The History of Physical Culture in Ireland [1 ed.] 9783030637262, 9783030637279

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The History of Physical Culture in Ireland Conor Heffernan

The History of Physical Culture in Ireland

Conor Heffernan

The History of Physical Culture in Ireland

Conor Heffernan The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-63726-2    ISBN 978-3-030-63727-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Abstract

Physical culture is broadly understood as a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-­ century phenomenon concerned with purposeful exercise. Despite its study in other parts of Europe, Asia and North America, its emergence in Ireland has not previously received thorough academic attention. In addressing this gap, this book examines the rise of physical culture in Ireland in the late nineteenth-­ century and traces its development across the following four decades. In doing so, the reasons behind Ireland’s fascination with physical culture are discussed. Like other European nations, Ireland’s physical culture movement was the result of decades of change in transport, leisure, politics and consumption. In effect, this was an Irish manifestation of a much larger global phenomenon and this was reflected in Irishmen’s and women’s continued consumption of British and American physical culture goods and ideas. Throughout the forty years covered, physical culture systems were used for a variety of purposes by a variety of groups. For educators, it was cast in terms of academic success and ‘correct’ development. For the state, it became a means of establishing distinct and autonomous identities, while for individuals, physical culture exercises came to be understood both as a means of diversion and a means of challenging, or conforming to, desirable societal identities. What does the study of Irish physical culture contribute to Irish historiography and the study of physical culture more generally? In the first instance, the research highlights the depth and diversity of physical culture in Ireland, an interest often alluded to in existing historical works

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but never fully expanded upon. Secondly, the examination of physical culture in military, educational and recreational fields highlights previously understudied aspects within these areas of research. Finally, the history of physical culture in Ireland is located within the wider context of Irish history, and accordingly, the book offers a contribution to that history, noticeably in respect of war, health, gender and the role of the state.

Acknowledgements

This work would not have been possible without the generosity and funding by the Irish Research Council’s Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, Universities Ireland’s History Bursary, the North American Society for Sport History’s Travel Grant and University College Dublin (UCD)’s Lord Edward FitzGerald Memorial Fund. Through these bodies, I was able to conduct research in Great Britain, the United States and Ireland in addition to presenting at numerous conferences. In addition, this work benefitted from the patience and kindness exhibited by archivists and librarians towards my often-confused requests. Their bemusement was no doubt shared by the countless individuals who have indulged my ramblings since beginning this research. Friends made from working groups and conferences, on both sides of the Atlantic, have proved a steady source of support during research. Those already working in the field of physical culture, including Professor Patricia Vertinsky, Professor Charlotte MacDonald, Dr. Joan Tumblety, David Chapman, Randy Roach and Dr. Keith Rathbone, displayed a great deal of academic generosity, as did sport historians Dr. Dave Day, Margaret Roberts and Dr. Nicholas Piercey. I am particularly indebted to those working at the Stark Center at the University of Texas namely, Cindy Slater, Ryan Blake, Geoff Schmalz, Christy Toms, Dr. John Fair, Dr. Kim Beckwith, Dr. Thomas Hunt and Dr. Tolga Ozyurtcu. Aside from my Ph.D. advisor, Dr.  Paul Rouse, Professor Jan Todd and the late Dr. Terry Todd have inspired and improved my work at several turns. As in so many other physical ­culture dissertations, their contribution here deserves mention. vii

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Advice, friendship and good humour were found at several turns in universities, conferences, workshops, gyms and through co-authors. Thanks then to Conor Curran, Aishwarya Ramachandran, Nevada Cooke, Philip Chipman, Scott Hamilton, Phillipa Levine, Brad Love, Sophie Lalande, Sean Donnelly, Tim Ellis, Lisa Taylor, Amanda Callan-Spenn, Raf Nicholson, Matt McDowell, Aidan Beatty, Geoff Levett, Dill Porter, Gary James, Patrick Bernhard, Jacqueline Hayden, Samantha Oldfield, Cormac Moore, Mike Cronin, Tom Hunt, Liam O’Callaghan, Matthew O’Brien, Julien Clenet, Helena Byrne, Maeve O’Riordan, Conor Murray, Katie Liston, Shane Browne, Krystal Carmichael, Anne Dolan, Aoife Cranny Walsh, Eimear Farrell, Joseph Quinn, Nick English, David Tao, David Gentle, Pearse Reynolds, Michael Murphy, James Grannell, Zeljka Doljanin, Leanne Waters, Marisol Corbitt, Audrey McNamara, Katie Mishler, David McKinney, Niamh Kelly, Susannah Riordan, David Kerr, Ellen Murphy, Victoria Felkar, Rob Lake, Simon Eaves, Alec Hurley, Ryan Murtha, Andrew Hao, Tanya Jones, Lucy Harvard and Lesley Steinitz. To those who I have forgotten, please forgive a scattered mind! Thanks, or blame, must also be given to training partners and coaches from numerous gyms and groups including, but not limited to, Petter, Karl, Tracy, Darren and Eoin from Phoenix Performance Centre. In particular, Petter and Karl’s many stories about physical culturists from the past planted a seed in a then budding mind. Members of the Fitness League proved gracious and kind in their suggestions and histories. More importantly they invited me into an amazing community of individuals. Finally, Rocky, Patsy, Mick and the men from Hercules Gymnasium gave advice and jokes in good measure. Closer to home, UCD provided several pillars of support be it the CHOMI workshops, the UCD Writing Center, the members of my Doctoral Studies Panel or Kate, Sarah and Emma in the History Office. I was incredibly fortunate to have the input and advice of Catherine Cox, William Mulligan, Conor Mulvagh and Lindsey Earner-Byrne at various stages of the research. Diarmaid Ferriter and Richard Holt were similarly generous in their comments and critiques. Despite the warnings from others, I never felt alone doing my research. Thanks must also be given to my former Ph.D. advisor Dr. Paul Rouse. Paul’s kind words and encouragement, often interspersed with a demand to improve, meant that the research was an ongoing process of historical enquiry rather than a Sisyphean labour. Paul’s input on writing, research and publication was always simple, direct and effective. Without his confidence in the work,

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the present book would have been a rather poorer thing. Likewise, Emily Russell, Joseph Johnson and those at Palgrave Macmillan showed confidence in the work, which I have hopefully, in some way, justified. I finally wish to thank those closest to me, namely Susan, Mary and Paul. Since we moved in together, Susan has entertained research trips to unexotic places, late-night writing sessions and my incessant need to ask her opinion. Throughout it all, she has proven a source of understanding and of inspiration. The ever growing Carney clan have, likewise, always provided support and jokes in equal measure. Finally, to my parents, Mary and Paul, thank you for all the support and encouragement which fuelled this work.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 2 Combating the ‘Evils of Civilisation’: Recreational Physical Culture in Pre-­Independence Ireland 17 3 ‘With This Atmosphere of Unrest and Sinister Rumours…’: Military Physical Culture in PreIndependence Ireland 53 4 ‘The Production and Maintenance of Health in Body and Mind’: Educational Physical Culture in Pre-Independence Ireland 91 5 ‘Physical Culture Is Good for Body and Soul’: Recreational Physical Culture in Interwar Ireland127 6 ‘Embracing the Whole Gambit of Physical Exercise’: Interwar Military Physical Culture169 7 ‘In Ireland the Subject of Physical Training Had Perhaps, Been Neglected’: Interwar Physical Culture in Schools205

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8 Conclusion: ‘Physical Culture Is Nation’s Need’241 Bibliography251 Index277

Abbreviations

ACA Alexandra College Archives BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BMH Bureau of Military History CPLA Croke Park Library and Archive GAA Gaelic Athletic Association GAD Guinness Archives Dublin ICA Irish Citizen Army IFS Irish Free State IPP Irish Parliamentary Party IRA Irish Republican Army NAI National Archives of Ireland NAK National Archives, Kew NLI National Library of Ireland PRONI Public Records Office of Northern Ireland RIC Royal Irish Constabulary RUC Royal Ulster Constabulary UVF Ulster Volunteer Force YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 7.1

Martin Willis, a Sandow customer from the early 1900s. (‘Reader’s Responses’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, Vol. X, January to June (1903) (London, 1903), p. 240) Mac Millan, an Athlete, Gymnast and Acrobat. (‘Mac Millan: Athlète, Gymnaste, Equilibriste’, La Culture Physique, 11, no. 225 (1914), p. 16) 1905 postcard Depicting Military Gymnastics at the Curragh, Co. Kildare Ulster volunteer force 1914 drilling demonstration at Limavady. Unidentified school in the west of Ireland c. 1909 1938 Broom Advertisement. (Lionel Strongfort Institute, Lionel Strongfort Course, 1931) ‘Precision marching from RUC physical culture team.’ (Northern Whig, 3 Jun., 1936) Physical education class, Harold’s cross dublin

29 50 59 66 105 144 181 231

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction ‘There is no department in life in which Physical Culture does not bear a part.’

This is a book about muscle, health and fitness. It is also a book about nationalism, transnationalism, education, sport, recreation, gender and medicine. What connects these areas is the human body. What drives them is physical culture. As a term, physical culture is almost entirely absent from our modern vernacular. Over a century ago, it was used as a term and as a lifestyle—describing one’s self as a physical culturist was a declaration of commitment to a lifestyle defined by health and fitness.1 Physical culture is still, however, part of Irish life, and certainly of Irish anxieties. Definitions of physical culture will be attempted in the following pages but, as will become clear, there was no one unifying experience. There were multiple efforts occurring simultaneously. A far easier task is to highlight the practices that were classed as physical culture. Depending on the group, and on the motivation, physical culture meant exercising in a gymnasium, performing military drill, physical education classes or gentle exercise at home. One particularly misguided writer from the late nineteenth-century

Eugen Sandow, The Gospel of Strength According to Sandow: A Series of Talks on the Sandow System of Physical Culture, by Its Founder (Melbourne, 1902), 6. 1  Thomas Murray, ‘The language of bodybuilding’, American Speech 59, no. 3 (1984), pp. 195–206.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_1

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claimed that all the physical culture needed for women was housework.2 There was no one clear way and it was this confusion which enhanced its malleability. For purists of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-­century, physical culture was a practice distinct from sport and but one which promised to transform an individual’s social, sexual or political life. Evident of this was the fictional character of Leopold Bloom who, during the course of his Ulysses, revealed himself to be a lapsed, although interested, physical culturist.3 His motivations for doing so stemmed not from an innate love of exercising but an anxiety surrounding his sexual prowess and career prospects. Sport has often been discussed with reference to play, spontaneity and some sort of atavistic desire to compete.4 Physical culture and its practices—weight training, callisthenics and so on—have rarely been described as admirably. It has, more commonly, been cast in utilitarian terms.5 Simply put, it is described as a systematic and effective means of shaping the body. Evident in Greco-Roman times, if not earlier, physical culture practices have seldom been defined by spontaneity and, depending on one’s instructor, enjoyment.6 Done in the gymnasium, the home or military barracks, physical culture was often defined by structure, rigidity and planning. When Irishmen and women engaged in exercises, they did so with some form of plan. This is not to discount the fun had but rather to emphasise that this kind of activity was, and is, nearly always done with clear and defined motives. It was for this reason that Jan Todd conceptualised physical culture as ‘purposive exercise’, something done to obtain an obvious physiological end.7 Where such a practice has long captured the attention of military minds, and certainly more so from the early nineteenth-century, it was not until the late nineteenth-century that physical culture became a much more popular concern. The opening decades of the twentieth-century saw 2  Eustace Miles, The Eustace Miles System of Physical Culture with Hints as to Diet (London, 1908), pp. 60–62. 3  R.  Brandon Kershner, ‘The world’s strongest man: Joyce or Sandow?,’ James Joyce Quarterly 30 (1993), pp. 667–693. 4  Paul Rouse, ‘The sporting world and the human heart: Ireland, 1880–1930’, Irish Studies Review 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 309–324. 5  Jan Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of American Women, 1800–1870 (Macon, 1999), pp. 2–3. 6  Nigel B.  Crowther, ‘Weightlifting in antiquity: achievement and training’, Greece & Rome 24, no. 2 (1977), pp. 111–120. 7  Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful, pp. 2–4.

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a much greater, and unquestioning, acceptance of the idea that individuals must exercise.8 Distinct from sport, physical culture, or rather its activities, are still a point of concern in Ireland. In 2019, Healthy Ireland, an inter-­ departmental group created in the Republic of Ireland six years previously, claimed that only 46% of adult Irishmen and women achieved the minimum amount of exercise needed to maintain healthy lifestyles. A 2018 all-Island survey reported that only 13% of all schoolchildren reached the minimum targets needed for health.9 The failure of both groups to meet targets set by the World Health Organization presented a paradox for those involved in healthcare. Gym memberships in the Republic and Northern Ireland have grown consistently since 2015, with roughly 10% of the population estimated to be a gym member.10 At the same time, large sections of the population appear to be becoming increasingly unhealthy. Likewise sport holds a central part in Irish life. Gaelic games, soccer and rugby attract millions of Irish eyes every weekend while stadiums, clubs and pitches are littered throughout the island. The disconcerting fact remains that Irish adults and Irish children appear to be less active and more akin to spectators than participants. In both regions, state agencies have attempted to increase the population’s activity. Politicians speak of the need for physical activity, schools have reformed their physical education practices, men and women attend gyms to sculpt their bodies while group exercise classes can be found every night of the week in parish halls and gymnasiums.11 The need for physical fitness and health is an issue of both political and personal importance. This is not a new phenomenon, however, far from it. In the late nineteenth-century, Irishmen and women likewise exhibited an intense interest in their health and appearance. At the same moment, educators and policy makers began to discuss what measures, if any, could be taken to improve the nation’s fitness. This was not a peripheral or ephemeral concern, but something which continued for the next several decades. What united these concerns and the debates they encouraged was the term physical culture. In one of the first studies of physical culture in 8  Michael Anton Budd, The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the Age of Empire (New York, 1997), pp. 1–33. 9  The Children’s Sport Participation and Physical Activity Study 2018 (Dublin, 2018), p. 10. 10  Deloitte and Europe Active, European Health and Fitness Report 11  Irish Independent, Jun. 2, 2019, 6.

