northcliffe’s Legacy: Aspects of the British Popular Press, 1896–1996 (London: Macmillan, 2000), p. 36. 44 The History of The Times Vol. 4: The 150th Anniversary and Beyond (Part 1) (London: The Times, 1952), p. 137. 45 JWF to Moberly Bell, 19 December 1908, Moberly Bell Papers CMB/1, The Times Archive, London.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 73

28/07/2011 11:23:45

74

Irish journalism before independence

46 The History of The Times Vol. 4: The 150th Anniversary and Beyond, p. 17. 47 Geoffrey Dawson to John Healy, 29 September 1913, G. G. Dawson Papers, The Times Archive, London. 48 JWF to Geoffrey Dawson, 19 September 1913, G. G. Dawson Papers, The Times Archive, London. 49 H. W. Steed, Through Thirty Years Vol. 2 (London: Heinemann, 1924), p. 342. 50 Ibid., p. 7. 51 The Times, 18 November 1929, p. 17. 52 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/16/8. 53 Geoffrey Dawson to JWF, 28 December 1923, G. G. Dawson Papers, The Times Archive, London. 54 ‘The Old Year and the New’, The Times, 1 January 1924, p. 13. 55 Sister Scholastica to JWF, 28 June 1922 [JWF Papers] National Archives 1189/16/10.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 74

28/07/2011 11:23:45

6

Mr Russell of The Times Peter Murtagh

At ten minutes past eleven, our Light Cavalry Brigade advanced. As they rushed towards the front, the Russians opened on them from the guns in the redoubts on the right with volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendour of war. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses. Surely that handful of men were not going to charge an army in position? Alas! It was but too true – their desperate valour knew no bounds, and far indeed it was removed from its better part – discretion. They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace as they closed towards the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who, without the power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of death. (from The Cavalry Action at Balaklava, 25 October 1854; published under the byline ‘From Our Special Correspondent’, The Times, 14 November 1854)1 The Special Correspondent whose vivid, stirring and, above all, accurate accounts of the British participation in the Crimean War was a thirtyfour-year-old Irishman, William Howard Russell. He was dismissed as a ‘miserable scribbler’ by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, but he was a hero to many, not least the middle class readers of The Times newspaper of London while his reporting – and that of Thomas Chenery, a Times colleague based in Constantinople – inspired Florence Nightingale to bring her nursing skills to the battlefield.2 The dispatch, quoted above, is a short extract from a lengthy and detailed account of the heroic failure that was the Charge of the Light Brigade which galvanised Tennyson to produce a poem of that title: Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 75

28/07/2011 11:23:45

Irish journalism before independence

76

‘Forward the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!’ he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.3 Russell’s account of the Light Brigade charge roused the passions of middle England. No journalist of his time achieved anything like the popular standing he enjoyed and after his death in 1907, his life and legacy was commemorated by a memorial bust erected in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The inscription describes the figure above it, reporter’s notebook at the ready, as ‘The first and greatest of War Correspondents’. The words ‘war correspondent’ were applied to Russell during his life but he disliked the title. He preferred the more simple statement that he was ‘Mr Russell of The Times’ – a title he regarded as a badge of pride and honour.

The early life and career of W. H. Russell Russell was born in Dublin on 28 March 1820, the product of what used to be known in Ireland as a ‘mixed marriage’ – his mother was a Roman Catholic, his father a Protestant. When financial misfortune shone on the family his parents moved to Liverpool and the young Russell was packed off aged six or seven to his paternal grandparents who lived on Upper Baggot Street which was not then the city centre address it is today.4 Suburban Dublin in the 1820s and 1830s ended barely a few hundred meters from the young Russell’s new home beyond which lay open countryside.5 Having sat the entrance examination for Trinity College, Russell began his studies in 1838, but not before his first foray into journalism. Like many Victorians, he was interested in the natural world and was a keen observer of wildlife. An amateur ornithologist by the age of sixteen, he wrote a letter to the Dublin Penny Journal describing ‘a curious sort of lark on a furrow in a field’ which (unfortunately for the bird) he had shot. ‘I put the corpse on a sheet of paper at home, drew the outlines, set down the details, and then I wrote a letter to the editor of the Dublin Penny Journal, enclosed the drawing, and delivered the precious manuscript at the office.’6 Undeterred by an aunt’s sniffy dismissal that the bird was probably ‘Jenny Osborne’s parrot,’ Russell was elated by the modicum of fame his drawing and published letter brought. It aroused the interest of the Royal Dublin Society and A. G. More’s 1885 List of Irish Birds. Almost 70 years later, Russell was still credited with having found in Ireland one of the only crested larks then on record. Based solely on his claim, the crested lark (or alauda cristata) was included in the 1908 updated edition of the List of Irish Birds produced by Richard Ussher. The conclusion of the story suggests that Russell had an unsentimental side: when asked

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 76

28/07/2011 11:23:45

Mr Russell of The Times

77

by Richard Ussher in 1897 what had become of the shot bird, he replied: ‘Probably we ate him.’ Precisely what Russell studied at Trinity College remains unclear: he was interested in both law and medicine but both seemed far from his thoughts. ‘There were glorious doings during election times, when Trinity College students – who were mostly Orangeman – met the Roman Catholics and engaged them in battle; but, alas! They were tyrannous and strong … [but] Sometimes we had it all our own way, and made the most of it. Away we would go to King William’s statue on College Green, shouting ‘Down with the Pope! Down with the Pope!’ We frequently parted with broken heads. We were often triumphant, though.’7 While at Trinity College he had thoughts of a career in medicine, and while law would come later, like so many before and since, journalism intervened, with lifelong consequences. In January 1841, Russell was in Liverpool to visit his father (his mother had died nine months before) and shared accommodation with a cousin, Robert Russell.8 Robert was working for The Times and later that summer, he was sent to Ireland to organise the newspaper’s coverage of general elections, which, given previous elections, were expected to be marred by much rioting. Catholic emancipation in 1829 and electoral reform in 1832 had extended the franchise with the result that politics had become more competitive. Robert offered his cousin the chance to be an election reporter for The Times – an ‘astounding proposal’ as Russell later described the opportunity.9 ‘You will have a pleasant time of it,’ Robert assured him. ‘Letters to the best people – a guinea a day and your hotel expenses. Will you go next week?’ As Russell noted in his unpublished memoir, he ‘did not hesitate a moment’. Russell’s first dispatch to The Times was published on 20 July 1841, five days after it was sent from Longford, a ‘dismal little town which was quivering with passion and the noise of bands, patriots and priests’, as he later described it.10 His dispatch made clear that sectarian hatred, whipped up by a protestant minister, lay behind the rioting. He was thrilled with his new status. ‘To hear my name “Mr Russell of The Times” pronounced by an anxious agent as the coach pulled up at Sutcliffe’s Hotel [in Longford] … this indeed was fame,’ he wrote later. 11 On his first trial as a reporter, young Russell (twenty-one years of age) had come to the attention of the almost equally young John Thaddeus Delane, just appointed Editor of The Times at the extraordinarily age of twenty three. Delane, son of an Irishman who was finance manager of The Times, proved himself to be one of the newspaper’s greatest editors, if not the greatest. During an editorship lasting thirty-six years, Delane and Russell formed a partnership that was deep and enduring, and was both professional and personal. Russell was offered a temporary position with The Times in 1842 reporting from the press gallery of the House of Commons session but with no pay

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 77

28/07/2011 11:23:45

Irish journalism before independence

78

when the House was not sitting. He accepted and by January 1843, was sufficiently confident to suggest a pay rise – a display of chutzpah well matched by Delane’s gentle rejection which was laced with praise. ‘Without at all detracting from the merit you justly claim for your zealous services, we are of opinion that we cannot in justice to your colleagues make a permanent addition to your present salary,’ wrote Delane. ‘In acknowledge­ment, however, of the zeal and ability you have displayed during the recess, I have the pleasure to request your acceptance of the enclosed cheque.’12 In 1843, Delane dispatched Russell back to Ireland to report on the activities of Daniel O’Connell, then campaigning for the repeal of the Act of Union of 1801. While The Times did not support O’Connell’s quest for repeal (quite the opposite), and while Russell did not wholly share his politics, he was taken by O’Connell’s ability to rouse an audience. ‘I have never heard any orator who made so great an impression on me as O’Connell,’ he wrote in 1891 in a long account of O’Connell’s monster meetings.13 O’Connell’s plans for a monster meeting at Clontarf in October 1843 were thwarted, when the authorities banned the meeting and flooded the area with troops. O’Connell, a pacifist at heart, ordered his followers to disperse. Nonetheless, some days later, he and his son, John, plus five associates were arrested and charged with sedition. Delane sent Russell to report on the trial, scheduled for 15 January 1844. Russell sat through it all, along with a flock of reporters from other newspapers until a guilty verdict was finally handed down in the early hours of Sunday 11 February 1844.14 These were days before any form of electronic communication and so Russell rushed from the court and got the train to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) where he caught a ferry, the Iron Duke, which took him across the Irish Sea to Holyhead where he took the train to Euston in London, ready to deliver his news to The Times’ offices at Printing House Square in Blackfriars. In a breathless account of what happened next, Russell recalled years later being met by a messenger from his newspaper who helped him into a carriage for the dash from Euston to Printing House Square during which he struggled to get his boots on.15 When the carriage arrived at The Times, the messenger leapt out saying: ‘I’ll tell the editor you’ve come.’ He disappeared, Russell noted, ‘through the door, outside which stood some men in their shirt-sleeves’. As I alighted, one of them said in my ear ‘We are glad to hear they have found O’Connell guilty at last.’ I did not reflect; I thought it was one of the office people, and answered, ‘Oh yes! All guilty but on different counts.’ And then, with one boot under my arm and my coat over it, I entered the office. Russell gave his hand written report to Delane who passed it immediately to

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 78

28/07/2011 11:23:46

Mr Russell of The Times

79

his printer, requesting a proof copy as soon as possible. He instructed Russell to sit down and tell him the story. As the night wore on and proofs appeared for examination by Delane, Russell sank into sleep, waking in his chair at 4.20 a.m. He was taken to a hotel in Fleet Street and slept till noon. ‘My waking was not pleasant,’ he recalled later. The Morning Herald also had the O’Connell verdict. ‘It turned out that my pleasant interlocutor at the entrance to the office was an emissary of the enemy. By artful and audacious guesses, the hated rival was able to make fair announcement on Monday morning of the result of the great O’Connell trials! It was mortifying.’ Russell’s faux pas did not, however, lower him in Delane’s estimation, although for a period, his ties to The Times were not as firm as they had been. Many jobs in mid-nineteenth-century journalism were on a short-term contract basis, employment lasting only as long as the work was there with the result that many journalists held down several positions simultaneously, or at least moved from one to another as demand dictated. Many reporters were engaged in other activities including Russell, who chose law and studied for the Bar. In the autumn of 1848, Delane, now seven years as editor of The Times, was able to offer Russell a full-time position. Over the following five years, Russell had several assignments – he reported from the trials in Ireland of the leaders of the failed rebellion of 1848; he reported once again from parliament and pursued his spectacularly unsuccessful career as a barrister. He also got his first taste of reporting major conflict when in July 1850, he was dispatched to the war between Denmark and Prussia over SchleswigHolstein, two Duchies incorporating much of modern-day southern Jutland. Russell had clearly established his credentials as a reliable and versatile reporter. Life might well have carried on as heretofore, resulting in a solid and distinguished output from those staples of journalism – politics, crime, grand occasions … and the unexpected. But then Russell was sent on a mission that would define the rest of his life and earn him a place in the history of journalism, while the practice of journalism – of war reporting, more precisely – would never be quite the same again.

The Charge of the Light Brigade One evening in February 1854, Delane told Russell that ‘a very agreeable excursion’ had been arranged for him to accompany a contingent of British army Guards to the Mediterranean island of Malta, a significant British naval base in the nineteenth century. Russell made a limp effort to resist but Delane was not for turning. ‘There is not the least chance of that,’ he said, ‘you will be back at Easter, depend on it, and you will have a pleasant trip.’16 On the eve of his departure, Russell’s friends hosted a meal in his honour. Among the attendees were writers Charles Dickens and William Makepeace

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 79

28/07/2011 11:23:46

80

Irish journalism before independence

Thackeray. Delane’s ‘back at Easter’ promise was hopelessly wide of the mark – Russell would be gone for twenty-two months. The Crimean War was fought between, essentially but not exclusively, Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire (lands ruled by current-day Turkey) on one side, and Russia on the other. In summary, Russia saw an opportunity for territorial expansion at the expense of a weakening Ottoman Empire. Russia invaded in July 1853 and occupied two Turkish protectorates, the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia on the western shores of the Black Sea. Britain and France responded by dispatching their fleets to the Dardanelles, while Turkey declared war on Russia. In November, Russia attacked the Turkish fleet at anchor in Sinope, on the southern shore of the Black Sea, killing over 4,000 Turkish sailors. Alarm in Britain and France grew rapidly. Paris and London feared that a war between Russia and Turkey would end in a defeat for the Ottomans, resulting in Russian control of the Dardanelles and, more broadly, the entire eastern Mediterranean. Neither would allow this to happen and in January 1854, the French and British fleets were ordered through the Bosporus and into the Black Sea. The following month, Lord Raglan was appointed commander of a British expeditionary force. He was aged sixty-six and had not seen military combat since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 in which he lost an arm. On 27 March 1854, France declared war on Russia; Britain followed the next day. An early indication of Russell’s later difficulties with the military authorities came when he tried to sail to Malta with a detachment of Guards leaving from Southampton in late February 1854. Delane had been assured by the military that a berth would be made available to Russell but when he turned up to board the transport ship Ripon, no one in charge of the fleet was willing to give him space. Prior to Russell, most war reporting, such as there was, was often done by officers reporting principally for their superiors and whose dispatches found their way also to newspapers. The idea of a full-time journalist embedded with the army, but not subject to military discipline, and providing an independent account and assessments of events as they unfolded was novel to all concerned. If it was new and exciting for the media, it was new and un-nerving for the military. Unable to obtain passage on the Ripon, Russell made his own way across Europe to Malta. His first dispatch to The Times as ‘Our Special Correspondent’ was based on conversations with soldiers, sailors and officers, after his arrival in Malta, about their voyage from England. It was published on 15 March 1854. War had not yet been declared and so this and other early reports by Russell were mainly what in today’s terminology would be called colour pieces – descriptive writing peppered with harmless tittle-tattle. But for all that, Russell did not pull his punches either. His first dispatch referred to a degree of chaos and lack of organisation among the military. He

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 80

28/07/2011 11:23:46

Mr Russell of The Times

81

reported claims that when some regiments disembarked in Malta they found inadequate billeting, for both troops and horses, and a shortage of food. ‘If the complaints to which I have alluded are well-founded, serious blame rests in some quarter or another,’ he wrote. By April 1854, the main British force had moved to a more forward position in the Dardanelles and again, Russell was not impressed by what he evidently regarded as poor military planning. A report written on 5 April and published on 24 April (such was the length of time it took reports to reach London), questioned establishing a base at Gallipoli, far removed from the Russian front line. French forces, having landed earlier, had already taken the best positions. ‘Would it not be better,’ asked Russell, ‘to march at once to the aid of the Turks on the Danube, if we seriously intend to strike a blow for them?’ A report written on 10 April further described poor planning: While our sick men have not a mattress to lie down upon, and are literally without blankets, the French are well provided for. We have no medical comforts – none were forwarded from Malta – and so, when a poor fellow was sinking the other day, the doctor had to go to the General’s and get a bottle of wine for him. Russell’s observation irked the government in England, and a question was asked in the House of Lords by the Duke of Newcastle who sought to deflect criticism. Back in Gallipoli, Russell was ostracised by the military. This was a recurring theme throughout his period in the Crimea. At Scutari near Constantinople, Russell’s tent was taken down in his absence and dumped some 400 yards outside the British camp; the same treatment was meted out to him at camp at the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna. Russell was conscious of his wider responsibility not to spread alarm at home or give succor to the enemy through his published reports. In private letters to Delane, however, he was more openly critical of the military, and sought guidance on what should be published: ‘There is no beef for the men for the last three days only mutton which doctors say will bring on dysentery. Just imagine this: the sappers and miners sent out to Bajuk to survey do so in full dress, as their undress clothes were not ready when they left. Am I to tell these things or to hold my tongue?’ This moment is key to understanding what made Russell a great reporter. As Atkins puts it: A plain choice was now open to Russell: on the one hand lay complaisance – a casuistical indulgence towards errors which he might have told himself are inseparable from all campaigns – and with it the comparative comfort of being tolerated by the military authorities; on the other hand lay the ways of truth and conscience and a painful enmity with powerful officers who might be able to make his life a

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 81

28/07/2011 11:23:46

Irish journalism before independence

82

hell upon earth. There is not a sign, or a shadow of a sign, that Russell hesitated.17 If Russell had been seeking reassurance from his editor, he got it. In an editorial published on 29 May 1854, and written in response to criticisms of Russell and The Times, Delane laid down a marker which is as valid to reporters and media today as it was when written over a century and a half ago. If a regiment cannot move for want of horses or ammunition; if the sappers and miners find themselves without tools; if some other needful preparation has been omitted, we may be sure that Government will have a much better chance of hearing it through ‘Our Own Correspondent’ than through its own dispatches, if, indeed, the information comes at all before it is too late. We can easily understand why a certain class of officers should like no tale told but their own; and why Government should wish a veil to be thrown over its possible neglects; but the people of England will look for safety in publicity rather than in concealment. This, then, was The Times at its declamatory best. Delane was at the height of his powers as editor and had in his armoury the finest reporter of his generation. Throughout the war, he printed Russell’s lengthy dispatches in full, often several combined together in a single edition of the paper. He also had Times reporters back in England follow up issues thrown up by the Russell’s dispatches. He deployed his editorial writers to act in support of their colleague and write leaders questioning those in authority for the incompetence revealed. Delane also had direct access to the Cabinet through personal contacts and he used these privately to brief ministers as to the seriousness of events unfolding in the Crimea. The editor and his reporter met on a beach at Eupatoria on 15 September 1854 when Delane was able to see for himself the chaotic reality that Russell had been reporting. Delane attempted to meet Lord Raglan, commander of the British forces but was as unsuccessful as his Special Correspondent: Raglan’s distaste for the fourth estate knew few bounds. Delane sailed back to England seemingly in chipper mood, describing Russell in a letter as ‘fat and flourishing’. Russell, on the other hand, was gloomy, complaining: ‘Truth to tell, there was not much to make me happy.’18 Russell was with a great moving army but was not part of it, nor a beneficiary of its supplies. He had no tent and was evidently unwelcome in camp. He did manage to buy himself a horse for £20 – ‘a fiddle-headed, ewe-necked beast with great bone and not much else’.19 He also acquired the garb that was to be the hallmark of his appearance in the Crimea: a commissariat officer’s cap with a broad gold band, a rifleman’s half-length

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 82

28/07/2011 11:23:46

Mr Russell of The Times

83

patrol jacket, cord breeches, butcher boots and huge spurs – his clothes from England lost (or stolen) somewhere en route. Thus attired, Russell cut a wonderful figure in the 21 May 1855 portrait photograph of him taken by Roger Fenton.20 Fifteen days after the landing at Eupatoria, some 30,000 of the troops began their march south towards the Russian lines. Three rows of marching men – English, French and Turkish – stretched for seven or eight miles. The scorched earth tactics of the Cossacks, retreating to make their stand on the south bank of the Alma, presaged the savagery to come. The battle, the first major engagement of the war, was fought on 20 September 1854. Perhaps not surprisingly, Russell was struck by what seems to have been an otherwise uncharacteristic spasm of self doubt: I never was in a more unpleasant position. Everyone else on the field had some raison d’etre. I had none. They [the soldiers] were on recognised business. It could scarcely be a recognised or legitimate business for any man to ride in front of the Army in order that he might be able to write an account of a battle for a newspaper. I was a very fly in amber.21 The Russian forces, led by Prince Menchikoff, had taken up positions on the ridge of high ground on the southern bank of the Alma. The British, French and Turks were on the lower, northern bank of the river – a position of relative strategic disadvantage. The opposing forces, having taken up their positions, began battle in earnest around midday. Russell described in detail the massing of the armies, their relative strengths and the initial artillery assaults by the French and Turks, provoking replies from the Russians. Typical of his style of reporting, Russell sought to give his reader a sense of being there – pieces of information not central to events but which fleshed out the scene. ‘It was a lovely day,’ he noted as he reported how troops were ordered to readiness at 6.30 a.m., ‘the heat of the sun was tempered by a sea-breeze. The fleet was visible at a distance of four miles, covering the ocean as it was seen between the hills, and the steamers on the right as close to the shore as possible.’22 In his dispatch Russell described the fierce battle that followed. And now came the turning point of the battle. Lord Raglan dashed over the bridge, followed by his staff. From the road over it, under the Russian guns, he saw the state of the action. The British line, which he had ordered to advance, was struggling through the river and up the heights in masses, firm indeed, but mowed down by the murderous fire of the batteries, and by grape, round shot, shell, canister, case shot, musketry, from some of the guns of the central battery, and from an immense and compact mass of Russian infantry … Then commenced one of the most bloody and determined struggles in the annals of war.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 83

28/07/2011 11:23:46

Irish journalism before independence

84

Despite the chaos of the battlefield, the line of troops ‘was almost as regular as though they were in Hyde Park’, Russell noted. He observed what he could that day and retired exhausted for the night without writing anything. ‘My eyes swam as I tried to make notes of what I heard,’ Russell recalled later.23 ‘I was worn out with excitement, fatigue, and want of food. I had been more than ten hours in the saddle; my wretched horse, bleeding badly from a cut in he leg, was unable to carry me. My head throbbed, my heart beat as though it would burst … It was now that the weight of the task I had accepted fell on my soul like lead.’ In the morning, 21 September, he rose at dawn and lay on the grass in hot sun. He had a quill and the yellowing pages of a Russian account book on which to write his vivid and passionate account of the battle. A further account, written on the 22 September, was an illuminating description of the battlefield after the allied victory. The greater part of the English killed and wounded were here, and there were at least five Russians to every Englishman. One could not walk for bodies. The most frightful mutilations the human body can suffer – the groans of the wounded – the packs, helmets, arms, clothes, scattered over the ground – all formed a scene that one could never forget. There, writhing in their gore – racked with the agony of every imaginable wound – famishing with thirst – chilled with the cold night air – the combatants lay indiscriminately; no attempt being made to relieve their sufferings until the next day … That plain is covered with the wounded Russians still. Nearly sixty long hours have they passed in agony on the ground; and now, with but little hope of help of succour more, we must leave them as they lie. All this nameless, inconceivable misery – this cureless pain – to be caused by the caprice of one man! Seven hundred and fifty men are still on the ground and we can do nothing for them. Russell reported that nearly 3,000 men were killed or wounded among the combined allied forces – but that up to 12,000 Russians were killed or wounded. With his dispatches from Alma, Russell’s reputation soared, and with it, sales of The Times. The edition that carries his description of the Battle of Alma sold 70,000 copies. At the start of the war, the newspaper was selling around 40,000 a day and there was little doubt but that the extraordinary increase in sales was because of interest in the conflict generated by Russell’s reporting. In October, the owner of The Times, John Walter (the son of the newspaper’s founder of the same name), wrote a glowing letter to Russell, praising his work telling him that as a measure of corporate gratitude for his efforts, £500 was to be used to set up a trust fund for the benefit of his children.24 In late October, a military strategy unfolded that was to presage tactics

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 84

28/07/2011 11:23:47

Mr Russell of The Times

85

later employed in the First World War.25 Trenches were dug all around the southern flank of Sebastopol, a city that looked north and out to sea. On the highest ground overlooking the city, the French and British mounted their batteries. Below them, a complex interlocking network of trench passages, each in front of the other, dug at alternate angles to afford some protection from snipers on the walls of the Russian-held city. From the walls, and from forts within them – the Redan and the Malakoff – that became household names in England as a result of Russell’s reports, Russian batteries and rifles sought to repel any advance by French or British troops. An allied bombardment to stun and terrify the city’s Russian defenders was to be followed by a final assault on 17 October 1854. But the assault failed. Russell estimated that 1,000 Russians were killed in their batteries, and French and British losses number just 300 by comparison. It was clear, however, the Russian forces were well dug in and not for easy shifting. The siege of Sebastopol had begun and would last for almost a year until the city fell on 9 September 1855. During that time, the troops contended with an appalling winter and regular skirmishes as the enemy tried to break out. On one such occasion, on 25 October 1854, the Russians launched an assault on Balaclava. Russell had a commanding view of the charge of the Light Brigade. Talking to survivors before writing his report, he found they had no distinct image in their own minds as to what had happened. But in due course he sat down (on a saddle, writing on paper over his knee and with a candle in a bottle for light) and composed the account – switching to the present tense, quickening the pace of the narrative, seeming to bring it closer to the reader – that bought him immortality in the annals of reporting: The Russians on their left drew breath for a moment, and then in one grand line dashed at the Highlanders. The ground flies beneath their horses’ feet; gathering speed at every stride, they dash on towards that thin red streak topped with a line of steel. The Turks fire a volley at eight hundred yards and run. As the Russians come within six hundred yards, down goes that line of steel in front and out rings a volley of Minie musketry. The distance is too great; the Russians are not checked, but still sweep onwards with the whole force of horse and man, through the smoke, here and there knocked over by the shot of our batteries above. With breathless suspense every one awaits the bursting of the wave upon the line of Gaelic rock; but ere they come within a hundred and fifty yards another deadly volley flashes from the levelled rifles, and carries death and terror into the Russians. They wheel about, open fire right and left, and fly back faster than they came. ‘Bravo Highlanders! Well done!’ shout the excited spectators; but events thicken. Russell’s memorable phrase entered the lexicon as ‘the thin red line’ and

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 85

28/07/2011 11:23:47

Irish journalism before independence

86

for Victorian England, came to symbolise the sort of stiff upper lip heroic military restraint and determination which people liked to think reflected the essence of national character. Russell’s lengthy account described the to and fro of further battle in great detail before coming to ‘the disastrous cavalry charge’, as he termed it: ‘Don Quixote, in his tilt against the windmills, was not near so rash and reckless as the gallant fellows who prepared without a thought to rush on almost certain death.’ After telling how the Light Brigade of a little over 600 men charged down the valley, Russell’s report continued: At the distance of 1,200 yards, the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in the gallant ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. The first line is broken – it is joined by a second – they never halt of check their speed an instant … We saw them riding through the guns; and soon again, to our frenzied delight, we saw them returning after breaking through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering them like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down, scattered and broken as they were. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying towards us told the tale; demi-gods could not have done what we failed to do. With courage too great almost for credence, they were breaking their way through the columns that enveloped them, when there took place an act of atrocity without parallel in the modern warfare of civilized nations. The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry passed, returned to their guns. They saw their own cavalry mingled with the troopers who had just ridden over them, and, to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, the miscreants poured a murderous volley of grape and canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, mingling friend and foe in one common ruin. Despite the heroic disaster of the Charge of the Light Brigade, Balaclava was defended successfully and the Russians repelled. The winter of 1854–85 was horrendous. For a brief period, Russell managed to commandeer a small, damaged house in Balaclava which rank-and-file sailors and soldiers helped repair and make habitable for him. But his good fortune did not last long: in early December an army officer ordered him out (the army had assumed control over all property in the town). He walked out into the mud, reports Atkins, carried his bed up to the front, and became once more a wanderer, sometimes making use of the tents of his friends and sometimes taking refuge on board ship.26 Russell continued to live in this manner until, around March 1855, a wooden hut sent from England arrived and was erected (by an Irishman named Doyle, a member of the Army Works Corps) on Cathcart’s Hill,

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 86

28/07/2011 11:23:47

Mr Russell of The Times

87

which had a good view towards Sebastopol. It had two rooms and Russell later added a stable and two stalls. Doyle’s men painted the building and Russell added a flowerbed, a remarkable thing to do in the middle of a war zone. His reports throughout the winter of 1854–85 had a devastating effect on public opinion in England. People started sending food and clothes to the troops, sometimes addressed simply to: Times correspondent, Crimea. The newspaper set up a fund which quickly accrued £30,000 in donations. What Russell described in his reports was supported by evidence against which there could be no argument: in September 1854, the sick numbered 11,693; in November the figure was 16,846; by December 19,479 and by January 1855, an astonishing 23,076 men were ill or dying from cholera, dysentery or other form of fever. The number of dead from non-combat causes was eight times greater than those killed in battle or who died from their wounds. The Times did not restrain itself. Two days before Christmas 1854, Delane thundered in an editorial that ‘the noblest army ever sent from these shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mismanagement. Incompetency, lethargy, aristocratic hauteur, official indifference, favour, routine, perverseness, and stupidity reign, revel and riot in the Camp before Sebastopol’.27 It mattered nothing to Delane that the majority of the political establishment railed against his newspaper and Russell, who was accused of being little more than a spy for the Russians. Queen Victoria herself was reputed to have commented on ‘the infamous attacks against the army which have disgraced our newspapers’. But popular opinion was with Russell, The Times and the truth. On 23 January 1855, a radical MP, John Arthur Roebuck, tabled what amounted to a motion of confidence in the government of Lord Aberdeen. It called for an inquiry into the conditions of the army at Sebastopol. It was carried by 305 votes in favour to 148 against. A few days before the vote, Russell told Delane that The Times’ attack on Lord Raglan appeared to be bearing fruit for the men: equipment and reinforcements began arriving at the front. During January and February, Raglan broke with habit and visited his men almost every day. On 5 September, the French and British launched a bombardment of the city; three days later, the infantry attacked. A second attack planned for 9 September proved unnecessary: the Russians stole away during the night and the war was all but over. Russell’s dispatch of the crucial battle was an astonishing 10,000 words long and was dated 8 September, the day before the city was overrun by the British and French. But it was a report dated 12 September that captured the horror of war. It described the inside of the main hospital in Sebastopol where the Russian dead and wounded had been abandoned by their comrades. Russell saw ‘the rotten and festering corpses of the soldiers, who were left to die in their extreme agony, untended,

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 87

28/07/2011 11:23:47

88

Irish journalism before independence

uncared for, packed as close as they could be stowed, some on the floor, others on wretched trestles and bedsteads, or pallets of straw, sopped and saturated with blood, which oozed and trickled through upon the floor, mingling with the droppings of corruption.’ In October 1855, Russell left the Crimea and was home in London just after Christmas.

Conclusion Russell’s dispatches from the Crimea defined his career as a journalist. While he went on to report with distinction from other conflicts – the Indian Mutiny, the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War – had he ceased being a reporter after 1855, his place in journalism would have been assured still by his achievements in the Crimea alone. All the problems that Russell faced there – from efforts by the military and government to curb his reporting; to accusations by senior officers that he was giving succour to the enemy; plus the physical danger he faced and the stresses and strains of writing in camp or beside the battlefield and having his material delivered back to his newspaper – have been faced by countless colleagues ever since. Technology has advanced and changed the way reporters do their job but the dynamics and default positions of all the parties involved have not. In a craft not renowned for generosity among rivals, a contemporary of Russell’s in the Crimea, another Irishman, as coincidence would have it, named Edwin Lawrence Godwin, paid him handsome tribute. ‘In [Russell’s] hands, correspondence from the field really became a power before which the generals began to quail.’28 But Russell could not have succeeded as he did, had he not the support of an astute editor of principle who swung behind his man on the ground against all critics, no matter how powerful. Russell died in London on 10 February 1907 aged 86. His Irish Times obituary concluded: ‘With him a great personality passes from the stage upon which he played a strenuous part nobly, unselfishly and with an earnestness of purpose to which other men of his profession are much indebted, recognising in him their doyen and highest exemplar.’

Notes 1 The Times, 14 November 1854, p. 7. 2 Cited by R. Furneaux, The First War Correspondent: William Howard Russell of ‘The Times’ (London: Cassell, 1945), p. 78. 3 Opening stanza of The Charge of The Light Brigade, written in 1864 by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809–92). 4 J. B. Atkins, The Life of Sir William Howard Russell, the First Special Correspondent, Volume 1 (London: John Murray, 1911), p. 6.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 88

28/07/2011 11:23:47

Mr Russell of The Times

89

5 Ordnance Survey Office maps of Dublin; surveyed by Bordes, Capt., and Tucker, James and Bennett, Lts, Royal Engineers 1837. 6 Atkins, pp. 12–13. 7 Strand Magazine, July–December 1892; quoted by A. Hankinson, Man of Wars: William Howard Russell of ‘The Times’, 1820–1907 (London: Ashgate, 1982), p. 13. 8 Hankinson, p. 13, quoting Russell’s diary (January 1867), one of 50 Russell diaries in The Times archive, London. 9 Hankinson, p. 14. 10 Atkins, p. 17. 11 Ibid. 12 Delane to Russell, 20 January 1843, from The Times archive, quoted in Atkins. 13 See Atkins, p. 37. 14 On 30 May 1844, O’Connell was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment and fined £2,000 but on 4 September 1844, the verdict was overturned on appeal to the House of Lords. 15 Atkins, pp. 39–42. 16 Ibid., p. 124; also W. H. Russell, The Great War with Russia (London: Routledge, 1895). 17 Atkins, p. 139. 18 Russell, 1895, p. 25. 19 Atkins, p. 153. 20 Fenton went to the Crimea in February 1855, under the patronage of both the Royal Family (whose portraits he was shooting at the time) and the British government (for whom he had been taking pictures of the British Museum. He was proposed by Thomas Agnew and Sons, who saw a commercial opportunity because of the interest aroused by Russell’s reports and needed government sanction to proceed. Fenton bought a former wine merchant’s van and converted it to a mobile, horse-drawn darkroom. For reasons that are unclear, Fenton concentrated on photographic officers and men mainly in camp, rather than actual fighting or the corpse-strewn aftermath of battle. Despite this, his pictures from the Crimea constitute a remarkable record. Over 600 of Fenton’s prints are preserved at the Photographic Museum in Bradford, England, the most comprehensive archive of his work. 21 Atkins, p. 156. 22 The Battle of Alma, The Times, 10 October 1854; this and other extracts from WHR’s reports of the battle and its aftermath are cited in W. H. Russell (author), A. M. Fleming and J. M. Hamilton (eds), The Crimean War: As Seen by Those Who Reported It (From Our Own Correspondent) (Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), pp. 48–54. 23 W. H. Russell, The British Expedition to the Crimea (London: Routledge, 1858). 24 £500 in 1855 is equivalent to around £34,000 stg at 2010 values or €40,000. Historic currency rates: www.xe.com. 25 As pointed out in D. Murphy, Ireland and the Crimean War (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002) the war was fought primarily by riflemen and artillery, rather than cavalry, and the great role accorded to military engineers made it

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 89

28/07/2011 11:23:48

90

Irish journalism before independence

a very modern conflict whose military and strategic significance has to some extent been overlooked. 26 Atkins, p. 180. 27 Delane’s 50,000 appears to have been a feared toll which was not, in the end, borne out. 28 R. Ogden (ed.), The Life and Letters of Edwin Lawrence Godkin (New York: Macmillan Company, 1907), pp. 100–2.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 90

28/07/2011 11:23:48

7

E. J. Dillon: from our special correspondent Kevin Rafter

The rise of new media has seen the advent of numerous websites devoted to reporting on major international news stories while technological developments, in particular, portable phones with camera and video recording capabilities have allowed near instant access to the public via websites such as Twitter and Facebook. Like most things concerning the impact of the internet on journalism it remains unclear what will be the lasting impression made on foreign news coverage. But whatever else it is fair to conclude that the golden age of foreign correspondents has been transformed, if even, perhaps ended. Ireland has had a long established tradition of excellence in foreign news coverage. John Horgan has referred to ‘an elite group of Irish journalists who … made a global reputation for themselves as foreign correspondents in the English-language press in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’.1 It was a very impressive group of correspondents and included William Howard Russell and Francis McCullagh who also feature in this volume. Emile Joseph Dillon was another in this distinguished grouping. In a profile piece in the Review of Reviews in 1901 Dillon was described as ‘an artist in temperament, a journalist by instinct, a scholar and philosopher by choice, a statesman in ambition’.2 When W. T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, was asked who, excluding himself, did he consider the most brilliant living journalist, he replied: ‘A little man who hides his light under a bushel and shuns the public gaze as the plague, but is the honoured friend of sovereigns and statesmen. I take my hat off to Dr. Dillon.’3 The career of this Dublin-born correspondent reveals a great deal about the work of the journalist at the end of the nineteenth century and start of the twentieth century. By focusing on Dillon – and drawing on correspondence between the journalist and his employers – this chapter in particular throws light on the work of a foreign reporter.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 91

28/07/2011 11:23:48

92

Irish journalism before independence

The road to journalism Dillon was never destined to become one of Ireland’s finest foreign correspondents. His father planned a life in the priesthood for his son who was born in Dublin on 21 March 1854. Michael and Mary Dillon had come to Dublin from rural backgrounds. The family ran a hardware shop in Charles Street on the north side of the Liffey quays. The shop fronted onto the cobble stoned street and hardware of all descriptions covered the stands, cluttered the footpath and filled the rooms of the house. ‘The main purpose of the building was the warehousing and display of the goods, the lodging of the owners was secondary,’ Dillon later recalled, ‘our house was gloomy, uncomfortable and scantily furnished’.4 Life in the Dillon household centred on religious worship and making a living – the shop was open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Dillon later wrote that his father’s entire existence was all about the preparation for death and meeting his maker. The family lived within earshot of the deep toned bells of Christ Church cathedral and, at Dillon’s estimation, another dozen Roman Catholic places of worship – the bells of each he learned to distinguish. ‘Our faith in God’s continuous government of the earth was firm, intense and naïve,’ he admitted. Along with his two younger sisters he experienced a strict childhood – books were frowned upon as a distraction from work and prayer; whenever the young boy misbehaved he heard familiar words: ‘You who expect to enter the Church one day, dare to carry on like that. Be ashamed of yourself … Joe, think of your holy vocation.’5 Despite this home environment, Dillon had a thirst for learning, a hunger for reading and an extraordinary aptitude for languages At every opportunity he sought to circumvent his father’s regime. While on a school trip to the country he purchased a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare. ‘I perused it in the meadow below the cottage, on the slope of the hills in the morning and in the house by candlellight until late at night.’ But after returning home his father discovered the book and a row developed. ‘As he spoke he tore the volume to rags before my eyes, flung the tiny fragments on the floor and stamped upon them shouting, “If I ever see this book or the likes of it in your possession again your education will cease and I will let you go your own way and fend for yourself.”’6 Michael Dillon’s singular objective was his son’s entry into the priesthood – a not uncommon parental aspiration in nineteenth-century Ireland when secure career options for Roman Catholics were limited. But Dillon made clear to his young son that money would only be provided for further education which involved a vocation: the choice was to be ‘a priest or a pauper’.7 Dillon followed his father’s wishes and entered Clonliffe College in 1868 – he was just fourteen years of age. He proved a more than capable

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 92

28/07/2011 11:23:48

E. J. Dillon: special correspondent

93

scholar but struggled with his vocation. He eventually left Dublin for Pantasaph Monastery in north Wales where as Brother Rudolph he spent three years studying theology while making progress in his command of Greek and Hebrew. ‘I must confess that the religious motive in all such projects was weak and sometimes wholly absent,’ he later acknowledged.8 These ongoing doubts were discussed with his colleagues – learning had become an all absorbing passion – and the young Irishman eventually conceded to his superiors that he was unsure about a vocation. ‘When I entered monastery I was in search of knowledge, nothing more I fear. I did not hope or desire to be a good or a great monk or a man but only to discover things hidden from the bulk of mankind.’9 Dillon left Pantasaph in early 1872. He spent some time at the seminary of St Sulpice in Paris before departing in October 1873 for New York where he was a resident at the college of the Paulist Fathers. He had just turned 20 years of age when he arrived back in Europe in March 1874 where Paris was his home for several months. Despite this time with congregations in Dublin, Wales, New York and France Dillon had accepted that he did not have a vocation. The decision was not reached lightly – ‘the struggle within me was excruciating’.10 But in his career choice Dillon faced an added difficulty. The limited financial support from his father was dependent upon his studies being directed towards the priesthood. The decision caused a permanent schism in the already strained relationship between father and son. Over the following years Dillon spent time at a number of European centres of learning including the University of Leipzig where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy. He lived cheaply – his main meal generally consisted of milk and croissant, and the occasional egg. Despite this frugal existence he revelled in solitary hours studying. His second wife Kathleen later admitted that it was, ‘by dint of sheer hard work and unaided that he obtained his degrees’.11 Dillon first arrived in St Petersburg in November 1877 and, as he prepared to take examinations for the degree of Doctor of Comparative Philology at the city’s university, he initially supported himself by giving German lessons and translating articles for academics seeking to get their work published outside Russia. An acquaintance who met Dillon in St  Petersburg, in the house of the chaplain to the British Embassy, described a man ‘absorbed in his studies, sitting up night after night with a wet towel round his head and a snuff-box beside him – for there was nothing, he found, like a pinch of rappee to clear an over-taxed brain’.12 In the years after abandoning his vocation, Dillon threw himself into his studies. But even at that stage, he was adept at making influencial contacts and was on the invite list of high society in the Russian city. John Baddeley recalled Dillon as, ‘congenial company, and being Irish and possessed with wit as well as humour, he would enter

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 93

28/07/2011 11:23:48

Irish journalism before independence

94

with great zest into any fun there might be on foot, or, indeed, initiate it himself ’.13 After his death, Kathleen Dillon recounted how her husband: For a while he gave himself up to the pleasures of society life in St. Petersburg where he was in close touch with the principal literary, artistic, political and scientific movements of the time. This idle existence soon began to pall upon him though, as he often said later, it have him an insight into events which was of immense service to him.14 Aside from his books and a growing comand of a collection of languages – by one account he spoke twenty-six languages, ten with complete fluency and ‘a mere five well enough to be taken for a native of the country’15 – Dillon did not seem to have a clear career path, always a difficulty for someone without independent means. He had married a Russian widow in 1881 and a desire for a regular source of income may have motivated his wanderlust. The possibility of a professorship at the University of St Petersburg ended after a row with other faculty members. He was subsequently appointed professor at the University of Kharkov in 1883. Consideration was given to returning to Ireland to commence a political career. There was correspondence with C. S. Parnell in late 1882 but nothing came of the idea. During l885 and 1886 he was in contact with senior Irish Parliamentary Party politician John Dillon (no relation) about a Westminster seat. The response was positive although as John Dillon wrote: it would be quite impossible for us to give any definite promise of a seat in Parliament for an Irish Constituency till we were more informed as to your past career, had the name of men to whom we could refer etc. etc. As we all considered it very desirable that we should have an opportunity of meeting you before any definite step were taken.16 Throughout this period Dillon was also in correspondence with John Baptist Hogan – one of his former religious superiors, who after 32 years as professor of moral theology in Paris had moved to the United States. The two men discussed various academic positions: Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the Catholic University in Washington were mentioned but, as with Dillon’s thoughts of a political career, nothing came of these possibilities. ‘You are certainly thrown away in Kharkoff and the sooner you are out of it the better,’ Hogan wrote.17 Hogan did not have to wait long for an answer to his wish. Dillon caused a sensation and made enemies among some of his colleagues when he exposed a staff member at the university who pretended to know Armenian. His, however, was a pyrrhic victory and shortly afterwards he was on his way out of Kharkoff. The Dubliner moved to Odessa where he worked initially on the Odessa Messenger as foreign editor before moving to the Odessa News where he had responsibility for literary and foreign coverage. And so in the city of Odessa – what was then the fourth largest city in Russia and what is today

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 94

28/07/2011 11:23:48

E. J. Dillon: special correspondent

95

in southern Ukraine – on the shores on the Black Sea E. J. Dillon’s career in journalism began.