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Britain, Michael Anton Budd described physical culture as an ‘ideological and commercial cultivation of the body’.12 This definition has largely stood the test of time. In the Irish context, physical culture meant everything from group exercise classes to military training. For the period chosen for this book, that is, the late nineteenth-century to 1939, physical culture practices were found in classrooms, gymnasiums, military barracks, open fields and, in at least one case, a popular café. In Ireland, this desire to exercise was not a neutral or banal thing. It traversed military, political, social and gender histories. Conceptions of ideal health, strong masculinity and vibrant femininity were projected onto the body. Fears of racial decline, ill health and military defeat drove people into the gymnasium, community centre or classroom. The rise of physical culture in Ireland represented a new concern with the ideological and material control of the body. The Irish body was reshaped by a confluence of medical innovations, scientific theories and national anxieties about gender. At the core of these worries was a simple premise, one simultaneously attractive and improbable; a physically fit body was a vehicle for broader social or political good. For educators, fit bodies were integral to educational advancement. For generals, strong soldiers were good soldiers whereas for the individual man or woman, a healthy body was presented as a foundation for a prosperous life. The purpose then, of this book, is twofold. First it tracks the rise of the Irish interest in physical culture, marking its influences and defining factors. Following this, the book explores, in three distinct fields (the military/ police force, the classroom and the gymnasium), how far new anxieties about the body extended into Irish life. As will become clear, physical culture’s ideological value was rarely questioned in Ireland during this period. Where the limits of physical culture became evident was in material funding. This led to a reoccurring situation in which politicians and the public clamoured for improving physical culture while simultaneously lamenting the lack of money available. For those seeking to draw parallels with Ireland’s present health situation, the Island’s history makes for stark reading. The Irish interest in physical culture has largely been dealt with in passing reference in broader historical works.13 A number of articles have been  Budd, The Sculpture Machine, pp. x–xii.  Kershner, ‘The world’s strongest man: Joyce or Sandow?’; Rouse, ‘The sporting world and the human heart’. 12 13

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published but little substantial work currently exists and certainly none which deals with the origins and transmutation of a global phenomenon in the Irish context.14 What then, does a study of physical culture have to contribute to our understanding of Irish history? Restricting the focus of this book to three key areas, namely education, recreation and the military/police, the multifaceted use of physical culture in Ireland becomes clear. At a basic level, the inclusion of physical culture in Irish schools spoke of a new turn in Irish childhood, one which sought to holistically develop mind and body. In recent years a number of works have emerged concerning the development of childhood and adolescence in Ireland as an ideological construct.15 This research has been dominated by issues of gender, nationalism, educational theory and social class.16 Sport has held a peripheral place within these histories with one or two notable exceptions.17 Similarly, work does exist on the development of physical education in Irish schools but this has tended to shy away from the ideological and material realities of such teaching.18 A several-decade study of physical culture, as found in schools and recreational clubs, speaks a great deal to the importance of children’s bodies for educators and politicians. Beginning in the late nineteenth-century, discourses concerning physical education in schools centred on the creation of strong and athletic bodies. The development of such bodies in schoolchildren would, it was hoped, ensure academic achievement while bulwarking the nation-state against future dangers. Sport was used in this regard by some in the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) or, in the opening decade of the twentieth-century, groups like Na Fianna Éireann, but physical education in schools represented a systemic

14  Conor Heffernan, ‘The Irish Sandow school: physical culture competitions in fin-desiècle Ireland’, Irish Studies Review, 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 402–421. 15  Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London, 2015); Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.), Constructions of the Child in the Independence Period (London, 2018). 16  Mary Hatfield, Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: A Cultural History of Middle-Class Childhood and Gender (Oxford, 2019). 17  Richard McElligott, ‘A Youth Tainted with the Deadly Poison of Anglicism? Sport and Childhood in the Irish Independence Period’, in Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.), Constructions of the Irish Child in the Independence Period, 1910–1940 (London, 2018), pp. 294–296. 18  Deirdre Raftery and Catriona Delaney, ‘Un-Irish and un-Catholic: sports, physical education and girls’ schooling’, Irish Studies Review, 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 325–343.

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attempt to reform the body.19 Possible efforts are made here to include the student experience. Politicians and educators may have spoken of holistic development and physiological principles, but schoolchildren often remembered the fun, or lack thereof, in their physical education classes. Funding was rarely enough as evidenced by stories of physical education classes being conducted on public roads, but a deep-seated belief existed in the transformative power of physical culture for children. Underpinning the systems and conversations surrounding children’s physical culture across the decades chosen were developments in the military and the police force. After the Crimean War (1853–1856), the British military introduced a new training system which had great effects across the Empire. For the first time, the British military began using a systematic form of physical drill. Thus, in 1860, the military opened its first dedicated gymnasium in Aldershot alongside the establishment of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps.20 Owing to its military importance, the second British military gymnasium was established in the Curragh, Co. Kildare, in the late 1860s. From then on, military training and its broader influence was keenly felt in Ireland.21 This explains why early iterations of military training were found in Irish schools and even police depots. Work on the military has tended to centre on the class, religious and political outlook of military members.22 The physical body of Irish troops, with one or two exceptions, has held a secondary position. Thankfully, the study of Irish masculinities has gone some way to challenge this position. Aidan Beatty, Sikata Banerjee and others have stressed the importance of healthy and strong troops during the War of Independence, 1919–1921.23 19  Marnie Hay, ‘An Irish Nationalist Adolescence: Na Fianna Éireann, 1909–1923’, in Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London, 2015), pp. 103–128. 20  Fred Eugene Leonard, ‘The Beginnings of Modern Physical Training in Europe’, American Physical Education Review, 9, no. 2 (1904), pp. 91–93. 21  Con Costello, A Most Delightful Station: The British Army on the Curragh of Kildare, Ireland, 1855–1922 (Cork, 1996), pp. 80–94. 22  Thomas Bartlett, and Keith Jeffery, ‘An Irish Military Tradition?’, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (eds.), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 1–25; David FitzPatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900–1922’, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (eds.), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 379–406. 23  Aidan Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884-1938 (London, 2016); Sikata Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism: Gender, Violence, and Empire in India and Ireland, 1914–2004 (New York, 2012), pp. 7–23; Jane McGaughey, ‘Blood-Debts and Battlefields: Ulster Imperialism and Masculine Authority on the Western Front 1916–1918’, Journal of

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The military’s fetishisation of strong bodies, which began in the mid-­ nineteenth-­century, held considerable sway in Ireland for several decades.24 Throughout the period studied, one finds a bleeding out of military conceptions of health and fitness into Irish society. For some, this meant the inclusion of military officers in schools, while for others, it meant mandatory drilling practices found in military or paramilitary groups. Among officers, control and development of the body was thought to have a clear conversion to the battlefield and was taken as representative of the nation’s strength. For historians, a study in this regard elevates the body as a lightening road for nationalist and patriotic discourses. Operating on the nexus between institutional physical cultures and the military barracks was the world of recreational physical culture. Sport historians and historians of recreation in Ireland have only recently begun to move away from popular sports like Gaelic Football, soccer and rugby.25 A study of physical culture highlights the vibrancy of recreational cultures, at times completely, independent from sport. Arguably more democratic in the kind of facilities and training systems available to Irishmen and women, recreational physical culture was still bounded by its own strictures. The most obvious boundaries on recreational physical culture were geographical. Echoing findings found in regional studies of Irish history, it is clear that some counties were better equipped than others when it came to physical culture.26 In the late nineteenth-century, Ireland’s most advanced, some would say only, industrial city was Belfast which, unsurprisingly, was praised for the gymnasiums and classes found there. Moving into the twentieth-century, other cities and towns developed facilities, but as late as 1939, it was clear that rural Ireland and the west of Ireland were areas at times bereft of formal physical culture.

the Canadian Historical Association/Revue de la Société historique du Canada, 20, no. 2 (2009), pp. 3–27. 24  George Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford, 1998). 25  James Kelly, Sport in Ireland, 1600–1840 (Dublin, 2014); Paul Rouse, Sport and Ireland: A History (Oxford, 2015). 26  Tom Hunt, Sport and Society in Victorian Ireland: The Case of Westmeath (Cork, 2007); Conor Curran, The Development of Sport in Donegal, 1880–1935: The Development of Gaelic Games in Donegal, 1884–1934 (Cork, 2015); Richard McElligott, Forging a Kingdom: The GAA in Kerry, 1884–1934 (Cork, 2013); Liam O’Callaghan, Rugby in Munster: A Social and Cultural History (Cork, 2011); Patrick Bracken, The Growth of Sport in Co. Tipperary, 1840-1880 (Cork, 2018).

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Equally influential was the issue of social and economic class. From the ‘birth’ of physical culture in the late nineteenth-century, a clear disparity existed between the kinds of exercise available for the working and middle classes. Focused on the English context, and done as a backdrop to a biography of Eugen Sandow, David Chapman cited the distinction between working- and middle-class physical culture.27 Associated more with brute strength and immorality, working-class physical culture, as defined by Chapman, was more concerned with recreational weightlifting and associational drill. Middle- and upper-class physical culture was characterised by newly furnished gymnasiums, esoteric systems and a promise of self-­ fulfilment. In line with other European countries from this period, Irish physical culture was driven largely by an urban middle class interested in physical and mental betterment. Where working-class children and adults were often subjected, involuntarily, to physical culture through religious organisations or factory gymnasiums, wealthier classes could choose from a variety of systems and locations. Recreational physical culture was equally important when it came to the kinds of masculinities and femininities attached to the pursuit. In 2019, a much-needed handbook on Irish masculinity argued that despite the vibrancy of research on femininity in Ireland, more work was needed on masculinity.28 Physical culture, in other contexts, has been linked to broader issues of gender.29 Given the centrality of the body in ideas of what it means to be a man or woman, studying the training of the body provides a new means of enquiry in Irish history. Still in their infancy, studies of gender in Irish history have, for the most part, been defined by an interest in monolithic studies of masculinity or femininity. What is meant by this is that such works tend to focus on nationalist, sporting or leisure identities.30 These studies have advanced our understandings of the 27  David Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding (Illinois, 1994), p. 101. 28  R.  A. Barr, S.  Brady, & J.  McGaughey, ‘Ireland and Masculinities in History: An Introduction’, in R. A. Barr, S. Brady, & J. McGaughey (eds.) Ireland and Masculinities in History (London, 2019), pp. 1–17. 29  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain, 1880–1939 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 6–10; Joan Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford, 2012). 30  Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism; Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism; Leanne McCormick, Regulating sexuality: women in twentieth-century Northern Ireland (Manchester, 2013); Laura Kelly, Irish women in medicine, c. 1880s–1920s: Origins, education and careers (Manchester, 2015).

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mechanisms and boundaries of gender in Ireland but are in danger of erasing historical nuance in favour of tight narrative. This point was brought to the fore by Ben Griffin whose critique of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, the theoretical construct advanced by R.W.  Connell, offered a new means of approaching gender.31 Where Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity distinguishes between an overarching archetype of masculinity from which other subgroups are measured, Griffin instead advanced the idea of ‘communication communities’. Similar, in a sense to Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’, such groups are conceptualised in a recognition of the ‘variegated and uneven dissemination of particular sets of cultural norms’.32 Communication communities allow for nuance when dealing with gender as they recognise the multiple spaces and groups one claims membership of. Such communities do not discard ideas of hegemony, and, indeed, take account of the class and social structures which underpin gender identities.33 Griffin conceptualised the study of historical masculinities using a four-fold set of processes. This begins with a process of ‘cultural contestation’ wherein certain forms of masculinity are ‘celebrated’ thereby leading to ‘patterns of subordination, complicity, [and] marginalisation’ in a communication community.34 Next, there is the process whereby access to the mechanisms which allow men to identify themselves with these celebrated masculinities is unequally distributed within that communication community. This in turn leads to the process by which the performance of a particular masculinity is accorded recognition by others. Finally, the individual is positioned in the community in relation to sets of institutional practices, rewards and sanctions.35 A form of masculinity, or indeed femininity, that is highly prized in one community may take a subordinate role in another. Issues of class, education, geography and religion explain, in part, such disparities. For the purposes of this book, Griffin’s framework provides an ideal frame of reference. It acknowledges that the dominant social group is not 31  Ben Griffin, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity as a Historical Problem’, Gender & History 30, no. 2 (2018), pp. 377–400; R.W. Connell, Gender and Power (Sydney, 1987); R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley, 2005), 32  Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism (London, 1983); Ibid. 33  Griffin, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity as a Historical Problem’, pp. 377–400. 34  Ibid. 35  Ibid, p. 379.

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that which fully embody normative ideals, but rather those who can ‘plausibly present themselves as doing so’ within their communities.36 Put another way, it is impossible to achieve an abstract ideal entirely but it is possible to engage in behaviours associated with it. Furthermore, Griffin’s framework affords a greater place to the body than Connell’s previous discussions of hegemonic masculinity. Where Connell discussed the muscular body as an emblem or marker of traditionally privileged forms of masculinity, Griffin stresses the agency of the body within certain communities.37 Bodies acted as a constraint or a facilitator to certain communities and were, in turn, shaped by the norms and values of communities. In this regard, Griffin was greatly influenced by Pierre Bourdieu’s study of habitus which, in the case of the body, refers to both the subtle and explicit ways in which a body conforms to group standards.38 In the case of an Irish physical culturist, one learned to move the body in a certain way during exercise. The movement involved in completing an exercise in the gymnasium was an explicit ‘habitus’ learned by the body for those desirous of joining a gymnasium-based community. More subtle bodily movements were found in the efforts of individuals to change one’s posture, breathing technique or walking gait.39 Potentially innumerable, communities vary depending on their geographical space, education, occupation, religion and friend group. Such groups are influenced by the broader cultural, political and social milieu— in fact they sustain it—but the influences these factors have vary depending on the group. Although a somewhat chaotic abstraction, there is little neatness in the idea of potentially thousands of groups coexisting simultaneously; the idea of such groups holds truer to reality than other frameworks.40 In the course of his or her day, a person interested in physical culture could occupy the realm of work, play, prayer, sexual relations,

 Ibid, pp. 379–384.  Ibid., p. 390; R.W. Connell, ‘An iron man: The body and some contradictions of hegemonic masculinity’, in David Karen and Robert E. Washington (eds.), Sociological perspective on sport: The games outside the games (London, 1990), pp. 141–149. 38  Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations (Cambridge, 2000), p. 152. 39  G., Noble and M., Watkins, ‘So, how did Bourdieu learn to play tennis?’, Cultural studies, 17:3–4 (2003), pp. 520–539. 40  An alternative approach to Griffin in this regard is Tony Coles, ‘Negotiating the Field of Masculinity’, Men and Masculinities, 12:1 (2009), pp. 30–44. 36 37

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relaxation, politics, literature, theatre, home life and so on.41 Put simply, people moved through different groups, each with their own hierarchies and principles, constantly. Studying communication communities allows us to understand a hegemonic ideal—in this case the athletic body—but also the ‘frequency’ at which it was found. The ideal of the muscular or athletic frame held considerable sway in Ireland during the period studied but not all ascribed to the ideals and activities as intensely as others. The goal of the present work is to study those contexts wherein this interest was at its highest, while also taking account of the varying motives attached to it. Similarities exist between groups but space is given to individual difference within these pages. Turning to Irish physical culture, the disparities in Eugen Sandow’s consumer base illustrate the importance of such differences. In 1905, Private R.  Baxton, then stationed in Kildare, wrote to Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, about his physical transformation. Submitting photographs of his half-naked physique, Baxton proudly spoke of his physical transformation, which he felt reflected the body needed by soldiers. Furthering this point, Baxton asked Sandow to ‘use this’ [the photograph] in whatever way he saw fit.42 Two years later in 1907, Herbert Grace, a young Dublin assistant in a hardware store, wrote to the same magazine. Admitting shame with his physique, which had failed to ‘combat evils and keep in form’, Grace expressed commitment to the idea that a strong, muscular body was necessary for men seeking to improve their lot.43 Baxton and Grace shared the same cultural outlet in Sandow’s magazine. Both professed a belief in the muscular body and how it related to their sense of masculinity but differed in their belief of acceptable masculine behaviour. For Grace, a muscular and lean body, the kind of body he desired, would help him advance socially and, he implied, sexually. Baxton, on the other hand, linked his physique to military prowess and soldierly conduct. The two agreed on the relationship between muscularity and masculinity but differed in their understanding of what it entailed. Simply put, they operated in different communication communities. Grace and Baxton serve as two examples of a much larger phenomenon. This book will not 41  The previously discussed Leopold Bloom is a useful, albeit fictional, example. Brandon Kershner, ‘The world’s strongest man: Joyce or Sandow?’ pp. 667–693. 42  ‘Notes of the Week’, Physical Culture, 16 March (1905), p. 271. 43  ‘The Influence of One’, Sandow’s Magazine, 18 July (1907), p. 86.