The life of a foreign correspondent John Baddeley suggested Dillon apply for the vacant post of correspondent with the Daily Telegraph in St Petersburg. ‘Some years ago I reproached him for having abandoned literature for journalism. “I like that! Why, it was you who persuaded me to become a newspaper man!” True, but I never thought you would make a career out of it.’18 In fact, the editor of the Daily Telegraph Edward (Harry) Lawson – later Lord Burnham – was on a trip to Russia in 1887 when he is said to have ‘discovered’ Dillon and persuaded him to take the position.19 Following the uncertain years since he ended plans for the priesthood Dillon had finally found a true vocation. He remained in the employment of the London-based newspaper for almost three decades. His principal base was St Petersburg but he travelled far and wide to various international trouble spots where his ability to cultivate influencial contacts and his linguistic talents were undoubted assets working as a journalist. It was said that ‘he was on close personal terms with most of the leading politicians on the continent … His knowledge of the men and the issues made him an invaluable interpreter of the tangled international politics of the years before the First World War’.20 Dillon would seem to have always been seeking out new sources and points of access. He also valued discretion, noting on one ocassion: ‘Above all things be as silent as the tomb about information which was not given out for publication, and do nothing calculated to shake the confidence of those who, forgetting that you are a journalist, only remember that you are a gentleman.’21 The position as correspondent with the Daily Telegraph was useful in gaining access. He repeatedly requested letters of introduction from the newspaper. For example, in December 1902 he sought ‘letters for Baron von Richthofen and Count von Bulow, the two chief personages in the German Empire and a letter for the German Lord Chamberlain, through whom all tickets are given for great public functions’.22 Over a decade later on New Year’s Day 1908 Dillon wrote to Alfred Loisy, a dissident French theologian, with an explicit request that he become a source of information about the inner workings of the Catholic hierarchy. Since the death of a previous contact, Dillon noted that he was ‘less well informed of the movement going on sideside the Catholic Church than theretofore’. To progress matters, Dillon informed Loisy that they shared a common interest in the French countryside: ‘I usually go to Aix-les-Bains for a cure.’23 Unfortunately for Dillon, he was in St Petersburg three months later when news reached him of Loisy’s excommunication: ‘I

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 95

28/07/2011 11:23:49

Irish journalism before independence

96

was lunching with the French Ambassador, M. Bompard, when I learned that the decree was promulgated.’24 In a 1955 history of the Daily Telegraph and its colourful journalistic characters, Dillon is described as ‘a greyish little man with a stubbly beard, a soft voice and a quiet manner, distinguished only by his complete lack of distinction until he started talking’.25 Colleagues saw ‘a man of mystery’ – E. L. Goodman, a longtime foreign editor at the newspaper, recalled ‘a very difficult man to know, very reticent and reserved, and though my acquintance with him was extended over so many years I really knew no more of him than I did at the outset’.26 At the Daily Telegraph his employers considered his reports on Turkish massacres in Armenia in 1895 as ‘his greatest achievement’.27 In the words of his foreign editor the ‘dispatches on the atrocities caused a sensation’.28 Today the numbers massacred by the Ottoman Empire are estimated at between 80,000 and 300,000 but interestingly, like many observers of international politics in 1895, Dillon initially ‘did not believe that there was any truth in the alleged Armenian massacres’.29 He arrived in Turkey but was denied permission to travel into Armenia. Improvising, he decided to travel in disguise – dressing as a Cossack officer and ‘was received by the Turks on the frontiers with military honours, by Armenian women with maledictions, and I finally reached Erzeroum without mishap’.30 His objective was to find Armenian refugees whose relatives and friends had been killed, and as he continued to work the ground locally he gained access to a Kurdish chief employed by the Turks who admitted to butchering men, women and children. The depositions from the Kurd as published in the Daily Telegraph caused an international storm, and led 86-year-old former Prime Minister William Gladstone to come out of retirement to make one of his final public speeches. Perhaps you will ask, as I asked: who is Dr Dillon? I am able to describe him to his honour. Dr Dillon is the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph newspaper [and] some months ago with care and with labour, and with some hazard to his life went, laudably making use of disguise, for the purpose into Armenia, so that he might make himself thorough master of the facts (cheers) … These extracts which I have read throw a flood of light on the whole of this question, and will stand in the stead of a great deal of painful, horrible and disgusting reading … You will never hear an answer from the Turkish government to that article.’31 It was not the last time Dillon donned disguise in pursuit of a story. He had another reporting coup when, dressed as a monk in Crete in 1897, he overcame a ban on foreigners to join a company of insurgents. Bizarrely, he ended up negotiating on behalf of the insurgents with an Italian Admiral

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 96

28/07/2011 11:23:49

E. J. Dillon: special correspondent

97

who, as they parted, told Dillon, ‘he was very fond of clergymen and monks, and as he stooped down to give me my rifle I gave him my blessing as devoutly as I knew how’.32 Many years later, Dillon was in Portugal during the revolution of 1910 which ended the reign of Dom Manuel as monarch. At the time every priest was a suspect, and when Dillon emerged from a Dominican monastery a furious crowd cried out: ‘“Shoot him. He’s a priest in disguise!” Rifles were levelled and fingers on the triggers when Dillon shouted in Spanish, “Long life the Republic!” which pacified the mob.’ Dillon operated with considerable independence which is not unsurprising given the difficulities in communications but he seems to have deliberately kept a degree of distance from the office in London. One news editor remarked that ‘Dillon wandered so much that is was impossible to keep track of his movements.’33 But he always delivered for his employers: ‘As a roving foreign correspondent he somehow always contrived to arrive in a capital the day before trouble broke out.’34 He had considerable latitude in moving from one assignment to another although the decision to travel to report on the second trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1899 was taken by his editors in London who considered the assignment ‘worthy of his pen’.35 His writing style was descriptive which was in keeping with much of the foreign reporting of the time: Colonel Jouaust’s voice was unsteady, and seemed to have a funeral ring in it as he held up three sheets of paper in his left hand and read out the judgement. Was his voice loud enough for Captain Dreyfus in his little room away off the hall to hear? Few people knew what he was reading. An unerring instinct kept them on the watch for the essential words. Suddenly we heard, ‘Yes; the accused man is guilty’, and a shudder convulsed the frames of the public. Thus hope mocks Dreyfus like a demon’s laugh. But had we heard alright? I, for my part, could hear nothing further.36

Fighting for space and independence Henry Baerlein spent time with Dillon in Bulgaria prior to the outbreak of World War I having made his acquaintance in London in 1903. The possibility of war in the Balkans region had attracted many correspondents including Dillon, and Baerlein seems to have accompanied him as an observer. Dillon, with his incomparable secretary Miss Fox, had to go to Rilo Monastery, just on the Bulgarian side of the frontier with Turkey, as a great number of refugees were assembled there. We spent a night, half-way, in a village, where Dillon and I shared a room. And when I

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 97

28/07/2011 11:23:49

Irish journalism before independence

98

woke up he was standing on his bed with a slipper in one hand, dealing out death to the fauna as they climbed up the walls. When he thought he had killed enough of them he sat down on his bed while his pen flew over the paper and most of his monthly article on foreign affairs for the Contemporary Review was written before breakfast, for Miss Fox to typewrite.37 Dillon’s surviving correspondence with his employers at the Daily Telegraph provides an invaluable insight into the life of a foreign correspondent at the end of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century. For example, in early 1910 he was advised to go to Greece if the King abdicated or was disposed. He had only just returned to St Petersburg from Athens, having spent some time in December 1909 in Crete. This series of letters gives evidence of the high status which came with the position of newspaper foreign correspondent. Dillon wrote from the Hotel d’Angleterre about Crete: where I plucked delicious oranges from trees growing in the public highway. Yet at the same time I could not get a cup of tea, a cup of coffee or a glass of milk to save my life. The tea tasted of camomile and sanna, the coffee was a shameless mixture of chicory and acorns and there was no milk – Cretan bread is eatable when you have soaked it for some hours in water.38 Contemporary readers – and modern-day foreign reporters – might be moved to remark on the ‘hardship’ of Dillon’s life: ‘Its sunny and warm here – great heat in the daytime. It is a pleasant sensation to have a summery Christmas.’ Dillon also travelled in style as he recalled from a period in Russia in the 1890s: I then received permission to travel all over Central Asia, at first in a carriage to myself, which I was allowed to have coupled to any trains I wished, and afterwards in a special train for myself, which served me as bedroom, saloon, and kitchen. In this way I visited most of places of note in Central Asia, including Askhabad, Merv, Bokhara, and Samarkand.39 Dillon’s surviving papers include correspondence with his editors at the Daily Telegraph and also a number of other publications to which he contributed including the British Contemporary Review. The content of many of these letters will be familiar to all journalists who believe that their ‘art’ and ‘best lines’ have been squeezed on the newspaper page by unappreciative editors. Writing from St Petersburg in October 1904 Dillon informed Percy William Bunting editor, of the Contemporary Review, that: To compress all that had to be said in order to convince the reader

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 98

28/07/2011 11:23:49

E. J. Dillon: special correspondent

99

within 23 pages was, I thought a feat. But your readers, you say, are reluctant to wade through so many pages … A book not an article ought to have been written on the subject … You know best what the Contemporary readers want. Formerly they read articles which were good despite their being long, but doubtless the tendency is to prefer brief essays.40 The question of space was an ongoing issue. Four years later in 1908 Bunting told his contributor from Russia: ‘I am sorry I have to omit so much of your article again, but I could not do with more than 20 pages.’41 Dillon was also concerned about the renumeration for his work. He informed Bunting that the American Review was offering $2 a page and only wanted 18 pages – which was double what he was receiving from the Contemporary Review. How the matter was resolved is unclear but a journalist concerned about his income stream is also one of the themes that emerges from the surviving letters between Dillon and his employers at the Daily Telegraph. Other themes include editors back in London offering praise to reassure to their correspondent in a far-flung land. In September 1899 John Le Sage – the Managing Editor of the Daily Telegraph wrote to congratulate Dillon on an article describing the difficulties faced by news correspondents at Rennes: ‘It will give our readers some idea of what you are undergoing for their gratification.’42 Le Sage also informed Dillon that the proprietor left ‘frequent messages for him and he has never omitted to speak in terms of admiration of your work’.43 Dillon was in Berlin in late 1902 when he replied – ‘under great physical difficulty including the noise of a dozen workmen who are hammering and shouting in my still uninhabitable rooms’ – to correspondence from his editors in London.44 The main thrust of the correspondence addressed contributions to various publications beyond the Daily Telegraph which it seemed had caused political difficulties for the newspaper’s proprietor in London. One biographical profile noted that ‘after a visit to London in 1889, Dillon became a regular contributor on foreign affairs to The Review of Reviews, the Fortnightly Review and the Contemporary Review’.45 A lengthy series of articles on Russia which appeared in the Fortnightly Review – in which he warned against alliance with the Tsar predicting the country was ‘on the eve of a social cataclysm’ – was said to have ‘evoked widespread public discussion of Anglo-Russian relations and certainly influenced British perceptions of Russian society’.46 But the concerns in London may have been less to do with the continuation of Dillon publishing signed articles but rather the sources for his material and, possibly, the nature of their correspondent’s relationship with his sources. Between 1901 and 1914 Dillon became a close personal friend and political confidante to Russian politician, Sergei Yu.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 99

28/07/2011 11:23:49

100

Irish journalism before independence

Witte. The relationship deepened with Dillon acting as Witte’s advisor and publicity agent at the Portsmouth Peace Conference in August 1905. He worked tirelessly to promote Witte’s political programme during his short tenure as prime minister to the Tsar between November 1905 and May 1906. There is a strong element of truth in Baerlein’s assertion that Dillon ‘was not a war correspondent but a political commentator’.47 But with Witte – and not for the last time – Dillon crossed the line between journalistic observer and political participant. He had unique access but his role caused some discomfort in Fleet Street. Nevertheless, Dillon made a strong case for continuing with signed contributions to other publications: The secret of such success as I have hitherto had in obtaining interviews with statesmen and others in all parts of the world is solely the signed articles in reviews … All the influence I have thus gained by publishing signed articles has been invariably used for the benefit of the Daily Telegraph … To cease to published signed articles would therefore be tantamount to an attempt to twist ropes of sand.48 The request to cease his external writings, Dillon admitted, left him ‘completely upset’ – ‘My sole aim is and has been to further in every way the interests of the paper. To this I have always, as you know, sacrificed every consideration of money, health and life itself, and I would continue to do so in the future as in the past.’49 He was not shy about listing the benefits from his signed articles: When the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg told you at the time of the Tsar’s death that he could not get me an invitation to the ceremonies, I obtained the very best place there, because certain Ministers of the Court knew of my articles and approved of them. When the Tsar was dying in the Crimea, I alone knew all that was going on day by day for that same reason, and the then Prince of Wales on his arrival at Livadia remarked that the Daily Telegraph was the only paper which contained the complete story of the Tsar’s illness day by day.50 Dillon made the the case that over the previous 16 years – since he was first engaged by the newspaper – no great event in European history has taken place without the publication of his signed articles in various reviews. The list was impressive: the fall of Bismarck, the death of the Tsar and subsequent ascent of his son to the throne, the massacres in Armenia, the Rising in Crete, the corruption of the government system in Spain and the misdeeds of Europeans in China. These were all – Dillon argued – ‘instances of current events being dealt with by me in that spirit of independence and impartiality which, as you [Le Sage] very properly point out, are qualities essential to an efficient Special Correspondent’.51 Dillon’s arguments in his 7 December 1902 letter did not, however, end

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 100

28/07/2011 11:23:50

E. J. Dillon: special correspondent

101

the matter. The publication of another signed article in the March 1903 edition of the Contemporary Review – ‘The Reign of Terror in Macedonia’ – was seen in London as ‘a fierce onslaught on Turkey’ and an embarassment to the newspaper, and prompted Lawson to instruct Le Sage to write once more to Dillon: ‘No-one will understand better than yourself how important it is that a Foreign Correspondent in particular should be regarded as absolutely independent and impartial. For these reasons the Proprietors ask that you will discontinue writing such signed articles for any magazine or other publication.’52 Dillon was still in Berlin and within days he had drafted a detailed reply to Le Sage arguing that over many years the Daily Telegraph had published articles with his byline which were not dissimilar in tone to the material on Turkey in the Contemporary Review and which had not impacted negatively on his ability to report for the newspaper. He argued that his contract of employment included permission to publish in review articles under his own name. With regard to the standing rule forbidding members of the staff and foreign correspondents to write political articles, I confess I never heard of it before December last. Nay, I was fully and I submit reasonably convinced that no such rule existed. Certainly its existence in theory was amply disproved by the clause in the contract which you made with me: ‘Mr. Dillon shall be at liberty to write books and contribute to magazines’, where the fullest right without the slightest limitations is expressly conceded.53 Dillon considered the order to stop his external work ‘as a prelude to the severance of my connection with the Daily Telegraph after many years of faithful service to which as you and many others know I have sacrificed my eye-sight and my general health.’54 A more explicit order arrived from London on 17 March 1903 denying Dillon’s request to continue contributing signed political articles and noting that the proprietors ‘consider it necessary that all our Foreign Correspondents should be regarded by the officials of the country to which they are accredited as absolutely independent and impartial.’55 Dillon was not, however, content to leave the matter rest. In his letter of 22 March 1903 – once more from Berlin – he repeated the benefit of signed political articles to his role as a Special Correspondent: ‘It would be absurd to hope to unseal the lips of statesmen, generals and other personages by presenting myself as a journalist eager for news.’56 There was also mention for the first time of another benefit arising from these articles – financial, or as Dillon outlined: ‘my pecuniary loss caused by my suddenly breaking faith with the Reviews, English and American to which, in the enjoyment of an undisputed right, I agreed to contribute’.57

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 101

28/07/2011 11:23:50

102

Irish journalism before independence

He proposed two possible solutions to this financial loss: continuing the arrangements until his – unspecified – contracts lapsed or ‘the Proprietors undertaking to bear the loss which compliance with their wish to have the articles withheld would otherwise entail upon me’.58 It is unclear how the difference of opinion between the two sides was finally resolved but Dillon remained for several more years in his role as correspondent with the Daily Telegraph – particularly on the tensions in the Balkans including conflict in the region in 1912–13 – and his signed articles continued to be published in various publications. But over these years he moved more and more into the political arena and away from active journalism. He took sides, as in the case of Witte in Russia and, ‘as a friend of the Austrian Foreign Minister, Count von Aehrenthal, he steadfastly defended the Austrian position during the Bosnian Crisis of 1908, and his articles in The Fortnightly Review on the diplomacy of Aleksandr Izvol’skii produced minor complications in AngloRussian relations’.59 He was also increasingly considered ‘somewhat of a crank’ by fellow journalists and diplomats.60 Dillon was now contributing less frequently to the Daily Telegraph and during World War I repeatedly found his opinion articles the subject of official war time censorship. In September 1915 Lawson wrote directly to Dillon – who had permanently departed Russia the previous year and was staying in Maggiore on the Italian/Swiss border – concerning progress in the war against Germany and, in particular, the situation in the Balkans ‘about which you have sent us such startling despatches and telegrams’.61 In particular, Dillon had strong views on the situation in Bulgaria and the official policy of keeping information about progress in the war from the British public, but the censor objected to the content of the articles: At the F [oreign]. O [ffice]. nobody doubts that your information is good; on the contrary, they think you are justified in nearly all that you have said, but they are against publication which they believe would achieve no good object, and might be against our interests.62 It was not the last intervention of the censor in relation to material filed by Dillon. When other articles on the war effort failed to be published in late 1916 he wrote to register his disappointment. Lord Burham (Edward Lawson) asked Le Sage to reply: The point about these articles is that the first four were practically gutted by the Censor, in such a way as to make their publication under any circumstances useless in itself, and detrimental to your reputation. Roughly speaking everything in regard to Roumania was taken out, as well as the figures which you gave of the strength and losses of the Allied Armies. As regards the rest, the Foreign Office takes exception to what they contend will be used for German propaganda.63

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 102

28/07/2011 11:23:50

E. J. Dillon: special correspondent

103

There were words of comfort to soothe the concerns of the newspaper’s correspondent: ‘Nobody could appreciate more highly the fullness of your knowledge and the unrivalled nature of your experience, and he [Lawson] is certain that before long we shall have full scope to take advantage of your pen, as we have always done in the paper.’64

Conclusion At the end of the World War I Dillon was sixty-two years of age. His days as a full-time correspondent were nearing an end. Many of his political allies and his contacts had been removed from positions of power and influence. He attended the 1919 Paris Peace Conference but ‘found himself something of an outsider’.65 His personal life was also complicated. There is an unsourced reference to him being ‘accompanied by a brace of female secretaries’ as he reported from various international locations.66 There was a public and acrimonous divorce case in Paris in 1913 with his Russian wife – with whom he had three children – which he did not contest. The following year he married his longtime secretary Kathleen Mary Ireland. E. L. Goodman observed that, ‘after the Great War I more or less lost sight of Dillon and know little of his proceedings, though I believe he was in Mexico for some time on private business.’67 While no longer an active reporter, Dillon wrote and published until his death at the age of seventy-eight years in Barcelona on 9 June 1933. The following day obituaries were printed in various publications including the Daily Telegraph and the Times of London which ran the headline, ‘A Famous Foreign Correspondent’.68 His extraordinary career is an example of how someone who literally stumbled into journalism used the skills – in Dillon’s case, principally his linguistic abilities – to prosper as a newspaper correspondent. For those with ambition and a sense of adventure journalism offered an interesting career and, as the case of the Dublin-born E. J. Dillon illustrates, it was a profession that offered upward social mobility in a nineteenth-century world dominated by class and religious differences. He cultivated unrivaled contracts in numerous countries and travelled the world to bring news to a readership primarily in the United Kingdom through the Daily Telegraph but also in the United States and elsewhere in various reviews and journals. Dillon’s journalistic practice is now from another world and time, but his work ethic, determination and obvious nose for a story are qualities that should remain the hallmarks of all contemporary foreign correspondents.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 103

28/07/2011 11:23:50

104

Irish journalism before independence

Notes 1 J. Horgan, John, ‘Journalism, Catholicism and Anti-Communism in an Era of Revolution: Francis McCullagh, War Correspondent, 1874–1956’, Studies, 98: 390 (2008), pp. 169–84. 2 ‘Character Sketch: Dr E. J. Dillon: Our Premier Journalist’, Review of Reviews, July 1901, p. 2. 3 W. Lacy, ‘Dr Emile Dillon: A great Irish Journalist’, Everyman, 19 September 1913, pp. 707–8. 4 Emile Joseph Dillon (EJD) National Library of Scotland (NLS), 12382: 51. 5 EJD NLS, 12382: 51, p. 42. 6 Ibid., pp. 47–8. 7 Ibid., p. 42. 8 Ibid., p. 89. 9 Ibid., p. 104. 10 Ibid., p. 163. 11 Kathleen Dillon – a short hand written biographical note entitled, ‘Dr. Emile Joseph Dillon’, written by Kathleen Dillon on Buswell’s Hotel headed notepaper during a visit to Dublin in March 1935. National Gallery of Ireland, 976. 12 J. F. Baddeley, Russia in the Eighties (London: Longmans, 1921), pp. 45–7. 13 Ibid., pp. 45–7. 14 Kathleen Dillon – National Gallery of Ireland, 976. 15 L. Burham, Peterborough Court: The Story of the Daily Telegraph (London: Cassell & Co., 1955), p. 45. 16 John Dillon to E. J. Dillon, November 1885, EJD NLS, 12382: 50. 17 John Baptist Hogan to E. J. Dillon, 7 March 1887, EJD NLS, 12382: 51, p. 221. 18 Baddeley, pp. 45–7. 19 See Burham, p. 44; and P. W. Johnson and J. O. Baylen, ‘Dillon Dr Emile Joseph’, in J. L. Wieczynshi (ed.), The modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History, Volume 9 (Florida: Academic International Press, 1974), pp. 120–2. 20 Burham, p. 45. 21 EJD NLS, 12382: 50, p. 22. 22 E. J. Dillon to John Le Sage, 7 December 1902, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 23 E. J. Dillon to Alfred Loisy, 1 January 1908, EJD NLS, 12382: 7. 24 See EJD NLS, 12382: 7. 25 Burham, pp. 44–5. 26 Note from E. L. Goodman, dated November 1938, EJD NLS 12382: 49. 27 Burham, pp. 44–5. 28 Note from E. L. Goodman, dated November 1938, EJD NLS 12382: 49. 29 EJD NLS 12382: 25. 30 Ibid. 31 The Standard, 7 August 1895. 32 EJD NLS 12382: 25. 33 Note from E. L. Goodman, dated November 1938, EJD NLS 12382: 49. 34 Burham, p. 45. 35 Ibid., p. 46.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 104

28/07/2011 11:23:50

E. J. Dillon: special correspondent

105

36 Quoted in Burham, p. 47. 37 H. Baerlein, All Roads Lead To People (London: Stanley Paul, 1952), p. 72. 38 E. J. Dillon to John Le Sage, January 1910, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 39 E. J. Dillon, The Eclipse of Russia (London: Dent, 1918), p. 279. 40 E. J. Dillon to Percy William Bunting, October 1904, EJD NLS 12382: 2. 41 E. J. Dillon to Percy William Bunting, March 1908, EJD NLS 12382: 2. 42 John Le Sage to E. J. Dillon, September 1899, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 43 Ibid. 44 E. J. Dillon to John Le Sage, December 1902, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 45 Johnson and Baylen, pp. 120–2. 46 Ibid. 47 Baerlein, p. 72. 48 E. J. Dillon to John Le Sage, 7 December 1902, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 E. J. Dillon to John Le Sage, 5 March 1903, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 52 John Le Sage to E. J. Dillon, 2 March 1903, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 53 E. J. Dillon to John Le Sage, 5 March 1903, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 54 Ibid. 55 John Le Sage to E. J. Dillon, 17 March 1903, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 56 E. J. Dillon to John Le Sage, 22 March 1903, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Johnson and Baylen, pp. 120–2. 60 Ibid. 61 Edward (Harry) Lawson to E. J. Dillon, 5 September 1915, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 62 Ibid. 63 John Le Sage to E. J. Dillon, 11 January 1917, EJD NLS 12382: 19. 64 Ibid. 65 Johnson and Baylen, pp. 120–2. 66 Ibid. 67 Note from E. L. Goodman, dated November 1938, EJD NLS 12382: 49. 68 The Times, 10 June 1933.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 105

28/07/2011 11:23:50

8

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh John Horgan

The photograph of the Irish journalist Francis McCullagh attached to the safe-conduct pass issued to him by the Francoist forces on 13 December 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, shows a man who would not have stood out in any crowd. Small in stature, and dressed conservatively in a coat and scarf, he could have been a school-teacher or a bank clerk rather than the well-known war correspondent he had become. This ability to blend into the background had evidently served him well in a career which, over a third of a century, had seen him reporting on a whole series of major global and regional conflicts. As a contemporary – and sometime rival – Gertrude Gaffney of the Irish Independent, described him: One can visualise his crinkling, whimsical smile, his twinkly blue eyes, his shabby clothes, following war campaigns in his characteristic big boots with two pairs of heavy, Kerry-knitted socks inside them; consorting with the men of forests and mines; sitting at back street cafes and mountain inns in any part of the world, getting inside the skin and behind the mind of the populace; then changing into his best suit and patent leather shoes to call at an embassy or dine with a government minister.1 I have written elsewhere about the principal elements in the trajectory of his extraordinary career.2 The purpose of this chapter, however, is to explore in more detail some of the tensions and ambiguities affecting the journalistic agenda of a man who was born a British subject, but whose role as an international journalist was increasingly shaped by his personal and national background in the years following the Treaty that ended the Irish war of Independence in 1922. There were, in fact, two distinct pathways at this time for journalists or would-be journalists from the Catholic middle and lower middle classes in Ireland. A well-explored one was the revolutionary path, often subsidised by money raised by John Devoy and others in the United States, and followed

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 106

28/07/2011 11:23:51

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh

107

by people such as Griffith, Pearse, Connolly and Larkin. The other, less studied, encompasses a substantial group of Irishmen who ended up as emigrant journalists and occasional novelists, like Stephen McKenna, who worked for Pulitzer at the Paris office of The New York World in the 1920s, and Emile Joseph Dillon, a Dubliner who worked for the Daily Telegraph in Moscow at the beginning of the twentieth century and whose career is the focus of Chapter 6 in this collection. These men and McCullagh himself, were substantial figures in the journalism of their era, although the fact that they generally worked abroad and for non-Irish newspapers means that they were not well known in the country of their birth. What is interesting about McCullagh’s journalism, however, is that it seems, despite his relatively tenuous links with the country of his birth, to have been substantially more influenced by his Irish political and religious beliefs, especially in his later years, than that of many of his contemporaries who also worked for the international press. He was born on 30 April 1974 in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, to James and Bridget McCullagh. His father was a publican, more than likely a supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, and his son followed a traditional path through secondary education, but aimed immediately at a career in journalism, trying first Dublin and then Scotland. He seems, however, to have been in two minds, for at a comparatively early age he returned to Ireland to pursue a vocation for the priesthood at St Columb’s College, Derry. The college records are incomplete for this period, so that the details of his studies there are unclear, but an anonymous account which appeared on his death, evidently by a contemporary, gives a substantial amount of detail about him, describing him as ‘one of the ablest and most popular students’.3 It added: He was quiet, even to shyness, amiable, always anxious to help and of a really unusual serenity of disposition. Though he often had occasion, no one ever saw his frown, and never was he known to lose his temper. His proficiency in shorthand was a blessing to those students who were blessed, or otherwise, with faulty memories.4 His religious sentiments remained strong throughout his life, and there is evidence that he wondered at times – particularly when his journalistic career appeared to be in the doldrums – if he had made the right decision. Writing in 1901 to the editor of an American religious magazine to which he contributed articles about Japan, he expressed his regret at not having continued his studies, and confessed that he still had ‘an inclination to enter the clerical state: and would like to know if it is a call from God or not’.5 Subsequent events were rapidly to push this ‘inclination’ into the background. One characteristic which McCullagh shared with his many of his foreign

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 107

28/07/2011 11:23:51

108

Irish journalism before independence

correspondent colleagues of the era was a sort of insouciance which at times developed into raw courage, or perhaps an attitude to risk born of a belief that Europeans led a charmed life in those far-flung corners of the globe into which they ventured. Some of it may simply have been a taste for adventure, almost a Boys Own Paper appetite for derring-do. His second journalistic job abroad, after a brief and unsatisfying sojourn in Ceylon, was in the late 1890s in Siam, then a cockpit of competing international influences, primarily those of Britain and France. Here, according to a writer who interviewed him some years later about his exploits, he ‘gravitated by a process of natural law to the centre of the danger zone’.6 His nationality probably helped him secure a job as assistant to an Irishman named Lillie, who was editor of the Siam Free Press, and also local correspondent of the New York Herald. Within a month, unexpected events propelled his career upwards. Lillie was expelled from Siam for publishing articles which exacerbated the tensions between the King of Siam and France, and McCullagh immediately succeeded to all Lillie’s multifarious roles, but managed to avoid incurring a similar fate. While his new-found connection with the New York Herald was to be a prime factor in his later journalistic career, at this stage he was still a traveller in the foothills of journalism, and developing an appetite for taking risks. My lack of journalistic experience brought me into trouble sometimes. If I found anyone committing a crime I generally spoke my mind about it, whether the case was sub judice or not. As a result I was a frequent visitor to the British Consular Court: once because of something I wrote of a Eurasian accused of abducting an Irish girl named Donoghue; on another occasion because I made an onslaught on a Siamese Prince accused of maltreating a little girl. On both these occasions I came before Mr Archer, then British Consul in Bangkok … On every occasion, I don’t know how, I got off scot free. I don’t know how Mr Archer managed it. He probably took into consideration my extreme youth and my good intentions. As a result of these controversies, however, the Siamese Attorney-General threatened to horsewhip me, whereupon, as he was a big man, I considered it necessary to buy my first revolver. The Attorney-General never carried out his threat.7 After moving to Japan and working on the Japan Times for some four years – for the first six months of which he lived à la Japonaise, sleeping on the floor and subsisting largely on rice – he moved in 1903 to Port Arthur, in Russian territory, because his journalistic nose had detected the probability of the then imminent Russo-Japanese war. He then, like any modern freelancer, successfully exploited his earlier connections with a cabled offer of his services, to James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the Paris-based New York Herald, for which he had contributed occasional articles from Siam some six

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 108

28/07/2011 11:23:51

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh

109

years previously. This combination of good luck and initiative immediately made him one of a small number of internationally known war correspondents writing for British and American newspapers: it also generated the first of his many books, which helped to consolidate his reputation.8 An interesting indication of his bargaining power during this period – despite the fact that this was a non-globalised world – is that McCullagh sold his material simultaneously into many different markets in Britain, the United States, India, China and Japan. In London, the crusading editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, W. T. Stead, and the London editor of the Review of Reviews, rapidly became one of his most enthusiastic patrons. Notable exceptions from his range of outlets were, of course, the Irish newspapers. Although he had written for T.P.’s Weekly, published by T. P. O’Connor in London, he never featured, until much later, in the columns of Dublin newspapers. These were either serviced by other agencies (the Irish Times traditionally relied substantially on the London Times as well as on the emerging international news agencies), were without the resources which enabled their larger metropolitan contemporaries to employ full-time correspondents or remunerate well-known freelancers, or were simply more parochial. This apparent lack of interest, on McCullagh’s part, in contributing to Irish publications may have had a financial element to it; but it also mirrors the fact that his nationalism was, at this stage, evidently marginal, and he had no hesitation in invoking his technically British nationality as an asset in a number of foreign situations. He once described himself as ‘the only Britisher’ among a particular group of foreign correspondents, while admitting that he was a Britisher who was marked by an Irish ‘contrariness’.9 At the same time, he did not hesitate to draw on his Irish background whenever he felt it was relevant, or to illustrate a comparison that he thought was worthwhile. He was, for instance, to strike a – somewhat oblique – anti-colonialist note in a book he wrote later on the 1908 revolt in Turkey and the triumph of the Macedonians against Abd-UlHamid. Many of the scenes of savagery which he had witnessed reminded him, he wrote in a later book on these experiences, of ‘what I had read of Ireland after ’98 or Scotland after the ’45’.10 Two episodes from this phase of his career, as a correspondent covering the Balkan wars, help to illustrate the ease with which he managed to combine his Irish ethnic and cultural consciousness with a British political identity. The first provides evidence of his willingness – indeed, keenness – to negotiate trenchantly as a British subject when it had positive implications for his career. This was in November 1908, when, living in Pera, near Constantinople, he was offered the Order of St Sava by King Peter of Serbia. This development, no doubt part of a primitive media management campaign engaged in by various Balkan powers and which particularly targeted British journalists, gave rise to a lengthy correspondence as

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 109

28/07/2011 11:23:51

110

Irish journalism before independence

McCullagh, legally a British subject, had to apply to the Foreign Office for permission to accept and wear it.11 In 1912, his British citizenship was also of considerable advantage to him as he continued to report on the conflict. At one point, travelling with the Turkish Army, he was captured by the Bulgarians. Such was his fame that the quashing of a rumour that he had been killed after having been captured went rapidly around the world as a news story in its own right, as did the subsequent report that he was still alive.12 He was released after the intervention of the British Ambassador in Sofia. The second episode, which also provides evidence of the ways in which a correspondent of his stature was also a welcome contributor to academic or intellectual publications (he had already written learnedly about Japanese story-telling traditions in the East of Asia periodical in 1902), was his preface to a book of Turkish stories edited by a friend of his, the well-known British folklorist, Allan Ramsay, to whom he had earlier dedicated his own book on Abd-Ul-Hamid and events in Turkey.13 McCullagh’s preface, lengthy even by the relaxed standards of the times, is a paean of praise for Turkish culture and humour, and for the Turkish coffee-house which, apart from its regrettable exclusion of women, he regarded as at least the equivalent of the Irish pub for conviviality. This conviviality, however, was – in McCullagh’s opinion – confined to Irish pubs in Catholic ownership. He recorded in his preface, with ill-concealed scorn, the following notice he had seen in a pub owned by an Orangeman and Covenanter near Belfast: ‘Customers are requested to consume their liquor as quickly as possible and then to leave. Some people seem to think that their purchase of a small quantity of liquor at the bar entitles them to remain on the premises as long as they like. This is a mistake.’14 He spoke more freely about his Irishness in interviews about his career than in his published work, as in a picaresque anecdote about an unsuccessful attempt he made to win the confidence of a local chieftain in the course of a visit to Morocco in 1912 on behalf of Stead’s Westminster Gazette. I was promptly expelled from Agadir by Kaid Gilhooley, a Moorish chief, who is evidently of Hibernian descent, for, although a Mohammedan and as black as a coal, he keeps St. Patrick’s Day, possesses a most pugnacious disposition, and wears a green turban which looks like an old National League flag. I am also afraid that Gilhooley drinks, for I presented him with a bottle of alleged Irish whisky (sic) which I had bought at Casablanca in the shop of an Italian Jew. On discovering on this bottle the alarming legend ‘Made in Poland’, I decided to present it to the Kaid, since, being a Mohammedan, he would not taste it. Gilhooley accepted it with alacrity, and said that he wanted to keep it as a curio. But I am afraid that he must have sampled it, and that this

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 110

28/07/2011 11:23:51

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh

111

accounted for the sudden change in his attitude towards me, for in a wild burst of fury he expelled me. I am glad that I got off with my life, because that whisky must have been awful stuff.15 It was around this time, however, that another aspect of his Irishness – specifically, his Catholicism – began to play a larger part in his journalistic consciousness, and output, than hitherto. This was amply evidenced in a number of visits he made to Portugal between 1910 and 1914 to report on the overthrow of the monarchy there – reports in which he castigated the anti-Catholicism of the new regime, not only in British papers but also in – a new outlet for him – the Irish Ecclesiastical Review and The Twentieth Century and After.16 The former may well have been the first occasion, in which he appeared in print in his own country. One of his reports poked fun at the near-chaos in the ranks of the new government and decried the regime’s actions in closing down soup-kitchens run by Catholic nuns for that country’s poor.17 On the other hand, his journalistic impartiality was also evident in his scathing description of the exiled royalists as ‘“exiled bosses” [who] are doing more swindling in exile than they ever did at home.’18 McCullagh’s idealism and his talents were now exercised in another dramatic theatre of contemporary events – the Italian invasion of Tripoli. Accredited as a correspondent with the Italian forces in the autumn of 1911, his initial enthusiasm for what he evidently saw as a civilising mission was rapidly replaced by a growing hostility to Italian methods and, in particular, their savage reprisals against the civilian population. His personal commitment to Catholicism was, for the first time, sharply modified in these reports by what he saw as – and described as – the mercenary attitude of the Vatican and the activities of its representatives with the Italian forces. Eventually, he became part of the story himself, as he and a number of other internationally renowned correspondents returned their accreditation papers to the Italian General Caneva in protest against Italian atrocities, and returned to London.19 W. T. Stead, who was particularly receptive to McCullagh’s writing, praised his reports from North Africa, and described McCullagh, in somewhat extravagant terms, as someone cut from the same cloth as another heroic journalist of an earlier era. He wrote: In 1876 an Irishman in the service of the British and American press paralysed the policy of Lord Beaconsfield, destroyed the traditional alliance between created Bulgaria. His name was MacGahan. In 1911 we have again the apparition of an Irishman in the service of the British and American Press who has exercised, and is exercising, a potent influence on the policy of Great Britain … Francis McCullagh … whose ready pen, whose fearless spirit, and whose presence in the firing

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 111

28/07/2011 11:23:51

112

Irish journalism before independence

line has made it possible to make the great public realise the criminality of the plunder-raid on Tripoli.20 This episode prefigured, perhaps, the dilemma of the ‘embedded’ correspondent in the Iraq wars of the twenty-first century. McCullagh’s final verdict, in the book he wrote about this campaign, was damning. ‘Italy has got a nice handful. Like Dead Sea fruit, Tripoli has turned to dust and ashes in her grasp. She wanted to annex territory. She has annexed sand, poverty, rags, misery, cholera and corruption. Was it necessary for her to go abroad? Has she not got enough of these commodities at home?’21 The bravery described by Stead was soon to be in evidence in quite another context, as he went to Russia to report the opening phases of the World War I. When he was asked why he spent so much time with the Russian troops in the front line, he explained disarmingly that it was because he was short-sighted.22 But then, frustrated by war-time censorship of his despatches, he joined the British Army. Although he served throughout that war, mostly in the cauldron of hostilities around Gallipoli, he never wrote about his experiences during this period. At the war’s end, he was assigned to the British Expeditionary Force under General Knox in Siberia, where his knowledge of Russian and of journalism proved useful. His correspondence from Siberia to an academic acquaintance, Sir Bernard Pares (himself a former journalist), is notable for McCullagh’s keen interest in the development of both his professional and his military careers, which were evidently running in tandem.23 When Knox asked the War Office if McCullagh could be allowed to earn some money by writing for some of the London newspapers, he got permission to allow him to do so as long as the articles were unsigned.24 McCullagh also wrote to the Spectator asking for books for review. He was also increasingly annoyed at the lack of preferment. Despite his high-grade work in intelligence and propaganda, promotion from lieutenant to captain had been made only in an ‘acting’ capacity, and he now risked being reduced to the rank of lieutenant again. ‘This,’ he told Pares, ‘would injure me in the eyes of the Russians … I have had five years in the army now and to be merely acting captain is not good enough. I want to make the War Office realise that a writer has his pride.’25 Eventually his contingent was captured by Bolshevik forces, but he managed to deceive his captors into believing that he was a journalist rather than an army officer, and spent several months thereafter wandering through Russia until he aroused official suspicions that led to him being imprisoned in the Lubianka in Moscow before being repatriated to Britain. His reports on the situation inside the new revolutionary state, which included one of the first articles detailing the circumstances of the execution of the Romanovs at Ekaterinburg, were published widely thereafter and eventually appeared in

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 112

28/07/2011 11:23:52

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh

113

book form, adding substantially to his fame.26 He was increasingly lionised, especially in the United States, where he went on a widely publicised lecture tour, and found receptive ears for his denunciations of the new Russian regime. His political criticisms of Lenin, the ‘arch-conspirator’ were, interestingly, counter-pointed by a savage attack on the ‘gang of international concession hunters’ who now besieged the Kremlin.27 In another article he wrote amusedly about the answer given by an IrishAmerican communist to a Soviet official who had asked him to write the history of the agrarian movement in Ireland, presumably to offer Russian farmers a template to copy. The Irish-American, with a better grasp of Irish history than the Russian official, warned him that he did not know what he was asking for: if Russian peasants learned how Irish peasants had united to throw off the yoke of the oppressor, he implied, they might take the wrong lesson from such an example.28 Whereas his initial critique of the new State had focused primarily on what he saw as civil rights issues, as misguided economic policies, and on an authoritarian democratic centralism, he returned to Russia in 1922 to make the regime’s atheism the principal target of his critique. His return coincided with a number of show trials of prominent clerics, to which he seems to have been the only correspondent to have had access, aided by his facility for disguise and his ability to speak Russian. His more considered, but no less passionate verdict on these proceedings was delivered in a book published very shortly afterwards, which recounted the trials in some detail.29 His book is notable for several things, not least its pen pictures, not only of the accused, but of their accusers. He took pains to give details of the charges as well as the defence, and his description of the atmosphere in which the trial was held is redolent of the heightened emotions on both sides. The fashionable anti-Semitism so commonly associated with anti-Bolshevism at that time, however, makes a particularly objectionable appearance, as in a passage in which he claims to identify, on the basis of physiognomy alone, ‘many Hebrew faces’. While the procurator was demanding six lives, a Jewess walked slowly down the hall from one of the front seats. She was a particularly repulsive-looking elderly woman in a low-necked white dress, and, as she swept past, she nodded and winked at friends on each side of her, who nodded pleasantly in return. About the same time two Polish women, overcome by the ferocious bellowing of Krylenko [the prosecutor], left the court in tears … A good many of the women present were Reds; one could see that not only by their attitude towards the prisoners, but also by their short hair and their rich dresses … at the terrible end of the trial, when one could almost hear the Angel of Death beating his wings in that hushed and crowded court, they scrutinised the faces

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 113

28/07/2011 11:23:52

114

Irish journalism before independence

of the condemned men through their opera glasses as hungrily and insistently as they would have scrutinised the faces of great actors on the stage.30 Increasingly aware that the Russian authorities were on his trail, he slipped across the border into Poland, from where he returned to the United States. The New York Times, reporting his arrival from Europe on the liner ‘Saxonia’ on 5 November 1924, quoted his view that the Russian jails were full of socialists, and his prediction that, although the Soviet system would remain in power for another decade, that country would eventually return to a monarchical system of government.31 More significantly, and specifically in relation to Irish affairs, he publicly endorsed the authenticity – as he saw it – of the infamous ‘Zinoviev letter’, a document concocted by the British secret service which helped to bring down the first British Labour Government in 1924 because of its supposed instructions from Moscow to British Communists to increase agitation in the United Kingdom, especially in the armed forces. In McCullagh’s view, one surprising effect of the publication of this letter had been to detach Irish voters in Britain from their former allegiance to Labour and, rather than waste their votes by supporting the Liberal party, to give them to the Tories, the party that had been the traditional enemy of Irish nationalism. ‘The Irish in England,’ he observed, ‘are a devout people, who know something of what the Bolshevists have done to religion. So that when the definite connection between Moscow and some of the Labour leaders was revealed they left that party.’32 McCullagh was now a figure of considerable international stature, and was treated as such on his arrival in the United States. As he moved into a more relaxed mode, journalistically speaking, he struck up a relationship with the Jesuit magazine Studies, in Dublin. Between 1924 and 1930 he was to contribute articles to this journal on a wide variety of topics, and a narrowing of his journalistic focus dates substantially from this period. It is not at all improbable that this was reflected, and was related to, the successful outcome of the War of Independence in Ireland, and he did not hesitate to draw parallels – and warnings – wherever he found them. He analysed the new Russian State for readers of Studies, in a way that uncannily predicted the problem of nationalities that was to play a significant part in the demise of the Soviet Union, and also drew interesting parallels between Russian Jews and Irish nationalists: Never, after this, can any great power afford the luxury of persecuting a minority as the Irish Catholic was persecuted in Russia during the nineteenth century; for such minorities tend to ally themselves with the revolutionary forces that are now lurking in every State, and to bring with them a violence of hatred and a careless of consequences which

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 114

28/07/2011 11:23:52

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh

115

your cold, theoretical revolutionist somewhat lacks. Earl Balfour used to deplore the addiction of the mere Irish to murder, but I think that England was lucky in having the Irish to oppress, and not the Odessa Jews, whose priests never condemned oath-bound secret societies. No rabbi ever thought worse of a co-religionist who, in imitation of Samson, brought down death on himself as well as on his enemies; and had Irish priests taken a similar view in ’98 and at various other periods of crisis in Anglo-Irish relations, many English battleships and arsenals might have gone sky-high.33 This brief passage provides many clues to his own views about Ireland as well as about Russia. He condemned the despotism of the Tsars, as containing the seeds of its own overthrow. He implied that the Irish revolution was more successful – because less bloody – than that of the Communists, whom he equated, by and large, with the Jews. And his Irish Party-style nationalism undoubtedly led him to give the credit for the success of moderate Irish republicanism to the Irish Catholic clergy, whose politics he compares favourably with the extremism of the rabbis. It is hardly surprising that, during this period, his journalism also begins to display an increasing concentration on the fortunes of the Catholic Church. What began as an enthusiasm began to assume the characteristics of an obsession – an obsession which, although it had been to an extent held in check during his work in Russia, fatally over-simplified and exaggerated his coverage of the two civil wars – one in Mexico, the other in Spain – which were to provide a coda for his journalistic career. Mexico was not, initially, his idea. It was possibly his connection with Studies that led him to contact Fr Wilfrid Parsons SJ, the American editor of the Jesuit journal America, with an offer to write articles about Britain. Parsons made a counter-offer to persuade him to go to Mexico and to report for America on the largely Catholic ‘Cristero’ uprising against the left-wing and anti-clerical Calles government. McCullagh replied, with the insouciance of the freelance correspondent, that ‘he would come immediately if he got enough money’.34 Parsons then approached the Knights of Columbus, who came up with a substantial commitment of funds. After travelling incognito through Mexico, evidently not without considerable danger to himself, McCullagh succeeded in getting a substantial number of articles hostile to Calles published in the United States, notably in the Wall Street Journal but also in a number of other US regional newspapers. His pro-Catholicism, however, was now becoming more strident, and the balance evident in his articles from North Africa and even from Portugal appeared to be on the wane. The principal fruits of his labours was a book-length account of his investigation which evoked a torrent of criticism.35 To describe Red Mexico as one-sided would be a serious understatement. The Nation described it as ‘sizzling ­interventionist

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 115

28/07/2011 11:23:52

116

Irish journalism before independence

propaganda, vintage of over a decade ago, acidified in the interval’.36 James J. Horn described it four decades later as ‘unscholarly’, which was perhaps an inverted compliment, and, more accurately, as ‘a masterpiece of intemperance’.37 Even the Manchester Guardian, which had praised his work on Russia, noted that the book, ‘by its very vehemence, defeats its own ends’.38 There were similarly hostile critiques in the newspaper which had published so much of McCullagh’s work in the past, the New York Times, and, at around the same time, in the New York Evening Post.39 The book also became embroiled in the US Presidential election of 1928, in which Alfred Smith, a Catholic, was the Democratic Party’s candidate. His book was not published until after the election and when, in December 1928, it finally reached the bookstores, his American publishers revealed that publication had had to be postponed five times because Catholics associated with Smith’s campaign feared that it would raise the religious issue during the presidential election. Back in Ireland in 1928 for what seems to have been one of his rare visits, his increasingly unqualified advocacy for Catholic causes received a warmer welcome and he gave a crowded meeting in the Royal Dublin Society the benefit of his views on the Calles regime. He came to Ireland again in 1933 for a holiday, when he was interviewed at length by the intrepid Gertrude Gaffney, an Irish Independent journalist whose editor, Frank Geary, had afforded her the kind of roving brief (including the right to contribute articles on foreign and domestic politics) rarely accorded in that era even to her male counterparts. It was undoubtedly this meeting which led to the flattering profile of McCullagh which Gaffney contributed to the 1935 issue of The Capuchin Annual, and in which he confided that his main journalistic interests for the future involved a return to Russia and Japan, the scene of his earliest journalistic triumphs. His plan to return to Asia, however, was aborted by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. He rapidly assembled a modest portfolio of editors (including, for the first time, that of the Irish Independent), and set off imbued with enthusiasm for Franco and his cause. His subsequent book detailing his experiences, while passionately and unashamedly pro-Franco, displayed much acute journalistic observation, some political insight, and an occasional humorous line in self-deprecation. The honesty of some of its descriptions did not always go down well with those whose cause he supported. A favourable review in Hibernia in January 1937 led to an intemperate attack on him shortly afterwards by General Eoin O’Duffy, the leader of a small pro-Franco force of Irish Catholics. Commenting on the anonymous reviewer’s opinion that McCullagh’s version of events had been a ‘fair recital’ O’Duffy insinuated that McCullagh was tailoring his journalism to suit his audience. The book, he claimed, was ‘no more truthful, fair, or charitable than his message to American newspapers when he describes our

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 116

28/07/2011 11:23:52

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh

117

volunteers as a type whose mothers were in the workhouses, whose fathers were on the relief and who children were in reformatories’.40 The potential appeal of these articles for Irish readers was, however, undermined by two unexpected developments. One was the hostile attitude of the Spanish censors, who found his pro-Franco sentiments insufficient justification for his modest critique of the problems of O’Duffy’s force; the other was the decision of Frank Geary, the editor of the Irish Independent, to send Gertrude Gaffney out to Spain, from where she contributed a lengthy series of articles while McCullagh’s languished in the Spanish censor’s office. Among the few pieces he wrote that did get through was an impassioned plea to de Valera to take steps towards recognising the insurrectionist regime – a plea which, despite the intervention on his behalf of Dr. Mageean, the Bishop of Down and Connor, fell on diplomatically deaf ears in Government Buildings.41 At the end of the Spanish Civil War, no doubt conscious of the looming hostilities that were to engulf Europe in Europe, he left Paris for New York, and spent the remainder of his life there without engaging again in the world of journalism. This son of Tyrone, however, once happy to describe himself as a ‘Britisher’, was now obsessed by a desire to campaign against Britain’s continuing role in his native Northern Ireland, and wrote to Irish diplomats in New York 1940 to offer his services should they decide – as he urged them – to wage a propaganda war against Britain on this issue in the United States. His offer was ignored; indeed, the fact that it was even made in such terms provides graphic evidence of his growing estrangement from the geo-political realities of the world he had reported for most of the previous four decades. For all that his later concerns and predilections now seem old-fashioned and unbalanced, those of his earlier career were not entirely out of temper with the times in which he lived, when democracy, and religious freedom, were not as well-grounded political realities as they are today. His last work – lost with his papers after his death – was a long novel about the events of 1798 which he appears to have been working on episodically for most of his life.42 He died in a New York mental hospital, afflicted by dementia, on 25 November 1956, but would undoubtedly have appreciated the fact that his passing was recorded, not only in a number of Irish newspapers, but in the two great metropolitan dailies in London and New York.43

Notes 1 G. Gaffney, ‘Francis McCullagh’, The Capuchin Annual (Dublin: Order of Friars Minor, 1935), p. 26. 2 J. Horgan, ‘Francis McCullagh, the Great Foreign Correspondent’, Irish Historical Studies, 36: 144 (2009), pp. 542–64.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 117

28/07/2011 11:23:52

118

Irish journalism before independence

3 Onlooker, ‘Francis McCullagh’, Derry Journal, reprinted in Ulster Herald, 29 December 1956. 4 Ibid. 5 Hudson Papers, University of Notre Dame Archives x-4-c, Francis McCullagh to Fr. Daniel Hudson, editor, ‘Ave Maria’, 18 January 1900. 6 Unsigned article (probably W. T. Stead), ‘Francis McCullagh’, Review of Reviews for Australasia, 2 February 1912, p. 563. 7 Ibid., p. 564. 8 F. McCullagh, With The Cossacks (London: Evelyn Nash, 1906). 9 Ibid., p. 287. 10 F. McCullagh, The Fall of Abd-ul-Hamid (London: Methuen, 1910), p. 136. 11 National Archives, Kew, FO 372/127, McCullagh to Whitehead, 5 April 1909. 12 Van Wert Daily Bulletin, 23 November 1912. 13 A. Ramsay, Tales from Turkey, Foreword by Francis McCullagh (London and New York: Methuen, 1915). 14 Ramsay, p. xiii. 15 Unsigned article (probably W. T. Stead), ‘Francis McCullagh’, Review of Reviews, p. 566. 16 See F. McCullagh, ‘The Separation of Church and State in Portugal’, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 29 (June 1911), pp. 595–603; and F. McCullagh, ‘Portugal: The Nightmare Republic’, The Twentieth Century and After (January 1914), pp. 148–70. 17 F. McCullagh, ‘Portuguese Republicans Fiddling While Rome Burns’, New York Times, 21 May 1911. 18 F. McCullagh, ‘Portugal: The Nightmare Republic’, p. 163. 19 F. McCullagh, ‘Returns Pass to Italians’, Los Angeles Times, 13 November 1911. 20 Unsigned article (probably W. T. Stead), ‘Francis McCullagh’, Review of Reviews, p. 563. The fact that Januarius MacGahan (1844–78), although the son of Irish parents, was born in the United States, did not detract from Stead’s enthusiasm. 21 F. McCullagh, Italy’s War for a Desert (Chicago: F. G. Browne, 1913), p. 89. 22 Derry Journal, ‘Irishmen Famous in Russia’, lecture by Sir Bernard Pares, 9 November 1936. 23 School of Slavonic and Eastern Studies, London (SSES), Siberian log of Sir Bernard Pares, PAR 6/9/1. 24 Ibid. McCullagh to Pares, 1 November 1919. 25 Ibid. McCullagh to Pares, undated, but between 9 September 1919 and 1 November 1919. McCullagh was finally confirmed in his rank as captain on 26 November 1920 (National Archives, Kew, WO 339/21565). 26 F. McCullagh, A Prisoner of the Reds: The Story of a British Officer captured in Siberia (London: John Murray, 1922). 27 F. McCullagh, ‘Scenes in the Kremlin’, Los Angeles Times, 7 November 1920. 28 F. McCullagh, ‘New face of Russia’, Oakland Tribune, 4 December 1920. 29 F. McCullagh, The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity (London: John Murray, 1924). 30 Ibid., pp. 146–7.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 118

28/07/2011 11:23:53

The Irishness of Francis McCullagh

119

31 See New York Times, 6 November 1924. 32 See Olean Evening Herald, 14 November 1924. 33 F. McCullagh, ‘Leon Trotsky’, Studies, 19 (March 1930), p. 427. See also J. Horgan, ‘Journalism, Catholicism and Anti-Communism in an Era of Revolution: Francis McCullagh, War Correspondent, 1874–1956’, Studies, 98: 390 (2009), pp. 169–84. 34 W. Parsons, Mártires mexicanos. Relatos sobre la persecución religiosa en México, www.universidadabierta.edu.mx/Biblio/P/Parsons%20WilfridMartires.htm (accessed 10 April 2007). 35 F. McCullagh, Red Mexico: A Reign of Terror in America (New York, Montreal and London: Carrier, 1928). 36 E. Gruening, ‘Red Rubbish’, The Nation, 128: 3316 (1929), pp. 110–11. 37 J. J. Horn, ‘US Diplomacy and “The Specter of Bolshevism” in Mexico (1924–1927)’, The Americas, 32: 1 (1975), p. 35. 38 P. J. M. ‘Mexico, Green and Red’, Manchester Guardian, 4 December 1928. 39 See New York Times, 20 January 1929; and A. Brenner, ‘Mexico Painted in a Lurid Red by McCullagh’, New York Evening Post, 2 February 1929. 40 E. O’Duffy, ‘Letter to the Editor,’ Hibernia, 2: 4 (1938), p. 29. 41 F. McCullagh, ‘A Plea to de Valera’, Irish Independent, 16 October 1936. 42 McCullagh to McCauley, consul-general, New York, 21 January 1952, National Archives of Ireland, DFA 254/63. 43 Derry Journal, 28 November 1956; New York Times, 26 November 1956; Irish Independent, 28 November 1956; Derry Journal, 28 November 1956; Tyrone Constitution, 1 December 1956; Ulster Herald, 1 December 1936; Londonderry Sentinel, 29 December 1956.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 119

28/07/2011 11:23:53

9

Patriotism, professionalism and the press: the Chicago press and Irish journalists, 1875–1900 1 Gillian O’Brien

In the late nineteenth century Irish immigrants in the United States found no shortage of newspapers catering to their interests. For Irish journalists concerned with all things Irish there were plenty of opportunities for employment in cities – such as Philadelphia, Boston, New York and, later, Chicago and San Francisco – that boasted large Irish populations. But there were also Irish journalists who wrote for newspapers that were not defined by an ethnic orientation, and who covered stories that had little to do with Ireland or Irish concerns. This chapter examines the careers of four prominent Irish or Irish-American journalists, editors and newspaper proprietors based in Chicago, who struggled to tread the fine line between assimilation and identity. All four were proud of their Irish roots; all four were, to a greater or lesser extent, engaged with the politics of Ireland and Irish-America and yet all four came to prominence not because of their Irishness but because of their talent. Like many of the Irish in America they struggled, with varying degrees of success, with a desire to be accepted as Americans and the determination not to forget where they came from.