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discuss a singular type of masculinity or femininity. Such an attempt would prove exhaustive and, ultimately, futile. Instead, the book examines the institutions, expressions and strategies used to negotiate gender identities. These communities were disparate in comparison but shared a belief in the ideological meaning of the body. Physical culture, and its practices, often related to a hyper-realised sense of masculine or feminine identity. Here gender will be studied, not as a monolithic construct, but as an ever evolving and negotiated process, one at times lacking in studies of Irish gender.44 Physical culture was a global phenomenon, one which spread from Laos to the United States and many countries in between.45 Physical culturists consumed much of the same literature, used the same equipment, spoke of the same icons and used the same language. This point was true for the individual exercisers as well as the military officer or educationalist seeking to reform the bodies in their care. Physical culture cannot be counted as the first global fitness trend—that arguably cared during the mid-nineteenth-century—but it can be depicted as the first transformative trend, one which swept across bodies, institutions and buildings. Previous work on physical culture has stressed its ideological value and allure for policymakers and gym goers. For British exercisers during the same period, physical culture was a means of stemming the tide against physical degeneracy, of reforming the female form, protecting schoolchildren and building muscular physiques.46 In interwar France, physical culture was tied in with the regeneration of the French body politic as expressed in its male citizens.47 Likewise in Germany, physical culture practices were used in everything from holistic medical practice to the gymnastic systems promoted by the Nazi regime.48 This is to say nothing of physical culture’s martial, religious and social importance in the United States, Asia or Russia.49 44  Judith Butler, ‘Athletic Genders: Hyperbolic Instance and/or the Overcoming of Sexual Binarism’. Stanford Humanities Review 6, no. 2 (1998), pp. 2–6. 45  Simon Creak, Embodied Nation: Sport, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern Laos (Honolulu, 2015). 46  Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body. 47  Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body. 48  Michael Hau, The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social History, 1890-1930 (Chicago, 2003). 49  Charlotte Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935–1960 (Vancouver, 2013); Susan Grant, Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society: Propaganda, Acculturation, and Transformation in the 1920s and 1930s (London, 2012).

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What marks the Irish case study as exceptional within these histories was the porous, and fractured, nature of Irish society. Ireland is almost entirely distinguishable from previous studies owing to its distinct political history.50 The partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland, still connected to Great Britain, and an Irish Free State in 1921, created a situation in which two governments enacted dramatically different physical culture systems and policies. In the past, work has tended to focus on physical culture in a single nation. Aside from Charlotte MacDonald’s comparative work, few scholars have compared and contrasted political and recreational physical culture in two states.51 Discounting, momentarily, the contentious political history of Ireland prior to partition, the sundering of Ireland in 1921 offers a ready-made and revealing comparison. A study of physical culture in Ireland tells a great about then about state physical culture. Ireland’s secondary position in global politics further marks its uniqueness. Unlike the German, British or French case, where domestic physical culture industries flourished, Irish physical culturists relied on foreign materials. That Ireland relied primarily on outside sources of physical culture, that it had a lacklustre domestic industry and that groups were anxious to mimic foreign efforts, highlights the global reach of physical culture. Work has already begun in this vein in Asia, but little has been done in the European context.52 That Irishmen and women wrote to British, French or American physical culture magazines, tells much about Ireland’s reliance on the global economy. It is equally correct to see it as an example of how global products, ideas and markets, came to be localised in the Irish context. Given the institutional physical cultures found in the military and classroom, not to mention the recreational physical cultures found in the gymnasium and social club, it would be incorrect to understand physical culture as a minority interest. Problems arose with its provision, and certainly at times, in its implementation, but its existence could not be denied. Physical culture in Ireland uniquely reflected Irish interests in nationalism, health and even militarism, while simultaneously offering a global outlet for Irish exercisers to interact with, and appropriate, broader global identities and practices. As varied as the systems and exercises were, the need to control the body was rarely questioned.  Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism.  Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern. 52  Creak, Embodied Nation. 50 51

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Structure Tracing the Irish interest in physical culture from the mid to late nineteenth-­century to the eve of the Second World War, this book examines three key areas of Irish life, the military/police, the school and the recreational gymnasium. It was here where physical culture’s impact was keenly felt and indeed within these circles, where physical culture’s importance or need was rarely questioned. Chapters 1–3 examine physical culture in military, educational and recreational settings from the late nineteenth-century to the end of the Irish War of Independence in 1921. The cessation of Ireland’s conflict with Great Britain is taken as a natural juncture. Post-1921, Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State diverged in their use and understanding of physical culture. Chapters 4–6 discuss physical culture in two interconnected, but politically different, Irelands. Given that physical culture, as a popular phenomenon, was driven by new trends in recreation, Chap. 1 begins with a discussion of recreational physical culture from the late nineteenth-century to 1922. Largely a middle-­class and male preserve, at least initially, this brand of physical culture was characterised by fears of physical degeneration, mental sluggishness and a desire to return to nature. Opening with a discussion of famed physical culturist Eugen Sandow, whose trips to Ireland in the 1890s illustrate physical culture’s rapid growth, the chapter discusses the variety of individuals and groups, who took to physical culture to improve their bodies and, it was assumed, their lives. Deeply connected with, and informing, recreational physical cultures were developments in the military during this period. Martial physical culture was an incredibly confused affair and it is this complexity scrutinised in Chap. 2. From the late nineteenth-century to the War of Independence, martial physical culture referred to those actions taken by the British military, those taken by paramilitary groups in the lead up to, and during, the Great War as well as those undertaken during the War of Independence. Each of these groups adapted, appropriated and adopted physical culture systems for their own ends. Where they shared in physical practices they differed in their motives. Responding to recreational and military physical cultures, Chap. 3 explores educational physical culture. As was the case in the post-independence period, educational physical culture was a topic of intense interest and debate among politicians and educators but one which suffered from a lack of funding. Despite this fact, low-cost efforts were pursued, at times

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vigorously, and helped normalise physical culture in the classroom both practically and ideologically. Educational and military physical culture grew in importance during the interwar period. So too did recreational physical culture, studied in Chap. 4. Where recreational pursuits drove physical culture in the years prior to the Great War, the interwar period was more reactive to broader institutional physical cultures. Educational and military debates influenced a recreational sector struggling to recover from nearly a decade of conflict. It is unsurprising that gymnasiums closed during the Great War and struggled to remain open during the War of Independence and Civil War. What is surprising was the vibrancy brought to physical culture in Northern Ireland and the Free State when peace returned. This included race Olympiads, co-operative gymnasiums, new outlets for women’s exercise and a focus on physical degeneration. What distinguished interwar physical culture also was, in part, a much more explicit promotion of male sexuality. Individuals in the pre-war period spoke of vigour and vitality. Those in the interwar period unabashedly claimed that women found muscular men sexually attractive. The impact this had, in both states, was found during the 1930s with the rise of pseudo-fascist groups, ‘perfect men’ competitions and a small acceptance of nudism. That Northern Ireland and the Free State exhibited shared and differing conceptions of recreational physical culture is clear. This situation was replicated in the military physical cultures studied in Chap. 5. Still under the remit of Great Britain, Northern Ireland became the seat of British military power in Ireland in the early 1920s. Operating in a time of temporary peace, military physical culture was no less important. This point was reiterated in the Free State. Largely unchanged in the decade following the War of Independence, the Irish military adopted a new system of Sokol physical culture from Czecho-Slovakia in 1934. Within five years of its implementation, Sokol was found in schools, recreational clubs, public demonstrations and physical training monographs. Sokol’s growth highlighted once more, the broader appeal of military physical culture in Irish society. Reflecting the growing institutional importance of physical culture, Chap. 6 continues this focus on educational physical culture, this time from 1921 to 1939. Now focusing on Northern Ireland and the Free State, Chap. 6 centres on both states’ efforts to popularise educational physical culture under trying circumstances. Still encouraged by a pre-war conviction that strong students ensured state prosperity and educational

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achievement, the two governments instituted a series of new measures. In Northern Ireland, educational physical culture was problematised by sectarian concerns. In the Free State, the need for fiscal solvency hampered the spread of physical culture in classes. Where funding wavered, interest did not. Speaking in the mid-1930s on his series with Radio Athlone, Captain John F. Lucy told Irish listeners: The people of this country have the tradition of being of good stock and physique. Compared with other countries, we can, to my own knowledge, produce a very high percentage of men and women who are potentially physically fit. At the same time, we neglect physical culture more than any other nation. There has been no great national drive to preserve it, as in Germany, Italy and the middle European countries. This is an incalculable loss to our country. The nation that is physically fit is buoyant, cheerful, daring and successful. If the physique of the nation is bad or neglected the people tend to be gloomy, lazy and intolerant.53

In one passage, Lucy encapsulated the essence of Irish physical culture. It was routinely recognised as important and worthwhile, but at the same time, it was seen as neglected and in need of support. The contradictory and confused nature of Irish physical culture, which was predicated on the control of the body, was as apparent to those at the time as it is to the twenty-first-century reader.

53  Captain John F. Lucy, Keep Fit & Cheerful for Young and Old of Both Sexes Including Ten Broadcast Talks on the Conscious Control of Physical Fitness (London, 1937), p. 9.

CHAPTER 2

Combating the ‘Evils of Civilisation’: Recreational Physical Culture in Pre-­ Independence Ireland

Twenty years ago, the term Physical Culture was scarcely known. Nowadays, everyone understands its meaning. —A. Wallace Jones, Fifty Exercises for Health & Strength (London., c. 1908), p. 9

Written for an English audience, Alexander Wallace Jones’s faith in physical culture was equally true for Ireland, albeit the Irish context grew from humbler origins. Visiting Ireland in the late nineteenth-century, Alexander Alexander, an English physical educationalist, despaired at the state of Irish physical culture. Admitting that Belfast was relatively advanced compared to the rest of the island, Alexander noted an indifference towards gymnasium culture bordering on hostility. After several months promoting gymnastics, Alexander was ‘treated more as a deluded eccentric than one who possessed any merit in his schemes’.1 How times changed. In 1899, Freeman’s Journal casually observed that physical culture’s value was increasingly recognised in Ireland.2 By that time, hundreds laid claim to the title of physical culturist, international athletes toured and sold products while the prospect of a private physical culture class, or indeed,

1 2

 A. Alexander, A Wayfarer’s Log (London, 1919), pp. 105–112.  Freeman’s Journal, Sept. 26, 1899.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_2

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gymnasium was unremarkable. What Alexander made of this development is unknown but it’s doubtful he recognised this Ireland. What effected this change, especially in such a short period of time, is the focus of the present chapter. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth-­century, and continuing to the early 1920s, the chapter explores the emergence of a uniquely different form of bodily exercise. Whereas Irish exercisers of the mid-nineteenth-century were often subjected to ersatz military routines said to produce slenderness and energy, those in the fin de siècle were told of muscularity, vigour, nerve, will and strength. For women, physical activity, as distinct from sport, was nearly non-existent in the 1850s. By 1910 there were recognisable women’s clubs which, during the Great War, became a primary port of entertainment. Recreational physical culture, especially from 1890 to 1914, marked a democratisation of a pursuit formerly associated with the military and the educated elites. From relative obscurity, a point noted by Alexander, the idea of going to the gymnasium, or exercising, was not only normalised but popularised. Regional disparities existed, especially between rural and urban centres, but a familiarity with physical culture grew. This form of physical culture was built on a new, arguably modern, relationship with the body. This relationship was premised on the idea that regulating one’s body led to improved social, sexual and sporting success. Control of the body was both possible and necessary. Leopold Bloom, the fictitious protagonist in James Joyce’s Ulysses, was one such example.3 Wandering the streets of Dublin on June 16, 1904, Bloom’s interest in physical culture stemmed from a perceived lack of sexual vigour. Meeting with an eclectic group of individuals during the course of the novel, Bloom couldn’t quite shake the thought that he ‘must begin again, those Sandow exercises’.4 ‘Sandow’ was Eugen Sandow, a turn of the century physical culturist soon discussed. His appeal came from forceful claims that the body could be brought to a state of perfection with unbounding energy.5 As a man struggling with a lack of marital intimacy, it was perhaps inevitable that Bloom turned to Sandow for help. Bloom’s interest was reflective of a broader Irish belief which took global messages  James Joyce, Ulysses (London, 1960 edition), 17.509.  R.B. Kershner, ‘The World’s Strongest Man: Joyce or Sandow?’, James Joyce Quarterly, 4, no. 31 (2010), pp. 153–173. 5  David Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding (Illinois, 2006), pp. 9–20. 3 4

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and adapted them for an Irish context. Bloom’s short-lived interest in exercising can be contrasted with another Joycean character, Mr. Duffy. Said to live ‘just a short distance from his body’, Duffy was a humorous, albeit, important indication of the body’s symbolic importance.6 Here physical culture will not be treated as a singular experience. Nor will the chapter discuss a singular idea of physical culture. Instead, the chapter interrogates the multiplicities of recreational physical culture which existed in Ireland during the first ‘wave’ of physical culture. Body cultures in Ireland existed prior to this time, usually under the title of gymnastics or physical training. ‘Physical culture’ was a definitive term which arose in the late 1880s and early 1890s.7 Its ‘birth’ began in the recreational world and poured into institutions like the military, police force and schools. Studying this development, the chapter opens with a discussion of physical culture’s emergence in Ireland with reference to Irish society and the initial meanings attached to physical culture. Following this, two waves of physical culture are examined—that found prior to the Great War and then from 1914 to 1921. Physical culture’s appeal may have differed for groups but the anxiety projected onto the body highlighted communalities in Irish thought.