The focus of Irish journalism in the United States and the city of Chicago Irish journalists prospered in the United States throughout the nineteenth century. Some earned their wage reporting and commenting on local and national news but the vast majority wrote for newspapers primarily concerned with Irish (or at best Irish-American) affairs. Few journalists entirely abandoned their Irish roots, partly because it made simple commercial sense to retain them. As a result, the concerns of Irish and Irish-American journalists often closely reflected those of the Irish immigrant population: Ireland, America and the Catholic Church (not necessarily in that order). The first newspaper dedicated to an Irish and Irish-American audience was the New York-based The Shamrock or Hibernian Chronicle, established

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 120

28/07/2011 11:23:53

The Chicago press and Irish journalists

121

in 1810. It was joined in 1824 by The Globe and Emerald, published in New York and Philadelphia. The most successful Irish newspaper to be published in the United States, prior to the enormous influx of famine Irish in the 1840s, was the Truth-Teller, published in New York from 1825 to 1855.2 During the mid and late nineteenth century the audience for Irish-American newspapers grew steadily, particularly in the port cities of the east coast. In the 1840s and 1850s, 1.7 million Irish people emigrated to the United States. During the 1840s the Irish accounted for 46 per cent of all immigrants to the country while in the 1850s they accounted for 35 per cent.3 Boston and New York were the two cities that proved most attractive both to Irish journalists and Irish-American newspapers. Many of the Irish newspaper owners, editors and journalists who thrived in America in this period were closely associated with radical nationalist and republican activity and their newspapers often reflected a pro-republican, anti-British bias. Proprietors and editors such as Thomas Francis Meagher and John Mitchel – both members of the Young Ireland movement – had been convicted of sedition and treason felony and sentenced to transportation to the penal colony in Western Australia. Like others they escaped and travelled to America where they established themselves in the burgeoning newspaper business. In the 1860s the Young Irelanders were joined by a new generation of Irish republicans, the Fenians, some of whom (like John Boyle O’Reilly) also arrived in the United States after escaping from custody in Australia. O’Reilly, Jerome Collins, John Devoy and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa all established themselves in the newspaper business in either Boston or New York. Of these men only O’Reilly and Collins successfully developed careers that were not dependent on Irish-America. Jerome Collins, a Fenian and a founder member of the secret revolutionary society, Clan na Gael, became director of the New York Herald’s weather service and wrote a regular column for the newspaper.4 O’Reilly became editor of the Pilot, a Catholic newspaper based in Boston with a strong Irish-American readership. He was also famous for his poetry, published four books of verse and was commissioned to write ‘The Pilgrim Fathers’ for the dedication of the Pilgrim Fathers monument at Plymouth in 1889.5 O’Reilly became a respected member of the Bostonian intellectual community and was friends with men such as the writer, poet and academic Oliver Wendell Holmes and the poet and journalist Walt Whitman.6 In 1872 he was a founder member of the bohemian ‘Papyrus Club’; a Boston club made up primarily of literary men and journalists, and was later president of the Boston Press Club.7 During the American Civil War many Irish journalists temporarily abandoned their profession and joined the army (including men such as Thomas Frances Meagher, John Mitchel and Patrick Ford). The majority supported the Union side, largely due to their geographical location. John

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 121

28/07/2011 11:23:53

122

Irish journalism before independence

Mitchel was an exception – he both supported the Confederacy and defended slavery – but on the issue of slavery Ford and O’Reilly were particularly vocal in their support of the abolitionists.8 Ford had cut his journalistic teeth working for William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator in 1842 and, by 1861, Ford was the editor and publisher of the Boston Tribune; an abolitionist and pro-Union paper. O’Reilly, too, was an ardent abolitionist and numbered among his friends the abolitionists Wendell Phillips and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.9 Following his death in 1890, Edwin Garrison Walker, one of the first black lawyers in the state of Massachusetts and son of abolitionist David Walker, observed: with his pen John Boyle O’Reilly sent through the columns of a newspaper … words on our behalf that were Christian … Mr O’Reilly declaring his determination to stand by the coloured American in all contests where his rights were at stake … as long as Mr O’Reilly lived and spoke, we felt that we had at least outside of our own people one true vigilant, brave and self-sacrificing journalist who … claimed for us just what he claimed for himself.10 On the issue of slavery neither Ford nor O’Reilly mirrored the Irish in the United States as many were at best ambivalent about slavery and at worst openly hostile to the abolitionist cause. The Irish journalists of the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s remained, for the most part, concerned with Irish affairs and their newspapers provided the Irish community in America with vital information about their new homeland and catered to the sense of exile felt by many immigrants. The challenges faced by Irish and Irish-American journalists of the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s were more complex: many had been born in America, most were American citizens and their negotiations with both American and Irish identities were a struggle familiar to many millions of Irish-Americans at the close of the nineteenth century. The end of the nineteenth century was a fertile period for urban growth in America: between 1870 and 1900 the urban population of the United States tripled. Such rapid urban expansion, increasing literacy levels and a curiosity about the world around and beyond the city drove the newspaper boom. In the last thirty years of the nineteenth century the number of daily newspapers quadrupled and the copies sold increased six-fold. By 1880, it was suggested that the growth of the newspaper industry was hardly equalled ‘by any other phase of industrial development in the United States’.11 Cities quickly became too large for the individual to comprehend without a guide and residents became reliant on newspapers to educate and inform on all matters local, national and international. Much has been written about the Irish in Boston and New York and the lives of many of the journalists there have been well documented.12 However, little has been written about those who plied their trade in the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 122

28/07/2011 11:23:53

The Chicago press and Irish journalists

123

fastest-growing city in the United States in the late nineteenth century – Chicago. In many ways this is an oversight as the city was home to some of the most influential and dynamic journalists, editors and newspaper owners in the United States. As Theodore Dreiser recalled: Chicago was in the heyday of its newspaper prestige. Some of the nation’s most remarkable editors, publishers and newspaper writers were at work there: Melville E. Stone, afterward general manager of the Associated Press; Victor F. Lawson, publisher of the Daily News; Joseph Medill, editor and publisher of the Tribune … William Penn Nixon, editor and publisher of the Inter Ocean …13 Chicago was expanding at a much faster pace than any other urban centre in the United States: in the decade 1880–90 the population grew from 503,185 to 1,099,850, an increase of 118 per cent, while that of New York rose by 26 per cent and Philadelphia by 24 per cent.14 Like other metropolitan centres, Chicago played host to an ever-increasing and ever-changing collection of newspapers. In 1888 Harper’s Magazine commented that ‘Chicago journalism, like the city itself, is one of the wonders of the times.’15 By the late 1880s there were at least ten daily English language newspapers in Chicago competing for sales.16 Aimed at the general market, these newspapers were low-priced and visually appealing with illustrations and headlines designed to catch the eye and the purse, and by 1889 most of these newspapers bore the hallmarks of what Edwin Emery has termed ‘new journalism’. Many editors in Chicago ‘believed that the news function was the primary obligation of the press; they exhibited independence of editorial opinion; they crusaded actively in the community interest; they appealed to the mass audience through improved writing … use of headlines and illustrations and popularization of their contents’.17 The four Chicago journalists considered in this chapter are: Melville E. Stone, John F. Finerty, Margaret Sullivan and Finley Peter Dunne. All knew each other – in some instances the connection came through the Irish community in Chicago or one of the several press clubs in the city but more often it was because, at one point or other, they were colleagues. The life of the nineteenth-century journalist was a very fluid one with reporters flitting between newspapers on a constant basis. A colleague one week was often a rival the next. However, none of the four worked on ‘Irish’ newspapers. Despite a substantial Irish population (17 per cent or 183,844 in 1890), the city had no dedicated Irish newspaper until the early 1880s.18

Melville Stone Chicago newspapers were dominated by two men: Wilbur F. Storey, owner and editor of the Times, and Melville Stone, the founder and editor of the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 123

28/07/2011 11:23:54

124

Irish journalism before independence

Daily News. From the 1860s to the 1890s, these two men, as much as Charles A. Dana, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, influenced a whole generation of reporters. Storey’s motto was ‘to print news and to raise hell’, and that he did. The Times managed to be both shocking and successful as Storey married news to sensationalism.19 The newspaper was perhaps best known for its headlines, the most famous being ‘Jerked to Jesus’ which accompanied a story about the hanging of four murderers.20 Stone came from Irish stock – his mother was from Co. Cavan.21 He was opposed to violent Irish republicanism and disliked both the Fenian movement and Clan na Gael. He was a strong supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, who deeply impressed him when they met.22 But, while Stone was a moderate in his personal politics, in the newspaper business he was a radical. The first edition of the Chicago Daily News was published on 25 December 1875 and Stone was determined that his newspaper would be independent of any political party and betray no bias towards any ethnic group. The only two sources of revenue he was prepared to accept were from sales of the newspaper and from advertising. There would be no secret sponsorship; he would be beholden to no one. Press affiliation to political parties was common practice in the nineteenth century when a newspaper’s survival was more tightly bound to the fortunes of the party than the ability to make a profit. The Chicago Times had been established in 1854 as a Democratic Party paper, while the Chicago Tribune, with Joseph Medill in control from 1855, was a powerful organ of the Republican Party. But by 1890, with the exception of a fervently Republican paper, the Inter-Ocean, all the other Chicago dailies had followed Stone’s example and wore their political affiliations lightly, if at all. By the mid 1880s the Daily News was the most popular newspaper in Chicago with a circulation of 160,000 – by comparison its nearest rivals, the Times and the Tribune, sold 30,000 and 25,000 respectively.23 For Stone, a newspaper’s primary objectives were to print news, to guide public opinion and to provide entertainment.24 His newspaper proudly boasted that it printed ‘all the news’ and was ‘a daily newspaper for busy people’.25 Stone was an advocate of what he termed ‘detective journalism’ and encouraged his journalists towards investigative reporting.26 Under Stone’s stewardship the Daily News successfully ‘built up the most brilliant newspaper staff Chicago had ever known’, though he did complain that: it was a day [in the 1870s] when every competent journalist was expected to be a drunkard and my staff lived up to such requirements. Chicago had a notable reformatory for ‘habituals’ … and it was a poor week when I did not have one or more of my staff imprisoned there. When they ‘sobered up’ they proved quite efficient.27

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 124

28/07/2011 11:23:54

The Chicago press and Irish journalists

125

Stone sold his interest in the Daily News in 1888 and, as part of the sale agreement, he was forbidden to be actively involved in any daily newspaper in Chicago for ten years. Despite this, he remained closely involved in the newspaper industry of the mid-west region and continued to play an active part in the Chicago Press Club which he, Franc Wilkie of the Times and Mark Twain had founded in 1880.28 More significantly, he was heavily involved in the Associated Press of Illinois which later became the national organisation ‘Associated Press’ (AP). He became a director of the AP in 1883 and a decade later was made the general manager. His particular interest was in expanding AP’s foreign service and he was instrumental in establishing correspondents across Europe. In 1918 he resigned as general manager and the following year travelled to Paris where he ended his career as a journalist by reporting on the Paris Peace Conference for the AP.29

John F. Finerty John F. Finerty had journalism in his blood. His father, M. J. Finerty, had been editor of the Galway Vindicator. In 1863 John Finerty left Ireland for America, following a series of radical speeches that had attracted the attention of the authorities. He joined the army and fought on the Union side in the Civil War. This military training would later serve him well as a journalist. From New York he moved to Chicago where he was a journalist for the Republican, the Inter-Ocean, the Post and the Tribune, but he was most closely associated with the Chicago Times. As military correspondent for the Times in the latter half of the 1870s Finerty travelled with the United States army and covered the wars against the Sioux Indians. His dispatches from the front met with great acclaim, and in 1890 he published longer versions of these accounts in a book, War-Path and Bivouac. In 1877, and again two years later, Finerty travelled to Mexico and sent weekly dispatches to the Times, including an interview with the Mexican President, Porfirio Díaz.30 In his account of the Indian wars – and to a lesser extent in his Mexican dispatches – Finerty identified readily with the Americans. To him the Sioux and the Mexicans were the ‘other’ and he apparently saw no contradiction with identifying firmly as an ‘American’ yet being identified by many ‘Americans’ as being ‘Irish’. While Finerty regarded himself as an American patriot he also saw himself as an Irish Republican and appeared to find little contradiction in this dual allegiance. In 1881 he was appointed Washington correspondent and while there he was briefly diverted from journalism when he was elected to Congress. It was not a stellar political career. While a Congressman Finerty was described by Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune, as ‘the member from Illinois elected to represent Ireland in the Congress’.31 Finley Peter Dunne (writing as ‘Mr Dooley’) recalled the time ‘me friend

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 125

28/07/2011 11:23:54

126

Irish journalism before independence

Jawn Finerty came out ’iv th’ House iv Riprisintitives an’, whin some wan ast him what was goin’ on, he says, “Oh nawthin’ at all but some damned American business”’.32 Finerty’s foray into American politics lasted only two years and in March 1885 he returned to Chicago to concentrate on his newspaper, The Citizen. In 1882, conscious of a growing Irish population in Chicago with no Irish newspaper, Finerty had decided to launch one of his own for the purpose ‘of presenting to the public in a faithful manner the status of the Irish and affording Irish-Americans a wider opportunity to express sympathy with the cause of the motherland’.33 The newspaper’s motto, emblazoned across the front page was: ‘Europe, not England, is the Mother Country of America’. Finerty’s newspaper proved popular and became, like Patrick Ford’s Irish World and John Boyle O’Reilly’s Pilot, one of the most successful Irish-American newspapers. So influential was The Citizen that, during the Parnell Commission in London, word was sent to Finerty that his radical newspaper’s championing of Charles Stewart Parnell was proving an embarrassment as Parnell sought to downplay all connections with Irish republicanism.34

Margaret Sullivan By the late nineteenth century it was not uncommon for female journalists to be on the staff of newspapers but not all editors or proprietors encouraged them. Charles A. Dana commented that: They [women] are employed as reporters, as writers, as artists … There is only one difficulty about it; they don’t stay. When you have found a lady about whom you are convinced it is impossible to replace her, then she goes and marries some rich man, especially if she is pretty; and there the poor editor is left, helpless and without consolation.35 Editors who employed Sullivan were not left disconsolate. She was the most successful, if most controversial, female journalist in Chicago in the 1870s and 1880s. Born Margaret Frances Buchanan in Co. Tyrone in 1847, she moved to Michigan in 1851 with her recently widowed mother. At first she chose teaching but in the early 1870s she decided to try journalism and soon became a respected journalist and editorial writer, regarded by John R. Walsh, the owner of the Chicago Herald, as ‘the best living writer of English’ while William O’Brien, Irish nationalist, journalist and Member of Parliament, regarded her as ‘a lady journalist of remarkable gifts’.36 Like many Irish journalists, Sullivan (she had married Alexander Sullivan in 1874) was also involved with the Catholic press. In the mid-1870s she wrote frequently for the Catholic World. In Chicago she was on the editorial staff of the Chicago Herald, the Chicago Evening-Post, and the Chicago Times during

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 126

28/07/2011 11:23:54

The Chicago press and Irish journalists

127

the late 1870s and early 1880s.37 By 1888 she was both an editorial writer and art critic for the Chicago Tribune.38 Sullivan’s private life was often controversial. Her husband, Alexander, had a chequered career which often affected his wife. In Detroit he had owned a shoe business that was destroyed by a suspicious fire. Accused of arson, Sullivan fled to New Mexico where he was appointed Post Master in Santa Fe and later Collector of Internal Revenue for the territory of New Mexico. In 1870 he bought the Santa Fe Gazette, which he ran as a Republican paper, the Santa Fe Post, but fled the town in 1871 following a dramatic shooting match with H. H. Heath (then secretary for the territory) and the discovery that $10,000 was missing from Internal Revenue accounts. By 1873 he was in Chicago and, in 1875, he shot and killed a school inspector, Francis Hanford, who had allegedly insulted his wife. After two trials, accompanied by allegations of jury bribing, Sullivan was acquitted of murder. Shrugging off the scandal he became the national chairman of Clan na Gael.39 In 1889 he was suspected of murdering Dr Patrick Cronin, a rival and the editor of the Celto-American. He was arrested but never charged. Nonetheless, popular opinion convicted him and he fell from grace. Somehow, despite the disgrace of her husband, Margaret Sullivan’s career never faltered. As a journalist Sullivan was rarely concerned with Irish affairs but her personal politics mirrored those of her husband and Finerty. In 1881 she wrote a book, Ireland of Today: Causes and Aims of Irish Agitation, the publication of which coincided with her husband’s elevation to the most senior position within Clan Na Gael. Ireland of Today was written for an American audience and designed to tell the story of the Irish struggle from an Irish perspective. As the author maintained, ‘it is one of the disadvantages of the Irish people in this struggle that their history is told to the world by their enemies, for the English newspaper … is the authority which the mass of mankind accepts’.40 Sullivan believed her book righted this imbalance. Like Finerty she was a commentator on Mexican affairs but, unlike Finerty, her view of Mexican society was consistent with her radical ideals. She was the co-author of Mexico. Picturesque, Political, Progressive which compared the system of landlordism in Mexico with that of the absentee landlords in Ireland where ‘the money produced by the soil flows out of Mexico in exports of bullion for these absentees … precisely as the crops and money in Ireland are carried from her to replenish the purses of her landlords’. The greed of the Spanish in stripping Mexico of her resources is compared to that of the British in stripping the resources of Ireland and India.41 In her books Sullivan’s Irish nationalism was clear but her daily journalism was aimed at a broad American readership. However, in 1889 she made a rare incursion into reporting on Irish affairs when she travelled to London to report on the Parnell Commission for the New York Sun.42 She was far from a disinterested observer, as the outcome of the commission potentially

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 127

28/07/2011 11:23:54

128

Irish journalism before independence

had repercussions for her husband, then a leader of Clan na Gael. She noted that: ‘the court is now devoted to ascertaining why Ireland and England, which God did not join together, should not be prevented from separating’.43 Such was Sullivan’s perceived devotion to a radical solution to Ireland’s connection with Britain that Parnell thought her capable of bombing the British Parliament. While reporting on the Parnell Commission, Sullivan visited the Ladies Gallery in the House of Commons and when Parnell saw her there he was convinced that she would throw a bomb into the house.44 In his memoirs Melville Stone thought her motive less violent, if no less sinister. He alleged that Sullivan had brought with her to the Commons a ‘courtesan of surpassing beauty’ who had been engaged to seduce and blackmail Parnell.45 There is no evidence to sustain either story, however it is interesting that both Parnell and Stone thought Sullivan capable of dastardly acts. Sullivan was an intelligent, independent woman who prospered in what was primarily a man’s world and a man’s profession. In 1889 she travelled to Paris as a member of a press delegation sent to report on the Paris Exposition.46 Unlike the other journalists, Sullivan was not provided with a pass to the opening day ceremonies. She protested directly to the French President, Marie Francois Sadi Carnot, who informed her that ‘the French Republic has never given official recognition to a lady’. The indignant Sullivan retorted, ‘Your Excellency, it is time the French Republic created a precedent.’47 A pass was provided and her accounts of the Exposition were published in both the New York Tribune and the Chicago Tribune.48 Despite her determined opposition to all things British she devoted a lengthy article to praising Catherine Gladstone, the wife of the leader of the Liberal Party, William Ewart Gladstone. Mrs Gladstone was praised for her promotion of women’s suffrage, and Sullivan bemoaned the fact that: In the United States neither women nor statesmen have seriously begun to think upon it [suffrage]. Is this due to the fact that in the United States, owing to the Federal system, the absence of great questions and the reduction of politics to mere officeholding for the most part, there is nothing to arouse the deeper reflection of women?49 Sullivan had a successful and varied career as a journalist. She was respected as an editorial writer, an arts critic and a commentator on women’s issues. Her personal life was deeply entwined with the struggle for Irish freedom yet – with the exception of 1889 when her husband’s alleged involvement in the Cronin murder dominated the press – she avoided using newspaper columns to promote her political views, preferring to air these in the pages of her books. In an era before bylines this ensured that she was publicly identified with Irish radicalism and not hiding behind the relative anonymity of a newspaper column.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 128

28/07/2011 11:23:55

The Chicago press and Irish journalists

129

Finley Peter Dunne Of all the Irish and Irish-American journalists plying their trade in late-nineteenth-century Chicago, Finley Peter Dunne is perhaps the best remembered. Born in Bridgeport, the Irish neighbourhood in southside Chicago, Dunne was the son of Irish parents. He is best known for his fictional creation Mr Martin J. Dooley, the bartender on Archer’s Avenue in Bridgeport, but he was also a key presence in the newspaper industry in Chicago during the 1880s and 1890s. In 1884, aged sixteen, Dunne was hired by the Telegram to cover the police beat, later he moved to Stone’s Daily News.50 By the age of twenty-one he was the city editor of the Times where he orchestrated the newspaper’s campaign to secure police reform. The Times published a series of sketches highlighting police incompetence written, most probably, by Dunne, entitled ‘Officer Quinn and His Friends’. Quinn, as a representative of the force, was characterised as eager but incompetent. On one occasion Quinn scoops up a suspect’s footprint from the snow, stops for a drink on his way back to the station and emerges from the saloon several hours later to discover to his bemusement that his vital clue has melted.51 It was Dunne’s close connection with the Irish community in Chicago that provided his first big journalistic break when he exploited his connections to make a breakthrough in a sensational murder case. The murder of Dr Patrick Cronin dominated the headlines in Chicago and far beyond throughout 1889. Cronin was a medical doctor, a shareholder and journalist for the CeltoAmerican and an Irish nationalist who had been involved in a long-running dispute over the misappropriation of funds raised for the ‘Irish cause’ with Alexander Sullivan, the husband of Margaret Sullivan. Dunne was a close friend of John Devoy, a senior figure in Clan na Gael, a friend of Cronin, and a former colleague on the Daily News.52 Using his friendship with Devoy, his links with the Clan na Gael men, and his sources in the police force, Dunne joined the scramble to be the first to break news in the murder case. While the Tribune was the first to run the conspiracy story, the Daily News reported the discovery of Cronin’s body, beaten, naked and lying in a sewer, and the Herald was the first to announce the location of the murder site, it was Dunne’s Times that got the biggest story of all when it announced that the chief police detective assigned to the murder investigation, Daniel Coughlin, was also the man most likely to have committed the murder.53 As Dunne recalled, ‘it was the biggest “scoop” I ever took part in in my whole newspaper experience’.54 Soon after the conclusion of the Cronin murder trial – where the police detective, among others, was indeed found guilty of murder – Dunne left the Times and moved to the Evening Post where his ‘Mr Dooley’ character made his first appearance in October 1893. Through ‘Mr Dooley’, Dunne

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 129

28/07/2011 11:23:55

130

Irish journalism before independence

commented on local, national and international affairs. The ‘Mr Dooley’ column was a weekly, 750-word piece written entirely in first person in dialect. The use of dialect is significant; in some ways it is Dunne’s attempt to reclaim the Irish accent for the Irish community. In an era in which the Irish in America were derided for their brutality, their drunkenness, their violent love of homeland, and in which they were frequently represented as simian creatures in satirical illustrations, the character of ‘Mr Dooley’ redressed that balance somewhat. Dialect had been used to stereotype the Irish as an ignorant, brawling, incomprehensible people but Dunne created a character whose heavily-accented monologues were astute, witty and charming.55 Between 1893 and 1900 three hundred columns full of ‘Mr Dooley’s’ musings were published in Chicago newspapers.56 In 1900 Dunne (and ‘Dooley’) moved to New York.57 Following this relocation, and the national syndication of his column, ‘Mr Dooley’s’ focus shifted away from the Irish-American community to a much broader base.58 While the character remained Irish-American, his concerns did not.

Conclusion The journalists considered in this chapter were all complex individuals. While all were conscious of their Irishness, all took pains to establish themselves as something more than just ‘Irish’ journalists. This process took many forms and for some it was more difficult than others. In his life as a journalist Melville Stone was resolutely American and his personal interest in Ireland was never evident in the columns of his newspaper. John Finerty rose to prominence for his work as a war reporter yet, by the end of his career, he was defined by his involvement with Irish nationalism and owned the first newspaper in Chicago dedicated to an Irish and Irish-American readership. Finley Peter Dunne’s fame rested largely on a fictional Irish character, ‘Mr Dooley’, but his journalistic interests often strayed far from Ireland and his popular creation was regarded fondly by a broad spectrum of Americans. The columns were humorous but frequently contained firmly held, serious views on war, politics and American foreign policy as well as lighter pieces on fads and fashions of the day. Margaret Sullivan’s private and professional lives often appeared diametrically opposed yet she was consistent throughout her career. She defended the struggle for national independence, be it Mexican or Irish, and praised those willing to fight for women’s rights, even if they happened to be closely connected to the British establishment. Like Finerty, Stone and Dunne, Sullivan constructed an identity which enabled her to be both American and Irish with success and without contradiction. Together, these four Chicago journalists mirrored the great dichotomy felt by many of the Irish in America in the nineteenth century – a desire to be American, to assimilate, to play their part in

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 130

28/07/2011 11:23:55

The Chicago press and Irish journalists

131

creating and moulding the rapidly changing society of United States, and an emotional pull to identify with Ireland, to recall it in songs and stories and, in many cases, to become actively involved in the struggle to free Ireland from British domination.

Notes 1 Much of the research for this chapter was undertaken while I was a Fulbright Scholar at the Newberry Library, Chicago, and I am very grateful for the assistance of the staff of the library in sourcing some of the material. 2 W. L. Joyce, Editors and Ethnicity: A History of the Irish-American Press, 1848–1883 (New York: Arno Press, 1976), pp. 49–50. 3 K. Kenny, The American Irish: A History (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2000), pp. 90, 142. In the 1870s, 436,871 Irish arrived in the United States amounting to 15.5 per cent of all arrivals; in the 1880s the figure was 655,482 or 12.5 per cent; in the 1890s it was 388,416 or 10.5 per cent. 4 Jeannette Inquiry before the Committee on Naval Affairs of the United States House of Representatives, Fourty-Eighth Congress, Washington, 1884, p. 11. In 1879 Collins was persuaded by the owner of the newspaper, James Gordon Bennett Jr, to join an Arctic expedition sponsored by the newspaper. Collins was appointed as meteorologist and the newspaper’s special correspondent. The ship, the USS Jeannette, sailed in July 1879, quickly became frozen in arctic ice and sank in June 1881. Collins, along with 21 others of the 33-man crew died as they struggled across ice floes to safety. On the expedition see K. Daly, ‘One of Best and Purest Men: Jerome J. Collins and the Jeannette tragedy’, New York Irish History (2000), 14, pp. 23–8. 5 O’Reilly contributed poems to the Atlantic Monthly, Scribner’s and Harper’s Magazine among others. His four books of poetry were: Songs of the Southern Seas (1873), Songs, Legends & Ballads (1878), The Statues in the Block (1880) and In Bohemia (1886). He also published a loosely autobiographical novel based on his time as convict in Western Australia, Moondyne (1878) and a book about boxing, The Ethics of Boxing and Manly Sport (1888). John F. Kennedy quoted O’Reilly’s poem Distance, ‘The world is large when weary leagues two loving hearts divide/But the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side’ Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 31 October, 1960. Kennedy made reference to the same stanza in several speeches including in his address to Dáil Eireann, 28 June 1963. 6 H. Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden (New York: Michael Kennedy,1908), p. 38. 7 New York Times, 25 February 1881; D. Strand-Tucci, Boston Bohemia 1881–1900: Ralph Adams Cram, Life and Architecture (Boston: University of Massachusetts, 1996), pp. 208, 213; New York Times, 11 August 1890. 8 Kenny, pp. 127–8. 9 New York Times, 25 February 1881. 10 A Memorial of John Boyle O’Reilly from the City of Boston. Printed by Order of the City Council, 1890, pp. 52–3.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 131

28/07/2011 11:23:55

132

Irish journalism before independence

11 E. Emery, The Press and America: An Interpretative History of the Mass Media, 3rd edn (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1972), p. 285. The percentage increase in daily newspapers between 1870 and 1900 was: 1870–80, an increase of 69 per cent; 1880–90 an increase of 66 per cent; and 1890–1900, an increase of 38 per cent. Figures in T. Curtis Smythe, The Gilded Age Press (Westport: Praeger, 2003), p. 98n. G. Barth, City People: The Rise of Modern City Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 59. 12 See for example: A. Evans, Fanatic Heart: A Life of John Boyle O’Reilly, 1844–1890 (Nedlands: University of Western Australia, 1997); J. Roche, Life of John Boyle O’Reilly (New York: Cassell Publishing Company, 1891); N. Whelehan, ‘Skirmishing, The Irish World and Empire, 1876–86’, Éire-Ireland, 42 (2007), pp. 180–200; J. Rodechko, ‘An Irish-American Journalist and Catholicism: Patrick Ford of the Irish World’, Church History, 39: 4 1970, pp. 524–40; C. McMahon, ‘Ireland and the Birth of the Irish-American Press, 1842–61’, American Periodicals¸19: 1 2009, pp. 5–20. 13 T. Dreiser, A Book About Myself (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922), p. 36. 14 See C. Gibson, US Census Bureau Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Places in the United States: 1790–1990 (Washington, 1998), pp. 18–19. 15 Harper’s Magazine, October 1888, p. 687. 16 Morris, The Stranger’s Guide. Morris’ Dictionary of Chicago (Chicago: F.N. Morris, 1891), p. 15. 17 Emery, E., Emery, M. and Roberts, N. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000), The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, 9th edn, pp. 162–3; see also Smythe, ch. 5. 18 M. Haller, ‘Historical Roots of Police Behaviour: Chicago, 1890–1925’, Law and Society Review, 10 (1976), p. 304; M. Funchion, ‘Irish Chicago: Church, Homeland, Politics and Class – The Shaping of an Ethnic Group 1870–1900’, in M. Holli and P. Jones, 4th edn, Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait (Grand Rapids: Wm Eerdman, 1995), p. 10, 22. In 1882 John F. Finerty launched a weekly paper, The Citizen, and several years later Dr Patrick Cronin launched the short-lived Celto-American. The Irish presence in Chicago was significant. In 1890 the Irish held 23 of 68 seats in the City Council and made up about 50 per cent of the police force but they accounted for just 17 per cent (183,844) of Chicago’s population. The 183,844 figure includes Irish-born and first and second generation Irish. 19 D. Nord, Communities of Journalism: A History of American Newspapers and Their Readers (Chicago: University of Illinois, 2007), pp. 112–13. 20 B. L. Pierce, The History of Chicago, vol. III (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 413; Times, 27 November 1875. 21 M. Stone, Fifty Years a Journalist (New York: Doubleday Page and Co., 1921), p. 194. 22 Ibid., p. 85. 23 Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Railway Timetable [1886], Field Enterprise Records, Midwest MS Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Box 33, f. 417. 24 Stone, pp. v, 52–3.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 132

28/07/2011 11:23:56

The Chicago press and Irish journalists

133

25 Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Railway Timetable [1886], Field Enterprise Records, Midwest MS Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Box 33, f. 417. 26 Stone believed journalists were at least as useful as the police force in pursuing criminal investigations. Stone, pp. 77, 92; F. L. Mott, American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States through 250 Years (New York: Macmillan, 1941), p. 465. 27 Mott, p. 465; Stone, p. 61; D. Abramoske, ‘Chicago Daily News’ (unpublished PhD 1963) University of Chicago; Field Enterprise Records, Midwest MS Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Box 30, f. 368. 28 R. Digby-Junger, ‘“The main rendezvous for men of the press”: The Life and Death of the Chicago Press Club, 1880–1987’, Journal of Illinois History, 1: 2, pp. 76–7. 29 Stone persuaded Joseph Hatton to be the London correspondent for the AP and Sarah Jane Lippincott, better known as ‘Grace Greenwood’ to send specials from Paris during the mid-1880s. He also employed a number of Irish journalists including William Dillon, brother of John Dillon and T. P. Gill a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Stone, p. 108; Mott, p. 699n. 30 D. Thrupp, Encyclopaedia of Frontier Biography, vol. 1 (Nebraska: University of Nebraska, 1991), p. 491. An updated and expanded collection of his Mexican journalism, Mexican Flash Lights: A Narrative of Travel, Adventure and Observation in Mexico Old and New was published in 1904. 31 M. Funchion, Chicago’s Irish Nationalists 1881–1890 (New York: Arno Press, 1976), p. 48. 32 C. Fanning, Finley Peter Dunne and Mr Dooley: The Chicago Years (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1978), p. 257. 33 Finerty’s editorial in the first edition of the newspaper, quoted in C. Fanning, Mr Dooley and the Chicago Irish: The Autobiography of a Nineteenth-Century Ethnic Group (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1976), p. 257. 34 Stone, p. 89. 35 C. A. Dana, ‘The Making of a Newspaper Man’, lecture delivered 11 January 1894, published in The Art of Newspaper Making (New York, 1895), pp. 94–5. 36 Gaelic American, 21 February 1925; W. O’Brien, Evening Memories (London: Maunsel and Co., 1920), p. 124. 37 W. J. Abbot, ‘Chicago Newspapers and Their Makers’, Review of Reviews, 11 (1895), p. 664. 38 Good Housekeeping, 7 (1888), p. 238. 39 Funchion, pp. 26–9. 40 M. F. Sullivan, Ireland of To-day: Causes and Aims of Irish Agitation (Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart, 1881), p. 20. 41 M. E. Blake and M. F. Sullivan, Mexico: Picturesque, Political, Progressive (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1888), pp. 182–3, 214, 221. 42 Abbot, p. 664. 43 The Sun, 28 July 1889. 44 O’Brien, p. 124. 45 Stone, p. 87. 46 Abbot, p. 664.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 133

28/07/2011 11:23:56

134

Irish journalism before independence

47 K. Cummins, New Women of the Old Faith: Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2009), p. 49. 48 Margaret Sullivan to Michael Davitt, 31 May 1891, Trinity College Dublin, MS9432/2600. 49 The Sun, 28 July 1889. 50 Fanning, p. 7. 51 Ibid., p. 10; Chicago Times, 16 January 1889. 52 Fanning, p. 154; E. Ellis, Mr Dooley’s America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1941), p. 22. 53 Chicago Times, 25, 26, 29 May 1889. 54 Quoted in Fanning, pp. 75–7. Coughlin and three others were found guilty of Cronin’s murder but in 1894 the finding was reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court. It was, as Dunne recalled, ‘a farcical hearing, a farcical judgement of “not guilty”’. 55 Fanning, 1976, pp. xvii–xx; C. Fanning, ‘Mr Dooley Reconsidered: Community Memory, Journalism, and the Oral Tradition’, in E. Skerrett (ed.), At the Crossroads: Old Saint Patrick’s and the Chicago Irish (Chicago: Wild Onion Books, 1997), p. 72; P. Curtis, Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature (New York: Smithsonian, 1971), p. 65. 56 Fanning, 1997, p. 72. 57 Fanning, 1976, pp. xiii–xiv. 58 Fanning, 1978, p. 171.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 134

28/07/2011 11:23:56

10

O’Brennan abroad: an Irish editor in London and America Anthony McNicholas

Martin A. O’Brennan was a well-known and colourful figure in mid-nineteenth century Ireland. He was born in Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo in 1812 and died in Chicago sixty-six years later. He was a scholar, lawyer and journalist, editing newspapers in Ireland, England and America. He edited and owned the Connaught Patriot and General Advertiser in Tuam in his native Mayo from 1859 to 1869, which folded after he had already left for the United States, having made two abortive attempts at launching a London paper, the Irish News, first in 1866 and then again in March of the following year. In America, he edited the Chicago Independent in 1869 as well as working as a lecturer and lawyer. This chapter will examine the reasons for his leaving Ireland, the failure of his London enterprise and his final years in America. In so doing, it aims at providing more than just a narrative of (an admittedly interesting) individual’s life, but explains something of the conditions under which Irish journalists laboured in the mid-nineteenth century. Though he was a scholar, O’Brennan did not confine himself within an ivory tower, nor was he a detached observer of events but threw himself headlong into the social and political controversies of the day. In this he was not alone, as Legg has noted in her study of the Irish provincial press in the nineteenth century (in which O’Brennan featured), many journalists of the period were participants in as well as recorders of major social and political events.1 For his part, O’Brennan was an enthusiastic supporter of all of the ‘national’ causes of his time. He first of all ‘entered heart and soul’ into O’Connell’s Repeal movement; when Father Matthew began his crusade O’Brennan served, ‘without pay or emolument’, as the ‘great temperance apostle’s’ secretary; to Young Ireland he gave ‘all the earnest enthusiasm of his nature and all his great ability’; for Tenant Right, he laboured ‘with pen, voice and purse’; and then, when the ‘old cause rose once more’ in the 1860s in the shape of Fenianism, his writing led him to become ‘one of the multitude of suspects’, and he was arrested on at least two occasions.2 Between 1855 and 1867 he produced five volumes on Irish history and language – he was

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 135

28/07/2011 11:23:56

136

Irish journalism before independence

a life-long Irish language enthusiast, indeed enthusiasm would appear to be his enduring characteristic, along with a love of controversy, and an unerring ability to make powerful enemies. O’Brennan’s first attempt at starting a newspaper in London failed after only one issue. The second was scarcely more successful, and the Irish News lasted only five issues between 16 March and 13 April 1867 before it disappeared amid seemingly universal disapproval, condemned by the Roman Catholic Church and criticised by its peers. In England the state did not interfere as it had Ireland, though as we shall see it was invited to. However, O’Brennan was to find London an even more inhospitable environment than his native Ireland had become, which was now, to use a colloquial phrase too hot for him; and it was his very public history there of clashing with both state and Church that guaranteed the Irish News the reception it was to receive.

Ireland In Ireland, the principle objection of authority – ecclesiastical and lay – was O’Brennan’s perceived support for Fenianism. There was some justification for this – he was an outspoken critic of both the government and the head of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Cullen. He spoke in support of the National Brotherhood of Saint Patrick, which was widely seen as being a front for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), but he was never a member of the IRB, and was at odds with some of its leading lights, being mocked in their newspaper, the Irish People. Cullen saw Fenianism as ‘a plot principally directed against the Catholic Church’ which was associated with continental anti-clericalism, and would, if successful lead to a diminution in the influence of the church in Ireland.3 He was convinced of the dangers inherent in the nationalist press, which he thought was infected by Mazzianism4 and which was notoriously exemplified by O’Brennan’s Connaught Patriot. Cullen’s colleague Bishop McEvilly had in 1864 described the newspaper as ‘a malicious Garibaldian rag, which is sometimes heretical, sometimes schismatical, and at all times personally offensive to the Head of the Church’.5 O’Brennan, however, saw himself as a good Catholic; more than that a defender of the faith. In a typically flamboyant episode, which earned praise from the Catholic press in Ireland, he once had a distributor of Protestant pamphlets arrested for having the temerity to thrust a handbill advertising a ‘controversial sermon’ into his hand in Lower Sackville Street in Dublin. O’Brennan’s first impulse in reaction to such an insult, he told the magistrate who heard the case, was to have struck the man, but then thought better of it and had him arrested ‘for his misconduct, which evidently and manifestly tended … to provoke a breach of the peace’.6

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 136

28/07/2011 11:23:56

O’Brennan abroad: London and America

137

O’Brennan was not without friends – the opinion of Cullen notwithstanding – and in Archbishop John MacHale of Tuam, he found a powerful protector. He had another clerical ally in the nationalist priest Fr Patrick Lavelle who also flourished under MacHale’s protection much to the annoyance of Cullen. Lavelle, like O’Brennan spoke throughout Ireland and Britain in support of the National Brotherhood of Saint Patrick (of which Lavelle was for a time vice-president). O’Brennan also acted as Lavelle’s defending counsel when he was sued for libel in a controversial eviction case.7 MacHale exasperated Cullen with his support of Lavelle and O’Brennan’s Connaught Patriot. He wrote a letter of support to the newspaper with his £3.00 subscription, ‘declaring it to be the true organ of Catholicity in this part of the country’.8 Cullen, however, saw the publication as ‘an instrument of war between himself and MacHale.’9 Cullen then had two reasons for detesting O’Brennan – his supposed Fenianism and his relationship with two of his most troublesome clerics. It was in the interest of both MacHale and Lavelle to have a vehicle for their views, but the arrangement also suited O’Brennan. MacHale’s patronage provided him with prestige in the community, as well as a degree of financial stability, and he was to an extent protected from those powerful elements in the church who objected to the content of his newspaper. What the Archbishop could not do, however, was to protect O’Brennan from the state. Because of their intimacy with the population, the bishops had been privy to the subterranean manoeuvres of the Fenians and their allies long before the state authorities. By the spring of 1865, however, officials in Dublin Castle were aware that something was afoot and they were, in particular, exercised at what was viewed as subversion in sections of the press. O’Brennan and his newspaper were prominent in these concerns. The Solicitor General wrote to the Lord Lieutenant that the matter had ‘reached a point at which the interference of the executive seems to me to be imperatively required’. The blame for recent ‘riotous violence’ was laid at the door of the press, and the concern as always, was for the effect of these newspapers on the minds of the impressionable poor. Certain newspapers of an [unclear] seditious character are published weekly and have a wide circulation. On every Sunday, the peasantry may be observed in groups listening to the reading of these publications. There are about six of these publications The Nation, the Irishman, the Dundalk Democrat, the Tipperary Vindicator, and The Connaught Patriot etc. – They openly teach disloyalty to the British Crown: that Ireland is kept in a state of slavery by England.10 Matters came to a head on 12 October 1865 when O’Brennan and his printer were arrested – O’Brennan in Tuam and the printer in Dublin where he also worked on the Nation. O’Brennan was taken to Dublin where the Crown

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 137

28/07/2011 11:23:56

138

Irish journalism before independence

accused him as ‘sole conductor and publisher’ of the Connaught Patriot, of having published several seditious articles in his issue of 30 September 1865. One of the articles, which the authorities claimed ‘was treasonable and intended to stir up foreigners to invade Ireland and ‘separate it from the United Kingdom’, contained the words ‘let the American Fenians Return’.11 Typically for O’Brennan the content was couched in historical terms and, claimed that every Irishman who wishes well to Ireland was himself a Fenian, on the basis that Milesius came from a colony in Spain and that Fenius, as the ancestor of the Sythic colony settled in Spain, was therefore a remote progenitor of all genuine Irishmen and women. Ireland’s freedom O’Brennan wrote, would be won ‘by the strong arms of the haunted exiled Irish’, who would one day reclaim their homeland.12 This may have been historical justification to O’Brennan but to the authorities the content was simply sedition. Of another article entitled, ‘Alleged Fenianism in the Army’, the authorities thought ‘a more mischievous piece of treason could scarcely be circulated’. It argued that Fenianism was rumoured to be rife in the army, constabulary and the militia in terms which echoed Lavelle’s views on the right to rebel against unjust governments: they understand the nature of their oath of allegiance to defend, but not an oath to consent to the permanent oppression of their plundered nation – that their oath binds them to a just monarch and a just government; but if the latter violate allegiance to the people-that the military and people are no longer under allegiance – Ed[itor] C[onnaught] P[atriot].13 The prosecutor Charles Barry – who O’Brennan was to meet on several similar legal occasions and who he considered one of the minions of ‘the tyrant Saxon’ and the ‘vile tool that did the dirty work’ of persecuting him – was not inclined to take a lenient view of ‘rumoured’ as opposed to ‘real’ sedition.14 Barry remarked at the committal: The article in question is decidedly treasonable, at the same time there is something in it intended to keep the writer and publisher within the law, while the meaning is to stir up the feelings of these misguided persons.15 O’Brennan was refused bail, committed for trial and ended up in the Bridewell along with several individuals associated with the Irish People. Not before he had his say, however. Ignoring the advice of his counsel to keep silent, he said, but I must protest, when I find the Crown acting with so much virulence as to take me from my large family of nine or ten, and stick me up into

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 138

28/07/2011 11:23:57

O’Brennan abroad: London and America

139

no better than a water closet last night, and keep me from three o’clock yesterday morning, without any refreshment. It would well become the Crown to say – how is this man treated; or why should such an aggression be made upon the right of the subject as has be made upon me. If it occurred elsewhere the Attorney General or Crown Solicitor would be the first to denounce it as barbarous and savage, and a portion of the tyranny that has been carried out in other countries; but here when it is exercised upon a subject of her Majesty, there is not one word at all against it. O’Brennan’s defiance did not impress the magistrate, but it did earn him a place in John Savage’s 1868 Fenian Heroes and Martyrs, from which this account is taken.16 His crime, according to his own newspaper was that he spoke out boldly some strong bitter truths since he came to Tuam to the Government and the landlords, and to the vile slaves who creep along in this land – the Shoneens and the minions of English power in Ireland. He spared not Whig nor place-hunter. On this account he is hunted down.17 O’Brennan was tried in February 1866 but released on the condition of good behaviour and a promise to cease publishing seditious material. He was, however, arrested a month later for using seditious language. A number of young men charged in Mayo with Fenianism were being taken by the police to Dublin. While waiting at Claremorris the prisoners were surrounded by a large and sympathetic crowd. Tempers were raised, O’Brennan intervened, as was his wont and was promptly arrested. The Connaught Patriot reported the event: We have been credibly informed and requested to state that, so far from Dr. O’Brennan having, as alleged, indulged in any seditious language on the occasion of his recent arrest at Claremorris, he, on the contrary, was loud and energetic in advising the people present (who were expressing sympathy and condolence with the Fenian prisoners then on their way from Castlebar Gaol to Dublin) to be guarded in what they said, and keep within the law, lest, in these times, when no man’s liberty was secure, they should get themselves into trouble.18 With his intervention O’Brennan guaranteed that his liberty was forfeit but this time he did not have so long to wait before being tried, and a short time later he was released, unconditionally. He gave an account of the affair to a London Irish newspaper, the Universal News, which had collected money for his defence. Thanking all ‘who had so nobly assisted him in his misfortune’, he wrote that he had been ‘confined for nearly three weeks in one of the coldest gaols in the British Isles’, had been forced to pay for his

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 139

28/07/2011 11:23:57

140

Irish journalism before independence

own keep and ‘was not allowed to follow his usual avocation’.19 One of the headaches for the authorities was that when they arrested people such as O’Brennan for spreading sedition, this led to public campaigns on their behalf, compounding the original offence. Some supported the person, or the family of detainees. At one fund-raising meeting held on behalf of the long-suffering Mrs O’Brennan – who was said to have run the Connaught Patriot when her husband was locked up20 – speakers were at pains to state they were ‘wholly disconnected from the politics of her husband’ but knew him as a man who had always taken the side of mechanics when their ‘social rights’ were being infringed by employers.21 O’Brennan’s original release had been conditional and he was re-called to court in June 1866 following the publication, according to the Attorney General, of yet more seditious material in his newspaper. He did not appear when called but wrote to the court to protest he had done nothing wrong, and had indeed been very careful to keep within the law. He feared that ‘the private malice of some secret enemy’ was making the Attorney General ‘the unconscious instrument of completing my ruin and that of my helpless family’.22 What happened next is unclear but a warrant was issued for his arrest and by September he was in London, launching a new newspaper, the Irish News.

London London, as the centre not only of the United Kingdom but also the Empire, had long attracted Irish men and women of all professions and none. In this, according to Roy Foster, journalists stand out. So much so that they are to be found in the pages of fiction, from Thackeray’s Hoolan, Doolan and Finucane to the very real Charles Diamond, T. P. O’Connor and Justin McCarthy. These latter individuals are examples Foster says, in a pithy soubriquet, which will not please everyone of ‘micks on the make’.23 It is true that as the Irish population of Britain grew during the nineteenth century, so did the need – and opportunity – for a journalism aimed at it. Additionally, after the Act of Union political agitation had to be carried out in London. Daniel O’ConnelI, in the 1820s set aside £15,000 per annum from the Catholic Rent for influencing the press in England, which he considered a greater opponent than the Orange press in Ireland. He bought space in some newspapers, placed Irish journalists on others and founded yet still more himself. So extensive was the Irish influence on English journalism that the Birmingham Monthly Argus later alleged somewhat sourly that Catholic Emancipation was granted in 1829 because ‘there was a majority of Irishmen on all the morning and most of the evening papers’.24 Some of these Irishmen and women were seeking fame and fortune in the great metropolis; others were merely trying to survive. In O’Brennan’s

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 140

28/07/2011 11:23:57

O’Brennan abroad: London and America

141

case according to one account, he was only released from prison on the understanding that he reside outside of Ireland.25 A contemporary report states that more than 200 prisoners had been released on the condition that they immediately quit Ireland; some were to go the America, others to England. None were actually escorted out of the country but were liable to arrest if they remained in Ireland.26 The New York Irish World casts O’Brennan’s exile in heroic light. As the price for being allowed to remain in Ireland, it said, he was required to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. He had refused, but instead swore, with characteristic understatement, that he would rather have his arm ‘burned off at the elbow before I’d take an oath of loyalty to her.27 Success was not O’Brennan’s lot in England and his first attempt at the Irish News only lasted a single issue. What happened to it is not certain. No copy remains and the only evidence for its existence are two notices in the London Universal News, one announcing its launch; the other the following week its demise.28 It may be O’Brennan still had legal entanglements in Ireland. The following spring O’Brennan tried again but if the autumn of 1866 had been a bad time to launch an Irish nationalist newspaper in London, the spring of 1867 was worse. The newspaper was published on 16 March 1867, within weeks of the Fenians’ abortive rising in Ireland and with both countries in uproar. O’Brennan was to find himself immediately assailed on all sides. The first problem was with his printer, or rather his printers because by the third issue he had had as many. The first had refused to print the newspaper, having seen the proofs, causing a delay of a week. The second had printed the journal but had refused to print the explanation of the first delay. With the third printer, in the third issue O’Brennan was able to explain all. The newspaper was advertised to appear on 9 March 1867. All the copy and one thousand stamped sheets had been delivered to the printer in order to be sent to the subscribers.29 But after what seemed inexplicable delays, with the deadline for delivery of proofs past, O’Brennan had called at the printers to find the printer and his landlord discussing the newspaper’s content. Later that night in desperation O’Brennan told the printer to excise any article that worried him. Eventually the printer refused point blank to print and when O’Brennan demanded the return of his copy was told Sir Richard Mayne’s officers from Scotland Yard had demanded it, threatening to seize the entire contents of the printer’s premises if he refused. O’Brennan, clearly undaunted by his previous unhappy experiences with the law in Ireland, wrote to Sir Richard, demanding an explanation, or, ‘If not now answered the question will be put in the House on Monday’ and admonished him not ‘to constitute himself a judge on criminal or constitutional law’. In the ensuing correspondence, Sir Richard managed to placate the outraged editor, and his ‘courteous and manly’ replies made plain that it had been the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 141

28/07/2011 11:23:57

142

Irish journalism before independence

printer and his landlord who had brought the proofs to Scotland Yard and not the other way round. The material was returned with the assurance that the police had no interest in it.30 In the course of his earlier difficulties, O’Brennan like other people in his position had enjoyed the support of press and public. In particular, the Universal News, then an influential newspaper with the Irish in England, had collected money on his behalf and had wished him well on his first attempt at launching the Irish News.31 Now, all was changed and his allies among Irish journalists in England including the editor Christopher Clinton Hoey turned against him. In an article named ‘Working the Oracle’, he wrote that literary patronage might be a thing of the past and writers were now independent but with newspapers, the old, corrupt system pertained yet. ‘… editors deem it necessary to have a patron, and members of parliament, whether they represent a university, or a rotten borough, think it essential to their stability to have an organ of their own’. The London journalistic scene was a rumour mill he went on. Generally, ‘we seldom take notice of the idle tales which form the stock of gossip of the perambulating quidnuncs32 who are living upon their wits in London’. Hoey did, however, take notice of a particular piece of gossip to the effect that the MP for Athlone, D. J. O’Rearden (on whose behalf O’Brennan had campaigned) had been trying to purchase a London Catholic paper, in order to ‘reingratiate himself with his constituents’. That having failed, he was now to provide ‘the sinews of war’ for O’Brennan’s new venture. He invited the ‘erudite’ editor to tell all, ‘so that a mischievous canard might be knocked on the head, and the political rectitude of the scholar and gentleman be vindicated’.33 O’Brennan wrote back immediately refuting the ‘unworthy insinuation’ about O’Rearden, saying that the rumour is simply a lie, and that the person who ventilated the same rumour well knew that it was a lie. He must either be a fool or a knave. For the sake of charity I give him the benefit of the former alternative.34 There is nothing connecting O’Rearden with the Irish News, indeed the evidence that exists suggests a J. Mac Donough was the proprietor, so O’Brennan would appear to have been in the right on this occasion.35 What is not clear is why Hoey should have now turned against O’Brennan, but he had his own troubles, his newspaper had been under attack both publicly and privately36 for its politics and the accusation, given O’Brennan’s support for O’Rearden was at least plausible. Hoey was the least of O’Brennan’s problems. A more influential opponent was the mainstream, or respectable Catholic press in England. The Westminster Gazette for example, was quick to condemn O’Brennan and his newspaper:

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 142

28/07/2011 11:23:57

O’Brennan abroad: London and America

143

A new teacher of Fenianism of the most rampant sort which had been rash enough to descant on Catholic and non Catholic teaching. It undertakes to school the bishops by name, to teach them theology. Has the audacity to declare that the bishops and priests have no authority outside the pulpit or beyond the altar.37 There was some truth in this assertion. The opening article, entitled ‘More English than the English’ on page one of the Irish News was an outspoken attack on Bishop Moriarty of Kerry, turning his famous condemnation of Fenianism on its head by asking was eternity not long enough nor hell hot enough to punish those English Catholic priests who defied ‘the powers that were’ in Queen Elizabeth’s day when it was illegal to be a Catholic priest? O’Brennan also found space to criticise Cardinal Cullen whom he held responsible for the death of convert MP Frederick Lucas, ‘caused by disappointment and the unfair treatment’ he had received at his hands. Perhaps O’Brennan had only one (hyperbolic) form of address, but in opening his new journal in such a manner, he does not seem to have realised that conditions were different in London. Archbishop MacHale, among others, had protected him from Cullen in Ireland. But in England, though the congregation may have been overwhelmingly Irish, the clergy and more particularly the hierarchy was not, and support in those quarters for Irish national aspirations was very thin on the ground. It was not long before O’Brennan was to incur the wrath of the leader of the Catholic Church in England, Cardinal Manning. Apart from condemnations in other Catholic papers, there were difficulties in obtaining copies of the Irish News in some places. A letter from an R. H. of Hackney, published in the third issue explained why. Newsvendors worked from the back of Catholic churches on Sundays. Opposition from the local priest or bishop could make life difficult so the newsvendors were inclined to listen to any advice or instruction they were given. ‘R. H.’ had enquired of his local newsvendor why copies of the Irish News were unobtainable and was told that he ‘could not furnish it in consequence of the opposition of the Archbishop’.38 Worse was to follow. A pastoral letter from Manning was read out in churches on 7 April 1867 and was specifically addressed to the Irish part of his congregation. It was also carried in full in all the Catholic newspapers, except O’Brennan’s of course. Manning condemned O’Brennan and the Irish News at length and in detail, though he did not actually name the editor or the newspaper. He began by praising the ‘children of Saint Patrick’ for reviving the faith in England and spreading it throughout the Empire, and declaring that all the sympathy of his heart had always been with Ireland and ‘its faithful, noble and martyred people’, but he then went on to give the official line on rebellion against English rule. ‘England Scotland and Ireland were once three kingdoms: they are now one indivisible realm.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 143

28/07/2011 11:23:58

144

Irish journalism before independence

What God has consolidated by ages of time no human hand can dissolve.’ O’Brennan and his supporters may well have reflected to themselves that in the Cardinal’s mind, God appeared to have a nationality. He went on to warn his flock against association with continental sedition and conspiracy, which he (like Cullen), saw in the same terms as rebellion in Ireland. the principles of rebellion have been openly and systematically published among you. The first number of a paper has been sent to me, addressed especially to my flock in London, and intended as a means of uniting others in a common cause throughout England. It is my duty to declare to you the nature of that paper, and my judgement upon it.39 O’Brennan, like other Irish radicals of the period rejected such accusations of apostasy: ‘I bless the sword and the scythe of the Pole and I long for the freedom of my country.’40 The following week, he went down fighting: ‘If between informers, pulpit denunciators and Fleet Street treachery, the Irish News be impeded in its progress, the editor shall have this consolation to himself that he is conscious of not having published one clause against the teaching of the Catholic church’. Manning was reminded, his exalted office notwithstanding, that as a convert from Anglicanism he was a relative newcomer to the faith. The Irish News, wrote O’Brennan was ‘not established as a Catholic but as a political paper’, but edited by one who would defend his faith as well as anyone, and it was a pity that Manning had doubted his catholicity, ‘We are as Catholic as his Grace … without fear of the imputation of vanity we understand its principles – both dogmatic and moral – as well as others do, and why should we not, as we sucked them in.’41

The United States O’Brennan spent the remainder of his life in the United States. He divided his time between lecturing on Irish language and history, the law and journalism. In New York, he gave classes in religion.42 For a time he was in demand as a speaker. He knew how to please a crowd, as a report from the Universal News (now reconciled to him it seems) makes clear.43 In Amsterdam, New York, he was ‘frequently interrupted by bursts of applause’, as he detailed with forcible eloquence the ‘glaring wrongs of the “ruthless tyrants”’. Free from the threat of imprisonment, he urged all present to join the Fenians. Moral Force had failed. The British understood only that medicine offered by the Fenians, ‘the pike and the sword’. He cared not if they struck in Canada or in Ireland as long as they struck. Distancing himself from the internal wrangles which bedeviled American Fenianism, ‘He wished it to be understood he spoke as a historian, as a jurist, as an independent Irishman, not as an internal member of either section of the Fenian Brotherhood.’

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 144

28/07/2011 11:23:58

O’Brennan abroad: London and America

145

O’Brennan eventually settled in Chicago. The ‘latter years of his life were spent in a hard struggle for existence’, and though he began a newspaper, the Chicago Independent, it was to prove ultimately unsuccessful.44 By the end of 1869, he was writing to the Universal News in London that he was giving up newspaper publishing. In his own inimitable style, he outlined the reasons for his decision: The duties of editor, financial and general manager, correspondent for all purposes, agents, subscribers, correspondents, etc., sub editor, proof reader and other office business, were too many and onerous for one man. I have, moreover, to look to the subscribers’ books. The discharge of those duties impaired my health, and would finally undermine it. Moreover, the revenue of the Independent did not afford for myself, for the discharge of all the said duties, one dollar from the day I started it. Hence, in order to make an effort to send relief to my destitute wife and family, still in Ireland, and to support myself, nature and religion advised me to resign; and therefore, with this view, I now propose to practice law in this city and state.45 Early in 1870, while in the council chamber in Chicago, he was struck on the head by some falling plaster. He sued the city authorities. The case went on for some two years. At first, he was successful and was awarded the considerable sum of $950 in compensation. In the brief for a subsequent appeal the representatives for the city of Chicago were (unsurprisingly) sceptical. O’Brennan, it ran had represented himself as ‘by occupation a lawyer, editor, lecturer, historian, grammarian, journalist, essayist, teacher, logician and metaphysician’. He was also the editor of a newspaper, entering into a large law practice, writing for various newspapers, bringing out a new edition of his History of Ireland and various other activities.46 The outcome of the appeal is uncertain. In their disbelieving account of O’Brennan’s achievements and preoccupations, the city’s lawyers had written that he had claimed to have studied and taught French, Italian, Latin and Greek but omitted to mention his work for what was the abiding passion of his life; the Irish language. His devotion to his native tongue was to extend beyond the grave and the Irish World of 23 February 1878 printed a letter he wrote on the subject from his address in 33rd Street Chicago, the editor being unaware that he had in fact died on the 9th. Buffetted all his life by slings and arrows of various kinds, in the end O’Brennan was undone by a simple fall on the pavement, in which he broke his leg, and subsequently died. In the letter, entitled ‘A Sacred Inheritance’, he gave vent to his feelings on the subject. He outlined at length the cruelties inflicted upon the Irish peasantry in the attempt at extirpating the Irish language by ‘the tyrant hell-hounds of the alien, heartless usurper’; a language of which ‘some

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 145

28/07/2011 11:23:58

146

Irish journalism before independence

savants with much cogency say was the language of God to Adam and Eve when He gave names to the animals He had created, and made pass in review before our first parents’. He went on, But without insisting dogmatically on that point, it is universally admitted by the most eminent linguists of Europe that the Celtic of Erin is at least among the oldest, if not the very oldest of all existing dialects, and certainly the most euphonious, and the best calculated to convey ideas with the greatest force and brevity.47 The survival of the language in the face of such persecution was proof of Divine intervention but O’Brennan urged his fellow Irishmen and women to open night schools for teaching it, and promised ‘More anon’. O’Brennan’s somewhat quixotic career has been described as substantially that of a victim, his scholarship disregarded, he was mocked by hard line Fenians and persecuted by Church and state, but as the above quotation from one of his final items of correspondence attests, he battled on until the end consequently it is hard to believe he saw himself that way. 48

Notes 1 M. L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press 1850–1892 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 72. 2 Obituary in the Irish World, 2 March 1878. 3 Quoted in E. R. Norman, The Catholic Church and Ireland in the Age of Rebellion 1858–1873 (London: Longmans, 1965), n. 6 p. 91. 4 Legg, 1999, p. 228. 5 Norman, p. 102. 6 Catholic Layman, 3: 6, February 1854. The hapless distributor was first sentenced to be imprisoned for fourteen days and bound over but acquitted on appeal. 7 Thomas Plunkett, Church of Ireland bishop of Tuam owned estates in Partry, Lavelle’s parish, and was involved in an infamous case of evicting tenants. 8 Norman, p. 102. 9 Legg, 1999, p. 70. 10 National Library of Ireland, Larcom Papers, MS 7585, Copy Solicitor General to Lord Lieutenant Dublin Castle, 23/3/65. 11 J. Savage, Fenian Heroes and Martyrs (Boston: Patrick Donahoe, 1865), p. 419. 12 M. L. Legg, ‘Martin Andrew O’ Brennan and the Connaught Patriot’, in J. A. Claffey, Glimpses of Tuam Since the Famine (Tuam: Old Tuam Society, 1997), p. 70. 13 Savage, p. 419. 14 Irish World, 23 February 1878. 15 National Library of Ireland, Larcom Papers, MS 7676. Extract of committal from the Mail, 6 October 1865.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 146

28/07/2011 11:23:58

O’Brennan abroad: London and America

147

16 Savage, p. 419. 17 National Library of Ireland, Larcom Papers, MS 7676, Extract from Connaught Patriot appearing in the Irish Times, 10 October 1865. 18 National Library of Ireland, Larcom Papers, MS 767624/3/1866. From the Castlebar Telegraph, p. 6. 19 Universal News, 7 April 1866, p. 9. 20 Correspondence to the author with Mrs Barbara Hettwer – O’Brennan’s greatgreat-grand daughter, 13 January 2010. 21 Irishman, 16 December 1865, p. 400. 22 Universal News, 23 June 1866, p. 3. 23 R. Foster, Paddy & Mr Punch (London: Penguin, 1993), pp. 290–1. 24 A. Aspinall, Politics and the Press, c. 1780–1850 (London: Home & Van Thal, 1949), pp. 320–4. 25 Obituary in the Galway Vindicator, 9 March 1878, quoted in Legg, 1997, p. 71. 26 NLI, Larcom, MS 7694, report 15/9/1866. 27 Obituary in the Irish World, 2 March 1878. 28 Universal News, 15 September 1866, p. 15 and 22 September 1866, p. 15. 29 The front page of newspapers bore a postage stamp, allowing them to be posted like letters through the Royal Mail. This had once been compulsory, one of the infamous ‘taxes on knowledge’ but by this time it was voluntary and newspapers could be bought ‘stamped’ or ‘unstamped’. 30 Irish News, 30 March 1867. 31 Universal News, 15 September 1866. 32 From the Latin for ‘What now?’ – a derogatory term for journalists. 33 Universal News, 2 March 1867. 34 Universal News, 9 March 1867. 35 In the shape of a signature to that effect on a copy of the Irish News, 12 April 1867 (p. 64) in the British Library’s newspaper collection. 36 For further details see A. McNicholas, Politics, Religion and the Press: Irish Journalism in Mid Victorian England (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2007). 37 Westminster Gazette, 30 March 1867, p. 3. 38 Irish News, 30 March 1867, p. 6. 39 Published in the Catholic press. The Universal News for example carried it on 13 April 1867, p. 1. 40 Legg, 1997, p. 69. 41 Irish News, 13 April 1867, p. 56. 42 Correspondence to the author with Mrs Barbara Hettwer – O’Brennan’s greatgreat-grand daughter, 13 January 2010. 43 Universal News, 27 June 1868. 44 Irish World, 2 March 1878. 45 Universal News, 20 November 1869, p. 14. 46 Taken from a Supreme Court of Illinois Northern Grand Division. Brief of Apellant, City of Chicago v Martin A O’Brennan (Chicago: Bulletin Printing Co. 1872). 47 Irish World, 23 February 1878.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 147

28/07/2011 11:23:58

148

Irish journalism before independence

48 M. L. Legg, ‘Newspapers and Nationalism: The Social and Political Influence of the Irish Provincial Press 1850–1892’ (unpublished PhD, Birkbeck College, University of London, 1992), p. 232.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 148

28/07/2011 11:23:58

11

Newspapers, journalists and the early years of the Gaelic Athletic Association Paul Rouse

Much has been written about the mutually-beneficial relationship which developed between newspapers and sport in the Victorian era in Britain. In general, this was an easy courtship and the construction of the Victorian sporting world was carried out amidst a whirl of free publicity. There were obvious mutual benefits of a sporting world full of heroic men (and the very occasional heroic women) performing almost mythical feats which were spun by the press and sold to the public. By 1880, in Britain, there were two daily newspapers dedicated entirely to sports reporting – the Sportsman and the Sporting Chronicle – and by 1884, they had been joined by a third, the Sporting Life. Later in the 1880s, these were supplemented by sports or football ‘specials’, published in cities across Britain on Saturday evenings, carrying that day’s results and, later, full reports, at the even cheaper price of one halfpenny.1 The Irish sporting landscape was intimately connected with what was happening in Britain. By the time the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was founded in 1884, Ireland also had two dedicated sporting newspapers, which were in large measure imitations of their English counterparts. The first was The Irish Sportsman and Farmer which was dominated by hunting and other horse-related activities, while also carrying reports on the corn and cattle markets of Britain and Ireland. The second was Sport, the Saturday publication of the Freeman’s Journal, the best-selling Irish daily newspaper. In 1884, the pages of Sport were filled by news of stag hunts and coursing meetings, rugby, tennis, horse-racing and cricket. The circumstances of the founding of the GAA ensured that neither of these newspapers were involved in either the establishment or the promotion of the GAA, despite the fact that journalists were vital to the growth of the GAA.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 149

28/07/2011 11:23:58

150

Irish journalism before independence

The establishment of the GAA At 2 p.m. on Sunday, 1 November 1884, between seven and thirteen men (the precise number is disputed) met in the billiards’ room of Lizzie Hayes’ Commercial Hotel in Thurles, Co. Tipperary. All were there in answer to circulars both published in the national press and distributed privately by Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin, two of the leading figures in Irish athletics. The ambition of the association they founded on that afternoon – the Gaelic Athletic Association for the Cultivation and Preservation of National Pastimes – was to take control of Irish athletics, to resuscitate and promote the game of hurling, and to invent and legislate for a football game which came to be known as gaelic football. The state of the Irish sporting world in the early 1880s had inspired Cusack and Davin to establish the GAA. Both men had won weight-throwing medals at the Irish athletics championships (Davin had actually won ten, as well as two British championships, and was considered the greatest athlete of his generation), but were appalled by the organisational chaos, the gambling and the cheating which was considered to be endemic in the sport in Ireland. Cusack and Davin had long shared a desire to reform and properly organise Irish athletics, and in 1884 they moved to act on that desire. Their actions were coloured by the divided politics and contested identities of Ireland in the 1880s. This was a decade defined by the struggle for land and freedom. Debates on Irish affairs dominated the House of Commons in London. The establishment of a home rule parliament in Dublin, led by Charles Stewart Parnell, emerged as a genuine possibility. Extremists were also at work, targeting the very heart of British rule in Ireland when the most important British officials in Ireland were murdered while out walking in the Phoenix Park in the summer of 1882. Wrapped up with such political upheaval was a dramatic battle over land ownership between landlords and their tenants. For month after month, whole swathes of the countryside were in tumult, with newspapers filling their pages with stories of evictions, boycotting and agrarian outrages by secret societies. The fact that existing sporting bodies in Ireland were tightly bound to their counterparts in England influenced the men who founded the GAA to move to construct an alternative – and Irish – sporting organisation. An exchange of letters between Cusack and Davin in the summer of 1884 led to a general plan to hold a meeting in Tipperary on 1 November 1884 to establish an Irish athletics association. The use of newspapers lay at the heart of the plans. On 11 October 1884, Cusack published an epistle titled, ‘A word about Irish athletics’ in United Ireland.2 In that epistle, Cusack wrote that neglecting the pastimes of the Irish people was ‘a sure sign of national decay and of approaching dissolution, smoking and card-playing’. He railed against

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 150

28/07/2011 11:23:59

Newspapers, journalists and the GAA

151

the Englishness of everything now associated with Irish sport and declared: ‘We tell the Irish people to take the management of their games into their own hands, to encourage and to promote in every way every form of athletics which is peculiarly Irish, and to remove with one sweep everything foreign and iniquitous in the present system.’3 In the following edition of the same newspaper, Davin offered unequivocal support for Cusack’s views and called for the establishment of an association to draw up proper rules for athletics, hurling and ‘Irish’ football.4 To lend a sense of gathering momentum, Cusack and Davin then combined to issue a circular which announced that a meeting was being called for Hayes’ Hotel in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, on 1 November at 2  p.m.: ‘to take steps for the formation of a Gaelic Association for the preservation and cultivation of our national pastimes and for providing rational amusements for the Irish people during their leisure hours’.5 After the work which Cusack and Davin had put into calling the meeting – and particularly given the publicity it had generated in the newspapers – the small turnout did not augur well for the future. The actual number who turned up at the meeting is a source of considerable debate, primarily because of how the meeting was reported in the newspapers. Three of the men known to be present were journalists. Cusack, as well as running his own school, was a prolific columnist on educational matters in the Dublin press. Two other founding members were full-time journalists: the Belfastman, John McKay, who wrote for the Cork Herald and Cork Examiner; and John Wyse Power, who was the editor of the Leinster Leader based in Co. Kildare. All three journalists published reports of the founding meeting. The first report was published in the Cork Examiner on Monday 3 November by John McKay. McKay (who quoted at length from a speech which he had given to the meeting) listed seven men as being present, though he did finish the list with the intriguing addendum, ‘&tc, &tc’. The men whom McKay wrote were present as well as himself, Cusack, Davin and Wyse Power, were J. K. Bracken (a Tipperary stonemason), St  George McCarthy (a police inspector and longtime friend of Cusack), and Joseph Ryan (a solicitor from Callan in Kilkenny). As the United Ireland was published on a weekly basis, Cusack’s account of the meeting did not emerge until the following Saturday. Cusack agreed with much of what McKay wrote, though he ignored McKay’s speech and focused on his own contribution and that of Davin. Cusack, too, listed seven people as being present at the meeting, although he also added that intriguing ‘&tc, &tc’. On the same day, John Wyse Power reproduced Cusack’s article almost word-for-word in the Leinster Leader. The GAA has subsequently repeated as fact the idea that there were seven founding members of the association.6 There is, however, another contradictory version. Newspaper reports of the meeting also appeared in The Irish Sportsman and the Tipperary Advocate

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 151

28/07/2011 11:23:59

152

Irish journalism before independence

– it is unclear who wrote them, except that they were clearly written by the same person – and list up to thirteen people being present. To add to the confusion, in the late 1890s and early 1900s, several newspaper articles written by Cusack stated that eight or nine people attended.7 Ultimately, the debate over attendance is something of a sideshow, except to establish from the very beginning the tradition of contradictory reports of GAA affairs being printed in the press. More to the point, whatever number is chosen, the attendance at the meeting can only be considered a disappointment. What is equally clear, however, is that the founders had a clear idea of what they were trying to do and how they should do it. Taking control of Irish athletics, reviving the centuries-old game of hurling and inventing rules for a football game offered a direct challenge. Meeting that challenge involved using their access to the newspapers and, from the first meeting in Thurles, the GAA sought to present a very definite image of itself in the press. It immediately stressed its nationalist credentials – and in the context of the bitterly divided politics of Ireland in the 1880s this was an obvious and important move. It also stressed that it was open to Irishmen of every class and this was also crucial as it stood in direct contrast to the exclusivist rules of various existing sporting bodies. This was something that was made considerably easier by the fact that there were three journalists – Cusack, McKay and Wyse Power – as secretaries of the association. Together, these three journalists afforded the GAA a level of publicity which was critical to its early development.

Early development of the GAA In the month after he had led the foundation of the GAA Cusack secured a regular column in the popular nationalist newspaper, United Ireland. Cusack was later to write that the newspaper column was proof that ‘our dream was not all a dream,’ rather something real and genuinely possible.8 What made securing the column so vital was that the existing sporting press did not celebrate the arrival of the GAA. Indeed, the editor of Sport, P. B. Kirwan, was actually the representative of the British Amateur Athletic Association in Ireland.9 Led by Kirwan, Sport and the other sporting newspaper in Ireland, The Irish Sportsman, were associated with an attempt that was made to destroy the GAA before it had even got underway. Throughout 1885, the GAA was entangled in a battle for control of athletics in Ireland which was played out in the local and national press. Existing athletics clubs were never going to simply roll out of the way of the GAA and its self elevation as the controlling body for athletics in Ireland. Somewhat spooked by the arrival of the GAA, existing clubs founded the Irish Amateur Athletic Association (IAAA) in February 1885 and aligned it with the English Amateur Athletic

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 152

28/07/2011 11:23:59

Newspapers, journalists and the GAA

153

Association. One of the founding members of the IAAA laid out his ambition as being ‘to quash the Gaelic Union’.10 The row was an extraordinary blessing to the GAA. It allowed the new organisation a level of publicity and status which it could scarcely have dreamed of following the damp squib of its inaugural meeting. It also allowed the GAA use newspapers to place a simple equation before the Irish people. On the one hand, it could point to the patronage it received from Archbishop Croke, Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell, and present itself as nationalist and patriotic. On the other hand, it could paint the IAAA as pro-British and elitist. As Cusack so neatly put it in his newspaper column, Irishmen could now ‘choose between Irish and foreign laws.’11 From the very outset, the dispute was marked by extreme language and personal insult. Cusack was in his element. The venom flowed across the pages of United Ireland and other newspapers. He described the IAAA as a ‘ranting, impotent West British abortion’; derided the men who ran the IAAA as ‘Orange Catholics’, and accused one of its leading members of possessing the ‘characteristically idiotic insolence of his class’.12 When John Dunbar, the secretary of the IAAA wrote a conciliatory letter to Cusack, in the midst of their dispute, Cusack replied to him: ‘Dear Sir, I received your letter this morning and burned it.’13 As the summer of 1885 rolled on, the scale of the GAA’s success in taking control of Irish athletics became clear. The ‘war to the knife’ which Cusack described was a rout, but it was a rout which owed as much to appearance as it did to substance.14 In reality what the GAA did was not found athletics clubs all over Ireland in order to hold athletics meetings under GAA rules. Instead, it got numerous existing meetings to stand under the GAA’s umbrella and it did this quite brilliantly by cutting away the middle ground. So brilliantly that there were fifteen major sports days run under GAA rules in towns across Ireland in the early part of August 1885 alone, growing to a total of around 150 meetings over the course of that first year.15 By the time it held what was billed as its first national championships in Tramore, Co. Waterford in October, the GAA was the dominant force in Irish athletics. The ardour with which Cusack took to his athletics battle paled in comparison with the passion he brought to the GAA’s attempts to promote hurling. The GAA’s rules for hurling were published in Cusack’s column in United Ireland on 10 February 1885 and were later reprinted by the newspaper in pamphlet form in early May at the cost of 6d.16 The rules for hurling had actually been developed by Davin, the first GAA President, and his newspapers show how he constructed the first GAA rule book using, amongst other things, newspaper cuttings on the rules and organisation of soccer and athletics in England. Publishing the rules was never going to be enough in itself, as hurling was a game unknown to many parts of Ireland. Throughout 1885, Cusack used his newspaper column to colour in the game

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 153

28/07/2011 11:23:59

154

Irish journalism before independence

sketched out by Davin. He mapped out his vision of hurling by describing the rules, the pattern of play, the technical details of the game. GAA members wrote in with their queries on the rules to Cusack as if he were some sort of Gaelic agony aunt. He, in turn, replied with simple explanations of technical points. He confirmed, for instance, that the rules did allow a player to use his hurley to lift the ball from the ground and could then throw it into the air to hit it. However, Cusack advised that this style of play was slow and dangerous, unless a hurler was out in wide open space. When a correspondent named ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’ wrote looking for advice, Cusack wrote that it would be easier to answer his query if he had chosen a shorter pseudonym. And when a referee wrote to ask whether, in order to start a match, he should throw in the ball first and then blow the whistle, or blow the whistle and then throw in the ball, Cusack issued the deadpan reply that the referee might consider the possibility of throwing in the ball with one hand while, simultaneously blowing the whistle held in his mouth by the other hand. Providing of course he had two hands. It is something of a paradox that the column in United Ireland, which did so much to help promote the GAA, ultimately contributed to Cusack’s undoing. He used this column to conduct personalised campaigns against his enemies inside and outside the GAA – and his enemies were legion, thanks to what one Cork GAA club noted was ‘the unfortunate knack possessed by Mr. Cusack in a superlative degree of offending and insulting those with whom he comes in contact.’17 Ultimately, his attacks were so vicious and relentless that Cusack found himself isolated within the GAA and, when he was dismissed by popular vote at a general meeting of GAA clubs in July 1886, the decision was greeted with a round of applause. The following month, the owner of United Ireland – William O’Brien – was prevailed upon by the executive of the GAA to dispense with Cusack’s services as a columnist. The column which had been vital in the initial spread of the GAA was ended.

GAA journalism after Michael Cusack With Cusack gone, the GAA suddenly found itself enjoying much coverage in Sport. In September 1886, the editor of Sport, announced: ‘We have made arrangements with a gentleman well-versed in Gaelic football and hurling to supply us with reports and gossip during the coming season.’18 That gentleman was P. P. Sutton, who was from Oulart in Co. Wexford, and was already a highly-regarded hurler with the Dublin Metropolitans club. He became Ireland’s first full-time GAA reporter. With Sport now offering regular coverage of the GAA, The Irish Sportsman had little choice but to match its rival. The decision of The Irish Sportsman to finally cover the GAA was further evidence of the growth of the organisation. The newspaper was a

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 154

28/07/2011 11:23:59

Newspapers, journalists and the GAA

155

devout supporter of the IAAA and had been utterly opposed to the GAA. It says much for the editorial priorities of its journalists that they had managed to write a sporting review of 1885 without once mentioning the GAA.19 In a remarkable volte face, which might be considered the product of the cynicism of commerce, The Irish Sportsman, completely changed tack in 1887 and described the GAA as ‘the greatest national democratic movement of the age’.20 Its belated discovery of hurling saw the newspaper publish a eulogy of the game: [Hurling, it wrote] is a game of surpassing interest and grandeur when well-played. It has all the elements of danger necessary to beget the most intense excitement among the spectators, while the hurlers, who appear to live charmed lives, give exhibitions of strength, speed and powers of endurance, as well as the science of a professional billiards player, worthy of the most accomplished athlete.21 But, even then, the Irish Sportsman, could never quite get over its prejudices. It noted a sports day run by the GAA in Clare as having been poorly organised and the event being ruined because ‘“the bould peasantry” kept cutting in across the competitors’.22 By the time The Irish Sportsman had begun covering Gaelic games, reports on the GAA had become a staple part of the national and local press. There was, of course, no dedicated GAA page, rather reasonably regular columns carrying GAA news. Teams were printed and clubs used the space provided to make all the mundane arrangements which attach themselves to the proper functioning of every sports organisation.23 Not all of these notes were mundane as clubs also used the opportunity to shame their own players as the occasion arose. When a Gaelic football club in Tipperary lost a match against neighbours, it used the national press to blame the defeat on three players, one of whom had taken to the drink, with the other two being described as being too lazy to bother playing.24 For many matches, newspapers replied on notes submitted by competing clubs. This created its own problems, particularly when a match ended in dispute. One match in Meath between Ratoath and Bellewstown saw the Ratoath team send in a match report which noted their one-point victory but lamented that the Bellewstown had left the field early due to a dispute with the referee. The version submitted by the Bellewstown men claimed the Ratoath men had left the field early, but not before they had engaged in ‘unGaelic and unmanly practices’, not least of which was brandishing shillelaghs to impose their order on the game. P. P. Sutton in Sport contented himself with the comment that, in the words of the old saying: ‘One story is good until another is told.’ And, of course, such disputed reports often produced a lengthy correspondence over the following weeks.25 Not that journalists themselves were clear about the vocabulary of Gaelic

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 155

28/07/2011 11:24:00

156

Irish journalism before independence

games in those first years. A report from a match at a tournament down in Newtown, Co. Tipperary, between Moanroe and Lattin recorded how, after ‘some hot and really good play, Tim Ryan kicked (?) in novel style with his head, a point’.26 Even writing the scores was a problem. Sport recorded the final score of a Gaelic football match between two Faugh-a-Ballagh teams as one goal and two tries to six tries.27

Newspapers after the 1880s The extensive coverage which the GAA received in the period between its establishment and the end of 1887 was reflective of the organisation’s success. Such were the growth of Gaelic games that by then it was estimated that there were more than 1,000 GAA clubs active across the country. Through 1887 there were even two newspapers dedicated to covering the GAA. Having lost his newspaper column in United Ireland in August 1886 on being removed as GAA secretary, Cusack’s response was typically robust. He founded his own newspaper, The Celtic Times in January 1887 and devoted it to coverage of Gaelic games. The Celtic Times ensured that Cusack remained a serious figure in GAA circles. As if to acknowledge the influence which The Celtic Times would allow Cusack, the men who replaced him at the head of the GAA decided to establish their own newspaper, which they called The Gael.28 These men were members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), a secret revolutionary organisation dedicated to overthrowing British rule in Ireland. The IRB-controlled executive of the GAA were looking for ways to establish their control across the GAA and one of the ways they believed they could do this was by establishing a newspaper. The Gael immediately styled itself as the official organ of the GAA. The newspaper was run by Patrick Hoctor, a IRB member and a GAA vice-president. The extent to which The Gael was IRB-dominated can be seen by the appointment as its literary editor of the veteran Fenian, John O’Leary. Indeed, it was the literary content of The Gael that was its most striking aspect, publishing original works from W. B. Yeats and Douglas Hyde, amongst others.29 The Gael offered a trenchant defence of everything that the new IRB-controlled executive of the GAA was doing and spelled out what opposition to the executive really meant: ‘On the one side is independence; on the other, treachery.’30 Neither newspaper lasted into 1888. Internal fighting between members of the IRB and the moderate nationalists who made up the bulk of the GAA all but destroyed the organisation. The numbers of men active in the sport collapsed as the IRB assumed complete control. Clerics withdrew their support and took to condemning the GAA from the pulpit. By 1890 the number of clubs had dropped to 557. Later that year, things got even worse with the controversy around Charles Stewart Parnell’s adulterous

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 156

28/07/2011 11:24:00

Newspapers, journalists and the GAA

157

relationship with Katharine O’Shea. The majority of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Catholic Church and many nationalists opposed Parnell, after news of his affair with the wife of one of the MPs in his party became public. Against that, the GAA’s central committee (dominated by IRB men) decided in April 1891 to support Parnell. This support was most evocatively demonstrated following Parnell’s untimely death in the autumn of 1891. At his funeral, two thousand GAA men followed the cortège to Glasnevin cemetery, each shouldering a hurley draped in black. The GAA had found itself as the only important national movement supporting the Parnellite cause. It was a disastrous decision – the GAA imploded as members left in their droves. Only fourteen men attended the 1893 convention and as few as three teams entered the hurling championship in the same year. That the GAA survived the 1890s was due in so small part to the secretaryship of Meathman, Dick Blake. Elected secretary at the GAA’s annual convention in April 1895, he moved to make the Association avowedly non-political, and banned all political discussions at convention. He made improvements to the game of football (standardising the size of ball, allowing substitutes and introducing linesmen) and moved to bridge the gap that had emerged between the GAA and the Irish Amateur Athletics Association over the control of Irish athletics. Blake’s period in office moved the GAA beyond the Parnell split. Club numbers increased again, and hurling and football matches developed a popular momentum that was never again lost. Inevitably, newspaper coverage had declined in the early years of the 1890s to reflect the drop in popular interest in the GAA. There were still reports of matches and news of the Association was carried, but space extended was not as considerable as had been accorded in the middle years of the 1880s. Newspapers were slow to reflect the rejuvenation of the GAA, but in the later years of the decade coverage of Gaelic games expanded once again. A new generation of GAA journalists began to write on the games. P. J. Devlin, writing under the pseudonym of ‘Celt’ brought a distinctive northern flavour to his work, writing extensively about Gaelic games as part of a wider project of cultural liberation. Another journalist from the new generation, T. F. O’Sullivan, later published the first history of the association, Story of the GAA, in 1916. Devlin, O’Sullivan and other GAA correspondents, themselves, became important figures within the association. Their work was adorned with increasing numbers of photographs, recognising the growth in photo-journalism in the period.31 Even as that new generation was making waves, Michael Cusack was making something of a comeback. Cusack’s life had fallen into something of a tailspin in the 1890s. He lost his wife and one of his daughters to TB, he moved from lodgings to lodgings across Dublin and he seems to have been

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 157

28/07/2011 11:24:00

158

Irish journalism before independence

afflicted by periodic alcoholism. Nonetheless, he wrote occasional pieces in the Dublin newspapers which told something of the history of the early years of the GAA. One such article was written in December 1902 for the Irish Weekly Independent and Nation. The charming, idiosyncratic piece was accompanied by specially-commissioned cartoons of the leading figures in the founding of the GAA, complete with a paragraph on each from Cusack by way of short biography.32 Through all of this the GAA remained convinced that it was not treated properly by the Dublin press; that it was not accorded the quality or quantity of coverage which it deserved. It led to the GAA beginning to publish its own journals, in which it continued to condemn the way its affairs were covered. In 1910, for example, the Gaelic Athletic Annual and County Directory claimed that national newspapers ‘continue to treat us with as much niggardliness as they possibly can. The minimum of space is doled out to us, and, generally speaking, the matter which they publish appertaining to GAA doings is infinitely inferior, in quality as well as quantity, to that provided concerning foreign branches of sport.’33 This complaint was not accurate. After 1900 coverage of the games in the local and national press expanded steadily. Writing on the games was supplemented by increasing use of photographs, sometimes simple team shots, on others shots of players in action. Linked to increased coverage was the fact that Gaelic football and hurling began to draw bigger crowds and, for the first time, hurlers and footballers began to enjoy a certain celebrity. This increased coverage brought increased interest in the GAA and this, in turn, led newspapers to continue to increase their coverage of football and hurling. The fruit of the relationship was apparent in the newspages: where once GAA coverage was rooted in the corner of a page, it was now centre-stage.