‘Physical Culture Is Applicable Right Through Life …’: Why Did Physical Culture Come to Ireland? Physical culture is a mercurial term to define. Understood by some as going to the gymnasium, for others, it meant ascetic lifestyles defined by prolonged periods of fasting and cold-water bathes.8 Equally strange were those for whom physical culture meant a gormandiser’s appetite combined with Herculean strength.9 For the purposes of clarity, physical culture is understood here as those activities in which the development of the body was the primary purpose. It encompassed those efforts to effect change in the body through diet and exercise. Adding to the problematic nature of this term is the question of origins. There was no clear birth of physical culture. Instead, there was a gradual European interest in using physical  James Joyce, Dubliners (London, 2013), p. 55.  Michael Anton Budd, The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the Age of Empire (New York, 1997), pp. 1–44. 8  Robert Fitzsimmons, Physical Culture and Self-Defence (London, 1901). 9  George Hackenschmidt, The Way to Live: Health & Physical Fitness (London, 1908). 6

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training to reform, and strengthen, bodies.10 It was not inevitable that something classed as ‘physical culture’ would arise in Europe during this time. Gymnastics and physical training were used by militaries from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-centuries.11 Likewise, physical education, in Great Britain and mainland Europe, was brought into schools from the mid-nineteenth-century.12 Why did people voluntarily undertake dumbbell lifting, barbell pressing, Indian club swinging and pommel horse vaulting? Furthermore, why did so many prove willing, and eager, to part with their money to do so? An obvious, but oftentimes neglected answer, is fun. Studying physical culture and sport in the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries, it is remarkable how few historians comment on the fun, and friendships created on the sporting field or, in physical culture, the gymnasium. Mandatory physical culture, that found in the military, was often critiqued for its Spartan nature. That in the recreational gymnasium was often praised for its appeal. Paul Rouse’s previous assessment that fun was a major motivation in the Irish sporting movement of this time must be applied to physical culture.13 Some, like Michael Stokes, spoke of the thrill of lifting heavy weights.14 Others like Martin Willis and James Galavan commented on their pleasure in building muscular bodies.15 Lady Lillian Spender enjoyed ‘barking orders’ at her drill class in imitation of their instructor.16 Fun was important, and should not be overlooked. Equally influential, albeit perhaps less obvious, were social and economic changes afoot in Ireland. Previous studies of physical culture have cited industrialisation, a growing commercial culture and the ‘modernisation of sport’ as key  Budd, The Sculpture Machine, p. xi.  Fred Eugene Leonard, A Guide to the History of Physical Education (New York, 1923), pp. 17–70. 12   Peter C.  McIntosh, ‘Therapeutic Exercise in Scandinavia’, in J.G.  Dixon, Peter C. McIntosh, A.D. Munrow and R.F. Willetts (eds.), Landmarks in the History of Physical Education (London, 1957), pp. 81–107. 13  Paul Rouse, ‘The sporting world and the human heart: Ireland, 1880–1930’, Irish Studies Review 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 309–324. 14  Michael Stokes, ‘Irish Lifters’ Decision’, Health and Strength, 25, no. 21 (1919), p. 494. 15  ‘Notes of the Week’, Physical Culture, 16 March (1905), p. 271; James Galavan, ‘How I Benefitted from Physical Culture: By a Sandow Gold Medallist’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, 4 (1905), p. 437. 16  ‘Personal diary of Lady Lillian Spender, March 27, 1914’. Public Records Office of Northern Ireland D1633/2/19. 10 11

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factors in the growth of physical culture in the late nineteenth-century. In England, the growth of industrial cities across the nineteenth-century resulted in epicentres of physical culture.17 Industrialisation was equally important in Ireland, with the caveat that it was far more limited. Belfast was, for most of the nineteenth-century, the only Irish city which warranted the term ‘industrial’. Other cities, including Dublin, existed in a sort of quasi-industrial space.18 Disparities in wealth between Belfast and other Irish areas meant that discourses surrounding the need for physical culture often began in Belfast and from there spread throughout the country.19 Working conditions in factories prompted employers and concerned groups to advocate for some form of worker recreation.20 Long hours in the factory were thought to necessitate some form of leisure to avoid undue illnesses and create loyalty between worker and owner.21 The rise of factories, and changes wrought by industrialisation, precipitated physical culture. People feared the health implications of factory, and even clerical work. A clever system of physical exercise was regularly presented a fillip to one’s health. Changes in the economy also resulted in more disposable income, shorter working hours and worker organisations, all of which supported an eventful interest in physical culture.22 Ireland’s increasing industrialisation impacted consumption patterns. Caitriona Clear previously noted changes in consumer behaviour and expectation across Ireland in the late nineteenth-century.23 Increased wages, leisure time and a desire for social advancement underpinned a new consumerism defined by material objects. Products were linked to mobility and products produced for the body took a new importance.24 As  Budd, The Sculpture Machine, p. xvi.  Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (Belfast, 1993), p. 387. 19   Andy Bielenberg, ‘The Irish Economy, 1815–1880: Agricultural Transition, the Communication Revolution and the Limits of Industrialisation’, in James Kelly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ireland Volume III: 1730–1880 (Cambridge, 2018), pp.  179–203; Belfast Newsletter, 23 Oct., 1889. 20  Belfast Newsletter, 23 Oct., 1889. 21  Conor Heffernan, ‘Physical culture and Irish modernity, 1893 to 1918’, Leisure/Loisir, 43, no. 2 (2019), pp. 159–184. 22  Paul Rouse, Sport and Ireland: A History (Oxford, 2015), pp. 145–188. 23  Caitriona Clear, ‘Social Conditions in Ireland, 1880–1914’, in Thomas Bartlett, (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ireland, Volume IV: 1880s to Present (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 145–167. 24  Stephanie Rains, Commodity Culture and Social Class in Dublin 1850–1916 (Dublin, 2010), pp. 20–25. 17 18

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explained by Stephanie Rains, this resulted in a litany of dubious products emerging in fin de siècle Ireland premised on ideas of social advancement through a healthier body.25 In Rains’ study, everything from magnetic belts to fantastical electric devices promised unbounding health and improved life outcomes—be it socially or sexually. Advertising’s power was heightened and to great effect.26 The demand and desire for a better life as forged through the promise of consumer products proved strong in Ireland, as it did in England, France, Germany, the United States and several other regions.27 This meant that many consumers proved more than willing to purchase physical culture books, devices and supplements from the 1890s onwards. Intertwined with this consumer demand was the growing transnationalism of Irish life. Changes in consumer demand were fuelled by advances in transport and communication, which facilitated the spread of ideas.28 Products and magazines from the United States and England entered the Irish market which meant that Irish physical culturists could contribute to these periodicals and even those produced in France.29 The ability to purchase products from abroad, or have them sent home from relatives, ensured an availability of physical culture products and ideas.30 Changes in Irish consumption and the openness of Ireland’s markets allowed the region to enter the transnational marketplace of physical culture that emerged in the 1890s. Previous assertions made by F.S.L. Lyons that Irish interests in the 1890s were reflective of those found in England could be equally extended to Europe and the United States.31 Speaking, for a moment, in generalities, enough people in Ireland had enough money and enough free time to make an interest in exercise tenable. 25  Stephanie Rains, ‘Do You Ring? Or Are You Rung For? Mass Media, Class, and Social Aspiration in Edwardian Ireland’, New Hibernia Review, 18, no. 4 (2014), pp. 17–35. 26  John Strachan and Claire Nally, Advertising, Literature and Print Culture in Ireland, 1891–1922 (Basingstoke, 2012), pp. 35–58. 27  Frank Trentmann, Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth-Century to the Twenty-First (London, 2016), pp. 119–173. 28  Philip Bagwell and Peter J.  Lyth, Transport in Britain: From Canal Lock to Gridlock (London, 2002), pp. 17–40. 29  Bernarr Macfadden, ‘The Secret of Human Power’, Physical Culture, 20, no. 1 (1908), pp. 34–38; ‘Answers to Correspondents’, Apollo’s Magazine, 1, no. 4 (1903), p. 170; ‘Ms. A Carroll’, La Culture Physique, 1 October (1908), p. 1378. 30  Alison O’Malley-Younger, ‘A Terrible Beauty is Bought: 1916, Commemoration and Commodification’, Irish Studies Review, 24, no. 4 (2016), pp. 455–467. 31  F.S.L. Lyons, Culture and Anarchy in Ireland, 1890–1939 (Oxford, 1979), p. 7.

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What they needed were outlets and inspiration. On this point, the larger associational culture of the age was important, especially the growth of ‘modern’ sport. Sport existed in Ireland prior to this time, but the mid-­nineteenth-­ century witnessed a move towards codified forms of sport and play in Ireland.32 This democratisation of sport signalled a move towards acceptable forms of physical movement.33 Open more to men than women, the emergence of standardised sport allowed individuals the opportunity, with some reservations, to engage in sports ranging from cricket to tennis.34 Critical in this process was the articulation of a ‘muscular Christian’. Borne from the English public-school system in the mid-nineteenth-­ century, ‘muscular Christianity’ became an ideological tool through which competitive sport and game playing was elevated to a higher ideal. Under this framework sport was a means of instilling attributes related to fair play, cooperation, determination and fortitude. Idealistic in the extreme, ‘muscular Christianity’ gave a spiritual respectability to sport which later extended to physical culture.35 Like the sporting process found in England, Irishmen created associations, organised tournaments and competed against one another.36 Workplaces and churches formed teams, newspapers reported on competitive games and, in time, matches were held against Scotland, England and Wales.37 What distinguished Ireland from these regions was the creation of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884. Founded as part of a larger cultural nationalist project, the GAA’s popularity was mirrored by sports like rugby or soccer.38 Interestingly, two of the GAA’s founders, Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin, were said to have been inspired by the mass gymnastics movements created in Germany and France in the first half of the nineteenth-century.39 Despite this connection, the GAA was, for many  James Kelly, Sport in Ireland, 1600–1840 (Dublin, 2014).  A.  Bairner, ‘Irish Sport’ in Claire Connolly and Joe Cleary (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Irish Culture (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 192–200. 34  Hunt, Sport and Society, pp. 78–82. 35  Neal Garnham, ‘Both Praying and Playing: Muscular Christianity and the YMCA in North-East County Durham’, Journal of Social History, 35, no. 2 (2001), pp. 397–407. 36  Jennifer Kelly and R.V. Comerford (eds.), Associational Culture in Ireland and Abroad (Dublin, 2010). 37  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, pp. 60–70. 38  Mike Cronin, Sport and Nationalism in Ireland: Gaelic Games, Soccer and Irish Identity Since 1884 (Dublin, 1999), pp. 1–22. Other sports, like lawn tennis, did not have as strong political ties. Simon Eaves and Rob Lake, ‘The Decline of Lawn Tennis in Ireland around the Turn of the Twentieth Century: Bad Management, Bad Luck or Bad Homburg?’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 37, no. 8 (2020), pp. 607–632. 39   Mark Tierney and Margaret MacCurtain, The Birth of Modern Ireland (Dublin, 1969), p. 98. 32 33

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decades, removed from physical culture. Teams took a noticeable interest in physical training from the 1910s, but there was a tendency to disavow forms of dumbbell training or calisthenics.40 As late as 1974, GAA writers claimed that hurling or Gaelic football was all the exercise needed for physical development.41 The use of physical training in these sports was generally limited, but the emergence of training grounds and playing pitches opened up a ‘third place’ in recreational life.42 For Ray Oldenberg, the sociologist who coined the phrase, the ‘third place’ was defined as a separate space from the demands of work and home wherein individuals congregated, interacted and, in the case of sport, play.43 In the Irish context, the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries witnessed an intensification of associational cultures. Groups, like the Gaelic League, worked towards reviving the Irish language. Others focused on the arts as expressed in the theatre or a return to nature as found in scouting organisations.44 The emergence of a sporting ‘third place’, concurrent with a rising associational culture more generally, made permissible the growth of physical culture clubs and gymnasiums from the 1880s. It meant that when physical culture clubs formed from the 1890s onward, they could model themselves on already-existing clubs.45 This also held true for physical culture competitions that pitted individual teams against one another.46 Similarities were also paralleled in the problems affecting Irish sport. A host of regional studies have found that wealthier classes had greater choices in recreational outlets and that geography dictated sporting participation.47 The same held true for physical culture. For many decades

40  Mike Cronin, Mark Duncan and Paul Rouse, The GAA: A People’s History (Cork, 2014), pp. 46–48. 41  Liam Ó Tuama, Fánaithe an Ghleanna (Cork, 1974), p. 50. 42  Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Café, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You Through the Day (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 22–42. 43  Ibid., pp. 22–26. 44  Jennifer Kelly and R.V. Comerford (eds.), Associational Culture in Ireland and Abroad (Dublin, 2010). 45  On earlier clubs see Martin Moore, ‘The Origins of Association Football in Ireland, 1875–1880: A Reappraisal’, Sport in History, 37, no. 4 (2017), pp. 505–528. 46  The Irish Times, 18 Mar., 1895. 47  Conor Curran, The Development of Sport in Donegal, 1880–1935 (Cork, 2015), pp. 3–8; Hunt, Sport and Society.