Notes 1 T. Mason, ‘All the Winners and all the Half-times’, Sports Historian, 13 (1994), pp. 3–10. 2 United Ireland, 11 October 1884. 3 Ibid. 4 United Ireland, 18 October 1884. 5 United Ireland, 8 November 1884. 6 Cork Examiner, 3 November 1884; United Ireland, 8 November 1884; Leinster Leader, 8 November 1884. 7 The Irish Sportsman, 8 November 1884; the Tipperary Advocate, 8 November 1884. 8 Celtic Times, 19 November 1887. 9 Sport, 9 February 1885. 10 W. F. Mandle, The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish Nationalist Politics, 1884–1924 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1987), pp. 21–3.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 158

28/07/2011 11:24:00

Newspapers, journalists and the GAA

159

11 Ibid., p. 24. 12 Ibid., pp. 21–3. 13 United Ireland, 19 December 1885. 14 Celtic Times, 25 June 1885. 15 United Ireland, 25 July 1885. 16 United Ireland, 7 February 1885. 17 Sport, 27 March 1886. 18 Sport, 25 September 1886. 19 The Irish Sportsman, 1 January 1886. 20 The Irish Sportsman, 28 August 1887. 21 The Irish Sportsman, 19 November 1887. 22 The Irish Sportsman, 23 July 1887. 23 Sport, 19 November 1887. 24 The Irish Sportsman, 26 February 1887. 25 Sport, 3 December 1887. 26 Celtic Times, 18 June 1887. 27 Sport, 19 December 1885. 28 Celtic Times, 19 March 1887. 29 O. McGee, The IRB (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), pp. 164–5. Many of these verses and literary works were published later as the Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland (1888) and included Hyde’s ‘The Marching Song of the Gaelic Athletes’. 30 W. F. Mandle, ‘The I.R.B. and the Beginnings of the Gaelic Athletic Association’, Irish Historical Studies, 80 (1977), pp. 418–38, 429. 31 M. Duncan, ‘The Camera and the Gael’, in M. Cronin, W. Murphy and P. Rouse (eds), The Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884–2009 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2009). 32 Irish Weekly Independent and Nation, 13 December 1902. 33 The Gaelic Athletic Annual and County Directory, no. 3, 1910–11.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 159

28/07/2011 11:24:00

12

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival Regina Uí Chollatáin

The role of minority language media in a society where the minority is recognised as a national language for all – but is scarcely acknowledged in the general public forum – is unique in Europe and is central to understanding the evolution of the role of Irish language journalism in Ireland. As Romaine points out, Ireland is ‘the only European Union member state (apart from Belgium, which is officially trilingual in French, Dutch and German), where the percentage of the population claiming the national and/or official state language as their mother tongue is below 70 per cent … no other European state has attempted to address minority language issues in this way’.1 The impact of indistinct boundaries between journalism as a public platform, and language revival as a cultural movement, during the revival period 1882–1922, left its mark on Irish language journalistic practices for much of the twentieth century. Revival journalism provides key insights on the concept of incomplete political realisation and a dual-language dual-state which was the blueprint for cultural revival in Irish society after independence in 1922. Although both Irish language journalism and the Irish language survived, neither flourished. Due to the scholarly, academic, and educational emphasis on aspects of language and cultural revival, it is possible that the potential benefit of Irish language journalism was overlooked or even ignored, but it is difficult to evaluate this concept without a full assessment of the implied potential, if indeed potential existed at all. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to do an in-depth examination of over forty years of Irish language journalistic material but an overview of the framework through which Irish journalism developed in the revival period is presented. The framework for print media as an element of Irish revival has two core elements, the creation of an Irish language reading public and the creation of a journalistic platform, which encompasses the creation of an Irish writing public, a concept which is often neglected. While the historical events of the period are integrated through the basic principles of journalism, journalistic practice is assessed as a stand-alone concept.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 160

28/07/2011 11:24:00

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival

161

The founders of the Gaelic League may well have viewed the Irish language as a unifying force among people of all ‘political and religious persuasions’, that would ‘through a sense of Ireland’s unique cultural heritage, distinct from that of England or Britain … release the creative energies of the Irish people’.2 Nevertheless, language on its own, or the concept of language as a defining element of nationhood would remain a concept, without optimum utilisation of the language at all levels within the public sphere. The necessary official structures used to support and promote the language after the foundation of the Free State in 1922 released some energy which in turn sustained controlled official use of the language. However, the creative energy of the emerging dynamic twentieth century did not manifest itself in the Irish language media platform at that time. What emerged subsequently was a dual-language, dual state, with the Irish language sometimes functioning as a divisive element and clarifying boundaries which secured a certain level of language competency, but not language usage. This was contrary to the unifying vision of the pioneers of the Gaelic League movement, MacNeill and Hyde, seeing Irish language as the single most non-political, non-religious element of culture which could enrich and nurture a new Ireland. The aims and policies of the newspapers, the writing styles and content published, alongside the role of the journalist in a progressive society of this kind, map a process which envisaged Irish language journalism as a central element of the new Irish society which would emerge in the early years of the twentieth century. However, as journalistic practice became more defined, the writing styles and content dictated the margins between Irish and English journalism, as both served different communities and focused on creating their own niche in society. Contrary to the original Gaelic League concept of language being a unifying element in that society, journalistic practice continued to highlight the differences, rather than the similarities between the two language communities until the mid-twentieth century, by which time the ‘tender plant’ of Irish journalism, as referred to by Horgan, had certainly taken root.3 Clearly the dual-language platform alone would not sustain a language, but the value of the media platform as a separate entity was not fully exploited, leaving an over reliance on official and formal social structures. The lack of reciprocal engagement within a dual-language environment impeded growth, where Irish language journalism became a marginalised activity, or a ‘tender plant at the best of times … expected to survive on its own in an increasingly hostile environment’.4 The lack of boundaries in the main years of the revival period which nurtured an idealistic approach, were subsequently replaced by clear and defined boundaries as English- and Irish-speaking communities practiced very different styles of journalism, which aligned both communities with different roles within that society.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 161

28/07/2011 11:24:01

162

Irish journalism before independence

The creation of an Irish language reading public While preserving a literary culture, scribal sources in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which demonstrate the use of newspaper material, may be the first seeds of Irish language journalism. The shoots of Irish language journalism are therefore to be found in material in many Irish, American and European newspapers in the latter years of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century. Although various sources and studies provide information on Irish content in newspapers, an exhaustive index has yet to be compiled.5 This leaves an over-reliance on individual case studies, which requires time and meticulous examination of newspaper material. The most significant early publications include Patrick Lynch’s Bolg an tSolair in Belfast in 1795, Philip Barron’s Ancient Ireland: A Weekly Magazine, in Waterford in 1835, and Richard Dalton’s An Fior-Eirionnach, in Tipperary in 1862. Desmond Ryan asserts that 50,000 copies of Barron’s Ancient Ireland: A Weekly Magazine were sold which is quite remarkable given that only five issues were printed between January and May in 1835.6 While the Dublin Penny Journal was not solely dedicated to the Irish language, a study of old Dublin journals by Donn Piatt places particular emphasis on the Irish content. The first issue on 13 June 1832 printed a full Irish poem in Gaelic font on the last page, and by the twentieth edition Irish was a central feature of the journal. By this time the Dublin Penny Journal sold 40,000 copies weekly. The Irish language material was provided by Clarence Mangan, George Petrie, John O’Donovan and Edward Walsh, but ceased around August 1833. The new series of the Dublin Penny Journal from April 1902 did not contain any Irish language material.7 The language legacy of these publications coupled with the ideology of the Young Irelanders, paved the way for revival journalism. The promotion of Irish language media was clearly not deemed a marginalised activity but a vehicle which would unite people of all classes and creeds through the platform provided for freedom of speech and opinion on the one hand, and through the unique cultural specificity of a national language on the other. The journal An tEaglaiseach Gaedhealach or The Gaelic Churchmen first published in 1919 reiterated the concept of Irish language as a unifying source: The spirit that comes with Irish language is stronger than any difference that is between us, because it is the language of our hearts. In the end, it will overcome the disagreement, the misunderstanding, and the bad opinion of each other which divides us too often now.8 (translated by author) Unfortunately this piece also mirrors a new direction which highlighted

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 162

28/07/2011 11:24:01

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival

163

differences rather than similarities, and it was at variance with the sentiments expressed in other journals and newspapers in the early years of the revival.9 One of the earliest references to the role of print media as an instrument in the Irish language revival is found in the writings of Thomas Davis, Young Irelander and journalist, in The Nation. Davis initiated contemporary debate in this area, and through his use of print media, he may well be considered a pioneer in the creation of revival journalism, a mere ideal at the time of his writings. Davis uses mainstream language situations primarily, as comparative European material in his writings on language and cultural revival, while highlighting the advantages of an Irish language newspaper in an Anglophone environment. If the Irish language was deemed by the pioneers of the Gaelic League to be the energy-releasing catalyst of the Irish people, and at the same time a defining element of Irish nationhood, then print journalism was the vehicle which would best serve the Irish public in channelling that energy in the right direction, according to Davis: A nation should guard its language more than its territories – ’tis a surer barrier, and more important frontier, than fortress or river … So long as the Saxon held to his German speech he could hope to resume his land from the Norman; now if he is to be free and locally governed, he must build himself a new home. There is hope for Scotland – strong hope for Wales – sure hope for Hungary. The speech of the alien is not universal in the one; is gallantly held at bay in the other; is nearly expelled in the third … But the establishment of a newspaper partly or wholly Irish would be the most rapid and sure way of serving the language. The Irish-speaking man would find, in his native tongue, the political news and general information he has now to seek in English; and the English-speaking man, having Irish frequently before him in so attractive a form, would be tempted to learn its characters, and by and by its meaning.10 In 1914 Arthur Griffith compiled a collection of the writings of Thomas Davis, known as a ‘thinker and teacher’, stating that ‘much that Davis wrote is concerned with questions and controversies now sleeping with the dead.’11 It would appear, however, that the questions Davis raised about the role of print journalism were still very much alive – and also controversial. Early Irish language journals and newspapers were preceded by the Gaelic columns in provincial newspapers, with a particular dominance in areas where Irish language was still spoken. From the material in various national and international newspaper lists, alongside case studies and general research on print media to date, it can generally be deduced that The Tuam News (Galway 1871–1904), The Celt (Waterford October 1876–July 1877), and The Cashel Gazette (Tipperary 1864–93), were the only provincial newspapers to

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 163

28/07/2011 11:24:01

164

Irish journalism before independence

have a significant Irish column in the latter half of the nineteenth century.12 Máirín Ní Mhuiríosa provides a brief account of the journalistic exploits of John Glynn as editor of The Tuam News and Connacht Advertiser. According to Ní Mhuiríosa, the town of Tuam was the centre for the public from far and near while this newspaper was in print, and material came from Irish speakers in the United States, in South America, in England, and from every part of Ireland.13 This is not an unrealistic claim given that the Irish World, the Irish Echo, and the New York Irish American printed columns in Gaelic before the revival period. In Europe Seán Ó Maoilia was working on behalf of the language in Paris and the academic journal Revue Celtique was published in the French capital between 1870 and 1934. Séamas Ó Rónáin published the Keltic Journal and Educator in Manchester in 1869 which also contained Irish language related material.14 Legg states that ‘a clear relationship can be traced between the Irish press published in America and the press in Ireland’, and gives many examples of material used in both Irish provincial newspapers and American newspapers in the latter half of the nineteenth century.15 Throughout the revival period, the Gaelic column maintained its prominence in many American newspapers, while some Irish language related material was printed in European journals and newspapers. Conradh na Gaeilge notes, and articles on the Irish Language Movement were printed in the Irish World (New York), the Southern Cross (Buenos Aires), the Boston Pilot (Boston), in the Helsingen Sanomat (Finland), to name but a few.16 In the early years of the twentieth century the emphasis shifted from the column to setting up new publications although the Gaelic column did resurface after 1917 with columns in many local newspapers including the Clonmel Nationalist, the Dundalk Democrat, the Dundalk Examiner, the Meath Chronicle, the Kerryman, the Derry Journal, the Galway Express, the Mayo News, the Clare Champion, the Carlow Nationalist, the Leinster Leader and the Enniscorthy Echo.17 In dividing Irish language journals into various categories Ní Uigín lists approximately twenty-five publications between 1900 and 1920 but there is a very definite decline between 1913 and 1916.18 The timing appears to be more of a coincidence than a result of political unrest as, while there is a gradual decline in the number of journals, some very important journals and newspapers remained prominent and even flourished after 1916. An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae, for example, remained in print between 1899 and 1932, with one exception from 20 September 1919 until 22 November 1919, when all Irish language newspapers were censored. It is worth noting also that despite the fact that the Gaelic League was declared an illegal organisation in 1918, An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae remained in print.19 An Lóchrann, published in Tralee from 1907 to 1913 continued in Cork up until 1931, and An Crann, in Letterkenny

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 164

28/07/2011 11:24:01

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival

165

began publication in 1916 and continued until 1924.20 With the decline of the Gaelic League publications, the Dublin and Gaeltacht Irish-speaking communities did not view Irish language media as either unifying or divisive but rather as a forum for communication, debate and literary revival within their own community.

The creation of a journalistic platform Although much of the Irish language journalistic material in the revival period gave precedence to language issues, this was done on the understanding that Irish would be a central element of mainstream Irish society, not a marginalised journalistic forum. The use of this platform by major political and public figures for theorising and public debate, suggests that there were possibilities for further development, had the scope of the journalistic writings been explored further and a more coordinated, cohesive approach engaged. Through a lack of understanding of the influence of culture on media, the concept of aligning language revival or maintenance with a newspaper or journal editorial policy, as opposed to viewing journalistic practice as a forum for communication and public debate, downplayed the potential and community value of the journalistic forum. A minority language media platform was thus created by journalists and writers and the Irish reading public, who set out initially to fully restore the language and its use in public discourse in Irish society. Instead, Irish language journalism became part of the framework for language revival. Mike Cormack states that the study of minority language media as a way of examining the role of media in society, is more associated with mainstream media studies, while the practicalities of using media to support minority language is associated more with minority language studies.21 This is important in light of the approach taken by revival journalists in their writings, as clearly they, as Davis and others before them, did not view Irish revival and the journalistic platform through which it would be revived, as a minority activity. At the very least it was envisaged that Irish journalism would be on an equal footing with English, and, unlike similar cases of language revival in other countries, the legislation that followed supports this view. Subsequent to the revival, the narrowing scope of developing Irish language journalism, as one which was primarily for language maintenance, would prove to be challenging for emerging dynamic journalists. Contrary to the vision of Hyde, MacNeill and their contemporaries, these journalists viewed the language itself as being an obstacle in communicating news. But was the language the real obstacle or did the post-1922 official legislation which guaranteed Irish a place in Irish society transcend the usefulness, and by default, the creativity of language?

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 165

28/07/2011 11:24:01

166

Irish journalism before independence

It would be a good thing for us to make our own laws but we must also make our own customs, work our own intellect, bring our own business to an end and to profit, to nurture, to implement, and to enact our own minds, our manners and our Irish language, according to the ability and courage of our own thoughts. Things like that are not implemented through parliaments or making laws. No, but it is with things like that, that laws are made and implemented. It is not the law that makes the nation but it is the nation that makes the law.22 There is no question as to the necessity of the educational and legislative structures which have ensured a level of language competence in Irish society, but full use and implementation of the language is an ongoing struggle. In an effort to make a language official the unofficial usage of that same language, used in a general sense within society as a vehicle for communication in a print form, became waylaid. An overview of the state of Irish language journalism in the early years of the revival allays some of the myths associated with what was perceived as minority language media by the general public. Within the new journalistic domain the scholarly Irish language journal, Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge (1882–1909), was the fore-runner to the first Irish language newspaper, Fáinne an Lae. In 1918 the organ of the Gaelic League, An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae outlines clearly the difference between the function of this scholarly journal and the newspaper. The material in Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge compared favourably with a contemporary English language journal published in Dublin, Hibernia: A Monthly Popular Review, which served a very specific readership. The fact that Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge remained in print, albeit irregularly from 1882–1909 is quite significant. A journal of this kind, being bilingual in approach, while at the same time being issued by the main Irish language movement, as opposed to being affiliated to any educational or academic institution or group as most scholarly journals are, was a necessary platform for the general literary and scholarly debate of the movement: We do not have another paper or journal in its place for those who express an interest in scholarly affairs in the Irish language, and often we miss it sharply. It would be worthwhile to lose money on a journal of that kind. A paper like this cannot do the same work. Fáinne an Lae is a paper for the general public of the Gaelic League, and there is a great need for the likes of it. Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge was a paper for the scholars and the people who are interested in scholarly issues, and there isn’t a day since it ceased that there hasn’t been a great need for same.23 (translation by author) Although the Keltic Journal and Educator, contained Irish material in

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 166

28/07/2011 11:24:02

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival

167

Manchester in 1869, the American journal An Gaodhal, which was printed in New York in 1881, was viewed by its editor, Mícheál Ó Lócháin, as the first Irish language newspaper, writing in the first edition of the journal: ‘For the first time in the history of the Irish Nation, a newspaper is printed in its language and character.’24 An Gaodhal should perhaps be classified as a journal published by the Brooklyn Philo-Celtic Society, but contemporary journalistic criticism complies with Ó Lócháin’s thinking in the function of a newspaper as a means of communication for an emigrant community. The aim of the journal was printed on the cover in both Irish and English: ‘The Gael, a Monthly Journal, devoted to the Preservation and Cultivation of the Irish Language and the autonomy of the Irish Nation’/‘Leabharaithris míosamhal tabhartha chum an Teanga Ghaedhilge a chosnadh agus a shaorthugadh agus chum Féin-riaghla Cinidh na hÉireann.’25 IrishAmerican journals during the revival period, including An Gaodhal were primarily used for political ends as opposed to language revival, which is somewhat acknowledged in this aim, and more in line with a mainstream propagandist approach than that of a minority language community.26 The focus on the creation of an Irish reading public in the revival, overlooked the most basic part of journalistic practice, the creation and continuance of an Irish writing public. Without high calibre journalists to write the news, the journalistic standards would not compare with its English counterparts. Much emphasis was placed on writing in a literary sense with particular emphasis on the creation of a modern Irish literature. The development of literary themes in line with European literary styles was encouraged, and significant attention was focused on the wealth of the language in areas where it was still spoken as a native tongue. Contemporary journalistic criticism acknowledges that journalistic and literary conventions differ significantly, creating different writing genres. In the early stages of the creation of a journalistic platform, the emphasis on the creation of a modern Irish literature may well have exhausted the energy created by the merging of oral and literate cultures as referred to by McLuhan.27 This, in turn, left little room for a dynamic journalistic platform. By 1916, writings in An Crann acknowledged the importance of a spoken language but stated that without a written language, the spoken language would not survive. This issue was also acknowledged in An Branar (1919): What we have set before us is a periodical, or monthly journal, which will have essays on the following: literature, art, history, politics, religion, tilling, industries, current affairs, etc; short stories, translations from foreign languages and a little poetry … If we want the language to live, we must make it suitable for the world we now live in, and the best way to do that is through writing.28 (translation by author) In order to create a journalistic forum through print media, one basic

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 167

28/07/2011 11:24:02

168

Irish journalism before independence

requirement was overlooked – the training of professionals who could write and produce journalistic output. Although the journalistic platform appeared to be the perfect domain for the creation of a modern literature, this approach disregarded the ancient written tradition in the Irish language. This was a central element of the standards and the acclaim afforded to the language on a global scale which existed in the seventeenth century before its decline. In his comprehensive examination of revival, Brian Ó Conchubhair discusses this ancient written tradition noting an article in An Claidheamh Soluis on 23 December 1899, highlighting ‘the absolute necessity of continuing to write a language and to write it constantly, in order to preserve its vigour and prevent it from degenerating into a mere patois’.29 If the ancient journalistic practices, were upheld in the print media domain of the revival period, revival of the language and Irish journalism may through time, have flourished accordingly, while adhering to ancient Irish language cultural practices. Perhaps this fusion may have released the energy needed to sustain the strong start to the revival. The difficulty arose in the marrying of the language maintenance role of these journals and their role as a platform for public discourse. As the revival progressed, Irish language newspapers and journals assumed more of a role of language maintenance and revival, instead of public discourse and news. Irish language scholars generally view media and journalism as a contemporary element of language revival but journalistic practices existed long before the first Irish newspaper, as referred to earlier. Journalistic practices did not fully comply with the complicated metres and structures of poetry in a historical sense of the Irish language, but the intellectual role of the modern journalist compared comfortably with that of the fili (‘file’ in modern Irish), as a ‘public official, a chronicler, a political essayist, a keen and satirical observer of his fellow-countrymen’. In contemporary terms, Bergin describes the function of the fili as discharging ‘the functions of the modern journalist’.30 Referring to a later period, Breandán Ó Buachalla also describes the writing style of the diary reports of the scribe Tadhg Ó Neachtain as being objective, similar to that of a professional journalist.31 Although the Irish language journalist may have aspired to being objective, the language issue was often a central theme in the writings. Also, by adopting this literary role, the journalistic community activated a minority stance which was at variance with the written tradition in the Irish language which had already survived, albeit in various modes and in a much less formal or structured capacity than that of the ancient Bardic system, through centuries of turmoil and colonisation. The marrying of the concept of journalistic practice with the modern public domain in which journalistic writing would be practiced was not successful. In fact it may be concluded that through the structured journalistic forum provided by print media, journalistic practice was transformed to literary practice, a writing style

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 168

28/07/2011 11:24:02

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival

169

which was in turn to transform the language revival platform of newspapers and journals. As a result of the literary, educational approach to the Irish language revival in general, journalists were to adopt a literary style in their writings also, and in some ways this transformed the function of the revival journalist from a political essayist and a public chronicler, as referred to by Bergin, as he functioned as a language conservationist and a literary writer. This was not an entirely new practice as much literary writing in Europe also flourished through the media platform. This style did however create difficulties in an environment of language revival which provided a forum for some excellent literary writing, but also resulted in some potentially excellent journalists becoming mediocre literary writers. The modern revivalist journalist broke away from traditional writing practices as used through centuries in Irish language, and engaged in practices which were more akin to a European model than the native Irish tradition: Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the writing trade was too small to sustain aspiring writers. In the absence of a dividing line between journalists and writers such as novelists and political theorists, journalistic writing was regarded as part of a wider literary tradition with its practitioners simultaneously engaged in different ‘genres’ of writing, for example literature, political theory or journal articles. In the nineteenth century journalism embraced literary figures such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Dickens who was a parliamentary reporter and magazine editor as well as correspondent … More than two centuries after journalism was recognised as a distinct profession, an undefined line between journalism and other ‘literary’ professions has developed … From the mid-Victorian years the role of the journalist as an educator of the masses became widely accepted.32 On a positive note, the result was the creation of a modern Irish literature through the journalistic forum of the revival period. With strong editors and leaders this was in fact healthy, but as the political situation became more volatile, and as a result more journalists became embroiled in it, the strength of Irish language journalism as a national platform waned somewhat. What remained was a literary focused media struggling for a cause. An examination of the aims of some of the more well known Irish language journals and newspapers of the revival period, shows that much emphasis was placed on language revival and propaganda, alongside the values of the organisation which they were serving. The aim of Fáinne an Lae, the first Irish language newspaper, was noted as being the creation of an Irish-reading public, although it would also focus on news content: The new journal will be a bona fide newspaper, intended to supply in Irish a summary of news, and miscellaneous interesting matter as

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 169

28/07/2011 11:24:02

170

Irish journalism before independence

weekly reading for the ordinary household. In fulfilling this purpose it will attain the great end of creating an Irish-reading public.33 An Claidheamh Soluis served a middle-class, urban Irish-speaking public and the aim of the newspaper is linked to the literary goals and the ideals of the movement which published it, as opposed to independent journalistic principles. One of the chief objects in view in establishing a weekly paper in Irish was this – the creation of an Irish reading public, which is an absolute necessity if the League is to be maintained.34 However, most of the content of An Claidheamh Soluis is topical, and is a valuable insight to one of the most vibrant, progressive periods in Irish history. The newspaper was aimed for the most part at a general Irish audience discussing current affairs, social and economic questions, educational issues, and political events. It was bilingual in approach demonstrating inclusiveness of both the Irish-speaking and English-speaking community discussing topics from the Boer war to emigration to the problems of alcoholism in Irish society.

Conclusion Politicians, prominent historical figures and scholars viewed the Irish language as an essential component of nationhood and full political realisation of national goals, but subsequent to the revival period they did not use journalism to its fullest in order to implement their objectives. The revival movement began with great strength but as Osborn Bergin observed ‘the proverb tells us that “every beginning is weak”, but, as is often the case with proverbs, the reverse is also true. The beginning of every movement is strong with a strength that belongs to the beginning only’.35 Journalism, by its very nature is an ongoing daily and weekly practice in the main. Without a forum for journalistic practice these figures, it could be said, no longer viewed Irish language as central to the nation or the new political state. The educational system and legislative structures ensured its competency to a certain level in society. However, the lack of recognition afforded to the use of Irish language journalism in society eventually played a role in sealing the concept of a dual-language dual-state whereby journalistic practices were not implemented fully, neglecting the journalistic platform as a potential common ground for public discourse for all members of that society. More than a hundred years have passed since the inception of Irish language revival journalism but the impact of the revival period on Irish language print media has yet to be critically examined. Today, newspapers

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 170

28/07/2011 11:24:02

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival

171

face the possibility of the obliteration of a print culture, and current developments in Irish language print media suggest that new approaches are necessary. It has come to the point now where strategies must be formed and questions must be asked as to the role of minority language media in a society where the minority is recognised as a national language for all, but is scarcely acknowledged in the general public forum, especially in print media.

Notes 1 S. Romaine, ‘Irish in the Global Context’, in C. Nic Pháidín and S. Ó Cearnaigh (eds), A New View of the Irish Language (Dublin: Cois Life, 2008), p. 17. 2 T. McMahon, Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society 1893–1910 (New York: Syracuse University, 2008), p. 2. 3 J. Horgan, Irish Media: A Critical History Since 1922 (London and New York: Routledge, 2001) p. 37. 4 Ibid. 5 Although this area of research is new to Irish language studies, the scholars and journalists who have have done extensive work in the area of Irish language journalism on a national and international level include Breandan Delap, Nollaig Mac Congáil, Aisling Nic Dhonnchadha, Máiréad Ní Chinnéide, Caoilfhionn Nic Pháidín, Kenneth Nilsen, Dorothy Ní Uigín, Éamon Ó Ciosáin, Philip O’Leary and Fionnuala Uí Fhlannagáin. 6 T. Ó hAilín, ‘Irish Revival Movements’, in B. Ó Cuív (ed.), A View of the Irish Language (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1969), p. 94. 7 D. Piatt, Cois Life Fadó agus ábhair eile (Dublin: Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teoranta, 1985), p. 144–6. 8 ‘Is treise an spiorad a thagann leis an Gaedhilg, toisc gur teanga ár gcroidhthe í, ná aon deifridheacht atá eadrainn. Buaifidh sé sa deireadh ar an easaontas, ar an mhithuigsint, ar an droch thuairim d’ár chéile atá d’ár ndeighilt ro-mhinic anois.’ In D. Ní Uigín, ‘Tréimhseacháin agus Colúin de chuid Chonradh na Gaeilge, nó a Bunaíodh faoi Thionchar an Chonartha, sa Chéad Fhiche Bliain den Fhichiú hAois. Cuid 6: Tréimhseacháin Chráifeacha’, Feasta, 62: 10 (2009), p. 22. 9 See C. Nic Pháidín, Fáinne an Lae agus an Athbheochan (1899–1900) (Dublin: Cois Life, 1998); P. O’Leary, The Prose Literature of the Gaelic Revival 1881–1921: Ideology and Innovation (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1994); R. Uí Chollatáin, An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae 1899–1932 (Dublin: Cois Life, 2004a). 10 A. Griffith, Thomas Davis. The Thinker and Teacher (Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1914), pp. 54–5, 60. 11 Ibid., p. xiii. 12 R. Uí Chollatáin, 2004a, pp. 26, 252–6. 13 M. Ní Mhuiríosa, ‘Seán Mag Fhlainn agus an Tuam News’, Comhar, November 1972, p. 22.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 171

28/07/2011 11:24:02

172

Irish journalism before independence

14 M. Ó Cadhain, ‘Conradh na Gaeilge agus an Litríocht’, in S. Ó Tuama (ed.), The Gaelic League Idea (Cork and Dublin: Mercier, 1972), p. 52. 15 M. L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press 1850–1892 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 110. 16 R. Uí Chollatáin, ‘Aguisín a hOcht: Ailt ar Thíortha Eile’, Bilingual Index of material in An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae 1899–1932 (Dublin: Cois Life, 2004b). 17 R. Uí Chollatáin, ‘Aguisín a Seacht: Ailt ar nuachtáin agus ar irisí eile na linne’, Bilingual Index of material in An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae 1899–1932 (Dublin: Cois Life, 2004b). 18 D. Ní Uigín, ‘Tréimhseacháin agus Colúin de chuid Chonradh na Gaeilge, nó a Bunaíodh faoi Thionchar an Chonartha, sa Chéad Fhiche Bliain den Fhichiú hAois’, Feasta, 62: 5, pp. 40–3; 62: 6, pp. 9–13; 62: 7, pp. 19–23; 62: 8, pp. 19–23; 62: 9, pp. 21–4; 62: 10, pp. 19–23; 62: 11, pp. 19–21. 19 R. Uí Chollatáin, 2004a, pp. 149–50. 20 N. Mac Congáil, ‘An Crann’ in A. Chomhaill Mac Giolla (ed.), Meascra Uladh III (Ulster: Comhaltas Uladh, 2004), pp. 155–86. 21 M. Cormack, ‘Introduction: Studying Minority Language Media’, in M. Cormack and N. Hourigan (eds), Minority Language Media. Concepts, Critiques and Case Studies (Cleveland, Buffalo, Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 2007), p. 6. 22 The Leader, 1 September 1900. 23 Níl aon pháipéar ná irisleabhar eile aguinn anois i n-a ionad i gcóir na ndaoine a chuireann suim i gcúrsaibh sgoláireachta na Gaedhilge; agus is minic a mhothuighimíd uainn go géar é. B’fhiú airgead do chailleamhaint ar a leithéid d’irisleabhar. Ní féidir leis an bpáipéar so an obair chéadna dhéanamh. Páipéar is eadh ‘Fáinne an Lae’ i gcóir an tsluaigh i gConnradh na Gaedhilge, agus tá gádh mór le n-a leithéid. Páipéar ab eadh ‘Irisleabhar na Gaedhilge’ i gcóir na sgoláirí agus na ndaoine chuireann spéis i gcúrsaibh sgoláireachta agus níl lá ó cuireadh ar ceal é, ná go raibh gá mór le n-a leithéid.’ ‘Fáinne an Lae’, Editorial, An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae, 12 January 1918. 24 F. Uí Fhlannagáin, Mícheál Ó Locháin agus An Gaodhal (Dublin: An Clóchomhar Tta., 1990), p. 22. 25 Ibid. 26 D. Ní Uigín, ‘An Iriseoireacht Ghaeilge i Meiriceá agus in Éirinn ag tús na hAthbheochana: An Cúlra Meiriceánach’ in R. Ó hUiginn (ed.), Léachtaí Cholm Cille XXVIII (Maynooth: An Sagart, 1998), p. 43. 27 M. McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extension of Man (New York, Toronto, London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), p. 49. 28 ‘Sé rud atá curtha romhainn againn ná míosachán, nú irisleabhar míosamhail, ‘na mbeidh aistí ag cur síos ar na neith seo: leitríocht, ealadhain, stair, polaitíocht, creideamh, curadóireacht, déantúisí, cúrsaí an tsaoghail, etc; scéalta gearra, aistriúchán ó theangthacha iasachta agus beagán filíochta … Má’s maith linn an teanga a mhaireachtaint, ní mór dúinn í ‘chur in oireamhaint don saoghal atá anois ann, agus is trí sgríbhneoireacht is mó a dhéanfar san’, in A. Ó Cathasaigh, Scríob Nua. An Branar 1919–25 (Dublin: Coiscéim, 2005), pp. 8–9.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 172

28/07/2011 11:24:03

Newspapers, journals and the Irish revival

173

29 B. Ó Conchubhair, Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge. Darwin, an Athbheochan agus Smaointeoireacht na hEorpa (Conamara: An Clóchomhar/Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2009), p. 70. 30 O. Bergin, ‘Bardic Poetry’, in D. Greene and F. Kelly (eds), Irish Bardic Poetry. Texts and Translation (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2003 [1970]), p. 4. 31 B. Ó Buachalla, ‘Seacaibíteachas Thaidhg Uí Neachtain’, Studia Hibernica, 26 (Drumcondra: St Patrick’s College, 1991–92), p. 38. 32 H. Tumber and M. Prentoulis, ‘Journalism and the making of a profession’ in H. de Burgh (ed.), Making Journalists (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 61–2. 33 C. Nic Pháidín, p. 52. 34 ‘Strengthen the Weak Points’, Editorial, An Claidheamh Soluis agus Fáinne an Lae, 11 August 1900. 35 O. Bergin, Irish Spelling (Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Waterford: Browne and Nolan Ltd, 1911), p. 7.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 173

28/07/2011 11:24:03

13

Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal Felix M. Larkin1

Arthur Griffith is a forgotten man of Irish history, but one who deserves to be remembered as much for his journalism as for the part he played in the foundation of the modern Irish state.2 He was a brilliant polemicist, and his ideas shaped the final phase of Ireland’s struggle for independence and the early politics of the new state. Griffith was born in Dublin in 1871, and trained as a printer. Active in advanced nationalist circles from an early age, he first came to prominence in opposing the Boer war; he had spent a brief period in the Transvaal in 1897–98. In 1899 he started the United Irishman, the first of a number of radical newspapers that he edited. It was replaced by Sinn Féin in 1906 and, after the latter’s suppression in 1914, by Scissors and Paste and later by Nationality. He wrote most of the material for his newspapers himself. It seems that he once turned down a job as a leaderwriter on the Freeman’s Journal so that, to quote Virginia Glandon, ‘he could continue through his newspapers to try to break up what he saw as Irish political apathy and torpor’.3 The most significant of Griffith’s ideas was that Ireland’s elected representatives should refuse to sit in the Westminster parliament, but instead set up a rival assembly and administration at home. His model was the Hungarian nationalists who, under Ferenc Deák, secured their own parliament in 1867 through a policy of abstention from the Imperial Diet in Vienna. Austria and Hungary had thus become separate political entities linked by the Emperor in a ‘dual monarchy’, and Griffith concluded that a similar arrangement might satisfy both unionist and nationalist opinion in Ireland. He explored these themes in a series of articles in 1904, reprinted as The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (1904). He saw another model for ‘dual monarchy’ in Grattan’s parliament and the ‘constitution’ of 1782. In addition, influenced by the German economist Friedrich List, he advocated a system of protective tariffs to encourage native Irish industries; this remained a guiding principle of economic policy in independent Ireland from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Likewise, he sought to foster a distinctive Irish

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 174

28/07/2011 11:24:03

Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal

175

culture; he published W. B. Yeats and other Irish authors in his newspapers, and supported the use of the Irish language. However, he was among those who condemned Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World for its unedifying portrayal of Irish rural life. Moreover, his writings – for example, on the Dreyfus affair – reveal unfortunate racist, even anti-Semitic, tendencies. Such tendencies are also evident in his writings on the Freeman. In 1902, for example, complaining that the Freeman did not source its newsprint in Ireland, he remarked – with typical sarcasm – that ‘this method of supporting Irish industries may commend itself to the shareholders of the Freeman’s Journal, who apparently include a considerable section of the Children of Israel, as the pious organs of Prince’s street [the location of the Freeman’s offices] have latterly evinced a tender concern for the sensibilities of the Hebrews who flourish on the ignorance and misery of the Dublin poor’.4 Aiming to unite all strands of advanced Irish nationalism behind his policies, Griffith launched his ‘Sinn Féin’ programme in November 1905. The Sinn Féin party was founded in 1907. It attracted some initial support, but in the years 1909–16 it was outflanked by a re-invigorated Irish Republican Brotherhood. Griffith, however, retained a high public profile through his prolific journalism – with the result that the name ‘Sinn Féin’ was attached to almost all advanced nationalist activity, including the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. Griffith took no part in the Rising, but was nevertheless arrested and interned afterwards. After his release in December 1916, the Sinn Féin party became the main focus of activity for those committed to furthering the aims of the Rising. In 1917 he stepped down as party leader in favour of Eamon de Valera, the senior surviving veteran of the Rising. While once more in jail, he won the Cavan East by-election on an abstention platform in June 1918. Sinn Féin subsequently enjoyed an overwhelming victory in the 1918 General Election. The successful Sinn Féin candidates then met in Dublin and, styling their assembly Dáil Éireann, proclaimed themselves the parliament of the Irish Republic. The War of Independence that followed derived legitimacy from Sinn Féin’s electoral success, though Griffith himself had considered that violent methods could not succeed in winning Irish independence and had developed his abstention policy as an alternative to violence. Griffith held the posts of minister for home affairs and minister for foreign affairs successively in the Dáil Éireann governments of 1919–22, was acting president of Dáil Éireann – i.e. head of the government – when de Valera was in the United States from mid-1919 to end-1920, and in January 1922 succeeded de Valera as president after the Dáil approved the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. He had led the Irish delegation that negotiated the Treaty, and was the first of the Irish delegates to agree to sign it. The Treaty gave Ireland a measure of independence broadly comparable with the ‘dual

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 175

28/07/2011 11:24:03

176

Irish journalism before independence

monarchy’ concept, and this accounts for the force and passion with which Griffith defended it against its critics. The intemperance of his statements contributed to the polarisation of opinion on the Treaty which ultimately resulted in the civil war. With Ireland in the throes of civil war, Griffith died suddenly on 12 August 1922.5 In defending the Treaty, Griffith was strongly supported by the Freeman’s Journal – since 1919 the property of a prominent Dublin businessman, Martin Fitzgerald. It was, with the exception of the Belfast News-Letter, the oldest daily newspaper in either Great Britain or Ireland. Its stance on the Treaty was entirely consistent with its long tradition of association with moderate, constitutional Irish nationalist movements. When the Freeman ceased publication on 19 December 1924, it expressed its own sense of this tradition – in other words, its self-image – as follows: Lucas, with Grattan and Flood, founded the paper, O’Connell relied upon it, Butt, Parnell, Davitt, Redmond and Dillon had it at their side when their aims were to be achieved. Their successors had it at their backs in the moments of their supreme trial, and it helped to win final victory … During its long existence of 161 years, the paper has experienced many vicissitudes and many buffetings, but at no period have these been so persistent or so severe as during the past five years. In the fight, first, against British tyranny, culminating in the Black-andTan terrorism, and later, against the no less formidable terrorism of Ireland’s internal enemies, it was foremost amongst Irish newspapers in defence of the rights of the people.6 By ‘Ireland’s internal enemies’, the Freeman meant those who had opposed the Treaty – first in the Dáil, and then by force. Its condemnation of them mirrored Griffith’s sentiments precisely. Griffith co-operated with the Freeman in order to defeat the anti-Treatyites: for example, he leaked to the Freeman the proposals which de Valera had tabled in a private session of Dáil Éireann as an alternative to the Treaty – the so-called ‘Document No. 2’; because it differed from the Treaty only slightly, its publication caused de Valera great embarrassment. Moreover, the Freeman echoed Griffith’s infamous condemnation of Erskine Childers as a ‘damned Englishman’, and even published two scurrilous cartoons about Childers – one depicting de Valera as the mouthpiece of Childers, the other implying that Childers was indifferent to the devastating economic consequences of the civil war.7 There was a strange irony in this alliance between Griffith and the Freeman – for Griffith as a journalist had taken issue with the Freeman earlier in his career, displaying a visceral antipathy towards the newspaper. The discussion which follows focuses primarily on a series of articles on the Freeman and its history that Griffith published in Nationality between June 1915 and April 1918.8 These articles amounted to a sustained campaign of vilification of the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 176

28/07/2011 11:24:03

Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal

177

Freeman.9 The grounds for his attacks were not unique to the Freeman – as illustrated by the following, which he wrote in June 1915: The newspaper press in Ireland has been and is a press in Ireland, not the press of Ireland [Griffith’s italics]. It began in slavish imitation of the English press, and as it was in the beginning so it is today. Patriotic and able newspapers and journals Ireland has had in every generation, but they are not the type but the antitype of the press in this country.10 The Freeman, however, attracted his particular disdain because it was the organ of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) at Westminster. This relationship was symbolised by the Freeman’s famous emblem expressing its Home Rule aspirations – a sunburst behind the old Irish parliament building (now the Bank of Ireland) in College Green, Dublin – and that emblem occasioned the cruel jibe attributed to Griffith which Leopold Bloom recalls in the ‘Calypso’ episode of Ulysses: Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the Freeman leader: a homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule sun rising up in the northwest.11 This jibe catches Griffith’s disillusionment with the IPP which had failed to deliver Home Rule and no longer seemed capable of delivering it – and had, in Griffith’s view, sold out to the British liberal establishment in return for government appointments for its supporters, including former employees of the newspaper. He argued that the Freeman was, in effect, a British-kept newspaper – which, he asserted, was ‘the worse curse of a nation struggling towards freedom’ – and was being used by the government to influence public opinion in Ireland against advanced nationalist ideas.12 He accused it bluntly of keeping ‘Ireland quiet for the English politicians’.13 Griffith’s enemies in 1922 could, of course, have made much the same point about the Freeman’s support of the Treaty, but with Griffith – instead of the IPP MPs – condemned with the Freeman as collaborationist. Only one appears to have done so, at least in a public forum. When criticising the Freeman for its bitter comments about de Valera and Document No. 2 in a Dáil debate on 5 January 1922, Seán Etchingham – a prominent anti-Treatyite, formerly minister for fisheries in the Dáil governments (albeit outside the cabinet) – called it ‘this venomous toad’ and then quoted Griffith as having said that ‘the Freeman’s Journal is a paper with an evil history … [which] has opposed every national movement until the movement became too strong for it’. Etchingham added: ‘That was written twenty years ago … It was then true and it is true to-day.’14 The Freeman’s Journal had been the semi-official organ of the IPP at

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 177

28/07/2011 11:24:03

178

Irish journalism before independence

Westminster since Parnell’s time – though it had at first opposed Parnell. The Freeman was then owned by Edmund Dwyer Gray, who – in name, at least – was also its editor.15 He certainly controlled its editorial policy. From 1877 onwards, he was successively MP for Tipperary county, Carlow county and the St Stephen’s Green division of Dublin. But for the advent of Parnell, he might have led the IPP at Westminster. So as to protect his own political prospects, Gray strongly opposed Parnell’s rise within the party. He threw the weight of the Freeman unsuccessfully against Parnell’s candidate in the decisive Ennis by-election of 1879 – and he later smeared Parnell by accusing him of having called certain colleagues ‘papist rats’. When, after the 1880 general election, Parnell was elected party chairman, Gray was one of eighteen MPs who voted against him. Thereafter, however, he largely supported Parnell’s leadership – partly because he accepted that Parnell was now invincible, but also because Parnell established in 1881 his own newspaper, the weekly United Ireland, with William O’Brien as editor. The threat that United Ireland might be turned into a daily publication to rival the Freeman was enough to copper-fasten the Gray’s loyalty to Parnell. That loyalty survived the Parnell split, at least for a period. When the split occurred, the Freeman came out strongly in favour of the beleaguered leader. Gray had died in 1888, and the Freeman was now under the control of his widow, Caroline Agnes Gray, who was proactive in her support of Parnell. However, once the anti-Parnellites launched their own daily newspaper, the National Press, in March 1891 and the Freeman began as a result to lose circulation and revenue, Mrs Gray wavered in her support. Under the influence of her son – aged twenty-one and justifiably fearful for his inheritance – Mrs Gray resolved that the Freeman should abandon Parnell. This it did in late September 1891, a fortnight before Parnell’s unexpected death. In his accounts of the history of the Freeman’s Journal, Griffith emphasised the negative aspects of the newspaper’s relationship with Parnell. Parnell was a hero in Griffith’s eyes – and Griffith had, in fact, begun his journalistic career working as a copyeditor on the Irish Daily Independent, the pro-Parnell newspaper established to counter the opposition of the Freeman when it switched sides in the split. It first appeared on 18 December 1891, two months after Parnell’s death. It survived as the organ of the Parnellite wing of the Irish party until the party’s reunification under John Redmond in 1900, and was then purchased by William Martin Murphy. In 1905 Murphy transformed the paper into the modern Irish Independent, at half the price of the Freeman – a halfpenny, instead of a penny – and with a more popular format and a less partisan editorial policy. In effect, he copied what Lord Northcliffe had done in London in 1896 when he launched the Daily Mail, the first mass circulation newspaper in Britain or Ireland. Griffith regarded Murphy’s Independent, with its commercial focus, as an example of ‘prostitute

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 178

28/07/2011 11:24:04

Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal

179

journalism’,16 and in 1915 congratulated Murphy ‘on the possession of an editor who knows no ethics’.17 Meanwhile, the Gray family had sold its interest in the Freeman’s Journal in 1892 in order to facilitate a merger between the Freeman and the National Press. The Freeman company was thereafter owned by a large number of small shareholders, and the newspaper operated first as the organ of the anti-Parnell faction of the IPP and then, after the re-unification of the party under Redmond in 1900, as – once again, as in the heyday of Parnell – the organ of the united party. Thomas Sexton – a prominent IPP MP who, before entering parliament in 1880, had been a journalist on the Nation newspaper – became chairman of the company in 1893.18 This ultimately proved an unhappy arrangement – at least from the IPP’s perspective – because in 1896 Sexton, disillusioned with the continuing divisions within the party, unexpectedly retired from parliament. Afterwards he seemed to regret his loss of influence, and he compensated for it by using the Freeman to try to impose his will on his erstwhile colleagues. He was increasingly out of sympathy with them, and this was reflected in the Freeman. Thus, for example, in 1903 Sexton and the Freeman were in open conflict with the party over the land purchase scheme introduced by the chief secretary, George Wyndham. Moreover, after 1905 Sexton proved incapable of meeting the challenge to the Freeman’s pre-eminence in the Dublin daily newspaper market represented by Murphy’s new Irish Independent. The Freeman was fatally undermined by the success of the Independent and soon began to incur heavy trading losses; no dividends were paid to shareholders after 1908. Sexton hung on as chairman for some time, but early in 1912 the IPP leaders moved to save the newspaper and forced his resignation. The Freeman was subsequently run by a small group of party stalwarts and was subsidised from party sources. It was no longer commercially viable, and its parlous condition was exacerbated by the destruction of its premises during the 1916 Rising. William O’Brien – then a dissident IPP MP – was quite correct, if a little hyperbolic, when he wrote of Sexton’s departure that ‘another intellect has been cast beneath the wheels of the modern juggernaut of so-called party discipline’.19 The Freeman had undoubtedly lost the ability to resist interference from the party leadership in its affairs – in its reportage, as well as in its commercial and editorial policies. Griffith’s articles in Nationality were published during the Freeman’s post-Sexton phase, when it was the passive – even supine – organ of the IPP. Griffith had written about the Freeman previously, but the particular trigger for the Nationality articles seems to have been a note which – supposedly through malice on the part of a young Sinn Féin member on the Freeman’s staff – fell into Griffith’s hands in 1914. It was a personal note from Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Lord Lieutenant, to W. H. Brayden, the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 179

28/07/2011 11:24:04

180

Irish journalism before independence

editor of the Freeman – in which she praised an editorial written by Brayden and congratulated him on the part he had played in what then seemed the imminent achievement of their common goal of Home Rule. Griffith published the note in his Sinn Féin newspaper on 17 October 1914, partly in facsimile.20 Two weeks later, he tried to put the note into what he thought was its proper context with an article on the history of the Freeman which presaged the themes of his Nationality articles.21 For Griffith, Lady Aberdeen’s note was evidence of the Freeman’s apostasy – evidence that it had become, as he stated in 1917, ‘the humble slave of the English Liberals’.22 He found further such evidence in the number of government appointments which had been made from the Freeman staff since the British Liberal government had come to power in 1906. These appointments were part of the policy of the Liberal government to involve nationalists in the governance of Ireland in anticipation of home rule.23 Griffith saw them instead as the reward for services rendered in undermining radical movements such as Sinn Féin which, in his view, had more chance of winning Ireland’s freedom than had the IPP: [T]he services of the Freeman have not gone unrecognised by the English government in Ireland, which it has so well served for the past ten years. The following are a few of the appointments made from the Freeman office during the period: Matthias MacDonnell Bodkin, chief leader-writer of the Freeman, appointed County Court Judge for Clare. Salary, £1,400. Robert Donovan, second leader-writer, appointed Professor of English Literature in the National University and Commissioner of National Education. Salary, £500. George MacSweeney, former editor of the Evening Telegraph [the evening paper published by the Freeman], promised the SolicitorGeneralship … [but] the appointment could not be made. MacSweeney was then created a Sergeant-at-Law. Maurice Cosgrove, chief leader-writer of the Evening Telegraph, appointed a Local Government Board Inspector at £600 per annum. John George MacSweeney, editor of the Weekly Freeman, appointed Local Government Board Inspector at £600 per annum. Ignatius O’Brien, reporter on the Freeman staff, appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland at £6,000 per annum. O’Brien had ceased to be a member of the staff for some years before his appointment.24 Later, when the Freeman received compensation from the British government for the destruction of its premises in the 1916 Rising, Griffith suggested that the amount of the compensation was excessive and represented a hidden subsidy to the Freeman from the British government – to allow it, Griffith claimed, to continue to attack radical nationalist movements in Ireland.25

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 180

28/07/2011 11:24:04

Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal

181

In presenting the history of the Freeman to his readers, Griffith contrived to show that there was nothing new in the fact that the newspaper ‘under the guise of nationalism, has been a steady supporter of the English interest against the Irish nation’.26 In his hands, history becomes an instrument in a cause – in this instance, the cause of defeating the IPP. According to Laffan, Griffith ‘was a propagandist rather than a scholar’27 – and just as the Freeman put its spin on its history in the valedictory issue of the newspaper, so Griffith put his contrary spin on it: ‘The history of the Freeman’s Journal is unique. Other journals there have been which, professing one policy, were secretly hired to promote another, but none of them have had the long and consistently inconsistent life of the Freeman.’28 In his interpretation, ‘the history of the Freeman’s Journal is a history of Irish traitorism’29 and ‘a revelation of English governmental methods in Ireland’30 – and these methods, he insisted, had frequently included bribery and other inducements to influence its policy. Unfortunately for the Freeman, it had one skeleton in its cupboard which could be – and was – exploited by Griffith in making his case against the newspaper. This was Francis Higgins, a thoroughly disreputable figure known as the ‘Sham Squire’, who was editor and later proprietor of the Freeman at the end of the eighteenth century.31 The Freeman had been founded in 1763 and was the most significant and successful of the first Dublin newspapers to concentrate on local politics, rather than simply repeating British and international news.32 It was associated in its early years with the ‘patriot’ opposition in the Irish parliament – most notably, Charles Lucas, Henry Grattan and Henry Flood (though not, strictly speaking, founded by them as the Freeman liked to boast). From the early 1780s, however, its independence was undermined by Higgins. He was a paid agent of the Dublin Castle authorities, though this was not immediately apparent. Griffith characterised Higgins as ‘originally a pot-boy in a public house in Fishamble Street, Dublin [who] became successively a forger, a convict, a brothel-keeper, a gambling house owner, a blackmailer, and editor and proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal’.33 Higgins was eventually awarded a secret service pension of £300 per annum plus a bounty of £1,000 for information he provided to Dublin Castle on Lord Edward Fitzgerald and for facilitating his capture in 1798 – and in 1914 Griffith published in Sinn Féin details of this and other ‘numerous and liberal’ payments to Higgins for various services, quoting ‘from the secret service books’.34 The Sham Squire provided the leitmotif of Griffith’s treatment of the history of the Freeman, and this extract from Sinn Féin of 31 October 1914 is a particularly mordant example of it: The body of Francis Higgins is turned to clay in bleak Kilbarrack’s churchyard [in north Dublin], but the evil spirit of Francis Higgins

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 181

28/07/2011 11:24:04

182

Irish journalism before independence

still haunts the office where the blood of Lord Edward Fitzgerald was bought and sold, and guides the hand that writes the Freeman’s Journal leading articles.35 Higgins died in 1802, bequeathing the Freeman to his ward, Frances Tracy – by whom it seems he had a son.36 On her marriage, it passed to her husband Philip Whitfield Harvey, the nephew of a former associate of Higgins. Harvey was an honourable man by all accounts, and under his ownership the Freeman gradually recovered its independence from government influence. He died in 1826 and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Henry Grattan, a son of the parliamentarian. Then, in 1831, the Freeman was purchased by its first Catholic editor, Patrick Lavelle, who was a valuable but over-zealous advocate of repeal of the Act of Union. He died in 1837, and in 1841 his widow sold the paper to Sir John Gray – the father of Edmund Dwyer Gray, Parnell’s rival. Thus began the Gray family’s involvement with the Freeman which lasted for fifty years and spanned three generations of the family. Griffith accepted in his writings on the Freeman that the newspaper ‘pursued a blameless if not virtuous career’ in the years between Higgins and the Grays.37 He also conceded that John Gray ‘was by no means as great a political blackguard as his predecessor Higgins’.38 He condemned Gray, however, for his support of the Crimean War, observing sarcastically that ‘the Freeman’s Journal discovered that in that war England stood for Liberty, Progress and Civilisation, and Russia for the opposite’.39 Of the Freeman’s subsequent history, the following passage is typical of how Griffith repeatedly portrayed its role in nationalist politics and emphasised certain aspects of its record in order to make a point relating to the politics of the time in which he was writing. It appeared in an issue of Nationality published just days before the Easter Rising in 1916: The Freeman (1) denounced the Fenian movement and the Fenian leaders as miscreants, (2) denounced Parnell, (3) denounced the Land League, (4) forged and published a story that Parnell spoke of the Irish Catholics as ‘papist rats’ in a last effort to destroy him in 1880. In 1881 it surrendered to Parnell and agreed to support his policy. In 1891 it turned on him and helped to drive him out of the Irish leadership. Today, as in every other crisis in Irish history, it denounces with the pen, heart, venom and inspiration of the Sham Squire those who stand for the Irish nation.40 As part of its 150th anniversary celebrations in 1913, the Freeman published a lengthy, well-researched essay by John Wyse Power on the history of the newspaper – an impressive piece of historical scholarship by the standard of its time.41 Wyse Power had been a leader-writer on the newspaper, but he jumped ship in 1891 to join the pro-Parnell Irish Daily Independent. He

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 182

28/07/2011 11:24:04

Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal

183

was editor of the Evening Herald, the Independent’s evening newspaper, in the mid-1890s, and later worked intermittently for the liquor trade in what would now be regarded as a public relations role.42 His wife, Jennie Wyse Power, was closely associated with Griffith from the earliest days of Sinn Féin, and she would eventually serve as a member of the Irish Free State Senate for the entire period of its existence. Griffith may have used Wyse Power’s essay as source material for the more detailed articles that he published in Nationality about the Freeman, specifically the article of 26 June 1915 and the articles that appeared between 26 May and 30 June 1917. In contrast, however, to Wyse Power’s sober approach to his subject, Griffith allowed his political agenda to influence his selection and interpretation of facts, and he twisted the historical record to suit his contemporary purposes. Griffith’s representation – or, more accurately, misrepresentation – of the history of the Freeman’s Journal was designed primarily to undermine the authority of the Irish Parliamentary Party. It undoubtedly did just that, and so contributed to the party’s decline and fall. This demonstrates the essential truth of Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s proposition that ‘the ways in which what happened and that which is said to have happened are and are not the same may itself be historical’.43 A nation’s choice of whom to remember, and how to remember them, is likewise historical. As President John F. Kennedy said a few weeks before his assassination, ‘a nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honours, the men it remembers’.44 It seems, therefore, appropriate to conclude this chapter by asking why the Irish nation in the first ninety years of independence has chosen not to honour, and indeed has largely forgotten, the intellectual architect of that independence, Arthur Griffith. Was it because we rejected his intemperance, belligerence and personal abuse in defending the 1921 Treaty against its critics – and wished to finesse the divisions in Irish public life that he had thus exacerbated? This chapter has demonstrated how relentlessly and viciously polemical he could be as a journalist, and he was no less so as a politician. That, however, is no excuse for airbrushing Griffith out of history.