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Dublin was said devoid of physical training facilities.48 The previously discussed Alexander Alexander later claimed that despite his best efforts, Dublin’s elites were ineffectual in bringing physical training to the public.49 This appears to have been the case until at least the mid-1880s when Dublin joined the ranks of Belfast, Limerick, Kilkenny, Carlow and Derry, and opened its first collection of ‘modern’ gymnasiums.50 Alexander’s critiques of Dublin’s elite fell on deaf ears. His attention would have been better directed at voluntary groups. From the last decade of the nineteenth-century Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCA) began constructing gymnasiums and acquiring training equipment.51 Physical training, as conducted in YMCA gymnasiums inspired by the ‘muscular Christian’ ideal, became popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. Churches in Ireland, across the period studied, tended for the most part to promote physical culture as a means of purifying one’s soul, improving discipline and providing diversion. This was the case for the Catholic Boys’ Brigade, founded in Dublin in 1894, as well as various YMCA gymnasiums.52 It is important to stress here that the kinds of motivations attached to physical culture in a YMCA differed from a private gymnasium. One ascribed physical culture with religious undertones, the other did not. Such differences, as we shall see, had ramifications for the gendered identities produced in each. The YMCA were often the first physical culture clubs to offer classes in Ireland. This was certainly the case in Belfast and its surrounding areas.53 Other cities, like Dublin and Cork, gradually built YMCA gymnasiums but this did not stop repeated claims that Belfast led the way in physical training.54 Studies of physical culture elsewhere have noted the rise of industrialism, commercialism, and sport in the ‘birth’ of physical culture in the late nineteenth-­ century.55 The same appears to hold true for Ireland, if one also accepts the importance of fun. What made physical culture attractive is a great deal  The Irish Times, 15 Jan., 1873.  A. Alexander, A Wayfarer’s Log (London, 1919), pp. 105–112. 50  Irish Society, 13 Jul., 1889. 51  ‘Minute No. 75 Belfast Dec 18th 1901’, Minute book for meetings of the Executive Committee of the Y.M.C.A. 1901–1922 (PRONI, D3788/1/5). 52  ‘1899 Report of the Catholic Boys’ Brigade’ (Capuchin Archives, Ireland, CA/ COM/BB/7). 53  Y.M.C.A. Annual Report 1907–8 (Belfast, 1908), pp. 6–9. 54  ‘Good Old Ireland’, Vitality, 7, no. 6 (1906), p. 270. 55  Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body, pp. 2–24. 48 49

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harder to answer than what made it possible as that answer requires an inquiry into the ideologies and motivations of those involved.

‘The Object of Physical Culture Is to Bring the Body to the Highest State of Perfection …’: Deconstructing Physical Culture in 1900s Ireland What do you do when the ‘world’s most perfectly developed specimen’ visits your country? It is a strange question but one which arose not once, but twice, in 1890s Ireland. In 1893, Eugen Sandow, an individual described as the world’s leading physical culturist, docked in Queenstown, Cork on route to North America. As part of his time there, Sandow toured the streets and enjoyed a trip on a jaunting car before departing to Chicago.56 The trip was uneventful for a performer soon described as the ‘Monarch of Muscle’. It nevertheless marked the first time that an international ‘physical culturist’ came to Ireland.57 Physical training and gymnastics existed in Ireland prior to the 1880s but it was not until the closing decades of the nineteenth-century that ‘physical culture’ entered the popular vernacular.58 As ‘the world’s most perfectly developed specimen’ and the man who helped initiate a worldwide interest in physical culture, Sandow’s arrival marked a growing Irish interest in bodily cultivation. His visit was fleeting but the memory endured thanks to regional newspapers and companies like Murphy’s Stout, who used Sandow in their advertising.59 The relative lack of interest in Sandow’s Queenstown visit was not due to an Irish ignorance. His weightlifting victory over a fellow strongman, ‘Samson’, in 1889, captivated Irish newspapers and encouraged a greater interest in exercise.60 When Sandow returned to Ireland five years after his Queenstown stop-over, his arrival caused a greater sensation.61 As part of a month-long theatrical run in Dublin and Belfast’s Empire Theatres, the strongman, entertained crowds with feats of strength and muscle posing, lectured doctors on physical culture and developed business relationships  The Cork Examiner, 27 Nov., 1893.  Following Sandow’s trip, other physical culturists came to Ireland. Evening Herald, 10 Aug., 1895. 58  Freeman’s Journal, 20 Sept., 1898. 59  Munster Express, 20 Dec., 1902. 60  Irish Examiner, 4 Nov., 1889. 61  Freeman’s Journal, 9 May, 1898. 56 57

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that lasted a decade.62 Reflecting on the event a decade later, W.R.  MacPherson, an Irish weightlifter, recorded Sandow’s impact in quasi-mythical tones: Sandow descended on Dublin like a thunderbolt, and in a whirlwind of enthusiasm, with his marvellous and prodigious feats of strength and his marvellous exhibition of a beautifully developed body created an interest and inspiration in the hearts and minds of those who beheld him.63

Sandow did not bring ‘physical culture’ to Ireland, this was a slow process, but he intensified and amplified this interest. At the end of his theatre run in 1898, Sandow promised audiences that his commercial empire would expand to Ireland.64 The same was true for physical culture more generally. During Sandow’s tours, the strongman delivered a lecture on physical culture for forty members of the public, many of whom were physicians. At the end of the lecture, Sandow underwent an impromptu medical exam, which concluded with the prognosis that he was ‘sound as a bell’.65 The next day newspapers spoke of the ‘many eminent surgeons’ who had ‘expressed surprise at the extraordinary extent to which Sandow’s muscles have been developed’.66 Whereas previously Sandow’s abnormal musculature may have been regarded as freakish, it was praised as beautiful.67 Sandow’s muscular body became more than a thing of beauty; it became a status symbol, an indicator to others of his learning and personality. Before Sandow’s appearance in Dublin, he was deemed ‘a man of mind and purpose’ by local newspapers.68 Within three years, the Irish Times praised Sandow for concerning himself ‘with the improvement of the human race’ through physical culture.69 Sandow himself played on such ideas in his own writings to elevate the broader importance of his pursuit. In Strength and How to Obtain It, published in 1897, Sandow told readers of the inherent benefits found in a love of physical culture. It would develop brain power, increase vigour, and, if adhered to, move one  Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1898.  W.R. MacPherson, ‘Weightlifting in Ireland’, Health and Vim, September (1916), p. 214. 64  Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1898. 65  Dublin Daily Express, 6 May, 1898. 66  Ibid. 67  Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1898. 68  The Irish Examiner, 9 May, 1898. 69  The Irish Times, 03 Aug., 1901. 62 63

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closer to the ideal of perfection embodied by Sandow.70 Over the next several years Sandow continually reiterated this message through monographs, the periodical Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, which ran from 1898 to 1907 and a host of health devices. Later advertisements for Sandow’s ‘Physical Culture Institutes’ proved the most ambitious of his ventures. By the late 1900s, Sandow claimed that physical culture could make anyone a centenarian, that physical and mental illness could be cured through his ‘Sandow Developer’ and that his dried milk powders contained the nutritional strength of several dozen eggs.71 It was during the late 1890s and early 1900s, that a litany of entrepreneurs, physicians, politicians and athletes sought to advertise, a specific brand of physical culture. Here some of the more prominent voices are explored to highlight not only the multiplicity of meanings applied to physical culture but also to establish a framework for the book. Physical culture was entrenched in ideas of gender and nationalism. It was through physical culture that men could become physically and, it was presumed, mentally strong. The ‘typical’ male physical culturist—as far as one can use the term typical—was said to possess unbounding energy, remarkable strength, determination and character.72 For women, until at least the 1930s, physical culture was linked to their body’s functioning—it would help produce healthy children, reform their ‘defects’ and make them more attractive.73 Children were told physical culture would make them strong for adulthood, cure illnesses and improve their education.74 The body became a vehicle for navigating the world. It was a visual marker, a fleshy indication of an individual’s drive, stock and ambition. In varying degrees, physical culture was intimately linked to nationalism. At its most overt, men were encouraged to become ‘strong Irishmen’, differentiated from British culture.75 Female physical culture was often tied to motherland, 70  Eugen Sandow, Strength and How to Obtain It: Revised Edition (London, 1901), pp. 1–25. 71  Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent, pp. 88–165. 72  Jacqueline Reich, ‘“The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man” Charles Atlas, Physical Culture, and the Inscription of American Masculinity’, Men and Masculinities 12, no. 4 (2010), pp. 444–461. 73   Mary Lynn Stewart, For Health and Beauty: physical culture for Frenchwomen, 1880s–1930s (Baltimore, 2001). 74  David S. Churchill, ‘Making Broad Shoulders: Body-Building and Physical Culture in Chicago 1890–1920’, History of Education Quarterly 48, no. 3 (2008), pp. 341–370. 75  Patrick F. McDevitt, ‘Muscular Catholicism: Nationalism, masculinity and Gaelic team sports, 1884–1916’, Gender & History 9, no. 2 (1997), pp. 262–284.

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Fig. 2.1  Martin Willis, a Sandow customer from the early 1900s. (‘Reader’s Responses’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, Vol. X, January to June (1903) (London, 1903), p. 240)

domesticity and producing stronger children. Far more implicit was the suggestion that Ireland’s national health was waning and every able-­ bodied person was responsible for rectifying the situation (Fig. 2.1). Groups interested in physical culture shared an appreciation for strong and healthy bodies, that much is clear. They all, to varying degrees, sought to control, regulate and manage the body with a previously unheard-of intensity and scale. What is less clear is what they believed this body would do, or symbolise. A recent, a much-needed critique, of hegemonic masculinity in history is that by Ben Griffin who, although accepting the hierarchical and relationship nature of gender, suggested the study of ‘communication communities’ instead.76 Physical culturists in Ireland shared the assumption that the fit, strong and healthy body was linked to an inherent good. It became something to strive for, and something to  Ben Griffin, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity as a Historical Problem’, Gender & History 30, no. 2 (2018) pp. 377–383. 76

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achieve. This process was aided by a shared engagement in new behaviours, exercises and media. As will become clear, Irish physical  culture existed in multiple communities operating simultaneously. Contemporaries of Sandow publishing in Ireland, like the American physical culturist Bernarr Macfadden, proved even bolder in their statements. Macfadden decried the evils of modern medicine and claimed that everything from poor eyesight to tumours could be cured through physical culture.77 Publishing Physical Culture magazine from his New  York office, Macfadden enjoyed a circulation totalling over 100,000 by the late 1900s. Readers claimed nationalities from around the globe, including Ireland, which featured several contributors.78 This did not mean, however, that Macfadden’s radicalism was always welcomed. Later reflecting on their marriage, Mary Macfadden remembered a tour of County Monaghan in 1914 which ended with Bernarr Macfadden being heckled for several nights by physicians in the audience before Macfadden ended the tour and travelled to Great Britain.79 Less pronounced, in either their views or popularity, were a host of other physical culturists time who captured the attention of Irishmen and women. The vegetarian tennis player turned physical culturist Eustace Miles attracted a great deal of attention in Irish periodicals.80 His message? Exercise the body, eschew meat and a prosperous life was almost assured.81 Hancock Irving claimed that physical culture entailed ‘obedience to the simple and readily ascertained laws of Nature’.82 This obedience would make one healthy, happy and rich. Hancock’s audience was evidentially not as enthusiastic. The physical culturist later expressed incredulity that some ‘people still question the use of physical culture nowadays’.83 William ‘Apollo’ Bankier expressed a pride in the British race, whom he claimed excelled in matters of strength. Bankier also tapped into a growing British  Robert Ernst, Weakness is a crime: The life of Bernarr Macfadden (Syracuse, 1991).  Bernarr Macfadden, ‘The Secret of Human Power’, Physical Culture, 20, no. 1 (1908), pp. 34–38. 79  Mary Williamson Macfadden and Emile Gauvreau, Dumbbells and carrot strips: The story of Bernarr Macfadden (New York, 1953), pp. 24–30. 80  The Irish Times, 08 Jun., 1900; The Irish Times, 15 Nov., 1900; Cyclops, ‘Cycling and Athletics’, The Constabulary Gazette, 12 September (1908), p. 435. 81  Eustace Miles, Failures of Vegetarianism (New York, 1902). 82  Harrie Irving Hancock, The Physical Culture Life: A Guide for All who Seek the Simple Laws of Abounding Health (London, 1905), p. v. 83  Ibid., p. 59. 77 78

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concern with physical degeneracy to claim that the current generation was physically frail.84 In all of this was also an implicit celebration of the white physique. It was the white physique of Sandow many deemed as perfection and the white physique which elicited attention in magazines.85 Physical culturists could live, it seemed, a paradoxical existence. In 1901, F.A.  Schmidt and Eustace Miles claimed that the British public, which they extended to include Ireland, had an insatiable appetite for physical culture literature without a corresponding increase in physical activity.86 One group routinely excluded from such debates were women. Aside from Bernarr Macfadden, who was a staunch supporter of female physical activity, many pre-war physical culturists directed their attention at men.87 Echoing the broader sporting milieu, it was assumed that characteristics of strength and muscle were inherently male. Even those who professed support for female emancipation, like Eustace Miles, directed their attention more towards men. This did not mean that women did not use these systems, but rather that women were absent from the messages attached to them. When physical culture systems were directed at women, the texts reaffirmed woman’s supposed frailty. In 1907 Helena Gent published Health and Beauty. The publishing house, connected to the popular Health and Strength magazine, was one of the most prolific publishers of the time and owing to the publisher’s magazine enjoyed a great deal of advertising.88 Gent opened with a claim of woman’s physical strength, asserting that ideas of an inferior sex were entirely unfounded. Indeed, Gent stressed her belief that ‘given the same latitude for indulgence in healthy sport and outdoor recreation as he, she is equally robust’.89 Seeking to address this imbalance, Gent did not promote the same systems of physical culture for men and women, but instead highlighted the benefits of light callisthenics 84  William Bankier, Ideal Physical Culture: And the Truth about the Strong Man (London, 1900). 85  Richard Dyer, ‘The white man’s muscles’, in Harry Stecopoulos & Michael Uebel, eds., Race and the Subject of Masculinities (Durham 1997), pp. 286–314. 86  Ferdinand August Schmidt and Eustace Miles, The Training of the Body: For Games, Athletics, Gymnastics and Other Forms of Exercise and for Health, Growth and Development (London, 1901), pp. 1–12. 87  Jan Todd, ‘Bernarr Macfadden: Reformer of Feminine Form’, Journal of Sport History, 14, no. 1 (1987), pp. 61–75. 88  Helena Gent, Health and Beauty (London, 1907). 89  Ibid., p. 5.

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and dumbbells for women. This was a common theme in physical culture systems. Women were encouraged to exercise by using a simpler, gentler system.90 At its most absurd, recommendations on female exercise including cleaning the home or performing rhythmic movements with balloons.91 Women, of course, were inhibited in what they could, or could not do publicly. When Eugen Sandow hosted a physique competition for men in the late nineteenth-century, it took two years to process all of the entrants. When Sandow attempted a female contest, it was discontinued after several weeks. Expressing his disappointment in his Magazine of Physical Culture, the strongman was rebuked by a female contributor who claimed that it was impossible for women to respectfully display their bodies in such a way.92 The authors discussed thus far—their voices, systems and opinions— emanated from Great Britain and grew in the Irish marketplace of ideas. What is remarkable was not this flow of ideas but rather how quickly they were adapted to the Irish context. A global confidence in the ability to transform one’s body found favour in Ireland and began a process of reforming the Irish physique. Taking a cue from Eugen Sandow, many expressed a faith in the perfectibility of the male body which, it was presumed, translated to social success. By the early 1900s, ‘Huckleberry Finn’ (J. Maxwell Neilly) of the Irish Times provided a weekly column on physical culture deeply concerned with masculinity and muscularity. While Finn often focused on the Royal Irish Constabulary, discussed in later chapters, he offered a space for the ordinary citizen to express anxieties about their bodies.93 Other contributors to the Irish Times expressed similar views on the relationship between muscularity and men’s social standing.94 One of the most explicit endorsements was found in an anonymous Kerry News’ article from 1904 which argued that ‘the better a man’s physique the greater his chances of success in any business or profession’. As physical culture brought ‘the body to the highest state of perfection’, it was explained that perfect health meant vigorous manhood.95 90  Patricia Anne Vertinsky, The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, doctors, and exercise in the late nineteenth century (Manchester, 1990). 91  Irish Times, 2 Mar., 1895. 92  Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent, pp. 128–140. 93  Conor Heffernan, ‘Physical culture, the Royal Irish Constabulary and police masculinities in Ireland, 1900–14’, Irish Historical Studies 43, no. 164 (2019), pp. 237–251. 94  Weekly Irish Times, 24 Mar., 1906; Weekly Irish Times, 27 Nov., 1909. 95  Kerry News, 02 Mar., 1904.

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What was interesting about such messages was the duty they placed on the individual. If physical culture had spread ‘across all the classes’ as one commentator suggested in the mid-1890s, there was an assumption that all men would take an interest in perfecting, and certainly improving, their health.96 Thus articles noted the importance of physical culture on Irish manhood, specifically with regard to men’s bearing, work ethic, confidence and even vigour.97 There was, of course, also the suggestion that physical culture would increase one’s sexual prowess and attractiveness.98 Certainly, in the Irish context, several contributions to British physical culture magazines related to increases in one’s success with reference to the opposite sex.99 Same sex desire, as D.K. Johnson’s later work on 1960s bodybuilding demonstrated, was part of this world as well. Unfortunately, this element to Irish physical culture is largely hidden, as is the case in other parts of Irish history.100 As the Irish interest in physical culture intensified in the early 1900s, it became crudely obvious that the fit male body became a carrier for broadly aspirational masculinities. There was, in effect, a ‘looping effect’ whereby physical culture authorities created new identities and standards which were, in turn, recreated and modified by consumers before being brought back to physical culture figureheads.101 One obvious feedback loop, and an example of the optimism surrounding the perfectibility of the male body, were Sandow’s mail order courses. Purchased by Irishmen for a variety of reasons, from health concerns to vanity, such courses included a list of exercises, words of encouragement and an anthropomorphic chart which men could use to measure their bodies and compare themselves to Sandow. This was just the beginning. From 1899 to 1901, dozens of Irishmen entered Sandow’s ‘Great Competition’ in the hope of being crowned the ‘Best Developed Man in Great Britain and Ireland’. Seen by many as the first modern bodybuilding  ‘Gymnastics in Dublin’, The Irish Times, 15 Sept., 1893.  Dublin Daily Express, 11 Aug., 1903; Kerry Weekly Reporter, 07 Apr., 1906; Meath Chronicle, 04 Jan., 1908. 98  Carol Dyhouse, Heartthrobs: a history of women and desire (Oxford, 2017), p. 69. 99  ‘The Influence of One’, Sandow’s Magazine. 100  David K. Johnson, Buying gay: How physique entrepreneurs sparked a movement (New York, 2019); Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of sin: Sex and society in modern Ireland (London, 2010), pp. 1–10. 101  Ian Hacking, ‘The looping effects of human kinds’, in D.  Sperber, D.  Premack, & A. J. Premack, eds., Symposia of the Fyssen Foundation. Causal cognition: A multidisciplinary debate (Oxford, 1995), pp. 351–394. 96 97

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competition, Sandow’s contest was held over several years with the finale held in London’s Royal Albert Hall in 1901. Regional shows in Dublin and Belfast, in particular, were praised for the ‘state of physical development’ on display.102 To progress to the final, individuals were measured on a strict criterion, which measured their muscularity, skin tone and overall glow. Irish contestants came from a variety of backgrounds, from bank clerks to furriers, a point which substantiated the idea of physical culture reaching all classes.103 Sandow’s competition spoke of the rapidity with which ideas about male perfection and beauty interested some Irishmen. Prior to Sandow’s ‘Great Competition’, the idea of a competition based on a man’s physique was non-existent. Bodybuilding did not emerge until the 1920s, if not later, and the only true predecessors dated to Ancient Greece.104 Discussed objectively, it was a strange proposition. Men took photographs of their naked torsos, sent the photographs to a stranger and, with luck, had them publicised in Sandow’s magazine. Hopefully invited to his grand finale, they could next don black posing trunks and exhibit their bodies in front of a live audience. A cash prize was on offer but this doesn’t explain why many more individuals submitted their images each month in physical culture magazines outside of competition. That such behaviours were not criticised, but praised, in the media highlights the acceptance of muscularity, strength and vanity, when it came to the male body. This was a community that privileged the muscular male body above all else. What may have been strange in civil society was celebrated in Sandow’s magazine. During and after Sandow’s competition, a series of strength and physique shows were held in Ireland on the basis of physical culture. In March 1899, Cork entrepreneur Eddie O’Callaghan, who was one of Sandow’s Irish agents, held a ‘strongman’ contest in his shop on Parade Street. Contestants were required to raise a 120 lbs. dumbbell overhead with one hand. O’Callaghan’s contest was a once off affair but such competitions continued to grow in popularity as evidenced by continued efforts to create an Irish weightlifting organisation during the Great War.105 In 1908, 102  Conor Heffernan, ‘The Irish Sandow school: physical culture competitions in fin-desiècle Ireland’, Irish Studies Review, 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 402–421. 103  Ibid. 104  John D.  Fair, Mr. America: The tragic history of a bodybuilding icon (Texas, 2015), pp. 1–12. 105  Conor Heffernan, ‘Strength Peddlers: Eddie O’Callaghan and the selling of Irish strength’, Sport in History 38, no. 1 (2018), pp. 23–45.

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another physique competition was held in Dublin’s Empire Palace Theatre. Done alongside a variety show, the tournament included events in boxing, wrestling, weightlifting and physical development. Advertisements produced in the lead up to the event noted ‘enormous numbers of entries from all parts’.106 Advertised in Freeman’s Journal and the Evening Herald, the contest was a direct imitation of the contests put on by Sandow and at a later date, those run by Health and Strength magazine. The eventual winner was W.N. Kerr. An instructor at Dublin’s International Wrestling and Weight-lifting Club, Kerr embodied the nexus between international and domestic physical culture. A prolific writer, he appeared in several British and American physical culture magazines. Alongside his gold medal in ‘Physical Development’, Kerr also won monthly physique and strength competitions in Health and Strength magazine during this decade.107 Such competitions promoted the idea that with hard work, any individual could control their body in terms of its appearance or strength. They were also dosed with a eugenic interest in perfecting the body. Kerr, whose evolving interest in physical culture can be tracked by submissions to British and American magazines, later expressed that physical culture had, alongside his vegetarian diet, transformed his life.108 He no longer lived a listless existence but one characterised by social and commercial success. An obvious question to ask is what happened if one failed to change their appearance or effect a noticeable change? It was perhaps inevitable that some Irishmen expressed shame and, at times, disgust towards their body. When the teenage F.A. Hornibrook saw Sandow in 1898, he began weight training and obsessively measuring the size of his arms.109 That Hornibrook later forged a career as a physical culturist suggests he succeeded in his quest. Not all were so lucky.110 Several contributors to Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture in the early 1900s expressed ­disgust or shame in their physiques.111 One individual was Martin Willis from 106  Conor Heffernan, ‘Truly muscular Gaels? W.N. Kerr, physical culture and Irish masculinity in the early twentieth century’, Sport in History (2019), pp. 1–24. 107  Ibid. 108  Ibid. 109  F.A. Hornibrook, Without Reserve (London, 1935), pp. 13–14. 110  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, ‘The culture of the abdomen: obesity and reducing in Britain, circa 1900–1939’, Journal of British Studies 44, no. 2 (2005), pp. 239–273. 111  ‘Influence of One’, Sandow’s Magazine; ‘Reader’s Responses’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, Vol. X, January to June (1903) (London, Harrison & Sons, 1903), p. 240; ‘Notes of the Week’, Physical Culture, 16 March (1905), p. 271.

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Newry, who told Sandow of the shame he felt displaying his body. Once Martin built muscle he felt content.112 Herbert Grace began lifting weights after it became apparent that he was not as strong or muscular as his friends.113 Shame could also come from outside sources. One individual, writing under the nom de plume of ‘An Enthusiastic Physical Culturist’, told Sandow of the ‘skeleton flops’ he found in Belfast gymnasiums devoid of muscle or strength. The masculine, muscular ideal was used to elevate, and denigrate, others.114 Such behaviours and comments self-regulated men’s thoughts on the correct and incorrect body. The physical culture male was depicted as a strong, beautiful individual destined to succeed in life. What then, of their female counterpart? With the proviso that female physical culture lagged behind men, there was still a sense that women’s physical culture was, in its own way, emancipatory. A reoccurring theme was that ‘the physical culture woman’ was different and freer than her mother’s generation. One instance was given by Graphis in the Weekly Irish Times in 1893. Praising the growth of ‘strong and supple’ women, Graphis argued that although ‘prejudices cannot be wiped out at a single blow’, many now dismissed the idea that physical culture was not ‘lady like’. Readers were told that ‘the young woman of 1893 is … delightfully unlike her mother or her grandmother’.115 Problematically this same passage was used by J. Maxwell Neilly (‘Huck Finn’) in the Weekly Irish Times a decade later. Finn claimed that ‘the young woman of 1908 is deliberately unlike her mother and yet even more unlike her grandmother’.116 In these assertions was the implicit knowledge that physical culture was the preserve of the youthful. This continued to be the case for women in Ireland until the 1930s. Where men’s physical culture was often enmeshed in ideas of perfectibility and material or sexual conquest, female physical culture was hampered by the acceptable norms of womanhood. A key message in female physical culture was often the need to cure woman of the ‘evils of civilisation’ that had debilitated her frame. This, as many in Ireland attested, was a common scourge of the time. One author to the Irish Times claimed:  ‘Reader’s Responses’, Sandow’s Magazine.  ‘Influence of One’, Sandow’s Magazine. 114   ‘An Enthusiastic Physical Culturist, ‘Serious Charge Against Belfast’, Sandow’s Magazine, 18 April (1907), p. 504. 115  Weekly Irish Times, 25 Feb., 1893. 116  Weekly Irish Times, 28 Nov., 1908. 112 113

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The majority of women who are not athletically trained suffer from various forms of physical weakness, the result of want of exercise and of sitting in unventilated rooms.117

The women they referred to were seen to represent a large part of the female population. Working women were not immune from concerns. Established in the late nineteenth-century, the Dublin Working Girls Drilling Association became a means of discouraging undesirable behaviours and strengthening women’s supposedly frail frames, hence making them better workers.118 Men were encouraged to build strength and muscularity. Female physical culture, on the other hand, was premised on the need to return to a natural or intended state of normality. The female physical culturist was not expected to be strong or muscular but rather to be free from physical weakness. It was a subtle change but a significant one. In explaining the need for physical culture many related the presumed benefits to woman’s ‘naturally’ frailer constitution and duty to birth children.119 That physical culture writings ascribed to the idea that woman was more delicate than man is not surprising. Where female sport existed, it was often hampered by notions of appropriate exercise for women, female delicacy or worse. Brian Griffin’s study of female cycling found that Irishwomen were subjected to insults and assaults when cycling in public.120 Similar prejudices existed in other female sports.121 When it came to actual female physical culture, as practised in the home or social club, the systems used were differentiated from those aimed at men. Generally speaking, male physical culturists were encouraged to lift heavy weights or, at the very least, engage in vigorous gymnastics. Female physical culture often appropriated systems of male physical culture and stripped them of their strenuous components. In practical terms this meant that although many female physical culture classes used dumbbells and barbells, they used lighter weights. The class differentiations found in male physical culture were lessened in the female context. Middle-class  Weekly Irish Times, 24 Mar., 1906.  Weekly Irish Times, 28 Nov., 1908. 119  Weekly Irish Times, 27 Sept., 1902; Wicklow People, 11 Oct., 1902; Wicklow People, 18 Aug., 1900. 120  Brian Griffin, ‘Cycling and gender in Victorian Ireland’, Eire-Ireland 41, no. 1 (2006), pp. 213–241. 121  Ríona Nic Congáil, ‘“Looking on for Centuries from the Sideline”: Gaelic Feminism and the Rise of Camogie’, Éire-Ireland 48, no. 1 (2013), pp. 168–190. 117 118

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men were pushed towards more expressive forms of exercise. Working-­ class men were encouraged to use physical culture as a means of reform.122 The same exercises, in different communities, took greatly different motivations. The overriding emphasis for women focused on motherhood and reforming the female body which created a uniformity in female physical culture. Where discussions of sexuality arose, they were couched in shrouded messages about the need to maintain a slim physique. Discussions of childhood physical culture will be dealt with in the next chapter. Here it is sufficient to state that children’s physical culture, like that aimed at adults, was linked to racial fitness. Bulwarking messages aimed at men, women and children, was a concern that Ireland was physically degenerating as a ‘race’. Discussions of eugenics in Ireland, aside from Brian Ó Conchubhair and Greta Jones, have tended to focus on living conditions found in working-class homes.123 Where historians have dealt with sport and leisure, it has generally been in passing reference to Michael Cusack, the cofounder of the Gaelic Athletic Association, and his concern with masculinities.124 That withstanding, politicians, public officials and citizens regularly expressed the belief that Irishmen and women were physically degenerate. That this arose in the late nineteenth-century should be no surprise. Social Darwinism, and the eugenic movements it inspired, were part of British discourses since the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man in 1871.125 A belief arose in Great Britain that men and women were physically weaker than previous generations. As an imperial nation, this had national ramifications because physically unhealthy men and women could produce even weaker offspring, some of whom would become soldiers. The need to arrest this decline furthered physical culture’s popularity, not least because it provided some physical culturists with marketing opportunities. Eugen Sandow, whose actual

122  Father Benvenutus, ‘League for the Instruction and Suppression of Vice Amongst them, approved by His Grace the Most. Rev. Dr. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, March 5th, 1894’ (Capuchin Archives, Bow Street, Dublin CA/COM/BB/17). 123  Brian Ó Conchubhair, Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge (Connemara, 2009); Greta Jones, ‘Eugenics in Ireland: the Belfast Eugenics Society, 1911–15’. Irish Historical Studies 28, no. 109 (1992), pp. 81–95. 124  McDevitt, ‘Muscular Catholicism’. 125  Pauline Mazumdar, Eugenics, human genetics and human failings: the Eugenics Society, its sources and its critics in Britain (London, 1992).