Notes 1 My thanks are due especially to Ian d’Alton, whose advice on an early draft of this chapter saved me from an egregious error. Thanks go also to Frank Callanan, Sheila Carden, Lisa-Marie Griffith, Peter Lacy, Professor Michael Laffan, Mark O’Brien and Professor Robert Schmuhl for their assistance. 2 See A. Dolan, Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and especially Chapter 3, ‘The Forgotten President: The Awkward Memory of Arthur Griffith’. 3 V. E. Glandon, ‘Arthur Griffith and the ideal Irish State’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 73 (1984), p. 26 and V. E. Glandon, Arthur Griffith and the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 183

28/07/2011 11:24:04

184

Irish journalism before independence

Advanced-nationalist Press: Ireland, 1900–1922 (New York: Peter Lang, 1985), p. 49. 4 United Irishman, 8 February 1902. 5 See Michael Laffan’s entry on Griffith in J. McGuire and J. Quinn (eds), Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); S. Ó Lúing, ‘Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin’, in F. X. Martin (ed.), Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising: Dublin 1916 (London: Methuen & Co., 1967); R. Davis, Arthur Griffith and Non-violent Sinn Féin (Dublin: Anvil Books, 1974); C. Younger, Arthur Griffith (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1981); and B. Maye, Arthur Griffith (Dublin: Griffith College, 1987). 6 Freeman’s Journal, 19 December 1924. For a fuller account of the Freeman’s history, see F. M. Larkin, ‘A Great Daily Organ: The Freeman’s Journal, 1763–1924’, History Ireland, 14: 3 (2006), pp. 44–9. 7 The cartoons were published on 10 February and 13 May 1922. See F. M. Larkin, Terror and Discord: The Shemus Cartoons in the Freeman’s Journal, 1920–1924 (Dublin: A&A Farmar, 2009), pp. 38–9. 8 Nationality was published between 19 June 1915 and 22 April 1916, and then revived on 17 February 1917. In May 1918 Griffith was imprisoned on the pretext of the so-called ‘German plot’, and Nationality was afterwards edited by Seumas O’Kelly who died in November 1918 of a heart attack following a raid by crown forces on the newspaper’s headquarters in Harcourt Street. It ceased publication on 20 September 1919. According to evidence given to the Royal Commission on the 1916 Rising, its circulation may have been as high as 8,000 copies per issue. 9 Arthur Griffith’s writings in Nationality about the Freeman’s Journal included a series entitled ‘The Reptile Press’: ‘The Dublin Journal and the Evening Post’, 19 June 1915, ‘The Freeman’s Journal’, 26 June 1915 and ‘The World’, 3 July 1915; ‘The Press Gang’, 13 November 1915; ‘Death of the Sham Squire’s Youngest Child’, 13 February 1916; ‘Unchanged and Unchangeable’, 15 April 1916; ‘Week by Week’, 31 March 1917; ‘Week by Week’, 21 April 1917; a series entitled ‘A Short History of the Freeman’s Journal’: 1763–90, 26 May 1917; 1792–98, 2 June 1917; 1798–1803, 9 June 1917; 1803–29, 16 June 1917; 1830–77, 23 June 1917; 1877–1917, 30 June 1917; ‘Week by Week’, 13 October 1917; ‘A Short History of the Freeman’s Journal’, 20 October 1917; ‘Week by Week’, 13 April 1918. 10 Nationality, 19 June 1917. 11 J. Joyce, Ulysses (edited by Hans Walter Gabler) (London: The Bodley Head, 2008), p. 47. 12 Sinn Féin, 17 October 1914. 13 Nationality, 30 June 1917. 14 Dáil Debates, 5 January 1922, p. 262. The quotation was from United Ireland, 8 February 1902. 15 For further information on Gray and his wife, see F. M. Larkin, ‘Mrs Jellyby’s Daughter: Caroline Agnes Gray (1848–1927) and the Freeman’s Journal’, in F. M. Larkin (ed.), Librarians, Poets and Scholars: A Festschrift for Dónall Ó Luanaigh (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), pp. 121–39.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 184

28/07/2011 11:24:05

Arthur Griffith and the Freeman’s Journal

185

16 Nationality, 27 November 1915. 17 Nationality, 15 January 1916. 18 For further information on Sexton, see F. M. Larkin, ‘Two Gentlemen of the Freeman: Thomas Sexton, W. H. Brayden and the Freeman’s Journal, 1892–1916’, in C. Breathnach and C. Lawless (eds), Visual, Material and Print Culture in Nineteenth-century Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010), pp. 210–22. 19 Cork Free Press, 19 March 1912. 20 Sinn Féin, 17 October 1914. See L. Ó Broin, The Chief Secretary: Augustine Birrell in Ireland (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969), pp. 128–9. 21 Sinn Féin, 31 October 1914. 22 Nationality, 31 March 1917. 23 See L. W. McBride, The Greening of Dublin Castle: The Transformation of Bureaucratic and Judicial Personnel in Ireland, 1892–1922 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991). 24 Nationality, 26 June 1915. 25 See Nationality, 30 June 1917, 13 October 1917 and 20 October 1917. 26 Nationality, 30 June 1917. 27 McGuire and Quinn (eds), p. 279. 28 Nationality, 15 April 1915. 29 Nationality, 31 March 1917. 30 Nationality, 30 June 1917. 31 T. Bartlett (ed.), Revolutionary Dublin, 1795–1801: The Letters of Francis Higgins to Dublin Castle (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), especially pp. 23–30. 32 R. Munter, The History of the Irish Newspaper, 1685–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), pp. 186–8. 33 Nationality, 26 May 1917. 34 Sinn Féin, 31 October 1914. 35 Ibid. 36 Bartlett, p. 327, n. 82. 37 Nationality, 16 June 1915. 38 Sinn Féin, 31 October 1914. 39 Nationality, 23 June 1917. 40 Nationality, 15 April 1916. 41 Freeman’s Journal: Jubilee Supplement, 27 September 1913. 42 For an obituary of Wyse Power, see The Irish Times, 31 May 1926. 43 M. R. Trouillot, Silencing The Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), p. 4. 44 Speech at Amherst College, 26 October 1963.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 185

28/07/2011 11:24:05

14

‘The prose of logic and of scorn’: Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin, 1906–1914 Ciara Meehan1

‘An extraordinarily clever journalist’ was the tribute paid to Arthur Griffith by Augustine Birrell, the Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 until just after the 1916 Rising.2 Griffith, however, is best remembered as a founder member of the Sinn Féin party in 1907 and a signatory of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. Although he became president of Dáil Éireann, he was not a natural politician. Circumstance had taken him down a political route, but he was more comfortable with the life of a journalist. He was considered to be ‘at his most effective, in the editorial chair, serving as “an encyclopaedia of useful and practical ideas”’.3 He had an innate ability to conceptualise large ideas into communicable articles and pamphlets, of which The Resurrection of Hungary – a work synonymous with his name – is the most celebrated example. Griffith also had an impressive résumé of newspaper titles: United Irishman, Sinn Féin, Éire, Scissors and Paste and Nationality. Each of these was a response to the suppression of its predecessor, and through them, he advanced his views. This chapter focuses on Sinn Féin and its influence in altering the vision for Ireland’s future. Published between 1906 and 1914, it had the longest print run of Griffith’s publications and was arguably the most important.

A life in journalism A biographical profile of Griffith has been provided in the chapter by Felix Larkin in this volume but it is worth recalling that Griffith’s introduction to the printing world came at an early age as his father was a printer, and worked on The Nation newspaper. After school, he followed his father and, while working at Thom’s Gazette Room, he was generally referred to as the ‘son of old Arthur Griffith, the pressman’.4 The Franklin Printing Works employed him as a compositor and copywriter, and he worked on The Nation and the Irish Daily Independent.5 This apprenticeship would serve him well when he came to edit his own newspapers.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 186

28/07/2011 11:24:05

Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin

187

With the exception of Virginia Glandon’s excellent Arthur Griffith and the Advanced Nationalist Press, Griffith’s role as a journalist has been acknowledged but rarely examined.6 Instead historians have focused on the founding of the Sinn Féin party, his passive resistance and Hungarian policies, and his controversial role in the 1921 Treaty negotiations and the debates that ensued. But Griffith – a skilled polemicist – was an important journalist, whose writings helped shape a generation of young separatists. It has been said that Countess Markievicz converted to nationalism after reading back issues of the Peasant and Sinn Féin.7 Padraic Colum eulogised that Griffith had ‘the prose of logic and of scorn/and words to sledge an iron argument’.8 From his treatment of the Third Home Rule bill it is apparent that his intense dislike of something was matched only by the time he dedicated to deconstructing and attacking it. However, this was also true when it came to the promotion of what he deemed worthwhile causes: his commitment to cultural nationalism was unwavering. Griffith’s elegant and forceful prose masked the absence of any sort of formal literary training – he had left school by the age of thirteen – but it was clearly informed by his wide reading and evenings spent at the National Library in Dublin. He was influenced by Parnell, Davis, Mitchel and Swift, and it has been observed that his style of writing owed a debt to the latter in particular.9 Indeed, Swift was invariably quoted next to masthead on the front page of Sinn Féin. His economic thinking was shaped particularly by Friedrich List’s The National System of Political Economy, as well as by Henry Carey, whose protectionist policies are credited with allowing the United States to become a wealthy manufacturing nation.10 Griffith, in his concern to grip and educate his audience, published a series of newspapers – despite financial difficulties and the overwhelming demand that production placed on his time – because he viewed them as one of the best forums for communicating ideas. He worked tirelessly on his newspapers, often playing the roles of editor, columnist and typesetter; this was not unusual for those who produced small, niche publications. James Stephens recounted how Griffith often filled empty column space in the United Irishman himself, and would write the articles ‘much better than anybody else could’.11 Oliver St John Gogarty recalled how, while editing Sinn Féin, Griffith ‘worked unremittingly in his little office in 17 Fownes Street … [and of] how he worked on in poverty’.12 By necessity, his newspapers needed to generate enough income to ensure continued publication, but the intention was never to make Griffith wealthy. His talents naturally attracted attention and he had several enticing employment offers of work that would have relieved the comparative poverty in which he lived. Among them was the offer of £1,000 a year from an American newspaper magnate.13 He declined them all. With the exception of the last few years of his life, Griffith’s working

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 187

28/07/2011 11:24:05

188

Irish journalism before independence

career was dedicated to journalism. His start as an editor began when he left Ireland for South Africa in 1897. While there, he edited the short-lived Middleburg Courant. He returned home in 1899 to take up the editorship of the United Irishman after the position had been declined by his close friend, William Rooney, who had purposely stepped aside. Writing to Sean Ghall, Rooney predicted that the chosen editor was a man who would make history.14 The newspaper counted among its contributors, W. B. Yeats, George Russell, Patrick Pearse and Padraic Colum. Few of those who wrote for the United Irishman were ever paid – a pattern repeated with Griffith’s later newspaper ventures. Having been suppressed more than twenty times during its life, the United Irishman eventually collapsed as a result of a libel suit in April 1906.15 Griffith quickly replaced it with Sinn Féin, the name that would also be chosen in 1907 for the new party created out of a merger between the Dungannon Clubs and Cumann na nGaedheal. The ideas outlined in Sinn Féin, which for a short time also published a daily edition, built on those already propagated through the United Irishman. It circulated for just over eight years. As the newspaper was nearing the end of its print-run, Griffith also launched Éire, a daily financed by the Irish Republican Brotherhood that had an even shorter lifespan than the Sinn Féin daily edition.16 When confronted with the difficulty facing all editors and journalists posed by the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) during the First World War, Griffith displayed real ingenuity in producing his next publication. His creative Scissors and Paste was a literal exercise in cutting and pasting. Snippets of various articles from other publications were copied into this newspaper, which appeared twice weekly between December 1914 and February 1915. Using material already approved by the censor, Griffith cleverly presented it in a way that allowed Scissors and Paste to continue the anti-British, anti-recruitment theme of its predecessors. Augustine Birrell dismissed it as a ‘ridiculous little paper’, but it too was ultimately banned after ten weeks of circulation.17 It was replaced some months later with Nationality, first published on 19 June 1915. Griffith later re-established this newspaper after his release from Reading Jail, where he was imprisoned following the Easter Rising. The second series, which appeared in early 1917, became the organ of the third Sinn Féin party and, in keeping with the new movement’s policies and unlike Griffith’s earlier newspapers, it made no reference to dual-monarchy. In the years that followed, there were no further opportunities for full-time journalism. But, as Michael Laffan has noted, despite distractions and other responsibilities, Griffith remained a journalist at heart for the rest of his life.18 His final involvement with a publication before his sudden death came in an advisory, rather than editorial, capacity. It also confirmed his belief in the value of a newspaper for advancing views. An Saorstát – the organ of the pro-Treatyites – first appeared in February 1922. The minutes of committee meetings reveal the difficulties encountered

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 188

28/07/2011 11:24:05

Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin

189

by those involved in keeping the paper afloat: mismanagement and poor control of finances were the biggest problems. Despite a determined effort to improve the running of the newspaper, by 19 June 1922 the advisability of continuing publication was being discussed. Griffith attended that particular meeting and, unsurprisingly, thought it ‘absolutely necessary that it should continue’.19 The newspaper struggled on for a while longer – its problems never resolved – before eventually being wound up with the edition of 11 November 1922. By that stage, of course, Griffith was dead. Had he lived, his journalistic and propaganda skills would surely have proved an invaluable asset to Cumann na nGaedheal, the pro-Treaty wing of Sinn Féin and the government party during the first decade of independence.

Sinn Féin: the newspaper Griffith, who favoured the power of the pen over the sword, made an important contribution to the nationalist cause through his newspapers. The appearance of Sinn Féin was especially timely. Its publication coincided with some of the most important events in pre-revolutionary Ireland: the introduction of the Third Home Rule bill; the 1913 strike and lockout; the birth of the Ulster Volunteers and subsequently the Irish Volunteers; the split in the latter; the shelving of Home Rule; and the outbreak of the First World War. Through this newspaper, Griffith advanced the notion of political and economic independence and aimed to educate his readers. On 11 April 1906, a meeting was held to form the Sinn Féin Printing and Publishing Company, based at 17 Upper Fownes Street in Dublin. Griffith, W. L. Cole, Thomas Kelly and Henry Dixon were appointed directors. At the next meeting, Griffith was officially proposed and seconded as the newspaper’s editor on a salary of £200 per year.20 As was common with many small publications at this time, Griffith both wrote and edited most of Sinn Féin. The newspaper contained few by-lines, which was typical of the times, and although it is not always possible to identify which columns he penned, Griffith’s editorial stamp can be clearly identified across the pages. In keeping with the tradition among many writers at the time, he wrote under various pennames: Cuguan, Calma, Mise, Nationalist and Old Fogey, amongst others.21 There was also a crossover with those who had written for the United Irishman. Although he generally could not pay his contributors, Griffith was sufficiently respected to persuade talented writers to contribute. Included among those were James Stephens, Padraic Colum, Oliver St John Gogarty, William Bulfin and Alice Milligan, whose Shan Van Vocht – a monthly, separatist paper based in Belfast – had merged with the United Irishman. From 23 August 1909, in addition to continuing the weekly publication, Griffith finally realised his ambition to produce a daily newspaper, which sold

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 189

28/07/2011 11:24:06

190

Irish journalism before independence

for one half-penny. But, this venture was to be short-lived and the newspaper lasted for barely six months. During that time, he retained editorial control of both publications and the scope of SinnFéin daily reflected a development in the style of newspaper that Griffith produced. As Virginia Glandon has observed, art and literary criticisms, fashion commentary and pictures and cartoons were common features. This increase in the range of content contrasted with the stark commentary of his previous endeavours, while there was also more general news from the around the country than was typically found in the weekly.22 Griffith had managed to raise around £4,000 to start his daily venture, but this money was not nearly enough to sustain the publication.23 Subsidies from friends, colleagues and other wealthy sympathisers initially kept the newspaper in print. Further assistance was supplied by debenture holders to ensure that the daily’s debts did not drive the weekly into bankruptcy.24 By the time that the daily newspaper was wound up in January 1910, however, it had acted as a further drain on the publishing company’s meagre finances. Griffith admitted that the lingering debts incurred by the move into daily newspaper publishing threatened to ‘crush’ the weekly.25 The Sinn Féin weekly sold for the standard price of one penny. This price was similar to The Irish Times, the Freeman’s Journal and many of the weekly provincial newspapers, as well as several other titles in the advanced nationalist press. Active canvassing of areas outside Dublin to increase sales and to sell advertising space was undertaken, and agents were specifically appointed to the task. Despite their efforts, however, the results were not always favourable. At a meeting of the directors in June 1909, it was reported that the returns were unsatisfactory and it was advised that the canvassers be reminded of the terms of their employment.26 With low sales, the newspaper was essentially sustained financially through the assistance of friends and supporters. From the outset the four-page weekly operated under restricted conditions, and the accounts for its first financial year recorded a loss of £128. 5. 0.27 Undoubtedly, the experience Griffith gained working as a printer in earlier years proved invaluable as he attempted to run Sinn Féin on a limited budget. Despite this financial situation weekly Sinn Féin enjoyed a reasonably long print run: over an eight-and-a-half year span an estimated 434 issues were produced.28 The newspaper’s performance was clearly affected by the performance of the Irish Parliamentary Party. As the fortunes of John Redmond’s party appeared to be at their height in 1912, Sinn Féin was languishing. Griffith acknowledged that ‘the new lease of power which the proposal of a Home Rule bill has given parliamentarianism has reacted on the paper’.29 As the Third Home Rule bill was being framed, Griffith purposely refrained from writing on the subject, but when H. H. Asquith, the British Prime Minister, introduced the legislation in April 1912, Griffith broke his

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 190

28/07/2011 11:24:06

Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin

191

self-imposed silence and unleashed a series of scathing attacks designed to demonstrate flaws in the proposals. However, most of nationalist Ireland – ‘untroubled by constitutional detail’ – paid little attention.30 In June 1912 Griffith was forced to write to Patrick McManus, an Irish-Argentinean and editor of Fianna, requesting financial assistance. He surmised that an investment of two hundred pounds would probably save the paper.31 The minute books of meetings of the directors of the Sinn Féin Publishing Company contain a record of the weekly distribution figures between September 1909 and February 1911. Four outlets for circulation were listed: Easons, the book sellers and main distributors of newspapers and magazines; agents; general sales; and vouchers and subscriptions. The methods of distribution are also listed for May 1911 to February 1912, although the actual figures for that period are not provided. Until 21 November 1909, a combined figure for the weekly and the daily was provided. This figure had declined almost consistently once the daily began production in the final week of August 1909 and can be directly attributed to that newspaper’s failure. When separate figures for both of the Sinn Féin publications are provided, it can be seen that about 3,500 copies of the weekly were distributed, with varying figures within the region of 30,000 for the daily. Once the daily was wound-up, the figure for the weekly, as could be expected, immediately doubled. Having slipped below 6,000 by April 1910, however, circulation figures gradually declined so that by September 1909, fewer than 5,000 copies were being distributed. Despite the obvious decline in circulation of the weekly, hand-to-hand passing between family, friends and neighbours would almost certainly have meant a higher readership than the recorded figures suggest. In the nineteenth century, readership had been boosted through availability in reading rooms, as well as through the practice of reading aloud. By the 1890s, the former was being surpassed in the towns by reading in homes, but the latter would still have been important.32 The percentage of those who could neither read nor write had been reduced to 14 per cent by 1901 from the pre-famine figure of 53 per cent. This growth in literacy prompted newspapers to respond to the needs and interests of an increased readership.33 Griffith was more than just a theorist and Sinn Féin was written in a manner accessible to the ordinary reader. While at all times promoting his political, economic and cultural views, it was done in a way that had an appeal to the family. The weekly newspaper, for example, carried information about Irish fashion for women, and imported styles were regularly criticised. There was also a children’s column centred on Buidehean na hEireann, a club or brigade, led by ‘Oisin’, open to all Irish children, or those of Irish descent, both within and outside Ireland. Each week, the names of new members were printed in the column. Children were encouraged to write to the newspaper in Irish, or at the

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 191

28/07/2011 11:24:06

192

Irish journalism before independence

very least sign their name in the Gaelic format. In keeping with Griffith’s protectionist policy, young correspondents were also requested to use only Irish sourced notepaper. This was evidently taken seriously: a reply to one child’s letter pointed out that his notepaper was ‘certainly not of Irish manufacture’.34 That ‘Oisin’ received communications from children outside Ireland – Aíne Ní Gruagáin of Greenock in Scotland, for example, wrote requesting membership35 – indicated that the newspaper was not completely Dublin-centred. Griffith’s invention of Buidhean na hEireann was astute; the column gave a voice to those generally disregarded by other newspapers. The Brigade gave Irish children a club to belong to, thus giving them a sense of identity. Griffith conceivably viewed those children as the future adults and supporters of the Sinn Féin movement. The growth of the Sinn Féin party had been slow and it reached its peak in 1909, with about 128 branches in the country, before declining rapidly.36 Membership was small in number and pre-dominantly Dublin-centred. Griffith’s newspaper was, therefore, an even more important medium for spreading Sinn Féin views. Indeed, as Alvin Jackson has pointed out, between 1912 and 1915, the almost dormant party was kept alive only through Griffith’s considerable propaganda skills.37 Undoubtedly, the influence of Griffith’s writings was disproportionate to the size of the Sinn Féin movement and the sales of the Sinn Féin newspaper. This was acknowledged by the journalist, republican and contributor to the newspaper, Sydney Czira: The influence of Griffith’s paper was much greater than that of the Sinn Féin organisation, so that in many places where there was not a single branch of Sinn Féin in the years leading up to 1916, there was strong Sinn Féin sentiment, which had emanated from some local reader of the paper, or some personal friend of Griffith.38 The weekly Sinn Féin newspaper was not intended to be a rival to The Irish Times or even the Freeman’s Journal – the organ of the Irish Parliamentary Party – but it did seek to counteract a press in Ireland, which it condemned for being ‘ready to assist an English party in plundering Ireland by deliberately misleading the people’.39 There existed within the provincial press newspapers that had broad Sinn Féin sympathies. Among them were the Westmeath Independent, The Republic and The Shield, while papers such as the Champion, the Killarney Echo, the Galway Express, Meath Chronicle and the Leinster Leader printed Sinn Féin notices.40 These publications were not serious rivals to Sinn Féin, but they may have served to pique interest in the movement. Within the advanced nationalist press, however, there were formidable competitors, notably W. P. Ryan’s Irish Peasant and the IRB’s Irish Freedom.41 Like most niche publications, Sinn Féin was established with a

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 192

28/07/2011 11:24:06

Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin

193

particular agenda and, as such, offered incisive analysis. Consequently its tone contrasted significantly with that of both the national and regional newspapers of the day, in which commentary was usually reserved for the editorials. At election times, for example, their columns were filled with texts of speeches, and investigative journalism only really emerged in the mainstream Irish media later in the twentieth century. The most revealing aspect of Griffith’s writings in Sinn Féin was his growing disillusionment with what he perceived to be the political and cultural inadequacies of his time, and he was unapologetic in his convictions. Redmond was the main target of his acid pen. In his criticisms of Home Rule, Griffith appeared to have more in common with the Unionists, who were launching their own challenge against the settlement. His support for the Irish Volunteers’ Howth gun-running exercise contradicted his policy of passive resistance. An Irish-Ireland agenda was advanced in Sinn Féin, but his criticisms of W. B. Yeats showed that Griffith took a narrow view on its meaning. He also clashed with Jim Larkin and James Connolly over the 1913 strike which he considered an unfortunate distraction from the nationalist cause. While he believed that people had the right to strike, he did not advocate such a course of action, as the consequences had the potential to undermine nationalist unity – essentially, the nation came before the individual. Although he had a much better rapport with Connolly, Larkin believed Griffith ‘knows as much about politics as he does the Irish worker, which is nothing’.42 Griffith considered elections and political activity distractions from his true vocation.43 Nevertheless when a disillusioned Charles Dolan resigned from the Irish Parliamentary Party to force a by-election, held in North Leitrim in February 1908, he contested on the Sinn Féin ticket. Griffith was initially opposed to the party entering the fray, but the chance of victory with Dolan seeking to retain his seat, albeit under new colours, was not be ignored. In the pages of Sinn Féin, Griffith wrote ‘to the men of Leitrim’ throughout the campaign, and a special edition of the paper was also produced. However, the IPP triumphed. Although Griffith had greatly admired Charles Stewart Parnell – describing him as ‘the greatest political leader since Shane O’Neill’44 – for Redmond, he had nothing other than contempt. He deemed the Liberal alliance to be futile and reserved the terms ‘incompetent politicians’ and ‘political imbeciles’ for members of the Irish Parliamentary Party.45 Redmond considered the terms of the Third Home Rule bill to be ‘an honest and generous attempt to settle the long and disastrous quarrel between the British and Irish nations’, and even declared its terms to be ‘better for Ireland than repeal of the Union’.46 Griffith, however, unleashed a torrent of criticism in the pages of Sinn Féin, and his thoughts were subsequently collected into the pamphlet, The Third Home Rule Bill Examined. Although Griffith opposed the terms on different

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 193

28/07/2011 11:24:06

194

Irish journalism before independence

grounds to the unionists, his criticism of the settlement left him closer to Edward Carson than to Redmond. While he felt that unionist opposition was ‘regrettable’, he did not deny their right to oppose Home Rule. With the birth of the Ulster Volunteers and, in response, of the Irish Volunteers, a gradual shift from constitutional agitation to physical force was manifesting itself. Griffith’s policy of passive resistance seemed outdated. Despite his views, however, he enthusiastically supported the Irish Volunteers and even engaged in the Howth gun-running exercise. It was recorded ‘with pride’ in Sinn Féin how the unarmed Volunteers, when faced with armed British soldiers, retained the guns they landed.47 The event provides an excellent example of how Griffith could modify his views as the situation demanded. Overall, a strong Irish-Ireland agenda was advanced in Sinn Féin. In 1913, the newspaper declared that ‘the future Ireland can only be an Ireland reuniting itself with its Gaelic past’.48 Poems such as Come Ye Home, Ye Wild Geese and The Mourner – which told the story of a woman burying her husband, a famine victim – recounted events in Irish history that shaped Griffith’s view of the present. Sinn Féin, with its poetry, laments and Irish tales played an important role in reuniting the past with the present. Although he admired W. B. Yeats, Griffith’s criticisms of him showed that he took a narrow view on the meaning of Irish-Ireland. A front-page article in February 1910 claimed that Yeats had ceased to promote cultural nationalism and had instead become concerned with English literary art: he had shifted from the being ‘the first of our lyric poets’ to ‘an artist in English’.49 Despite Griffith’s criticisms, his definition of Irish-Ireland was not as restrictive as that of D. P. Moran, the editor of the Leader, who focused his brand of cultural nationalism on Catholicism. Pearse deemed Griffith to be ‘too hard, too obstinate, too intolerant, too headstrong’.50 Indeed, this mentality was often reflected in his writings. He had a precarious relationship with the Gaelic League, the first meeting of which he had attended. By the time that Douglas Hyde established the League in 1893, with minor exceptions, the language was in a serious state of decline. Writing in Sinn Féin, Griffith believed that the League had not done enough to protect and foster the growth of the Irish language. In one article, the League was described as ‘the sword and shield of the language movement’, but the piece was not intended to be flattering. ‘The sword’, the newspaper claimed, had not been ‘out of the scabbard for some time and the shield had failed to protect the Irish speaking nation’.51 Griffith attempted to make his own contribution to the movement for revival. Sinn Féin initially carried ‘How to learn Irish’, a section which contained useful phrases. In 1911, the format changed – ‘Irish made easy for all’ offered instructions on how to read, write and, most importantly, pronounce the language. Central to building a separate Irish identity was the promotion of

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 194

28/07/2011 11:24:07

Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin

195

domestic industry. In 1910 Griffith expressed the view that ‘if Irishmen studied economics as the people of other countries do in the right of their own interests, all Ireland would be vehemently protectionist’.52 Local companies, such as Elliot’s Irish Poplin, advertised their goods in Sinn Féin, while advertisements from foreign manufacturers were declined.53 Griffith’s writings not only reflected public debate, but also shaped it. Through the pages of Sinn Féin he helped foster a spirit of national self-reliance. However, as Richard Davis has noted, Griffith was ‘a propagandist, not an objective student of economic theory’.54 The views which he expressed in Sinn Féin were influential, but theory and reality were to collide with the birth of the Free State. Although W. T. Cosgrave, president of the Executive Council, explained that his government’s policy was ‘frankly protectionist’, he also stated that it had ‘no intention of imposing indiscriminate tariffs’.55 But some cabinet members, most notably J. J. Walsh, remained convinced of the merits of protectionism and, feeling that Griffith’s economic teachings were being ignored, resigned in protest.56

Conclusion That Sinn Féin survived for almost eight and a half years, despite considerable financial difficulty, is remarkable in itself. Throughout this period niche publications typically appeared for only a few months before disappearing, while new titles emerged just as quickly. Suppression was also something with which all radical publications were faced, and this was heightened with the outbreak of World War I. Anti-war propaganda was a major theme in the advanced nationalist press, of which twelve titles – including Sinn Féin – circulated nationally.57 Augustine Birrell outlined to the British cabinet, the existence of seditious publications in Ireland – Sinn Féin was deemed outrageous, as was the Irish Volunteer, while the content of the Irish Worker was considered treasonous; John MacDermott and Bulmer Hobson’s Irish Freedom was believed to be financed through imported money.58 Both Sinn Féin and Éire – Griffith’s other publication at the time – were among those newspapers listed in the Gazette on 28 November 1914 whose editors were warned against printing articles of a seditious nature under official regulations.59 Griffith rejected the accusation that the nationalist press was pro-German, arguing that ‘we have not yet heard of any Nationalist journal which has called for the annexation of Ireland by Germany’.60 Despite his protestations, the final edition of Sinn Féin was published on 17 October 1914. In 1915, less than one year after the suppression of Sinn Féin, Griffith headed a list of the best-known nationalists in Dublin in a newspaper survey.61 That he dedicated his working life to active journalism remains a fact overshadowed, however, by the prominent role he played in 1918–22

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 195

28/07/2011 11:24:07

196

Irish journalism before independence

period in determining the form that Irish independence would take. His journalistic activity as writer, editor and publisher was largely focused on in obituary notices and summaries of his career.62 A notable exception was a tribute from Padraic Colum on the front page of the Sunday Independent. Deeming Griffith to be a ‘great political journalist’, he suggested that ‘since the days of John Mitchel no journalist in Ireland has written with such an iron pen’.63 Griffith’s importance as a propagandist had been reflected in the fact that his request to join the fighting in Easter 1916 was declined on the basis that he would be more useful on the outside working with his pen. Sean Ghall commented on Griffith’s publications that ‘in the newspaper sense they were never “popular”’.64 Although Sinn Féin’s readership was but a fraction of that of the Freeman’s Journal, the criticisms in the columns of Griffith’s newspaper represented those of a small, discontented group. The events of 1916 came as a shock to most in both Britain and Ireland, but, as John Horgan has noted, informed observers would have identified rumblings of discontent, most evident in the media where new periodicals had been appearing since the late 1890s. These publications carried the common conviction that ‘good government was no substitute for self-government’.65 Griffith’s Sinn Féin was among them, declaring in its pages that the movement was ‘prepared to lead the country by other and effective methods [contrasting with those of the Irish Party] to the attainment of self-government’.66 While it is not possible to clearly measure the influence of Griffith’s longest running newspaper, one can be reasonably certain that the weekly Sinn Féin helped keep alive Sinn Féin ideas at a time when the movement was particularly weak. It was part of a broader community of publications – newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets – through which republican ideology developed. Griffith’s growing disillusionment – as evidenced in the pages of his weekly and, for a short time, his daily – presaged what was to come firstly from a minority in 1916, and subsequently from the majority of nationalist Ireland in the independence struggle that followed. Many of the ideas that he advocated, not just in Sinn Féin, but in his other newspapers, remained influential long after the newspapers ceased publication: his advocacy of abstention from the British parliament was implemented by those Sinn Féin MPs elected at the 1918 general election; his policy of economic protection was debated at the cabinet table by his successors in independent Ireland. W. T. Cosgrave, Griffith’s original biographer for the Dictionary of National Biography, noted how ‘the power of his articles was quickly recognised’,67 but it was Seán Ó Lúing who best summed up the influence of Arthur Griffith the journalist: ‘by the power of his writings [he] shaped and set in motion many of the forces that created the Irish revolution’.68

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 196

28/07/2011 11:24:07

Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin

197

Notes 1 I would like to thank Dr John Bowman for his comments on this chapter. 2 L. Ó Bróin, The Chief Secretary: Augustine Birrell in Ireland (London: Chatto & Windus, 1969), p. 120. 3 M. Hay, Bulmer Hobson and the Nationalist Movement in Twentieth Century Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), p. 67. 4 V. Glandon, Arthur Griffith and the Advanced Nationalist Press: Ireland, 1900–1922 (New York: Peter Lang, 1985), p. 66 fn. 16. 5 M. Laffan, ‘Arthur Griffith’, Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 278. 6 For example, Brian Maye’s 1997 biography Arthur Griffith (Dublin: Griffith College, 1997) includes a chapter ‘Journalist and Acolyte’ although it mostly contains reproduced extracts of Griffith’s writings rather than any in-depth analysis of his skills or influence. James Stephens in Arthur Griffith: Journalist and Statesman (Dublin: Wilson Hartnell, 1922) makes reference to the problems of running a niche publication and the demands which that placed on Griffith, but the work is a very brief introduction and is intended more as a personal recollection. 7 Hay, p. 77. 8 P. Colum, Irish Elegies (Dublin: Dolmen, 1976), p. 18. 9 R. Davis, Arthur Griffith (Dundalk: Irish Historical Association, 1976), p. 5. 10 S. Ó Lúing, ‘Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin’, in F. X. Martin (ed.), Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising: Dublin 1916 (London: Methuen, 1967), p. 58. 11 J. Stephens, Arthur Griffith: Journalist and Statesman (Dublin: Wilson, Hartnell & Co., 1929), p. 19. 12 O. St John Gogarty, ‘The Passing of Arthur Griffith’, in Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins (Dublin: Dollard, 1922), p. 52. 13 Sean Ghall, ‘Arthur Griffith’, in Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins (Dublin: Dollard, 1922) p. 11. 14 Ó Lúing, p. 56. 15 Ibid., p. 56. 16 Glandon, p. 148. 17 Ó Bróin, p. 122. 18 Laffan, p. 278. 19 19 June 1922, Newspaper sub-committee minutes, P39/Min/1, Cumann na nGaedheal Minute Books, University College Dublin Archives (hereafter UCDA). 20 11 and 23 April 1906, Minutes of Meetings of Directors of Sinn Féin Publishing Company, Ms 2318, Sinn Féin Printing Company, National Library of Ireland (hereafter NLI). 21 Glandon, p. 67. 22 Ibid., p. 45. 23 R. Davis, Arthur Griffith and Non-Violent Sinn Féin (Dublin: Anvil Books, 1974), p. 60.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 197

28/07/2011 11:24:07

198

Irish journalism before independence

24 M. Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 30–1. 25 Griffith to Patrick McManus, 13 June 1912, quoted in R. Geraghty, ‘Arthur Griffith and Patrick McManus’, Irish Migration Studies in Latin America, 7: 1 (2009), p. 28. 26 2 June 1909, Minutes of Meetings of Directors of Sinn Féin Publishing Company, Ms 2318, Sinn Féin Printing Company, NLI. 27 Trading accounts for the Sinn Féin Printing and Publishing Company, 1907, Ms 21750, NLI. 28 J. Combs, The language of nationalist ideology: a content analysis of Irish nationalist publications, 1906–1914 (Unpublished MA thesis: University of Houston, 1969), p. 27. 29 Griffith to Patrick McManus, 13 June 1912, quoted in Geraghty, p. 28. 30 L. Ó Bróin, Revolutionary Underground: The Story of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858–1924 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1976), p. 151. 31 Geraghty, p. 24. 32 M. L. Legg, Newspapers and Nationalism: The Irish Provincial Press, 1850–1892 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999), p. 175. 33 D. McCartney, ‘William Martin Murphy: An Irish Press Baron and the Rise of the Popular Press’, in B. Farrell (ed.), Communications and Community in Ireland (Dublin: Mercier Press, 1984), p. 30. 34 Sinn Féin, 9 April 1910. 35 Ibid. 36 Laffan, 1999, p. 30. 37 A. Jackson, Home Rule: an Irish History, 1800-2000 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), p. 176. 38 S. Czira, The Years Flew By: The Recollections of Madame Sydney Czira (Dublin: Arlen House, 1974), p. 30. 39 Sinn Féin, 19 March 1910. 40 For a full list of newspapers and their editorial policy during the period 1900 to 1922, see the appendix to Glandon, pp. 252–340. 41 F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine (London: Fontana Press, 1985), p. 258. 42 Cited in Glandon, p. 18. 43 Laffan, 1999, p. 27. 44 Sinn Féin, 15 January 1910. 45 Sinn Féin, 15 January 1910. 46 Freeman’s Journal, 24 April 1912. 47 Sinn Féin, 1 August 1914. 48 Sinn Féin, 1 March 1913. 49 Sinn Féin, 26 February 1910. 50 Davis (1976), p. 42. 51 Sinn Féin, 22 June 1912. 52 Sinn Féin, 12 March 1910. 53 Elliot’s was one of four established firms engaged in poplin making. See M. Campion, ‘An Old Dublin Industry: Poplin’, Dublin Historical Record, 19: 1 (1963), pp. 2–15.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 198

28/07/2011 11:24:08

Arthur Griffith and Sinn Féin

199

54 Davis (1974), p. 127. 55 Cork Examiner, 8 September 1927. 56 See C. Meehan, The Cosgrave Party: A History of Cumann na nGaedheal, 1923–1933 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2010), pp. 128–36. 57 D. Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland 1900–2000 (London: Profile Books, 2005), p. 137. 58 Ó Bróin, The Chief Secretary, p. 120. 59 Glandon, p. 147. 60 Sinn Féin, 28 November 1914. 61 Davis (1976), p. 18. 62 New York Times, 13 August 1922; Irish Times, 14 August 1922. 63 Sunday Independent, 13 August 1922. 64 Ghall, ‘Arthur Griffith’, p. 11. 65 J. Horgan, Irish Media: A Critical History since 1922 (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 1. 66 Sinn Féin, 16 March 1912. 67 W. T. Cosgrave, ‘Arthur Griffith’, Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937). 68 Ó Lúing, p. 55.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 199

28/07/2011 11:24:08

15

From the ‘Freeman’s General’ to the ‘dully expressed’: James Joyce and journalism Terence Killeen

Joyce as a journalist After a series of his articles had appeared in the Triestine newspaper Il Piccolo della Sera on Irish political topics in 1907 James Joyce modestly remarked to his brother, Stanislaus ‘I may not be the Jesus Christ I once fondly imagined myself, but I think I have a talent for journalism.’1 Joyce’s most important journalistic work was indeed carried out in Trieste: before that he had published a lengthy review of Henrik Ibsen’s play When We Dead Awaken in the Fortnightly Review on 1 April 1900, the pamphlet The Day of the Rabblement in 1901, an essay on James Clarence Mangan in the University College Dublin magazine St Stephen’s in May 1902, another Ibsen review in the English journal The Speaker in March 1903, an interview with a French racing car driver in The Irish Times on 7 April 1903, and most importantly, a series of book reviews in the Daily Express between December 1902 and November 1903. The Dublin-based Daily Express – no relation to the British newspaper of the same name – was a broadly unionist newspaper that, nonetheless was open to Irish cultural nationalism, a pretty impossible balancing act. It ceased publication, perhaps significantly, in 1921. In an interesting parallel between life and art, Gabriel Conroy in The Dead, also reviews books for the Daily Express, an activity for which he is derided by the nationalist Miss Ivors, in that story, as a ‘West Briton’. It is unlikely, to say the least, that the paper’s politics influenced Joyce’s attitude as a reviewer in the slightest. Many of the reviews Joyce wrote are fairly perfunctory exercises, but some are important as expressions of the artist’s attitudes and aesthetic at the time. The most notorious and intriguing is that of Lady Gregory’s Poets and Dreamers, which appeared on 26 March 1903. Gregory had actually helped obtain the reviewing position for Joyce – a much-needed boost for his