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name was Friedrich Wilhelm Müller, claimed to have chosen the name Eugen in homage to Sir Francis Galton’s promotion of eugenics.126 Physical culture, as an idea, fit happily with ideas of race regeneration. That the British museum commissioned a bust of Sandow’s body in 1901 as evidence of what a white physique could achieve is evidence.127 Physical culturists, and their customers, happily latched on to the idea that without intervention, man and woman were doomed to physical degeneracy. This idea was replicated in educational and military fields, as subsequent chapters demonstrate. Much of the British concern with degeneracy related to the future strength of the British Empire. How could one defend an Empire without strong troops? Ireland was not an imperial power but part of the Empire’s apparatus. Such worries nevertheless emerged in physical culture debates among a variety of actors. Eugenic concerns in Ireland rarely mentioned the Famine of the mid-nineteenth-century, although emigration led many physical culturists to claim that Ireland’s ‘racial stock’ was exiting its shores.128 Far more common, at least among cultural nationalists, was a heightened attention given to mythical Irish warriors like Cú Chulainn, who were taken as evidence of Ireland’s previous strength.129 Such narratives fit well with broader cultural projects like the GAA. Michael Cusack, in promoting the GAA, linked the renewed sport of hurling to the mythical Irish hero Cú Chulainn and his generation of men. This, as Paul Rouse previously explained, was part of a broader 1880s revival of Irish myth and legend.130 That Ireland previously possessed a strong and vibrant generation of men was repeated in Irish and English physical culture articles. W.E. Fay from Sinn Féin newspaper was one example. From 1906, Fay wrote of the relationship between ‘nation building and body culture’, the ‘ruined physique of the people’ and the need for a physical re-awakening akin to what was happening in England.131 The nationalism exhibited by Fay was repeated by others. Writing in Sandow’s magazine in 1900, P.H. MacEnery cited hurling’s connection to Ireland’s mythical generation of strong

126  Caroline Daley, ‘The strongman of eugenics, Eugen Sandow’, Australian Historical Studies 33, no. 120 (2002), pp. 233–248. 127  Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent, 120–122. 128  Ó Conchubhair, Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge. 129  Ibid. 130  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, pp. 114–140. 131  W.E. Fay, ‘Nation Building and Body Culture’, Sinn Fein, October 6, (1906), pp. 3–4.

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men.132 Likewise, a 1906 piece entitled ‘The Irish A People That Will Not Die’ saw John J. Harris tell readers of Macfadden’s Physical Development that ‘physical culture was brought to a point of perfection in the early training of the warriors who formed the militia’.133 This line of reasoning was repeated by John R. Murphy some years later in Vitality magazine.134 Similar messages appeared in Irish newspapers from this time albeit, in less mythical and more scientific terms. Greta Jones’s work on the Belfast Eugenics Society, founded in 1911, showcased the scant but sustained support given for scientific means of positive eugenics.135 Endorsement for these views were also found in Irish newspapers. In 1904 the Weekly Irish Times spoke of physical deterioration among the Irish race while the Leinster Express praised a series of books aimed at raising the current generation of men from their weakness.136 At times, such encouragement veered into political commentary, as was the case in 1909 when the Dublin Daily Express featured an article on the high number of ‘strong young men and women that annually leave our shores’.137 Concerns about those who remained evolved into promises of salvation through physical culture. During the 1920s and 1930s similar conversations about Irish degeneracy arose. Control of the body, or more specifically, a healthy white body, was tantamount to national, and generational survival. The popularity of foreign physical culture magazines quickly impacted domestic print culture. From 1908, the Weekly Irish Times ran a physical culture column under the supervision of J.M. Neilly.138 Neilly’s writings mixed commentary on gymnastics with advice on muscle-building and weight loss.139 Others also expressed an interest in physical culture as evidenced by frequent articles on slimming, muscle building and exercise advice in regional and national Irish newspapers.140 That Irish newspapers changed their focus and structure to mimic overseas magazines circulating 132  P.H.  MacEnery, ‘Hurling: The National Pastime of Ireland’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, IV, January to June (1900) (London, 1900), pp. 34–38. 133   John J.  Harris, ‘The Irish A People That Will Not Die’, Macfadden’s Physical Development, March, 10, no. 6 (1906), pp. 186–190. 134  John R.  Murphy, ‘Our Irish Letter: Current Events in Patland’, Vitality, 11 no. 7 (1908), pp. 95–96. 135  Jones, ‘Eugenics in Ireland’. 136  Weekly Irish Times, Aug. 3, 1907; Leinster Express, Jan. 20, 1906. 137  Dublin Daily Express, Sept. 14, 1909. 138  Prior to this, it was a ‘Gymnastics’ Section. Weekly Irish Times, 29 Dec., 1900. 139  Weekly Irish Times, 13 Nov., 1909. 140  Evening Herald, 10 Apr., 1901; Freeman’s Journal, 25 Jan., 1908.

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in Ireland highlights the demand for such content. Two Irish physical culture books produced at the time reiterate this point. R.J. Mecredy, an Irish cyclist, capitalised on his writings in Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture to produce Health’s Highway, a nutrition and exercise book.141 Classed in Sandow’s magazine as an expert on cycling, Mecredy’s monograph was indistinguishable from that of his English counterparts in extolling the virtues of plain food interspersed with exercise.142 Likewise, an 1908 exercise monograph, The Athlete’s Guide, produced by two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary’s gymnastic staff, was an almost direct copy of the exercise systems found in imported works.143 Paraphrasing Christopher Bayly’s understanding of transnationalism, Irish physical culture was akin to a palimpsest in which domestic and foreign ideals overlapped, intersected and endured.144

‘The Number of Systems of Physical Culture Expanded Within Recent Years …’: Physical Culture in Wartime Ireland Concluding a study of British physical culture, Ana Carden-Coyne cited the Great War as a moment when pre-war discourses clashed with the harsh reality of mechanised warfare. The pre-war period was one defined, in part, by the celebration of the individual and the ‘body beautiful’.145 Such stress on beauty, classicism and social mobility proved ill-equipped for the horrors of the four-year conflict. This was true in Great Britain, and even more so in Ireland. Irish physical culturists were hampered not only by the Great War but also a series of domestic conflicts including the 1916 Rising, the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) and, of course, the 141  R.J. Mecredy, ‘Is Physical Collapse Dangerous in Cycle Racing?’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, Vol. III, July to December (1899) (London, 1899), pp. 29–32; R.J. Mecredy, Health’s Highway (Dublin, 1909). 142  Eustace Miles, The Eustace Miles System of Physical Culture with Hints as to Diet (London, 1908). 143  G.S. Greene and P.A. Marrinan, The Athletes’ Guide to Health & Fitness: With Hints on Modern Physical Culture, Boxing, Deep Breathing, Swimming and Resuscitation (Dublin 1908). 144  Christopher Alan Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (London, 2003), pp. 2–12. 145  Ana Carden-Coyne, Reconstructing the body: classicism, modernism, and the First World War (Oxford, 2009), pp. 1–24.

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Irish Civil War (1922–1923). This near decade of warfare resulted in closed gymnasiums, displaced troops and significant social upheaval. It is telling that for outside observers in the 1920s, Irish physical culture was deemed to be almost absent in some areas owing to the devastation brought by conflict. It also helps to explain why, in the interwar period, educational and martial forms of physical culture took on a greater prominence while recreational cultures initially struggled to regain their previous position. The period 1914 to 1923 was not, however, one devoid of recreation.146 As a consequence of the Great War multiple political and social opportunities opened up to Irishwomen during the conflict.147 Similarly in sporting terms, many individuals retained their enthusiasm for the GAA during a time of considerable disruption.148 Education and working life, with their own triumphs and failures, continued under strained conditions.149 Despite one unnamed GAA writer’s claims in 1915 that ‘the young men of the country took up the Volunteer movement to the exclusion of the athletic pursuits’, many continued to play sport and exercise for recreational as opposed to political purposes.150 War had a similar impact on other forms of institutional physical culture. The pre-war period saw the proliferation of innumerable sporting clubs attached to workplaces.151 Teams varied across class lines but were a mainstay in the sporting calendar.152 At the outbreak of Great War in 1914, many teams vanished thanks to a groundswell in enlistment figures.153 In Dublin, however, some opportunities remained. Jacobs’ gymnasium, the athletic wing of W. & R. Jacob’s Biscuit factory, continued to operate under restricted opening hours.154 Guinness, the popular Dublin stout, extended its physical culture  Fitzpatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland’, p. 388.  Jennifer Redmond and Elaine Farrell, ‘War Within and Without: Irish Women in the First World War era’, Women’s History Review, 27, no. 3 (2018), pp. 329–342. 148  Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh (ed.), The GAA & Revolution in Ireland 1913–1923 (Cork, 2015). 149  Norman Joseph Atkinson, Irish Education: A History of Educational Institutions (Dublin, 1969), pp. 109–125. 150  G.A.A. 1915 Athletic Year Book: Football, Hurling, Athletics, Cycling. Detailed Record of 1914 Championships (Dublin, 1915), p. 20. 151  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, p. 172. 152  Ibid. 153  Ibid., pp. 227–230; Stephen Walker, Ireland’s Call: Irish Sporting Heroes Who Fell in the Great War (Dublin, 2015). 154  Jacobs Factory, A Century of Welfarework in Industry (Dublin, 1951), p. 2 (Dublin City Library and Archive, JAC/04/1231). 146 147

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gymnasium and training classes in 1915.155 Other steps taken by the firm included the purchase of a new gymnasium and the hiring of a new instructor.156 At a time when the population’s health appeared to be suffering, Guinness sought to uplift workers’ health. Dr. Lumsden, Guinness’ medical officer, saw military drill as a potential pathway.157 Younger workers were trained by Sergeant Martin, who was tasked with alleviating imbalances, instilling discipline and improving work ethic. For younger workers, drill was used to improve health but, more pressingly, to acclimatise them to work.158 Older workers were allowed more fun and diversion as set out in their training.159 Physical culture continued, but often in muted terms and without the commercialism found in the pre-war period. One of the difficulties in studying wartime physical culture, especially in Ireland, is that popular magazines and monographs no longer existed, or were found in limited runs. Health and Strength magazine, for example, continued to publish throughout the Great War but directed its focus almost exclusively on English athletes and soldiers. Part of this reasoning was patriotic, but the other was practical. Publishing on cheap, pulp paper and under pressure to produce issues, the periodical was forced to use reliable sources, rather than waiting for other contributors. Much of what we know then about recreational physical culture during the Great War in Ireland is caught only through newspaper articles, reminisces written after the fact and occasional magazine articles. This was the case for at least the first two years of the Great War before Health and Strength began publishing once again on Irish matters. That withstanding, it is clear that the desire to continue exercising, socialising and, in the context of war, distracting oneself, were factors behind recreational physical culture’s sustained popularity. Those desirous of maintaining their physical culture regimen were, of course, facilitated by institutions capable of remaining open during difficult circumstances. Home exercise equipment existed, but few homes

155  ‘Matters discussed with Lord Iveagh: January, 1915’ (Guinness Archive Dublin, Report, GDB/C004.04/0003). 156  Other initiatives included public fetes and drill sessions for employees: ‘Report: Examination of Accounts by Directors, Year Ending 30th June 1913’ (GAD, GDB/ C004.06/0049.09.11). 157  ‘A.H.C. Barker, Report’. 158  Ibid. 159  ‘Matters discussed with Lord Iveagh – January, 1915’ (GAD, GDB/C004.04/0003).

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could match the variety and sociability of public or private gymnasiums.160 YMCAs in Belfast, Dublin, Derry and Mountpottinger continued to provide reasonably priced classes during these decades.161 Due to the institution’s Christian values, the YMCA proved sympathetic to those struggling financially. In Belfast during the late 1910s and early 1920s, the YMCA Board decided that fees would be staggered ‘so as not to avoid pressing heavily’ on those unable to pay right away.162 The YMCA also acted as an important hub for public gymnastic events.163 While the number of attendees to Irish gymnasiums dropped, those that remained continued to promote recreational physical culture. One of the most important elements of this was the public demonstration found in the theatre or public hall. Physical culture and gymnastic demonstrations, especially in Dublin, Derry and Belfast, continued with an impressive regularity.164 In Dublin, the annual Father Mathew Feis in Bow Street continued despite disruptions across the period 1914 to 1923.165 With events ranging from drilling to barbell work, the Feis offered schoolchildren—and it was predominately schoolchildren—the opportunity to display their physical culture expertise.166 Physical culture was understood here as a means of fun, diversion and transformation. It was free of the more stringent connotations found in the military or paramilitary groups discussed in the next chapter. Away from the Feis, schoolchildren and women’s teams relied on contests held in towns and cities around Ireland. Fewer in number than previous decades, competitions still offered the opportunity to continue exercising.167 Due to gender disparities wrought by conflict, contests were often female in composition and elevated attention, at least temporarily, in

160  Conor Heffernan, ‘Strength Peddlers: Eddie O’Callaghan and the Selling of Irish Strength’, Sport in History, 38, no. 1 (2018), pp. 23–45. 161  ‘1918–[1930] File Containing Annual Surveys of Membership YMCA’ (PRONI, D3788/2/1). 162  1921–1928 Minute Book of the City of Belfast Y.M.C.A. (Belfast, 1928), p. 4. (PRONI, D3812/1/1). 163  ‘1918–[1930] File Containing Annual Surveys of Membership YMCA’; See also Belfast Newsletter, 11 Mar., 1915. 164  Freeman’s Journal, 22 Mar., 1915; Ballymena Observer, 27 Jun., 1917. 165  ‘Father Mathew’s Feis Programmes 1910s–1930s’ (Capuchin Archives, FMH/32 Box 1). 166  The Father Mathew Feis Syllabus of Competitions (Dublin, 1916), p.  9. (Capuchin Archives, Ireland, FMH/32 Box 1). 167  Freeman’s Journal, 22 Mar., 1915; Irish Independent, 13 Aug., 1917; Evening Herald, 21 Apr., 1919; Kerry News, 26 Jun., 1914; Belfast Newsletter, 7 Apr., 1917.