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 200

28/07/2011 11:24:08

James Joyce and journalism

201

income – and characteristically enough he responded by penning a hostile critique of her book, deploring its portrayal of ‘a land almost fabulous in its sorrow and senility.’2 In general, these reviews, while uninspired, do at least testify to a coherent intellectual position. As the Gregory example clearly shows, nothing in them can be read as a betrayal or a compromising of the stances that Joyce had already enunciated in the earlier pamphlet, The Day of the Rabblement, or lectures such as Drama and Life. The Joyce of these early reviews is recognisably the same person as the author of these contemporaneous works. The very first review, ‘An Irish Poet’, is consistent with all we know of the Joyce of those years in its refusal to accept noble or popular motives, such as nationalism, or tragic circumstances (the poet in question, William Rooney, died very young) as an excuse for bad art. One other possible foray by Joyce into journalism should also be noted: an unsigned editorial in the Freeman’s Journal of 10 September 1912 entitled, ‘Politics and Cattle Disease’. Joyce’s authorship of this piece, which is included in both collections of his occasional prose, has recently been questioned.3 Matthews argues that the attribution to Joyce was due to a misunderstanding of, and possibly in, a letter from Joyce’s brother Charles to his other brother Stanislaus. Joyce may however have written a sub-editorial on foot-and-mouth disease in the same paper on 6 September 1912. It must be said that Matthews makes a very convincing case, highlighting once again the importance of checking primary sources. Joyce began writing for Il Piccolo della Sera in 1907 at the invitation of its editor, Roberto Prezioso. Trieste at the time was part of the AustroHungarian empire, but harboured a strong Irredentist (Italian nationalist) element. Prezioso recognised the parallels with Ireland’s situation and it was on this basis that he asked Joyce to contribute to the newspaper on Irish topics. Joyce was happy to do so; contrary to the impression sometimes conveyed, he had no problem giving his views on Irish matters at this time. The position of extreme reticence about such issues – the detachment of the artist – is a later manifestation. The first article, ‘Fenianism’, appeared on 22 March 1907. In all, Joyce wrote nine articles for Il Piccolo, the last being ‘The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran’, which appeared on 12 September 1912. Two of the nine concern Irish writers – Wilde and Shaw. The Shaw piece is a review of the first performance of The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, which Joyce attended in Dublin in 1909. Two more articles relate to Joyce’s trip to the west of Ireland in August/September 1912 – a destination obviously sufficiently exotic to merit special reports in an Italian newspaper of the day, though the second article, ‘The Mirage of the Fisherman of Aran’, goes well beyond travelogue. The remaining pieces concern Irish politics, and are Joyce’s most direct and unmediated expression of political opinion. Some of the opinion is unsurprising: the admiration, almost worship, of Charles Stewart Parnell

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 201

28/07/2011 11:24:08

202

Irish journalism before independence

(‘The Shade of Parnell’), combined of course with contempt for those who brought him down, the more general scorn for his own compatriots: ‘the Irish, even when they break the hearts of those who sacrifice their lives for their country, never fail to show a great reverence for the dead.’4 Despite these negative views of his native land, and despite the interesting contradictions involved in his stance, Joyce the Parnellite is supportive in these articles of such nationalist objectives as political independence and economic self-sufficiency.5 Commentary on Joyce’s Parnellism tends to stress the oppositional elements of this position: opposition to the Catholic Church and to the post-Parnellite political dispensation. It is less frequently observed that Parnellism also necessarily involves support for overall nationalist aspirations, even if, like Joyce, you place more stress on the contrarian aspects. Consistent with this attitude – though perhaps surprising to some – is the rejection of parliamentary methods of attaining these national goals: the contempt for the mirage of the “Home Rule comet” which constantly flared across the night sky only as constantly to disappear again.6 A Parnellite such as Joyce – and his father – might well feel that after the death of the Chief such methods had been exhausted. In tandem with this attitude goes a consistent support for the position of Arthur Griffith’s newly emergent Sinn Féin party. Joyce endorses the separatist principles that underlie the Sinn Féin policy, independent Irish consulates and trade development, for example. It is also likely that Sinn Féin’s then policy of non-violence appealed to Joyce; the ‘Fenianism’ article makes clear his belief that violent methods have no place in twentieth century Ireland – a belief that was, of course, to be proven wrong. More unforeseeable is the article ‘Ireland at the Bar’ from 16 September 1907 where Joyce takes up the most explicitly nationalist position of all the articles. In it he uses the trial many years earlier of an old Connemara man, Myles Joyce, for the Maamtrasna murders, a trial in which the old man, who knew only Irish, was unable to testify in his own voice, as a figure for Ireland at the bar of world opinion, with no voice of its own to speak for it. It is important to note, however, that this article was a response to British press reports of agrarian outrages in Ireland and of rioting in Belfast around that time. Joyce becomes far more supportive of his native land when others attack it. And this leads to a further important and pertinent observation about these articles in general: they are indeed works of journalism, not philosophy and not political theory. Joyce remains true in these pieces to certain general principles but this does not necessarily imply consistency in particular instances. Journalism is of its nature tied to its occasion, its period, and should not be pressed too hard beyond that occasion. The writer is indeed sincere and committed at the time of writing but circumstances and attitudes

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 202

28/07/2011 11:24:08

James Joyce and journalism

203

may change, without any breach of good faith being thereby involved. There is no reason why Joyce’s journalistic writing should be exempt from these general principles. Kevin Barry in his introduction to the Occasional, Critical and Political Writing rightly points out that in the earlier Daily Express reviews Joyce is far more emphatic both in his rejection of national sentiment as an excuse for bad art and in his dismissal of the world of the Irish peasantry and the ‘folk’. In his very first Daily Express review, Joyce writes that the young poet William Rooney ‘might have written well if he had not suffered from one of those big words which make us so unhappy’ – a phrase that is recycled by Stephen Dedalus in the second episode of Ulysses.7 The phrase from the review was actually used by Arthur Griffith, publisher of Rooney’s volume, in an advertisement for it in which he supplied the ‘big word’ – patriotism. Griffith had certainly picked up the implications of Joyce’s stance. But in ‘Ireland at the Bar’, written only four years later but after momentous changes in Joyce’s life and circumstances, there is a very different attitude to national exacerbations. Similarly, Joyce’s Daily Express review of Lady Gregory’s Poets and Dreamers can justifiably be read as a rejection of the entire world of the Irish peasantry, ‘feeble and sleepy’, telling stories without ‘any satisfying imaginative wholeness’.8 But when, some years later, Joyce meets an actual peasant on the Aran Islands, a person who could fairly be considered a type, if not the type of his race, he is a far more complex character than that delineated in the Gregory review: ‘Under his apparent simplicity there is something sceptical, humorous, spectral.’9 One interesting factor in the difference between the Joyce of the Daily Express reviews and of the Piccolo articles is the difference between the two newspapers. The Daily Express, as we have seen, was broadly unionist in its attitude, while the Piccolo was Irredentist, therefore Italian nationalist. Joyce’s articles for the two journals reflect that difference, but it is too simplistic to suggest that the difference between the two papers’ politics caused the difference between Joyce’s attitudes. For one thing, there is more than enough vituperation about Ireland and the Irish in the Piccolo pieces to absolve them of any suspicion of excessive nationalist zeal; for another, although Prezioso probably engaged Joyce to write these pieces in the context of the analogy between Italian and Irish nationalism, the author of Ulysses was not the type to allow such an external factor to influence his views. The more fundamental difference between the Joyce of the Daily Express and the Joyce of Il Piccolo della Sera is that the younger Joyce was far more concerned to carve out his own aesthetic position than to adhere to any version of nationalist or patriotic ideals. The Joyce of those years was much closer to the Stephen Dedalus of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 203

28/07/2011 11:24:08

204

Irish journalism before independence

determined to fly by the nets of nationality, language and religion. The Joyce of the Trieste years was able to take a more detached, less extreme position on national issues, and to allow what I suspect was an always latent Parnellism to be given expression. Too much can be made of the positions espoused in these articles, and too much has been made of them in some recent publications that wish to enlist Joyce in the post-colonialist cause.10 These articles, and the lectures that Joyce gave in Trieste around the same time, are of considerable interest but are not necessarily fodder for the creation of a ‘political Joyce’. The political pieces were written within a narrow time-frame – from 1907 to 1912 – and they reflect Joyce’s feelings and views at that stage; they should not be taken out of their context or used to buttress positions that the writer might well no longer espouse. In fact, the watershed appears to be Joyce’s last visit to Ireland in 1912; the traumatic experience he had there in relation to the non-publication of Dubliners seems to have determined him on a course of purely artistic expression from thenceforward, a position to which he consistently adhered. This position is given clear and very moderate expression in a letter written in French in August 1918 to a Swiss journalist who had asked him for an article on Irish politics (my translation): I am truly flattered by the honour but I never write articles – not even literary articles not to speak of others. Moreover, the problem of my race is so complicated that one needs all the resources of a supple art to sketch it out – without resolving it. I am of the opinion that a personal pronouncement [on it] is no longer permitted to me. I am obliged to do it using the scenes and the personages of my poor invention.11 This eschewal of journalism as an outlet for his writing did not by any means entail an eschewal of it in his life as a writer. Joyce consistently showed a keen awareness of the importance of journalism in furthering his own career and interests. The exploitation of journalistic outlets began with his use of the Irish media in the row over the publication of Dubliners by Maunsel and Company in Dublin. In 1911 Joyce sent a long letter about the affair to all the Irish newspapers, though it was printed by only two, Sinn Féin on 2 September 1911 and the Northern Whig on 26 August 1911. Unfortunately, it had no effect on resolving the issue – in fact it may have made it even harder to resolve – but the move does show a keen awareness of the importance of publicity in advancing the career of a writer. He used the same tactic in relation to the pirating of Ulysses by the rogue publisher Samuel Roth in the United States: in this case an international protest was organised (signatories included Albert Einstein) and was issued with great fanfare to the international media on 2 February 1927, Joyce’s birthday. Once again Joyce had shown a Bloomian awareness of the importance of publicity in propagating a cause or a message.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 204

28/07/2011 11:24:09

James Joyce and journalism

205

But Joyce’s most intensive and extensive media campaign was not on his own behalf, but on that of the singer John Sullivan, whose cause he espoused with incredible fervour and tenacity from late 1929 to 1936. Especially in the early years of this endeavour, Joyce used all his international prestige, all his contacts and all his flair for publicity to advance Sullivan’s career. Once again Joyce penned a ‘challenge’ which appeared under Sullivan’s name in the French press, inviting rival tenors to a vocal showdown. Joyce sometimes liked to give the impression that he was above mere media matters, but his keen awareness of their importance in promoting his interests – he subscribed, for instance, to a press cuttings service – gives the lie to this position.

Journalism in Joyce’s Ulysses Several of the issues raised in the previous section of this chapter – the question of consistency in journalistic writing, the importance of journalism as a vehicle or medium in the modern world – are highly relevant when it comes to a consideration of the place of journalism in Joyce’s literary work. From the ‘Freeman’s General’ of the first story of Dubliners to the ‘dully expressed’ (Daily Express) of Finnegans Wake, journalism plays a major part in Joyce’s work. And of course the hero of Ulysses, Leopold Bloom, though not a journalist, is closely linked to that world, being a canvasser for advertisements to be placed in newspapers. Moreover, the term Joyce famously bestowed on the brothel district of Dublin in Ulysses, ‘Nighttown’, derives from journalism, being the word used in newspapers then (and still) for the reporters’ night shift. It does not follow that journalism is treated with any great respect in the course of the book. A representative example is the report of the Evening Telegraph of the funeral of Paddy Dignam in Ulysses, which includes the name of one person who wasn’t present and invents a name for another person who was, as well as rendering L. Bloom as L. Boom. Any lingering illusions as to the infallibility of newspapers are comprehensively demolished in this passage. The main manifestation of journalism in Joyce’s writing is of course the Aeolus episode (Episode 7) of Ulysses. This depiction of life in a newspaper office and printing works – ‘HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT’ – is largely based on personal experience.12 On a visit to Ireland in 1909, Joyce paid several visits to the offices of the Freeman’s Journal and Evening Telegraph in Abbey Street/Princes Street and obviously closely observed all that he saw there. He was friendly with the journalist Piaras Beaslai who subsequently detailed his recollections of Joyce’s visits.13 Almost all of the characters in the episode are based on real people. The Evening Telegraph editor, Myles Crawford, has his origin in Pat Meade, actually a sub-editor in 1904 but later in fact to become editor (Ulysses often anticipates subsequent developments in this way). Some characters

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 205

28/07/2011 11:24:09

206

Irish journalism before independence

appear under their actual historical names – the prime example is the works foreman (or caseroom overseer) Joseph Nannetti, who was indeed the caseroom overseer at this time as well as being MP for College Green, as the book also accurately states. In another instance of anticipation, Bloom forecasts that Nannetti will soon be Lord Mayor, a prophecy shortly to be fulfilled. Old Monks the dayfather and the printer Cuprani, also mentioned, are again real persons, though the spelling is in fact Caprani – not all these details are totally accurate. The very first character mentioned, Red Murray, is a historical figure, being indeed Joyce’s uncle. The ‘Brayden’ who enters the office and proceeds up the stairs is William Henry Brayden, editor of the Freeman’s Journal from 1892 to 1916. Of the others, ‘Professor McHugh’ is based on Hugh MacNeill, a rather dissolute and wandering scholar, who was still haunting the newsroom of the Irish Times many years later and was a brother of Eoin MacNeill, one of the organisers of the 1916 Rising. Lenehan, who also appears in the Dubliners story ‘Two Gallants’, and who writes for a sports journal called Sport, is based mainly on a sports journalist called Michael Hart, who appears to have shared both Lenehan’s taste for appalling puns and a well advertised, if limited, knowledge of French. Mr Dedalus is, of course, John Stanislaus Joyce, Joyce’s father. Minor characters such as Ruttledge, the cashier, and Davy Stephens, the street newspaper seller, are equally authentic (indeed, Stephens, the ‘king of the newsboys’, was something of a legend in his own right). This solidity and reality of the personages in the episode is matched by the solidity and the reality of the world depicted in it. The episode begins in the outer offices of the Freeman’s Journal and Evening Telegraph where Red Murray holds sway. Murray’s job, in this case cutting out and giving a copy of an advertisement to Bloom, sounds very like that of a typical counter clerk in the front office of a newspaper. Bloom then goes into the works department of the newspaper, and this again is very realistically described. Linotype machines had recently been installed in the offices of the Freeman’s Journal and the noise these made is strongly conveyed: ‘The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump.’14 Bloom’s exchange with the overseer Nannetti is very convincing in its curtness and brevity. These men did not stand on ceremony, to put it mildly: even people far more senior than Bloom would be lucky to snatch a few minutes’ dialogue, and their attention, once lost, was almost impossible to retrieve. The foreman’s sudden shout ‘Where’s what’s his name?’ is all too recognisable.15 Similarly, the editor’s ‘He can kiss my royal Irish arse’ is, although a bit extreme, not implausible either.16 The editor’s general behaviour, in fact, and that of some of the other figures in the episode, will seem bizarre only to those unfamiliar with the way newspapers are actually run and the kind of ‘characters’ who were involved in producing them, especially in former times.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 206

28/07/2011 11:24:09

James Joyce and journalism

207

This newspaper episode is, in fact, the one where most work is actually done in the course of the book. The world of Ulysses is almost notorious for the absence of work, as the term is normally understood: most people just stand around, drink and chat. Bloom does engage in some work, as here, though rather less than a full day’s. But the only ‘work environment’ fully depicted is that of the newspaper production area (unless one counts the brothel, and even there no actual ‘work’ seems to go on). So the world of the Freeman’s Journal does have a special status in that regard. Joyce shows considerable familiarity with the mechanics and terminology of newspaper production, some of the terms used being quite esoteric: ‘caseroom’ is the entire production area of the newspaper; ‘leaded’ refers to the extra spacing between letters used frequently in ads; ‘castingbox’ is the box used for taking casts for stereotyping; when the foreman ‘scribbled press’ on the copy that Joe Hynes gave him he is writing printing instructions on it for the typesetters; ‘typesetter’ is indeed the correct term for the printer who sets the type on the linotype machines.17 Similarly the term ‘subleader’ refers to a short editorial that goes beneath the main one.18 When Bloom proceeds from this area to the Evening Telegraph editor’s office the contrast could not be greater. We move from a world of fairly continuous work to a world where no work seems to get done whatever. What we have in this part of the newspaper is talk. We are in a verbal universe. Journalism is, of course, largely a world of words – it certainly was in 1904, when photographic journalism was in its infancy – and Joyce’s text reflects that situation. In the editor’s office, language is deployed in all its modes, from high rhetoric – the speeches of Bushe and Taylor – to low jokes – the humorous asides of Lenehan. This episode includes examples of all the figures of rhetoric from abbreviation to zeugma. However, the journalistic ambience of this episode is not just confined to its linguistic universe. It is characteristic of Joyce’s approach to any given subject that he does not just reflect on it – he reflects it, in its essence and in its form. In this case, he reflects the form of journalism, not just in the strong focus on the verbal, but in the actual shape of the “Aeolus” episode itself, most obviously in the newspaper-type ‘headlines’ that litter the text. These were a late addition, as a reader might suspect; Joyce went back over the episode and inserted them, in a move that brings the episode closer to the Modernist, experimental mode of the later portions of the book. These “headlines” have been given various names: ‘headline’, obviously, ‘captions’, sometimes, or ‘subheads’. Strictly speaking, and if we are to stay with the journalistic paradigm, they are called crossheads, lesser headlines that break up a long slab of text and let it breathe on the page.19 They are no longer much used, as journalism rarely features long pieces any more, but they were once a staple of newspaper page design. While there is clearly a strong element of parody and playfulness involved

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 207

28/07/2011 11:24:09

208

Irish journalism before independence

in the deployment of these crossheads – some stray very far from any imaginable newspaper practice – they do reflect a real journalistic practice: in their content, they trace a progress of sorts from a very formal, dignified style of headline to a more contemporary, rambunctious one, heavy on alliteration. An early one announces ‘WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOST RESPECTED DUBLIN BURGESS’, a sufficiently windy and wordy text to feature in a classical Victorian journal.20 The last crosshead reads in part: ‘DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS’.21 While it is difficult to imagine a headline quite like this appearing in a newspaper today, it does contain, in its alliteration and active verb structure, some of the elements of the art of present-day headline writing. Moreover, as the episode continues in the book, the headlines get progressively longer in relation to the text beneath them progressively shorter; this again mimics journalistic history, as can be seen currently in tabloid newspapers. In terms of form, the crossheads lead to a curious spacing of the text, making it both in appearance and in substance more disjunctive and discontinuous than it would otherwise be. This reinforces the already quite marked fissiparous quality of the text: it is full of comings and goings, of interruptions and non-sequiturs, that make it strangely confusing and puzzling to read. The episode is like a newspaper in that it consists of bite-sized chunks, separated by headlines, leaving, perhaps like a newspaper, a slightly ­unsatisfactory taste in the mouth afterwards. Journalism being the subject of this episode, this necessarily implies a certain perspective on it. Contrary to some suppositions, Ulysses is not without perspectives; a certain view of certain activities is implicit in many of the episodes, though of course not explicitly stated. The Homeric parallel for this episode is Odysseus’s encounter with the god of the winds, Aeolus, in Book 10 of The Odyssey. Aeolus is lord of an island, Aeolia, which floats unanchored in the ocean; he has six daughters, whom he has given to his six sons in marriage. He initially helps Odysseus by confining the contrary winds into a bag, thus enabling him to continue on his journey. However, when the bag is opened through the greed of Odysseus’s men, Aeolus refuses any further help, saying Odysseus is a man cursed by the gods. This Homeric background provides the terms for the view of journalism taken in this episode. There is first of all the floating island: this is expressly identified with ‘the Press’ in the Gilbert scheme of correspondences. The floating island is thus a figure for the inconsistency and changeability of the journalistic profession, its responsiveness to every wind that blows, its remarkable ability to change tack completely without ever even acknowledging it has done so. Bloom reflects on this tendency in the course of the episode: Myles Crawford began on the Independent. Funny the way these

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 208

28/07/2011 11:24:09

James Joyce and journalism

209

newspaper men veer about when they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same breath. Wouldn’t know which to believe. One story good till you hear the next. Go for one another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows over. Hail fellow well met the next moment.22 It is fitting therefore that the god of the winds should preside over this episode: apart from being a figure for the excesses of rhetoric, winds notoriously blow in all directions, as journalists are here seen to do. And on the level of action, the many literal comings and goings it contains mirror this situation. The wind god is suitably personified by the newspaper editor, Myles Crawford. He is described as having ‘a scarlet beaked face, crested by a comb of feathery hair’ which makes him sound like a cock on top of a weather vane.23 The other principal trait of journalism, as identified in this episode, is incest, based on King Aeolus’s family intermarriage. Incest is equated with journalism in the Gilbert schema. This trait is not manifested quite so explicitly as the preceding one, but it seems to refer to the smallness of the world of journalism, the tendency of everyone to know everyone else, the prevalence of rumour and hearsay throughout it. The ‘Aeolus’ episode gives the impression of an extraordinarily closed world; these people, who one would expect to be in close contact with public opinion, seem to operate in a void where they have no contact with anyone except each other. This is part of the reason why the episode would not be among the most popular of the book: the reader has something of the sense of being excluded, of looking in from outside at a closed world to which access is very difficult. On the other hand, there is a distinctive sense of camaraderie among the people in the episode; they are obviously enjoying one another’s company, they share certain characteristics, and I think Len Platt is right when he observes that Stephen Dedalus – the character based on Joyce himself in the book – is more at home in this company than he is among the intellectuals in the later library episode.24 All of this may imply a distinctly negative view of journalism in Joyce’s work, but that is by no means the full picture. Apart from the ‘official’ account of journalism in the ‘Aeolus’ episode, Ulysses teems with references to the popular press of the day and is thoroughly immersed in the world of print. Titbits features in the fourth episode, the Freeman’s Journal in the fifth, the sixth shows the journalist Hynes at work at the funeral of Paddy Dignam, to name but a few instances. Both the principal characters, Bloom and Stephen, have a connection with journalism, Bloom via his occupation, and Stephen because one of the few things he actually does during the day is endeavour to have a letter about foot and mouth disease published in the Evening Telegraph on behalf of his employer, Garret Deasy (an endeavour

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 209

28/07/2011 11:24:10

210

Irish journalism before independence

in which he succeeds, to his own surprise). A substantial part of the late ‘Eumaeus’ episode is devoted to a perusal by Bloom and Stephen of the Evening Telegraph to check on items of interest. All the main Dublin newspapers are mentioned, as well as such esoteric publications as the Irish Cyclist and the Irish Beekeeper. Ulysses is both a product and a manifestation of print culture; in the book, this print culture is set against a surviving oral culture, one which remains strong in Ireland and is often at odds with the newer print world that is supplanting it. Bloom is a highly developed product of a print world; some of the cost of that is manifested in the ‘Hades’ episode, when Bloom attempts to tell a story to his fellow passengers in a cab about a moneylender, Reuben J. Dodd. Bloom’s attempt to tell the story fails completely; it has to be completed in a few pithy phrases by another, more linguistically attuned, passenger. In this emblematic exchange, the clash between an oral and a print culture (and the mutual costs of both: Bloom’s companion is more linguistically expert, but Bloom’s range and scope of mind are much greater) is made manifest. Beyond this immersion in print culture, however, there is an even deeper relationship between Ulysses and journalism. Ulysses itself, taken as a whole, bears many resemblances to a newspaper. It is a report on the activities of a single day, 16 June 1904. It juxtaposes all kinds of different events, some tragic, some funny, some pathetic, in one all-embracing, multitudinous chronicle. It has some of the mechanical quality of newspaper production: as Declan Kiberd has noted, the crossheads of the ‘Aeolus’ episode seem to come from nowhere, are often arbitrary in their content, and bear little relation to the text beneath them (in this they resemble real newspaper headlines).25 The book – and this is even truer of Finnegans Wake – gives the impression that it is without an author, that no one person could have written it, given the complexity and variety of the materials exhibited. In this too it resembles a newspaper, which is of course at a fundamental level a mechanical, impersonal production. Things happen in Ulysses without any particular sense of hierarchy or priority: it is very hard to tell what is significant and what is not, or is less so. Sifting this material to determine its relative importance is a very demanding exercise. Is everything in Ulysses significant? Are some things more important than others? Are parts of it, indeed, not significant at all, but rather a mass of bric-a-brac, of objects without values or importance, the detritus of the filthy modern tide? Such questions agitate critical minds engaged in the exegesis of Joyce’s masterpiece. Similarly, newspapers, despite some attempts at rationalisation in layout, present one with a demanding exercise in sorting out the significant from the insignificant, the meaningful from the meaningless (there’s plenty of the latter); as is well known, the most

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 210

28/07/2011 11:24:10

James Joyce and journalism

211

important item of news on a given day could well be a small story tucked away at the bottom of page eight. Even beyond this analogy, however, there is a more profound relationship between Ulysses and journalism, one that Kiberd also develops. Joyce’s work embraces the newspaper world of 1904, takes it on board and makes it a vital strand in its own complex weave of textuality around its Dublin. There is none of the fastidious distaste that writers such as T. S. Eliot manifested when confronted by that quintessential manifestation of twentieth century culture, the popular press – or of the sheer anger that such a phenomenon aroused in an Ezra Pound. The book, despite its ‘official’ or programmatic line on journalism, constitutes far more of a celebration than a critique of a vital and energising force in modern culture.

Notes 1 R. Ellmann, James Joyce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 255. 2 K. Barry (ed.), James Joyce, Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 74. 3 T. Matthews, ‘An Emendation to the Joycean Canon: The Last Hurrah for “Politics and Cattle Disease”’, James Joyce Quarterly, 44: 3 (2007), pp. 441–55. 4 Barry, p. 141. 5 These contradictions are, however, to an extent those of the entire Irish nationalist movement itself, many of whose leading figures, even apart from Parnell himself, had a problematic relationship with the Catholic Church and with other aspects of Irish national life. 6 Barry, p. 155. 7 Ibid., p. 62. 8 Ibid., p. 74. 9 Ibid., p. 204. 10 E. Nolan, James Joyce and Nationalism (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 96ff and p. 120ff. V. Cheng, Joyce, Race and Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 11 S. Gilbert (ed.), Letters of James Joyce (London: Faber and Faber, 1957), p. 118. 12 H. W. Gabler (ed.), Ulysses (London: The Bodley Head, 1986), p. 98. 13 E. H. Mikhail (ed.), James Joyce: Interviews and Recollections (London: Macmillan, 1990). 14 Gabler, p. 98. 15 Ibid., p. 100. 16 Ibid., p. 121. 17 Ibid., pp. 98–101. 18 Ibid., p. 102. The explanation of it given in Don Gifford’s Ulysses Annotated (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, p. 133) is erroneous. 19 This identification of these features of the text of “Aeolus” was first made, as far as I am aware, by Stephen Donovan, in the James Joyce Quarterly, 40: 3 (2003),

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 211

28/07/2011 11:24:10

212

Irish journalism before independence

pp. 519–43. I can confirm, from my professional experience, the accuracy of Donovan’s identification in typographical terms. 20 Gabler, p. 98. 21 Ibid., p. 123. 22 Ibid., p. 103. 23 Ibid., p. 104. 24 L. Platt, ‘Pisgah Sights: The National Press and the Catholic Middle Class in “Aeolus”’, James Joyce Quarterly, 35: 4/36: 1 (1998), p. 735. 25 D. Kiberd, ‘Ulysses, Newspapers and Modernism’, in Irish Classics (London: Granta, 2000), p. 466.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 212

28/07/2011 11:24:10

16

Truce to Treaty: Irish journalists and the 1920–21 peace process Ian Kenneally

This chapter considers the role of Irish newspapers in the peace process which ended the War of Independence and led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921.1 With the exception of Michael Hopkinson’s The Irish War of Independence very little attention has focussed upon the peace process that got underway in the summer of 1920 and continued in a haphazard manner until the signing of the Treaty.2 While there has been increasing attention on the history and political impact of newspapers in Ireland during these years, the role of newspapers in the development of this peace process has so far gone unrecognised. It was, however, a process in which newspapers – and their owners and editors – played an important part. In explaining this role, the chapter will concentrate on the three most popular Irish daily newspapers at the time – the Freeman’s Journal, Irish Independent and The Irish Times.3 Not only did these newspapers have the highest daily sales but they were seen by politicians and commentators as representing particular political interests in Ireland. During the 1919 to 1921 period The Irish Times was viewed, by British newspapers and politicians, as the voice of southern unionism in Ireland while the Freeman’s Journal and Irish Independent were seen to be representative of nationalist Ireland. Indeed, from late 1919 British politicians and newspapers would come to view the Freeman’s Journal as practically an unofficial newspaper of the Sinn Féin party.

The Irish press in a time of war The press in Ireland had endured a traumatic time in 1919 and 1920 with newspapers recieving a series of legislative attacks from the authorities in Dublin Castle.4 The most obvious manifestation of this came in 1919 with the strict censorship which was enforced under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). Although this censorship was relaxed in Britain at the end

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 213

28/07/2011 11:24:10

214

Irish journalism before independence

of 1918, in Ireland the provisions were kept in place. The official censor continued to operate from Dublin Castle and newspapers were still required to submit copy for inspection before publication. The political motivation behind this censorship was a desire in Dublin Castle to see Sinn Féin and the Dáil kept off the pages of the Irish press. Consequently Irish newspapers were prevented from reporting on the main stories happening in Ireland and this censorship was bitterly resented by journalists working on national and local newspapers.5 The situation worsened in September 1919 when the the authorities in Dublin Castle abolished the post of censor. The decision was greeted by cynicism from the Irish press with newspaper editors deriding the fact that the censor may have gone but the restrictive regulations remained in place. A wave of newspaper suppressions swept the country.6 This was because the Irish Press now had no censor to guide them as to what would be deemed unacceptable to Dublin Castle. This confrontation continued into 1920 and was greatly exacerbated in August with the introduction of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (ROIA). This legislation replaced DORA and signalled the end of what remained of press freedom in Ireland as it allowed for the prosecution of newspapers for a wide range of imprecisely defined offences.7 Exacerbating the problems facing the Irish press was a series of violent attacks by different sections of the Crown forces against newspapers around Ireland. A regular target of these attacks was the Freeman’s Journal. The newspaper’s editorials had throughout 1919 and 1920 become much closer to the policies espoused by Dáil Éireann. Allied to this was an unremitting campaign of editorials and reports on both the political failings of the Dublin Castle regime and the actions of Crown forces in committing reprisals against the Irish population. There was retaliation for this commentary – staff at the newspaper were physically assaulted by Crown forces on more than one occasion while incendiary attacks were also launched on the newspaper’s offices by members of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). This combative reporting was influenced by a change of ownership at the Freeman’s Journal in October 1919 after the newspaper went into liquidation. The new proprietors, Martin Fitzgerald and R. Hamilton Edwards, kept the editor, Patrick Hooper, in his role but under their ownership the Freeman’s Journal immediately went on the offensive against British rule in Ireland. This process was helped by the fact that many of the newspaper staff were republican-minded journalists including well-known figures such as Seán Lester and Hugh Allen. These journalists were given far greater freedom by the new owners. Lester, who had become news editor, had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and also of the Gaelic League. Allen had been fired from his first reporting job as the lone Catholic reporter of the Belfast Telegraph for making a fiery speech at an election meeting of

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 214

28/07/2011 11:24:10

Truce to Treaty: the 1920–21 peace process

215

the Irish Parliamentary Party.8 Another reporter, Desmond Ryan, joined the newspaper in early 1920. Ryan had fought at the GPO in 1916 and had been later interned with other republican prisoners at Frongoch in Wales.9 While this new editorial strategy may be seen as an attempt to revive a flagging circulation there was undoubtedly an ideological reason behind the newspaper’s new course. Ryan later recalled that Fitzgerald hated the administration in Dublin Castle and ‘told his staff to go ahead and let the Castle know what he thought’.10 Ryan also described the typical manner in which the newspaper operated. Lester told him how to handle a story in which the newspaper had evidence of murder by the Crown forces – ‘let rip in the story and say out that it was murder’.11

Newspapers as peacemakers The Freeman’s Journal had made its own attempt to foster peace as early as August 1920 through one of its journalists, Jerry McVeagh. McVeagh was a close friend of William Wylie, a legal advisor to the Dublin Castle administration and Wylie urged McVeagh to use his influence within the Freeman’s Journal to put forward comprehensive proposals for a settlement.12 McVeagh had only recently joined the newspaper from the Daily Express – a Dublinbased evening paper which closed in 1920 – and he seems to have been of a similar mind to Martin Fitzgerald as regards the need for Ireland to obtain Home Rule. In July 1920, the Freeman’s Journal published an editorial and report which advocated a settlement involving ‘Dominion Home Rule based on the constitution which Canada won’. The newspaper’s editorial also called for the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, to declare a truce and set a meeting between ‘representatives of British control and an equal number of republicans as equals’.13 These articles were picked up by English newspapers, many of whom commented favourably on the Freeman’s proposals. The interest in Dominion Home Rule for Ireland was intensified a few days later by an Irish Times editorial which, in a similar manner to the Freeman’s Journal, called for Irish home rule. Once more, Wylie was a key figure in this development. The editorial had actually been written by Cecil Fforde, a member of the Irish Bar, counsel to Dublin Castle administration and a good friend of Wylie’s. According to Mark Sturgis – Assistant Under-Secretary in Dublin Castle – ‘Fforde wrote it mostly in Wylie’s room’.14 Wylie was also friendly with senior journalists in The Irish Times and Sturgis detailed in his diary how Wylie impressed upon these journalists the need for a settlement.15 Wylie found a receptive audience. During the summer of 1920 The Irish Times had expressed increasing dismay not only at the continuing violence but also at Britain’s proposed settlement, the Government of Ireland Bill. This legislation was almost universally loathed

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 215

28/07/2011 11:24:11

216

Irish journalism before independence

across Ireland and Britain, with the notable exception of Ulster Unionists and, as The Irish Times saw it, the choice had become ‘between any tolerable form of government and no government at all’. It was certain that ‘it will be no government at all if the present Home Rule Bill becomes law’.16 The acceptance of this attitude was confirmed by a resolution of the Council of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce in July 1920 which had called for ‘a measure of complete self government for Ireland’. The Chamber’s decision greatly influenced The Irish Times: ‘It is a startling resolution: two years ago – one year ago – it would have been impossible … and of the men who sign this demand the majority are Unionists.’17 The changing attitude can be gauged from a meeting in Dublin Castle at the end of July 1920 between John Healy, the editor of The Irish Times, Patrick Hooper of the Freeman’s Journal, Captain Harrington, the Secretary of the Dominion Home Rule Group and the Under Secretary, John Anderson. According to Anderson: ‘The Irish Times editor was most anxious: “He said the P.M.’s declaration and his martial law was hopeless and futile and the worst possible step. Only a big frank generous appeal could meet the situation now.”’18 The newspaper’s call for Dominion Home Rule for the whole island came a few days later.19 The editorial was, as Sturgis confided in his diary, ‘an amazing evidence of change that the premier Irish ‘Unionist’ paper should come out with it’.20 Sturgis was not alone in his shock at the new political course advocated by The Irish Times. The articles caused a sensation in English newspapers and they can be seen as an important moment in the increasing international press interest in Ireland. At Downing Street, Lloyd George was greatly intrigued by the articles in the Freeman’s Journal and The Irish Times. He was especially interested in those of the Freeman’s Journal which had called for Dominion Home Rule, perhaps as the newspaper was seen in Dublin Castle circles as synonymous with Sinn Féin.21 Indeed, McVeagh travelled to London and met with Lloyd George in Downing Street.22 It is not known whether McVeagh was travelling under his own auspices or those of the Freeman’s Journal. Nevertheless, his editor and the owners would in all likelihood have known of his journey. Despite a receptive atmosphere in the higher levels in Dublin Castle, peace moves at this stage were destined to come to nothing. Conservative cabinet members were still completely opposed to any form of Dominion Home Rule for Ireland and a steep escalation in the violence followed the passing into law of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act.23

The press and the Truce Martin Fitzgerald and his newspaper played a more productive role in the summer of 1921 as the Freeman’s Journal was heavily involved, as an intermediary, in the negotiations leading to the truce. While the violence

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 216

28/07/2011 11:24:11

Truce to Treaty: the 1920–21 peace process

217

in Ireland escalated, there had been a number of tentative but ultimately abortive peace initiatives during 1920 and 1921. Republicans had obsessively worked to prevent any negotiations or rumours of negotiations from being portrayed as a weakening of the will of Sinn Féin or the IRA to continue the war. They were not always successful. In November 1920, Wexford T.D. Roger Sweetman proposed an end to IRA violence as well as peace negotiations between the Dáil and the British Government.24 This was followed by the acting president of Sinn Féin, Father Michael O’Flanagan, sending a telegram to Lloyd George also proposing a peace conference.25 The telegram had no backing within Sinn Féin and came as a huge surprise to republicans. Although he was acting president of Sinn Féin, O’Flanagan’s influence was minimal. Understandably, the press picked up on the telegram and the Irish Independent reported that ‘the call for a truce in Ireland meets with more and more encouraging support’.26 The incident did force Michael Collins as acting president of Dáil Eireann (Eamon de Valera was still in the United States and Arthur Griffith had recently been arrested) into responding via the Irish newspapers. Collins wrote that, ‘At the present moment there is a very grave danger that the country may be stampeded on false promises and foolish ill-timed actions. We must stand up against that danger.’27 Other leading members of Sinn Féin also moved to dismiss O’Flanagan’s intervention as coming from someone acting without authority, and it became apparent to the press that there were no immediate prospects of a truce. But the leaking of the story to the newspapers did have some of the consequences that republicans feared. Although Lloyd George was intrigued by O’Flanagan’s telegram and Sweetman’s letter, the reaction within the British cabinet and the upper echelons of the British military was that the republicans were indeed desperate for peace.28 In a typical misreading of the situation the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Hamar Greenwood, told the Prime Minister that ‘The SF cause and organisation is breaking up … there is no need to hurry in settlement.’29 This was a hard lesson for republicans and, on his return from the United States at the end of 1920, de Valera was determined there would be no repeat of the fiasco that accompanied Flanagan’s telegram. In a letter to Erskine Childers in early 1921, he stressed that newspaper reports of peace and negotiations should be dismissed by the Department of Publicity.30 Nevertheless, despite the failure of this peace attempt and the reaction of the British Government, tentative contacts were maintained between the Dáil and the Dublin Castle administration and these would eventually result in the talks that led to the Truce. Given the belief in Dublin Castle that Martin Fitzgerald’s newspaper was a mouthpiece for Sinn Féin, it was no surprise that, when the administration sought to engage the newspapers in helping promote truce negotiations, they concentrated most of their efforts on the Freeman’s Journal. Most of this work was undertaken by Assistant Under-Secretary Andy Cope who had

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 217

28/07/2011 11:24:11

218

Irish journalism before independence

developed extensive contacts within republican circles, and it seems that staff in the Freeman’s Journal had greatly helped him in this regard.31 In May 1921 Cope met with the editors of the Freeman’s Journal, Irish Independent and The Irish Times. He also sent a representative to the Cork Examiner to meet with its editor, George Crosbie. Sturgis wrote of the outcome of these meetings: He [Cope] has, he says, had most hopeful interviews with ‘The Independent’ and ‘The Freeman’ and has arranged for ‘The Irish Times’ to be got at. He urged them on that ‘we’ have had nothing to do with this. We of course are ‘the failures’ – ‘this is the first big attempt of Irishmen to settle Irish affairs’ etc. Much the most likely line! He had a most interesting talk with Hooper, the editor of the ‘Freeman’ whom he found fully alive to the importance of settlement now and the danger of reaction and bitter hard hitting if this peace move comes to nothing.32 Within days the Freeman’s Journal, Irish Independent and The Irish Times published further calls for a truce. Fitzgerald, in a similar manner to Patrick Hooper, was desperate to capitalise on any hopes of peace. With this aim, he became an intermediary between the Dublin Castle administration and the Dáil, meeting on many occasions with Cope and Collins over subsequent weeks. Unfortunately, many of the details of these contacts are lost to history. Fitzgerald died of illness later in the 1920s while Cope refused to give a statement to the Bureau of Military History when they were being compiled in the 1950s. However, it is clear that many of these meetings between Cope and republican figures such as Collins took place at the offices of the Freeman’s Journal. Throughout this time the three main national dailies in Ireland pushed the case for a truce in their editorials while behind the scenes Fitzgerald continued to facilitate the peace developments. The role of the Freeman’s Journal was being paralleled in England where The Times of London and its editor Henry Wickham Steed were working to influence King George VI who was due to address the opening of the Northern Ireland parliament on 22 June 1921.33 The King’s speech at Belfast in which he called on Irishmen ‘to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment and good-will’ was an important moment in that it signalled that the British government was now serious about a truce.34 Events moved at great speed over the following weeks, and Fitzgerald was heavily involved. Sturgis met with Fitzgerald in early July and the newspaper owner informed the Assistant Under-Secretary that the outlook for peace was very hopeful: I was then taken and introduced to Martin Fitzgerald who says that the thing is going splendidly … he told us that there was an important

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 218

28/07/2011 11:24:11

Truce to Treaty: the 1920–21 peace process

219

meeting yesterday and will be another probably tomorrow, possibly at his place and that bar accidents the Monday Mansion House meeting will go off all right.35 By this stage Fitzgerald and the Freeman’s Journal staff were the most well informed of all Irish newspapers as to the nascent and clandestine peacemaking. On Wednesday 6 July 1921, as other Irish newspapers reflected despondently on reports that the truce negotiations were on the verge of breakdown, the Freeman’s Journal editorial advised the public not to panic.36 Sturgis felt that this may also have been ‘a direct word for Andy’.37 According to Sturgis, Cope had been in near panic on the Tuesday evening with fear that the negotiations were collapsing. In his attempt to keep the process moving, he had spent much of that evening with Fitzgerald at the Freeman’s offices. When the Truce was agreed on 9 July 1921 the Irish press across the political spectrum responded positively. The Freeman’s Journal, having played a role in creating this historic outcome, showed itself still to be very much aligned with Sinn Féin. It took its lead from ‘President de Valera’ and urged the Irish people to be disciplined and keep calm despite any provocations that might arise.38 The newspaper pledged its loyalty to the negotiators who would soon be heading to London for preliminary talks with Lloyd George: ‘Ireland’s four delegates are well chosen. Mr. de Valera, Mr. Griffith, Mr. Austin Stack and Mr. Burton represent at once the intelligence, the fighting spirit, and the self-sacrifice of Sinn Féin. What they put their hands to, the country will countersign.’39

The press and the Treaty In the months leading up to the signing of the Treaty, the Irish press was less a participant than it had been in the development of the Truce, the role of the press was now more of an observer. During this period newspapers such as the Freeman’s Journal took positions independent of official Sinn Féin policy. But even over the two previous years – when the newspaper had been an unequivocal critic of the British government – the Freeman’s Journal had not once called for a republic. This was less a question of ideology than of practicality. There is little doubt that Fitzgerald would have supported an Irish Republic if he thought that it was a possible outcome of the negotiations. However, he judged full Dominion Home Rule to be the most likely outcome and a highly acceptable one at that. This belief was echoed by the Irish Independent and regional newspapers across the country including the Cork Examiner. By way of contrast, The Irish Times was utterly opposed to a republic but it too believed that full Dominion Home Rule would result from the negotiations. The national dailies backed the appointment of the plenipotentiaries and there was a remarkable degree of editorial symmetry

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 219

28/07/2011 11:24:11

220

Irish journalism before independence

across the newspapers. A typical editorial from the Freeman’s Journal at this time read: ‘Let the plenipotentiaries know that the nation’s trust in them is complete, and that they will not merely be honoured with a nation’s acceptance, but backed by its full strength.’40 Almost identical sentiments were expressed in the editorials of The Irish Times, Irish Independent and Cork Examiner. There seems to have been little knowledge among the press about potential disagreements within Sinn Féin. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in London on 6 December 1921 it was greeted with delight by the Irish press with the exception of the Freeman’s Journal. For someone who was so closely linked to many of the higher echelons of Dáil Éireann it seems likely that Fitzgerald was aware of tensions, both within the group of plenipotentiaries and between the plenipotentiaries and the Dáil cabinet in Dublin. Consequently, while the newspaper had repeatedly stressed support for any deal that the plenipotentiaries may sign, there was a sense in its editorials and reports that ratification of any treaty signed by the plenipotentiaries could face difficulty in the Dáil. The editorials of the Irish Independent and The Irish Times seem naïve by comparison as both papers were certain that the Treaty was a done deal and that all that remained was endorsement by the Dáil. The Irish Independent editorialised: ‘Now that the Treaty has been signed by the Irish plenipotentiaries and accepted with satisfaction by the mass of the citizens, we expect that the pact will be ratified by the people’s representatives.’41 All this, the newspaper predicted, would be completed within months. However, as the split in Sinn Féin ranks emerged into public view, the editorial mood of the newspapers plummeted from the post-Treaty high point. The Freeman’s Journal immediately sided with the plenipotentiaries: This settlement we believe to be a fair one, and full of blessings for the Irish people … We all trusted the men who represented Ireland at the Conference. They have not forfeited that trust … We are satisfied that their great settlement, arrived at after mature deliberation by men of unquestionable patriotism, intelligence and prudence, will receive the required ratification. The people must stand by the men whom they commissioned as plenipotentiaries.42 The Irish Times expressed shock at hearing that ratification of the Treaty would not be a straightforward matter. In an editorial the newspaper argued three points: the Treaty was the best deal available to Ireland; that renewed war would be ruinous for the country; and failure to ratify the Treaty would turn world opinion, especially in America, totally against the Dáil.43 There was a remarkable similarity in the editorials across the national dailies and regional newspapers with many other newspapers echoing the points made by The Irish Times:

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 220

28/07/2011 11:24:11

Truce to Treaty: the 1920–21 peace process

221

Five Irish plenipotentiaries have signed a treaty of peace between this country and Great Britain. As skilful and patient negotiators they justified the faith which Nationalist Ireland placed in them. The treaty – if it is accepted – means an end of age-long strife, gives to an Irish Free State a place of profit and honour in the community of the Empire, and promises to close the ancient breach between North and South. The whole Nationalist press and, as we believe, the vast majority of Southern Irishmen have accepted it with joy. The loyalist minority are ready to put their faith in the good-will of which Arthur Griffith has assured them. Now Mr. DeValera steps between Ireland and her hopes.44 Interestingly, the issue of Northern Ireland was one of the more commonly stated reasons put forward in support of the Treaty by Irish newspapers. In many ways Irish unity was more of an issue for the press than it was in the Dáil. During the Dáil’s debates on the Treaty the most fractious issues were the parliamentary oath to the British Crown, the status of Ireland within the British Commonwealth and the exact powers of the plenipotentiaries who signed the Treaty. The Irish Times was especially emphatic in regard to Northern Ireland: Ulster will retain all her existing powers and privileges under the Government of Ireland Act; but her decision will involve a new delimitation of the Northern boundaries … If and when Belfast turns its face towards Dublin, the Treaty offers it a variety of safeguards for its fiscal and industrial interests and for the protection of minorities. At this stage we can say only- but we say it with sincere satisfaction – that at last the foundations of Irish unity have been laid.45 The Irish Times, along with the Freeman’s Journal and Irish Independent argued that all these manifold blessings were being denied to the country by the actions of de Valera and other intransigents. De Valera was now at the centre of a storm of press criticism. The President of the Dáil always had a keen skill for publicity and he had moved to pre-empt the newspaper attacks with a speech at Limerick on 7 December 1921: Because it had got the wrong background, – a residue of the outlook of the past decade preserved in the minds of proprietors and editors – the Irish daily Press did not truly reflect the feelings of the people … The present national movement has been created not by the Press, but almost in spite of it. The newspapers that were faithful to the aspirations of the people were suppressed by the enemy. Despite the hypnotism which enabled the editor to make his own personal views or the views of the proprietor to appear the views of the multitude, the hearts of the people were too sound, and it was this soundness of heart

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 221

28/07/2011 11:24:12

222

Irish journalism before independence

that gave them the national solidarity which had achieved the measure of success.46 De Valera’s argument on this occasion reflected views shared widely within Sinn Féin and while his statement was accurate in many regards (in 1919, for example, practically all the newspapers in Ireland were controlled by elements hostile to Sinn Féin) his comments ignored the bravery that many journalists had shown over the previous two years. He also dismissed the idea that the convergence of newspaper opinion on this issue accurately reflected public opinion. The study of press opinion is not the study of public opinion but it does seem very likely, from the sources available, that public opinion was strongly in support of the Treaty and that this support was more pronounced than the narrow majority held by the pro-Treaty section within the Dáil.47 In an ongoing effort to fight off the mounting pressure from the press de Valera moved, through Erskine Childers, to put his views on the Treaty into the public domain. Consequently, numerous statements from de Valera appeared in the newspapers throughout December 1921. These speeches had little impact on press opinion and within days of the signing of the Treaty The Irish Times, amongst others, was calling de Valera the head of the ‘extreme Republican element’ while the Freeman’s Journal accused him of betraying the plenipotentiaries and the country.48 This commentary became increasingly vicious over the rest of the month, especially once de Valera’s alternative to the Treaty, his Document no. 2, came into the public domain. The main difference between this document and the Treaty was de Valera’s concept of how Ireland would be associated with the British Commonwealth.49 Also, there would be no oath of allegiance to the British Crown. The stances adopted by the national dailies were almost indistinguishable from one another with the following editorial in the Freeman’s Journal indicative of the general tone. ‘Meanwhile the fruits of freedom are withheld from the nation … The scribes and the professors and the non-combatants say “No, you must die for the patented oath.”’50 The choice that de Valera had left the country with, the newspaper claimed, was ‘peace and freedom’ versus ‘war for a grammarian’s formula’.51 The mainstream Irish national papers had aligned themselves with business and church leaders in an alliance to support the Treaty. Their reasons for doing so were not only commercial and profit related. War-weariness and ideology also played a part. The Irish Independent was the most marketorientated of the national dailies yet there is little doubt that the newspaper genuinely considered the Treaty the best way forward, as it brought Home Rule and also removed the prospect of a renewed offensive by the British. The Freeman’s Journal had been the most open and consistent critics of the Dublin Castle administration over the previous two years. The paper transferred this idealism to supporting the Treaty and began a campaign

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 222

28/07/2011 11:24:12

Truce to Treaty: the 1920–21 peace process

223

against de Valera and the anti-Treaty groups that would become fanatical in its intensity. There is little doubt that Fitzgerald was the driving force behind this policy. The position of The Irish Times was also motivated by a combination of idealism and commercial reality. Indeed, since its conversion to Dominion Home Rule in August 1920 The Irish Times had become obsessed with the need for a peaceful settlement in Ireland. The newspaper recognised that the vast majority of the Irish population (outside of the six counties of what became Northern Ireland in December 1920) utterly rejected the British Government’s proposed settlement, the Government of Ireland Bill, and it regarded the Treaty as a means by which nationalist Ireland’s aspirations could be satisfied while keeping the new Free State firmly linked with Britain. There was nothing unusual in the press seeking to establish alliances with political interests in what the media historian Chandrika Kaul calls the ‘politics–press nexus’.52 As can be seen with the Freeman’s Journal, this was an era in which newspaper owners were to the fore. Although William Martin Murphy had died in early 1919, his son had taken control of the Independent business and declared that the newspaper would remain ‘nationalist in the broadest sense’.53 In practice this meant a closer alignment with Sinn Féin. This was repeated across Ireland. For example, the Cork Examiner began expressing an editorial line that was similar to the policies espoused by Sinn Féin. In some ways these decisions were undoubted attempts to maintain circulation figures. Most of the Irish press in 1918 was controlled by owners hostile to Sinn Féin. However, the rise of that party as a popular force, as signified by the decisive vote for Sinn Féin in the 1918 General Election, saw newspapers become less and less antagonistic towards the party in what may, perhaps, be seen as public opinion leading press opinion rather than following it. Sinn Féin had won the support of the majority of the electorate in 1918 but by the end of 1921 the pro-Treaty element of the party had the backing of the majority of the public. If the Irish newspapers were indeed following public opinion during this time, it is no surprise that they should seek to support the Treaty – for newspapers, commerce and ideology pointed in the same direction. The Irish press rejoiced in the Dáil’s ratification of the peace agreement in January 1922. This ratification allowed for the creation of a provisional government with Michael Collins as chairman. On 16 January 1922, Dublin Castle, the centre of British rule in Ireland was handed over to the fledgling Free State government. Over the following months and years, newspapers like the Freeman’s Journal, Irish Independent and The Irish Times doggedly supported this administration.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 223

28/07/2011 11:24:12

224

Irish journalism before independence

Notes 1 I would like to thank the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences for their support in the funding of my PhD studies at NUI Galway. 2 M. Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2002), pp. 177–91. 3 Those papers, along with the Cork Examiner, accounted for around half of daily newspaper sales in Ireland at this time. 4 For a detailed study of the environment in which the Irish press operated during 1919–21 see I. Kenneally, The Paper Wall: Newspapers and Propaganda in Ireland 1919–1921 (Cork: Collins Press, 2008). 5 See for example Freeman’s Journal, 5 April 1919. 6 See the Cork Examiner, 22 September 1919. The Cork Examiner was one of the papers suppressed. See also S. Briollay, Insurrection in Ireland (Dublin: Talbot Press, 1922). 7 Kenneally, pp. 89–91. 8 H. Oram, The Newspaper Book (Dublin: MO Books, 1983), pp. 13–136. 9 D. Ryan, Remembering Sion (London: Arthur Barker, 1934), pp. 256–81. 10 Ibid., p. 260. 11 Bureau of Military History, Dublin: Witness Statement 725, Desmond Ryan. 12 M. Hopkinson (ed.), The Last Days of Dublin Castle: The Diaries of Mark Sturgis (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1999), p. 15. 13 Freeman’s Journal, 27 July 1920. 14 Hopkinson (1999), p. 17. 15 Ibid., p. 15. 16 Irish Times, 14 July 1920. 17 Irish Times, 30 July 1920. 18 Colonial Office files 904/188 (483) note by John Anderson, held at the library in University College Cork. 19 Irish Times, 4 August 1920. 20 Hopkinson (1999), p. 16. 21 The newspaper was a constant source of interest and gossip for the Dublin Castle administration as can be seen in the diaries of Mark Sturgis and the Colonial Office files for Ireland. 22 T. Jones, Whitehall Diary, Volume 3: Ireland 1918–1925 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 34. 23 A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: Twelve Essays (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1971), pp. 151–2. The chapter is an essay by D. G. Boyce. Three cabinet members – Birkenhead, Long and Balfour – were especially hostile to the idea of any truce. 24 Irish Independent, 30 November 1920. 25 Irish Independent, 6 December 1920. 26 Ibid. 27 Irish Independent, 07 December 1920. 28 Hopkinson, p. 183. 29 Ibid., p. 183.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 224

28/07/2011 11:24:12

Truce to Treaty: the 1920–21 peace process

225

30 University College Dublin Archives P/150: de Valera to Director of Publicity, 23 March 1921. 31 Hopkinson (1999), p. 172. 32 Ibid., p. 203. 33 For an account of The Times and its role in Ireland during these years see Kenneally, pp. 147–65. 34 See A. Mitchell and P. O’Snodaigh, Irish Political Documents: 1916–1949 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1985), pp. 111–12. 35 Hopkinson (1999), p. 197. 36 Freeman’s Journal, 6 July 1921. 37 Hopkinson (1999), p. 200. 38 Freeman’s Journal, 12 July 1921. 39 Ibid. 40 Freeman’s Journal, 1 December 1921. 41 Irish Independent, 8 December 1921. 42 Freeman’s Journal, 9 December 1921. 43 Ibid. 44 The Irish Times, 9 December 1921. 45 The Irish Times, 7 December 1921. 46 Irish Independent, 8 December 1921. 47 The general election in June 1922 was effectively a referendum on the Treaty with candidates representing the pro-Treaty section of the Dáil securing a decisive advantage over their anti-Treaty opponents. The Irish Labour party and the Farmers’ Party, both of whom supported the Treaty, also polled well. 48 Freeman’s Journal, 12 December 1921. 49 Like the Treaty, De Valera’s so-called Document No. 2 incorporated the idea of a Boundary Commission by which the status of the border with Northern Ireland would be examined at a future date. 50 Freeman’s Journal, 22 December 1921. 51 Ibid. 52 C. Kaul, Reporting the Raj: The British Press and India, c. 1880–1922 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), pp. 1–28. 53 Irish Independent, 3 July 1919.

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 225

28/07/2011 11:24:12

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 226

28/07/2011 11:24:12

Index

Note: ‘n.’ after a page reference indicates the number of a note on that page. Abd-Ul-Hamid 109, 110 Aberdeen, Lady 179–80 Aberdeen, Lord 87 Account of the Chief Occurrences of Ireland, An 9 Act of Union (1800) 3, 23, 32–3 see also Repeal movement Adams, Jack 30 advertisements 10, 20 dependence on 15 professional journalism, development of 23 Sinn Féin 195 taxation 12, 17, 50 Aehrenthal, Count von 102 Albert, Prince 75 Allen, Hugh 214–15 All for Ireland League (AFIL) 58 Alma, Battle of 83–4 America 115 American Civil War 121–2, 125 American Review 99 Amery, L. S. 69 Ancient Ireland: A Weekly Magazine 161 Anderson, John 216 Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) 3, 213, 219–29 Freeman’s Journal 177 Griffith 175–6, 186, 187 appearance of newspapers 12, 20, 69 Armenian massacres 96 art and journalism 27 Asquith, Herbert Henry 70, 190 Associated Press (AP) 123, 125

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 227

Association of Irish Journalists (AIJ) 19 athletics 152, 153 Atkins, J. B. 81–2, 86 Atlantic Monthly 131n.5 autonomy, journalistic 12–14, 20 Baddeley, John 93, 95 Baerlein, Henry 97–8, 100 Balfour, Earl 115 Balkan wars 97–8, 102, 109–10 balladry see poetry and balladry Bantry Band 51 Barnes, Thomas 64 Barron, Philip 161 Barry, Charles 138 Barry, Kevin 203 Beaconsfield, Lord 111 Beaslai, Piaras 205 Belfast News-Letter 176 Belfast Telegraph 214 Bell, Charles Frederick Moberly 67, 69 Bellew, Jack 53 Bennett, James Gordon 108–9, 131n.4 Bergin, Osborn 168, 169, 170 Birmingham Monthly Argus 140 Birrell, Augustine 186, 188, 195 Blake, Dick 157 Bodkin, Mathew 27, 28, 31 Bodkin, Mathias MacDonnell 18, 180 Boer War 174 Bolg an tSolair 161 Bosnian Crisis (1908) 102 Boston 121, 122

28/07/2011 11:24:13

228

Irish journalism before independence

Boston Pilot 164 Boston Press Club 121 bourgeoisie 50 Bracken, J. K. 151 Branar, An 167 Brayden, William Henry 179–80, 206 bribery 12 British Amateur Athletic Association 152 British Empire 22, 53–4 British Expeditionary Force 112 Brooklyn Philo-Celtic Society 167 Buckle, George 65–6 Buideheannah Eireann 191–2 Bulfin, William 189 Bulgaria 102 Bulow, Count Bernhard von 95 Bunting, Percy William 98–9 Burma 54 Burnham, Lord (earlier Edward (Harry) Lawson) 95, 100, 102–3 Burton 219 Butcher, Samuel Henry 68 Butt, Isaac 52 Calles government 115, 116 Caneva, General 111 Carey, Henry 187 Carlow Nationalist 164 Carnot, Marie Francois Sadi 128 Carson, Edward Henry 71, 194 Cashel Gazette, The 163 Catholic Association 12, 13, 24–5 Catholic Church and Catholicism 50 Flanagan 62, 67 Joyce 202 McCullagh 111, 114, 115, 116 nationalism 50, 58 O’Brennan 136, 137, 142–3, 144 Parnell 156 Catholic Emancipation 24–5, 42, 77, 140 O’Connell 64 professional journalism, development of 23 schools 17 Catholic Rent 25, 140 Catholic World 126 Celt, The 163 Celtic Times, The 156 Celto-American 127, 129, 132n.18 Censor, The 11

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 228

censorship 213–14 Dillon 102 Griffith 188 McCullagh 112, 117 Chalaby, Jean 22 Champion 192 Charge of the Light Brigade 75–6, 85–6 Chartism 40 Chenery, Thomas 75 Chicago 120, 123–31, 145 Chicago Daily News 123, 124–5, 129 Chicago Evening-Post 126 Chicago Herald 126, 129 Chicago Independent 135, 145 Chicago Post 125 Chicago Press Club 125 Chicago Times 123, 124, 125, 126, 129 Chicago Tribune 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129 Childers, Erskine 176, 217, 222 Chinese Empire 54–6 Chirol, Valentine 69 circulation and readership figures Chicago press 124 Dublin Penny Journal 162 Freeman’s Journal 196, 213 Irish Independent 20, 213 The Irish Times 20, 213 Nation, The 25, 39 Nationality 184n.8 Sinn Féin 190, 191, 196 Skibbereen Eagle 52, 59 Citizen, The 126, 132n.18 civil society 26, 33 Cixi, Dowager Empress 55, 56 Claidheamh Soluisagus Fáinne an Lae, An 164, 166, 168, 169–70 Clan na Gael 121, 124, 127, 128, 129 Clare Champion 164 Clarke, Joseph 31 Clonmel Nationalist 164 Clontarf prohibition 41–2, 44, 45, 78 Cole, W. L. 189 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 169 Colleges Act (1845) 34n.13 Collins, Jerome 121 Collins, Michael 217, 218, 223 Colum, Padraic 187, 188, 189, 196 Comerford, Richard 16

28/07/2011 11:24:13

Index communications 4, 16–17, 23, 50 conditions of employment 20, 79 Connaught Patriot and General Advertiser 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140 Connolly, James 31, 107, 193 Conservative Party 65, 114 Considine, H. F. 68–9 Contemporary Review 98–9, 100–1 contempt 11 co-operative movement 58 Cope, Andy 217–18, 219 Cork Chronicle 53 Cork Examiner 25, 151, 224n.3, 224n.6 peace process 218, 219, 220, 223 Cork Herald 151 Cork Liberal Club 52 Cormack, Mike 165 Corn Laws 40 Correspondent 12 Cosgrave, W. T. 195, 196 Cosgrove, Maurice 180 cost of newspapers 4, 24, 50 Freeman’s Journal 178, 190 Irish Independent 178 The Irish Times 190 Sinn Féin 190 Skibbereen Eagle 52 sports press 149 Coughlin, Daniel 129, 134n.54 County Cork Southern Star (later Southern Star) 53, 54, 58 Court of Claims 9 Crann, An 164, 167 Crete 96, 98, 100 Crimean War 75–6, 55, 182 Russell xii, 75, 79–88 Crimes Bill (1887) 64 Cristero uprising 115 Croke, Archbishop 153 Cromwell, Oliver 4, 9 Cronin, DrPatrck 127, 128, 129, 132n.18, 134n.54 Crosbie, George 218 Cullen, Cardinal 136, 137, 143, 144 CumannnanGaedheal 188, 189 Curran, James 4, 23 Curzon, Lord 71 Cusack, Michael 5, 150–1, 152, 153–4, 156, 157–8 Czira, Sydney 192

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 229

229

Dáil Éireann censorship 214 ‘Document no. 2’ 176 Fitzgerald 220 Freeman’s Journal 176, 177, 214 Griffith 186 peace process 217, 218, 221–2, 223 Sinn Féin 175 Daily Express 27, 200, 203, 215 Daily Mail 178 Daily Telegraph 5, 27, 95–103, 107 Dalton, Richard 162 Daly, Hugh 41 Dana, Charles A. 124, 126 dangers of journalism 18, 23–4, 58 Davin, Maurice 150, 151, 153 Davis, Richard 195 Davis, Thomas xii, 163, 165, 187 Nation 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 44, 45 Davitt, Michael 57, 153 Dawson, Geoffrey 70, 71 Deák, Ferenc 174 defamation 28 Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) 188, 213–14 Delane, John Thaddeus 77, 78–80, 81, 82, 87 democracy 33 Democratic Party, USA 124 Derry Journal 164 de Valera, Eamon ‘Document no. 2’ 176, 177, 222 Freeman’s Journal 223 and Griffith 175 Irish Press 32, 33 and McCullagh 117 peace process 217, 219, 221–2 Devlin, P. J. (‘Celt’) 157 Devoy, John 30, 31, 106, 121, 129 dialect, Irish 130 Diamond, Charles 140 Díaz, Porfirio 125 Dickens, Charles 79, 169 Dillon, E. J. xii, 5, 91–103, 107 Dillon, John Blake xii, 66, 94, 133n.29 Nation 36, 37, 39 Dillon, Kathleen 93–4, 103 Dillon, Mary 92 Dillon, Michael 92, 93 Dillon, William 46, 133n.29

28/07/2011 11:24:13

230

Irish journalism before independence

distribution of newspapers 12 Dixon, Henry 189 ‘Document no. 2’ 176, 177, 222 Doheny, Michael 46 Dolan, Charles 193 domestic industry 174, 175, 192, 195 Dominion Home Rule Group 216 Donovan, Robert 180 Dreiser, Thomas 123 Dreyfus affair 97, 175 Drogheda Independent 50 Dublin City University 3 Dublin Corporation 11 Dublin Evening Herald 12 Dublin Evening Post 25 Dublin Institute of Technology 3 Dublin Lockout (1913) 32 Dublin Mercury 10 Dublin Opinion xii, 49 Dublin Penny Journal 76, 162 Dublin Society 12 Dufferin & Ava, Marquiss of 68 Duffy, Charles Gavan xii, 14, 15 Nation 36, 37–8, 40, 43, 44, 46 Duggan, Bishop 27 Dunbar, John 153 Dundalk Democrat 137, 164 Dundalk Examiner 164 Dungannon Clubs 188 Dunlop, Andrew 18, 23, 29–30 Dunne, Finley Peter 123, 125–6, 129–30 Eagle Ltd 58 Eagle Printing Works 56–7 Easter Rising 31, 182, 196 Freeman’s Journal 179, 180 Griffith 188, 196 MacNeill 206 revolutionary tradition 36 Sinn Féin 175 East of Asia 110 Echo (Killarney) 192 economic growth 50 editorial staff, journalists’ views of 14, 29, 98–9 education Irish language 166, 169, 170 of journalists 1–3, 27 and nationhood 37–8

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 230

professional journalism, development of 23 Queens Colleges Bill 43–4 Edwards, R. Hamilton 214 Einstein, Albert 204 Éire 186, 188, 195 electoral reform 17, 77 Eliot, T. S. 211 Elizabeth I 141, 143 Emery, Edwin 123 employment 31 terms and conditions 20, 79 English Amateur Athletic Association 152 Enniscorthy Echo 164 Etchingham, Seán 177 Evening Herald 183 Evening Mail 25 Evening Post (Chicago) 129–30 Evening Post (Dublin) 12 Evening Telegraph 180, 205, 206, 207, 209–10 Famine 23, 64–5 Farmers’ Party 225n.47 Fashoda crisis 53 Faulkner, George 10 Faulkner’s Dublin Journal 10 Fenianism 34–5n.27 Devoy 30 Freeman’s Journal 182 Griffith 182 Joyce 202 London government’s concerns 17 O’Brennan 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 143, 144, 146 O’Donovan Rossa 51 O’Leary 46, 156 political mobilisation 50 Potter 57 revolutionary tradition 36 Stone 124 USA 121 Fenton, Roger 83 Fforde, Cecil 215 Fianna 191 Fianna Fáil 33 Finerty, John F. 123, 125–6, 127, 130, 132n.18 Finerty, M. J. 125

28/07/2011 11:24:13

Index Fior-Eirionnach, An 162 First World War Defence of the Realm Act 188, 213 Dillon 102, 103 Griffith 188, 189 McCullagh 112 Sinn Féin 195 Skibbereen Eagle 58 Southern Star 58 The Times 70 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward 181, 182 Fitzgerald, Martin 176, 214, 215, 216, 218–19, 223 Flanagan, Edward 63 Flanagan, James xii Flanagan, John Henry 63 Flanagan, John Woulfe 62–72 Flanagan, Mary Emily (née Sheil) 63, 64 Flanagan, Rt Hon. Stephen Woulfe, QC 62, 68 Flood, Henry 181 Ford, Patrick 65, 121, 122, 126 foreign correspondents 22, 80, 91, 98 see also Dillon, E. J.; McCullagh, Francis; Russell, William Howard Fortnightly Review 99, 102, 200 Foster, Roy 25, 140 France 164 Crimean War 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87 Franco, Francisco 116, 117 Franklin Printing Works 186 freedom of the press 11, 22, 25, 32 Freeman’s Journal 25–6 absorption by the Irish Independent 32 Adams 30 attacks on 214 Bodkin 18, 27, 28, 31 cost 190 Dunlop 29 Easter rising 179, 180 Griffith 174, 175, 176–8, 179–82, 183 Irish Parliamentary Party 25, 26, 32 Joyce 201, 205, 206, 207, 209 merger with National Press 179 O’Connell 13, 14, 15 Parnell 26, 178 peace process 213, 215, 216–19, 221, 222–3 Poor Law boards 16 Repeal movement 15

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 231

231

and Sinn Féin (paper) 192 Sinn Féin (party) 179, 213, 216, 217, 219–20, 223 Sport 149 Staunton 12 Fyfe, Henry Hamilton 27–8 Gael, The 156 Gaelic Athletic Annual and County Directory 158 Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) 149–58 Gaelic Churchmen, The 162 Gaelic football 150, 152, 154, 156, 157, 158 Gaelic identity 37, 39, 43 Gaelic League declared illegal 164 Griffith 194 Irish language 161, 163, 165, 166 Lester 214 professional journalism, development of 33 Gaffney, Gertrude 106, 116, 117 Galway Express 164, 192 Galway Vindicator 125 Gaodhal, An 166–7 Garrison, William Lloyd 122 Gazette 195 Geary, Frank 116, 117 George IV 12 George VI 216 George, Henry, and Georgism 57 ‘German plot’ 184n.8 Ghall, Sean 188, 196 Gilhooley, Kaid 110–11 Gill, T. P. 133n.29 Gilman, Daniel 52 Gladstone, Catherine 128 Gladstone, William Ewart 64, 65, 96, 128 Glandon, Virginia 174, 187, 190 Globe and Emerald, The 121 Glynn, John 164 Godwin, Edwin Lawrence 88 Gogarty, Oliver St John 187, 189 Goodman, E. L. 96, 103 Gordon, Charles George 53 government control of journalism 10–11, 12 freedom of the press 25 land reform 18 and Lucas 11

28/07/2011 11:24:13

232

Irish journalism before independence

Government of Ireland Bill (1920) 215–16, 223 Grattan, Henry, Jr 182 Grattan, Henry, Sr 42, 174, 181 Gray, Caroline Agnes 178 Gray, Edmund Dwyer 178, 182 Gray family 178, 179, 182 Gray, Sir John 34n.20, 182 Great Depression 51 ‘Great Game’ 53–4 Greene, Grahame 62 Greenwood, Grace 133n.29 Greenwood, Hamar 217 Gregory, Lady xii, 200–1, 203 Griffith, Arthur xii, 5, 6, 31, 107, 174–83, 186–96 Irish language 163, 175, 191–2, 194 and Joyce 202, 203 peace process 217, 219, 221 The Resurrection of Hungary 174, 186 Griffith’s Valuation 63 Grigg, Edward 69 Guangxu, Emperor 55 Guardian 116 Hall, J. B. 30–1 Hanford, Francis 127 Harper’s Magazine 123, 131n.5 Harrington, Captain 216 Harrington, Ned 51 Harrington, T. R. 32, 51 Harris, Matthew 66 Hart, Michael 206 Harvey, Philip Whitfield 182 Hatton, Joseph 133n.29 Healy, John 70, 216 Healy brothers (Tim, Thomas and Maurice) 51 Hearst, William Randolph 124 Heath, H. H. 127 Helsingen Sanomat 164 Henderson, Arthur 71 Hennessy, P. 40 Hibernia 116, 166 Higgins, Francis (‘Sham Squire’) 181–2 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth 122 Hobson, Bulmer 31, 195 Hoctor, Patrick 156 Hoey, Christopher Clinton 142

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 232

Hogan, John Baptist 94 Holmes, Oliver Wendell 121 Holmes, R. W. A. 68 Homer, The Odyssey 208 Home Rule Fitzgerald 219 Flanagan 70 Freeman’s Journal 25–6, 177, 180, 215 Gaelic Athletic Association 150 Griffith 187, 189, 190–1, 193–4 Irish Independent 222 Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union 29 The Irish Times 215, 216, 223 Joyce 202 Parnell 18, 65 Potter 53, 57, 58 professional journalism, development of 23 Skibbereen Eagle 53 third Bill 70–1, 187, 189, 190–1, 193–4 Home Rule Party 58 Hooper, Patrick 214, 216, 218 Hopkinson, Michael 213 Horgan, John 26, 91, 161, 196 Horn, James J. 116 Houston, Edward 66 Howth gun-running exercise 193, 194 Hughes, Christy 14 Hungary 174, 187 hurling 150, 152, 153–4, 155, 157, 158 Hyde, Douglas 156, 161, 165, 194 Ibsen, Henrik 200 Illustrated London News 23–4 impartiality, journalistic 29–30, 31, 33 imperialism 53–4 independence, journalistic 12–14, 20 Inglis, Brian 12 Institute of Journalists 1, 19, 26, 30 Inter-Ocean 123, 124, 125 interviews 30 investigative journalism 124, 193 IRA 70, 217 Irish Amateur Athletic Association (IAAA) 152, 153, 154, 157 Irish Beekeeper 210 Irish Cyclist 210 Irish Daily Independent 178, 182, 186

28/07/2011 11:24:14

Index Irish Daily Telegraph and Southern Reporter 52, 54, 59 Irish Ecclesiastical Review 111 Irish Echo 164 Irish Freedom 192, 195 Irish Independent 32 absorption of the Freeman’s Journal 32 Gaffney 106, 116, 117 Griffith 178–9 McCullagh 116 Murphy 19, 32, 178–9 ‘new journalism’ 20 peace process 213, 217, 218, 219–20, 221–2, 223 Irish industry 174, 175, 192, 195 Irish Labour Party 225n.47 Irish language Griffith 163, 175, 191–2, 194 Nation 38, 39 O’Brennan 135–6, 145–6 revival 160–71 Irish Language Movement 164 Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union 29 Irishman, The 17, 137 Irish Monthly Mercury, The 4, 9 Irish News 135, 136, 140, 141–4 Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) 52 Allen 215 anti-British rhetoric 53 bourgeoisie 50 collapse 32 Dillon 94 Dolan 193 Flanagan 62, 65, 66 Freeman’s Journal 25, 26, 32, 177–8, 179, 183, 197 Gill 133n.29 Gray 178 Griffith 180, 181, 183 journalists as MPs 30, 31 land reform 17 Malley 30 McCullagh 107 O’Shea divorce 19, 156 Parnell 124 professional journalism, development of 23 Sinn Féin 190 Irish Peasant 187, 192 Irish People 17, 138

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 233

233

Irish Press 20, 32, 33 Irish Republican Army (IRA) 70, 217 Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) 31 Éire 188 and Fenians 35n.27 and Gaelic Athletic Association 156, 157 Irish Freedom 192 Lester 214 and National Brotherhood of Saint Patrick 136 revolutionary tradition 36 and Sinn Féin 175 Stephens 17 Irish Sportsman and Farmer, The 149, 151–2, 154–5 Irish Times, The 17, 25, 26, 32 circulation 20 cost 190 Dunlop 18, 29 Healy 70 Joyce 200 MacNeill 206 McCullagh 109 nation building 33 O’Donovan 30 peace process 213, 215–16, 218, 219–21, 222, 223 Russell’s obituary 88 Scott 19 and Sinn Féin 192 Irish Volunteer 195 Irish Volunteers 189, 193, 194 Irish Weekly Independent and Nation 158 Irish Worker 195 Irish World 126, 141, 145, 164 see also United Ireland IrisleabharnaGaedhilge 166 Italy invasion of Tripoli 111, 112 Joyce 200, 201, 203, 204 Izvol’skii, Aleksandr 102 Jackson, Alvin 192 Japan 108, 116 Japan Times 108 jargon 31

28/07/2011 11:24:14

234

Irish journalism before independence

Joyce, James 200–11 The Day of the Rabblement 200, 201 The Dead 200 Drama and Life (lecture) 201 Dubliners 204, 205, 206 Finnegans Wake 205, 210 and Gregory, Lady xii, 200–1, 203 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 203 Ulysses xii, 3, 49, 177, 203, 204, 205–11 Joyce, John Stanislaus 206 Joyce, Myles 202 Kaul, Chandrika 223 Kelly, Thomas 189 Keltic Journal and Educator 164, 166–7 Kennedy, John F. 131n.5, 183 Keogh, Judge William 53 Kerryman 164 Kiberd, Declan 27, 210, 211 Kirwan, P. B. 152 Kissane, Bill 26 Knox, General 112 Labour Party 71, 114 Laffan, Michael 181, 188 land reform and the Land League 17–18, 26 bourgeoisie 50 Flanagan 63, 64, 65, 66, 67–9 Freeman’s Journal 26, 182 Gaelic Athletic Association 150 Griffith 182 O’Brien 19 Potter 57, 59 professional journalism, development of 23–4, 33 Larkin, Jim 107, 193 Lavelle, Patrick 137, 182 Law, Andrew Bonar 71 Lawrence, W. J. 2, 3 Lawson, Edward (Harry), later Lord Burnham 95, 100, 102–3 Lawson, Victor F. 123 layout of newspapers 12, 20, 69 Leerson, Joep 24 Legg, Marie-Louise 5, 17, 27, 50, 58, 135, 164 Leinster Leader 50, 151, 164, 192, 194 Lenihan, Maurice 25

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 234

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 113 Le Sage, John 99, 100–1, 102 Lester, Seán 214–15 libel 11, 28, 188 Liberal Party Freeman’s Journal 180 Griffith 180, 193 land reform 64 McCullagh 114 Parnell 65 Liberator, The 122 Licensing Act (1662) 9 Lillie 108 Limerick Leader 50 Lippincott, Sarah Jane 133n.29 List, Friedrich 174, 187 literacy 4, 17, 50, 191 Nation 38 professional journalism, development of 23 USA 122 literature The Gael 156 Irish language 167, 168–9 The Nation 38, 43 Lloyd George, David and Flanagan 68, 70–1 peace process 215, 216, 217, 219 Lóchrann, An 164 Loisy, Alfred 95 London newspapers distribution 12 as source of news in Ireland 10, 12, 56, 109 see also specific newspapers Lucas, Charles 11, 181 Lucas, Frederick 143 Lynch, Patrick 161 McCarthy, Justin 140 McCarthy, St George 151 McCullagh, Bridget 107 McCullagh, Francis 5, 91, 106–17 McCullagh, James 107 MacDermott, John 195 MacDonald, John C. 66 Mac Donough, J. 142 McEvilly, Bishop 136 MacHale, Archbishop John 137, 143 McKay, John 151, 152

28/07/2011 11:24:14

Index McKenna, Stephen 107 McLuhan, M. 167 McManus, Patrick 191 MacNeill, Eoin 161, 165, 206 MacNeill, Hugh 206 MacNevin, Thomas 38 MacSweeney, George 180 MacSweeney, John George 180 McVeagh, Jerry 215, 216 Mageean, Dr, Bishop of Down and Connor 117 Maginn, William 34n.12 Maguire, John Francis 25 Malley, Arthur 30 Manchuria 54 Mangan, Clarence 41–2, 162, 20 Manning, Cardinal 143–4 Markievicz, Countess 187 Marr, Andrew 3 Mathew, Father Theobald 38, 135 Matthews, T. 201 Maunsel and Company 204 Maye, Brian 197n.6 Mayne, Sir Richard 141–2 Mayo Examiner 50 Mayo News 164 Mazzini, Giuseppe 25, 136 Meade, Pat 205 Meagher, Thomas Francis 121 Meath Chronicle 164, 192 Medill, Joseph 123, 124 Menchikoff, Prince 83 Mercurius Hibernicus 9 Mexico 125, 127 civil war 115, 116 Middleburg Courant 188 Midland Tribune 50 Millgan, Alice 189 Milne, M. 58 Milner, Alfred, first Viscount 71 Milton, John 22 Mitchel, John 46, 47 Colum on 196 and Duffy 40 and Griffith 187 ‘Railway Article’ 44 USA 121–2 Monster Meetings 33, 45, 78 Nation 40, 41, 47 Moore, F. Frankfort 24

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 235

235

Moran, D. P. 194 Morash, Christopher 5 More, A. G. 76 Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry 143 Morning Herald, The 79 Morning Post 13, 41 Morning Register 12, 14–15 Munter, Robert xi, 4, 9, 10, 11 Murphy, D. 89n.25 Murphy, William Martin 19, 32, 178–9, 223 na Gaeilge, Conradh 164 Nannetti, Joseph 206 Nation, The 6, 25, 36–47 Griffith 186 Irish language 163 McCullagh 115–16 sedition accusations 137 Sexton 179 Sullivan 17 National Association of Journalists of Great Britain 19 National Brotherhood of Saint Patrick 136, 137 nationalism 6, 25, 50 Catholic Church 50, 58 Finerty 130 Freeman’s Journal 176, 181, 182 Gaelic Athletic Association 152, 153 Great Depression 51 Griffith 175, 187, 189, 193, 195 Joyce 202, 203 local government 57 McCullagh 109, 115 professional journalism, development of 23 Skibbereen Eagle 52, 56 Sullivan 127 west Cork 51 see also Gaelic identity; Nation, The Nationality 174, 176–7, 179, 180, 182, 183, 186, 188 National Press 178, 179 National Union of Journalists (NUJ) 19, 20 nation building 33 Newcastle, Duke of 81 ‘New Imperialism’ 69 ‘new journalism’ 19–20, 34n.17, 123 New Liberals 67 News-Letter, The 9

28/07/2011 11:24:14

236

Irish journalism before independence

Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland xi newsprint tax 4, 12, 17 New York 121, 122, 123, 144 New York Evening Post 116 New York Herald 108, 121 New York Irish American 164 New York Times 114, 116 New York Tribune 125, 128 New York World 107 Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia 55 Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia xi–xii, 49, 55, 56 Nightingale, Florence 75 Ní Mhuiríosa, Máirín 164 Ní Uigín, D. 164 Nixon, William Penn 123 Northcliffe, Lord 32, 178 Northern Ireland, and Anglo-Irish Treaty 221 Northern Whig 204 Nulty, Thomas 57 number of journalists 50 number of newspapers 50 Chicago 123 Irish language 164 USA 122, 123 objectivity, journalistic 29–30, 31, 33 O’Brennan, Martin A. xii, 135–46 O’Brien, Ignatius 180 O’Brien, William Smith 45 All for Ireland League 58 Association of Irish Journalists 19 and Cusack 154 on Sexton 179 Skibbereen Eagle 58 on Sullivan 126 United Ireland 35n.33, 154, 178 Ó Buachalla, Breandán 168 Ó Conchubhair, Brian 168 O’Connell, Daniel 42–3 arrest and imprisonment 42, 43, 78–9 attitude to journalism 13, 14, 15 Catholic Association 12, 13, 24–5 Catholic Emancipation 64 Catholic Rent 140 election (1828) 13 Federalism 43 Monster Meetings 13, 33, 40, 45, 78

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 236

The Nation 6, 36, 37, 38, 39–40, 41, 42, 43–5, 46, 47 and O’Brennan 135 patronage 15 political mobilisation 50 Queen’s Colleges bill 43–4 Repeal movement 15, 18, 25, 36, 37, 39–40, 41–3, 44–6, 47, 64, 78 and Russell 78–9 sedition 78–9 and The Times 64 O’Connell, John 45, 78 O’Connell, Maurice 40–1 O’Connor, T. P. 19–20, 27–8, 140 impartiality 30 Irish and British journalism, comparison between 22 T. P.’s Weekly 109 Odessa Messenger 94 Odessa News 94 O’Donovan, Edmund 31 O’Donovan, John 162 O’Donovan, William 30 O’Donovan Rossa, Jeremiah 17, 51, 52, 53, 121 O’Duffy, General Eoin 116–17 O’Flanagan, Fr Michael 217 O’Kelly, James J. 22 O’Kelly, Seamus 184n.8 O’Leary, John 46–7, 156 Ó Lócháin, Mícheál 167 Ó Lúing, Sean 196 O’Mahony, John 35n.27 Ó Maoilia, Seán 164 Ó Neachtain, Tadhg 168 O’Neill, Shane 193 O’Rearden, D. J. 142 O’Reilly, John Boyle 121, 122, 126 Ó Rónáin, Séamas 164 O’Shea divorce 19, 156–7 O’Sullivan, Margaret 6 O’Sullivan, T. F. 157 Ottoman Empire Armenian massacres 96 Crimean War 80, 81, 83 Pall Mall Gazette 91, 109 Palmerston, Lord 53 paper manufacture 24 Papyrus Club 121

28/07/2011 11:24:15

Index Pares, Sir Bernard 112 Paris Exposition 128 Paris Peace Conference 103, 125 parliamentary debates, publication of 12 Parnell, Charles Stewart attitude to journalism 18 bourgeoisie 50 and Dillon 94 and Finerty 126 and Flanagan 64, 66 Freeman’s Journal 26, 178, 182 Gaelic Athletic Association 150, 153, 156–7 and Gray 182 and Griffith 178, 182, 187, 193 Home Rule 65 Irish Parliamentary Party 31 and Joyce 201–2, 204 O’Shea divorce 19, 156–7 Piggott forgery affair 66 politicisation of the press 19 professional journalism, development of 23 religion 52 and Stone 124 and Sullivan 128 United Ireland 178 Parnell Commission 126, 127–8 Parsons, Fr Wilfrid, SJ 115 peace process 213–23 Pearse, Patrick 31, 107, 188, 194 Peel, Sir Robert 41 Pembrokeshire Herald 51 People, The 50 Peter, King of Serbia 109 Petrie, George 162 Philadelphia 123 Phillips, Wendell 122 Phoenix Park murders 150 Piatt, Don 162 Piccolo della Sera, Il 200, 201, 203, 204 Piggott, Richard 17, 66–7 Pilot 15, 16, 121, 126 Platt, Len 209 Plunkett, Chief Justice 41 Plunkett, Thomas 146n.7 poetry and balladry Irish language 162 Nation 38, 39, 43 Sinn Féin 194

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 237

237

Poor Law 16, 40 Portugal 96–7, 111 postal service 4, 16 Potter, Eldon 57, 58 Potter, Frederick Peel Eldon 49, 51–3, 54–9 Potter, John (Junior) 52 Potter, John William (Senior) 51–2 Potter, Mary 53 Pound, Ezra 211 press associations 14–15, 19 Prezioso, Roberto 201, 203 printers 10 printing, technological developments 24 privilege, breaches of 11 professional journalism, development of 13, 14, 18–19, 22–3, 27, 28, 29–33 protectionism 174, 187, 192, 195 Protestants 51, 52, 57, 58 public authority meetings, press access to 16 Pue’s Occurrences 10 Pulitzer, Joseph 124 Queen’s Colleges Bill (1945) 43–4 Raglan, Lord 80, 81, 83, 87 railways 4, 16, 50, 54 Ramsay, Allan 110 readership figures see circulation and readership figures Redmond, John and Griffith 193, 194 Home Rule Party 58 Irish Parliamentary Party 178, 179, 190 Skibbereen Eagle 58 Southern Star 58 Reeves, William 19 Reid, Whitelaw 125 Repeal movement 15, 18, 25, 64 Lavelle 182 Nation 6, 26, 36, 37, 39–42, 43, 44–7 and O’Brennan 135 professional journalism, development of 23 Russell 78

28/07/2011 11:24:15

238

Irish journalism before independence

Republic, The 192 Republican 125 Republican Party, USA 124 Republicans, peace process 217 Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (ROIA) (1920) 214, 216 Review of Reviews, The 99, 109 revival journalism 160–71 Revue Celtique 164 Richthofen, Baron Manfred von 95 Robbins, Alfred F. 1 Roebuck, John Arthur 87 Romaine, S. 160 Romanovs, execution 112–13 Rooney, William 188, 201, 203 rotary press 24 Roth, Samuel 204 Royal Dublin Society 76, 116 Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) 214 Russell, George 188 Russell, Lord John 45–6 Russell, Robert 77 Russell, William Howard xii, 5, 22, 75–88, 91 Russia and Russian Empire Crimean War 75, 80, 81, 83–8, 182 Dillon 93–5, 99–100, 102 McCullagh 108, 112–15, 116 Revolution 55 Skibbereen Eagle xi–xii, 53–6 Russo-Japanese war 108 Ryan, Desmond 162, 215 Ryan, Joseph 151 Ryan, W. P. 192 St James’s Gazette 63 St Petersburg 93–4, 95 St Stephen’s 200 Salisbury, Lord 55 Santa Fe Gazette 127 Santa Fe Post 127 Saorstát, An 188–9 Saunder’s Newsletter 13, 27, 28, 30 Savage, John 139 Schleswig-Holstein 79 Scissors and Paste 174, 186, 188 Scott, James A. 19 ‘Scramble for Africa’ 53 Scribner’s 131n.5 scriveners 9

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 238

Seaton, Jean 23 Sebastopol, siege of 85, 87–8 sedition 11, 25, 137, 140, 144, 195 Duffy 44 imprisonment for 17 O’Brennan 138–9, 140 O’Connell 13, 78–9 Repeal movement 15 Sexton, Thomas 179 Shamrock or Hibernian Chronicle, The 120–1 Shan Van Vocht 189 Shaw, George Bernard 201 Sheehan, D. D. 53 Sheeny, Patrick 58 Sheil, Major General Sir Justin 63 Shield, The 192 shopocracy 50, 58 shorthand 18, 30 McCullagh 107 O’Connor 27, 28 Siam Free Press 108 Sinn Féin (paper) cost 190 Griffith 174, 180, 181–2, 186, 187, 188, 189–96 Joyce 204 Sinn Féin (party) censorship 214 Freeman’s Journal 179, 213, 216, 217, 219–20, 223 Griffith 175, 180, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189, 192–6 Joyce 202 peace process 217, 219, 220, 222, 223 Skibbereen Eagle 58 Southern Star 58 The Times 70 Wyse Power, Jennie 183 Skibbereen 51, 53, 57 Skibbereen Eaglexi–xii, 49, 50, 53–9 slavery 122 Sligo Champion 30,50 Sligo Star 30 Smith, Alfred 116 Smith, W. H. 63–4 Smyth, P. J. 46 South Africa 188 Southern Cross 164

28/07/2011 11:24:15

Index Southern Star 53, 54, 58 Spanish Civil War 106, 115, 116–17 Speaker, The 200 special correspondents see foreign correspondents Spectator 112 Spender, J. A. 1–2 Sport 149, 152, 154, 155 sport 5, 149–58 Sporting Chronicle 149 Sporting Life 149 Sportsman 149 Stack, Austin 219 stamp duty 12, 17, 23 Standard 34n.12 Star 13, 19–20, 27 stationery shops 10 Staunton, Michael 12–13, 15 Stead, W. T. 91, 109, 110, 111–12 steamships 50 Steed, Henry Wickham 70, 71, 218 Stephens, Davy 206 Stephens, James 17, 187, 189, 197n.6 St James’s Gazette 63 Stone, Melville E. 123–5, 128, 129, 130 Storey, Wilbur F. 123–4 St Petersburg 93–4, 95 St Stephen’s 200 Studies 114, 115 Sturgis, Mark 215, 216, 218–19 subsidisation of newspapers 12 Sullivan, Alexander 126, 127, 128, 129 Sullivan, A. M. 51 imprisonment 17 Nation 46 Sullivan, Donal 51 Sullivan, John 205 Sullivan, Margaret 123, 126–8, 129, 130 Mexico 127 Ireland of Today 127 Sullivan, T. D. 51 Sun 127 Sunday Independent 196 Sutton, P. P. 154, 155 Sweetman, Roger 217 Swift, Jonathan 27, 187 Synge, John Millington, The Playboy of the Western World 175

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 239

239

taxation advertisements 12, 17, 50 knowledge 12, 17, 50, 147n.29 newspapers 50 newsprint 4, 12, 17 tEaglaiseach Gaedhealach, An 162 technological developments 4, 20, 23, 24 Telegram 129 telegraphy 4, 16–17, 23, 50 temperance movement 38, 135 Tenant Right 135 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord 75–6 terms and conditions of employment 20, 79 Thackeray, William Makepeace 79–80, 140 Pendennis 27 Thomas Agnew and Sons 89n.20 Thom’s Gazette Room 186 Tickler, The 11 Times, The Chenery 75 Dillon’s obituary 103 Flanagan 62, 64–72 Greene 62 peace process 218 Repeal movement 41 Russell, Robert 77 Russell, William Howard 75, 77–88 as source of news in Ireland 56, 109 Tipperary Advocate 151–2 Tipperary Vindicator 25, 13 Titbits 209 Tone, Wolf 41, 43 Total Abstinence Society 38 T. P.’s Weekly 27, 109 Tracy, Frances 182 transportation 4, 23, 50 see also railways Trans-Siberian Railway 54 Tribune 122 Trieste 200, 201, 203, 204 Trinity College, Dublin 1–2, 27, 76, 77 Tripoli, Italian invasion of 111, 112 Trollope, Anthony, The Warden xi Trouillot, Michel-Rolph 183 Truce 216–19 Truth-Teller 121 Tuam Herald 50

28/07/2011 11:24:15

240

Irish journalism before independence

Tuam News and Connacht Advertiser, The 163, 164 Turkey Armenian massacres 96 Crimean War 80, 81, 83 Dillon 96, 100–1 McCullagh 110 Twain, Mark 125 Twentieth Century and After, The 111 Ulster Volunteers 189, 194 Unionists 193, 194, 216 United Ireland 32 Flanagan 65 Gaelic Athletic Association 150, 151, 152, 153–4, 156 O’Brien 35n.33, 178 Parnell 178 United Irishman 19, 27 Griffith 174, 186, 187, 188, 189 United Irishmen 36, 43 United States of America Carey’s protectionist policies 187 and Flanagan 69 Irish immigrants 121 Irish journalists 120–31 Irish language 164, 166–7 McCullagh 109, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117 O’Brennan 135, 144–6 Presidential election (1928) 116 revolutionary path to journalism 106 The Times 69 Universal News 139–40, 141, 142, 144, 145 urbanisation 16, 23 USA 122 Ussher, Richard 76–7

Walsh, Edward 162 Walsh, J. J. 195 Walsh, John R. 67, 84, 126 war correspondents see foreign correspondents War of Independence 6, 213 and Griffith 175, 176 McCullagh 114–15 professional journalism, development of 23 Sinn Féin 175 Waterford Daily Mail 50 Weekly Freeman 180 Wellington, Duke of 41 Westmeath Independent 192 Westminster Gazette 1, 2, 110, 142–3 Whig Party 43, 45, 46 Whitman, Walt 121 Wilde, Oscar 201 Wilkie, Franc 125 Williams, Raymond 23 Witte, Sergei Yu. 99–100, 102 women’s suffrage 128 Wordsworth, William 169 workplace organisation 31 World War I see First World War Wylie, William 215 Wyndham, George 179 Wyse Power, Jennie 183 Wyse Power, John 151, 152, 182–3

Victoria, Queen 55, 87 Vietnam 54 violence against journalists see dangers of journalism Volunteer Evening Post 4

Yeats, W. B. 156, 175, 188, 193, 194 Young Ireland 25, 43 Davis 163 Irish language 162, 163 Meagher 121 Mitchel 121 The Nation 36–7, 42, 44, 45, 46–7 O’Brennan 135 secession from Repeal Association 45, 46 USA 121

Walker, David 122 Walker, Edwin Garrison 122 Wall Street Journal 115

Zelizer, Barbie 3 Zinoviev letter 114 Zulu War 53

Rafter, Irish journalism before independence.indd 240

28/07/2011 11:24:16