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female exercise.168 Male physical training in the martial setting was associated with nationalism and heroism, whereas female exercise remained focused on gracefulness and beauty.169 Susan Grayzel and others have previously cited a return to traditional and restrictive gender norms for some women following the Great War.170 The continuity in discourses surrounding physical culture suggests that this ‘return’ was not pronounced in all aspects of life. Occasionally authors referred to powerful ideas of womanhood, but far more saw physical culture as a means of producing female figures defined by poise and grace.171 Where male physical culture continued outside the martial setting, it suffered from a lack of facilities, gymnasium closures and scarce competition.172 In 1916, W.R. MacPherson complained that efforts to bring an official weightlifting body to Ireland in the early 1910s failed owing to a lack of interest and support.173 Despite his pessimism, Irish weightlifting returned in 1919 as evidenced by a series of new competitions publicised in Health and Strength magazine. Within the magazine, Irishmen issued challenges, asked for advice and published self-portraits.174 The reliance on British magazines, especially after 1916, demonstrated that the nationalist ethos which sought to sever ties between Ireland and Great Britain was not all-encompassing.175 The competitions held in Ireland were based on exercises and rules devised in England.176 MacPherson failed to attract interest in the early 1910s when, in his own mind, physical culture’s popularity was at its height.177 Likewise, E. Lawrence Levy, an English physical culturist, failed to establish an Irish interest in weightlifting around this time.178 That official weightlifting  The Irish Times, 15 May, 1914; Evening Herald, 6 Oct., 1917.  The Irish Examiner, 15 Jan., 1915; The Irish Times, 1 Aug., 1919. 170  Susan R. Grayzel, Women and the First World War (London, 2013), pp. 99–120; Foster, Vivid Faces, p. 116. 171  Weekly Irish Times, 20 May, 1911; The Daily Express, 30 Apr., 1912. 172   Leo Bowes, ‘Gossip from the Emerald Isle’, Health and Strength, 80, no. 19 (1951), p. 46. 173  MacPherson, ‘Weightlifting in Ireland’, 214. 174  ‘W.L.A. of G.B. & I.’, Health and Strength, 25, no. 13 (1919), p. 292; Michael Stokes, ‘Michael Stokes Reply’, Health and Strength, 25, no. 10 (1919), p. 236. 175  Foster, Vivid Faces, pp. 149–166 and 264–280. 176  Michael Stokes, ‘Irish Lifters’ Decision’, Health and Strength, 25, no. 21 (1919), p. 494. 177  MacPherson, ‘Weightlifting in Ireland’. 178  E. Lawrence Levy and Muscular Judaism, 1851–1932: Sport, Culture, and Assimilation in Nineteenth century Britain, Together with The Autobiography of an Athlete, David M. Fahey (ed.) (New York, 2014), p. 190. 168 169

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contests grew during war, under the banner of a Great Britain and Ireland association, disrupts ideas of an athletic dearth, at least in some parts of the country.179 The newly formed Irish weightlifting organisation proved strongest in larger regions which exhibited a previous interest in physical culture namely Dublin, Galway, Cork, Mayo and Belfast. Unlike martial physical culture, which used exercise with reference to war, development and discipline, those involved in weightlifting used exercise to propagate ideas of masculinity as depicted by muscularity, worth ethic and self-­ discipline.180 When Michael Stokes wrote to Health and Strength in 1919 about his strength, he promoted a masculinity radically different to those who linked physical fitness to the battlefield.181 Ireland’s dependence on English physical culture was embodied, in part, by Stokes. In 1919, the young Irishman travelled to England to train under the supervision of physical culturist Thomas Inch.182 In November 1919, during the Irish War of Independence, Stokes recalled his pilgrimage to London, noting: It is a long journey from Ireland to the great Metropolis just to swing a dumb-bell but readers of Health and Strength do not need to be told to what lengths a weightlifter or physical culturist will go.183

Such expertise was not available in Ireland where weightlifting competitions tended to be once off affairs and Irish physical culturists relied on English counterparts for direction. MacPherson realised this, noting that ‘if Englishmen and others can pave the roads to success is it not feasible to expect the same of Irishmen’.184 In London, Stokes met with the English organisers of the new weight-lifting association, some of whom encouraged Stokes to take a leading role in the Irish branch.185 Stokes had much greater resources to call on than MacPherson some years back. Through 179   ‘W.L.A. of G.B. & I.’, Health and Strength; ‘Irish Weightlifters’, Vim, May (1916), p. 133. 180  ‘League Notes and News: What Our Members Are Doing’, Health and Strength, 27, no. 7 (1920), p. 110. 181  Stokes, ‘Champion Michael Stokes Speaks Out’; Cooper, The Tenth (Irish) Division, pp. 236–238. 182  Michael Stokes, ‘Irish Lifter’s Decision’, Health and Strength, November (1919), p. 494. 183  Ibid. 184  W.R. MacPherson, ‘Weightlifting in Ireland’, Health and Vim, 10 (1916): 240. 185  Ibid.

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Health and Strength, Stokes had an immediate reach and tool for publication.186 That Health and Strength featured Stokes on the cover page of the magazine in November 1919 added a gravitas to Stokes’ reputation.187 In Thomas Inch’s promotions in Health and Strength, Stokes was presented as an adept weightlifter with enormous potential. In December 1919, Inch penned articles praising Stokes’ strength and encouraging others to follow his example.188 Buoyed by such encouragement, Stokes competed in, and helped to organise, a weightlifting meet in Ireland. In mid-­ December, Stokes and a fellow Irish weightlifter, W.  Hamilton, held a competition in St. James’ Park, Dublin.189 Reporting on the event, Health and Strength claimed that the lifts represented the first official Irish weightlifting records.190 Aside from Health and Strength, the competition was also featured in regional Irish newspapers. By February 1920, other Irish weightlifters, like Stokes’ opponent W. Hamilton, appeared on Health and Strength’s cover, while Stokes continued to enjoy the magazines’ patronage.191 As the association grew, so too did the Irish division, albeit temporarily. In May, Stokes announced the creation of an Irish association.192 Acknowledging the guidance and support shown by Health and Strength, Stokes wrote: In the weightlifting games Irish lifers were always at a disadvantage owing to various reasons. But at last we have decided to lead, not to be led, so at a meeting held here in Dublin we selected lifts to decide matches and championships in Ireland.193

This resolute tone was coupled with Stokes’ new team of organisers, and athletes. They included J. Wright and H. Byrne, from Belfast, A. McKevitt from Louth, Stokes and Hamilton from Dublin and a Stephen O’Brien,

 Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body, 337.  Stokes, ‘Irish Lifter’s Decision’. 188  ‘Stokes v. Wheeler: Big Feats Promised by Both Men’s Trainers’, Health and Strength, 25, no. 13, (1919): 564. 189  Michael Stokes, ‘Irish Lifters: The New Association’, Health and Strength, 26, no. 19 (1920): 294. 190  Ibid. 191  ‘Front Cover’, Health and Strength, 25, no, 26 (1919): 606; Thomas Inch, ‘PedesPhysi-Cult: A New Form of Physical Culture’, Health and Strength, 26, no. 6 (1920): 89. 192  Stokes, ‘Irish Lifters’. 193  Ibid. 186 187

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said to be from Ireland.194 Furthering Stokes’ reach was the fact that he also engaged with popular weightlifters like John Moriarty, a circus strongman. Through regional and national newspapers in Ireland, Stokes and Moriarty issued a number of challenges to one another.195 In challenging Moriarty, and disputing his claim to be Ireland’s strongest man, Stokes promoted his weightlifting organisation which, he believed, was the only body capable of honestly determining Ireland’s strongest man.196 In these actions, the message was clear, one’s masculinity, their ‘vigour’ was linked to their physical strength. Not only that, but it was linked to their ability to compete with others. As Stokes sought to ingratiate Irish weightlifting further into the British remit, Irish nationalists were seeking to divorce British and Irish cultures entirely.197 Begun on 21 January 1919, the Irish War of Independence lasted until 1921 when a truce was agreed between Ireland and Great Britain. The war proved critical in the downfall of Stoke’s association on two counts. First, the war, as noted by Paul Rouse, was accompanied by a general distrust of British culture and associations by many in the public. In the sporting realm, this meant a heightened importance was placed on Irish games, like the GAA, while ‘English games’ like soccer, rugby or cricket came under suspicion.198 Stokes’ letters in late 1919 praising British weightlifters, acknowledging the metropole’s importance and the strength of British athletes ran contrary to revolutionary narratives.199 In such a context, the decision to promote an Irish weightlifting association under the auspices of a British federation was problematic. Rhetoric from Stokes and Health and Strength about the strength of the British and Irish ‘brotherhood’ was likely made in response to the growing political divide.200 More practically, war curtailed the opportunity for sport and physical culture in Ireland. For those more interested in exercise than revolution, it became increasingly difficult to engage in their pastime.201 This was doubly the case for activities that demanded physical resources and  Ibid.  Inch, ‘Mr. Moriarty’. 196  Ibid. 197  Ronan Fanning, Fatal Path: British Government and Irish Revolution 1910–1922 (London: Faber & Faber, 2013), 1–24. 198  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, 236–280. 199  Ibid. 200  Stokes, ‘Irish Lifters’. 201  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, 236–280. 194 195

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equipment, as happened with weightlifting. Writing just after the end of the War of Independence, and in the midst of the Irish Civil War, 1922–1923, J. Maxwell Neilly highlighted the high rate at which gymnasiums closed during the War of Independence.202 In particular, Neilly complained of the destruction wrought on cities by guerrilla warfare. Such fighting, combined with a loss of members, forced innumerable men and women to exercise without a gymnasium or instructor. Further exacerbating matters was the Civil War in the Irish Free State, established in 1922, which intensified gym closures. Neilly’s observations were not unique. In 1923, an unnamed Health and Strength correspondent wrote of Dublin’s dangerous environment, which he believed discouraged physical activity. To me Dublin, on Saturday night and for days before, was as a city where dire trouble was openly, blatantly courted, guns were terrible in their plenitude.203

The destruction and disruption lasted long in the memory of Irish physical culturists. During the 1950s, Leo Bowes, an Irish strongman, dedicated a series of articles in his ‘Irish Notes’ section in Health and Strength on the Civil War’s impact on Irish gymnasiums. His readers soon reached out with their own stories, as was the case with J.J. Collier in 1951: Old time Dublin physical culturist and cyclist, J.J. Collier is anxious to contact ex members of the now defunct Dublin Colossus P.C. Club. Flourishing in the days of Sandow, the club was obliged to close its shutters when civil war ravaged the Emerald Isle.204

Despite the popularity, and difficulty, of cross-channel physical culture like weightlifting, uniquely Irish forms of physical culture, like the circus, still existed. Vaudeville and circus performances were influential in physical culture’s proliferation in England and Europe during the nineteenth-century but had waned in popularity by 1914.205 In contrast, Irish performers 202  J.M. Neilly, ‘Sport in Ireland To-Day: Dublin Gymnasts and the Tailteann’, Health and Strength, 31, no. 14 (1922): 21. 203  ‘A Dublin Nightmare: Why Siki and McTigue Defied Rebels’, Health and Strength, 32, no. 13 (1923): 99. 204  Bowes, ‘Gossip from the Emerald Isle’. 205  Richard Anthony Baker, British Music Hall: An Illustrated History (Barnsley, 2014), pp. 248–259.

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Fig. 2.2  Mac Millan, an Athlete, Gymnast and Acrobat. (‘Mac Millan: Athlète, Gymnaste, Equilibriste’, La Culture Physique, 11, no. 225 (1914), p. 16)

continued to incorporate weightlifting into shows to, at times, international acclaim. In May 1914, Edmond Desbonnet’s La Culture Physique included a short piece on the Irish acrobat and strongman, ‘Mac Millan’ (Fig. 2.2).206 Strongmen and performers, like Mac Millan, travelled the country issuing challenges, holding competitions and engaging in feats of strength.207 206  ‘Mac Millan: Athlète, Gymnaste, Equilibriste’, La Culture Physique, 11, no. 225 (1914), p. 16. 207  Mícheál Ó hAodha and Tony McCarthy, The Sacred Dance of the Irish Circus: Rural Ireland and Traveling Shows and Showpeople, 1922–1972 (Dublin, 2015), pp. x–25.

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The most successful strongman of this period was John Moriarty, who began his career in the years preceding the Great War.208 Moriarty’s greatest achievement came in July 1919 when he defeated Bob McAlpine to win the title of ‘Ireland’s Strongest Man’.209 Moriarty continued to label himself as such for many years, and his career illustrated the appeal of physical culture performances during a period when death and uncertainty permeated newspapers.210 Following Moriarty’s victory over McAlpine, the strongman labelled himself as the ‘world champion’.211 For Irishmen and women, Moriarty was one of several means of entertainment. Advertisements for physical culture performances and films continued in Ireland post-1914.212 Some movies, like Danish Gymnast, were clearly international, but the majority of performances featured domestic stars.213 Popular during this time was Archie Goodhall, a retired footballer who toured in a solo physical culture act.214 Others, like the Richardini troupe, also capitalised on the public’s need for fun.215 Likewise, physical culture commerce did not end with the war. Some retailers, like Sandow agent Eddie O’Callaghan, enlisted, but others remained in Ireland to sell goods.216 Despite wartime disruptions, a market for physical culture goods existed.217 From 1914 to 1923, a litany of advertisements for physical culture courses sporting names like ‘Maxick’ or ‘Pellmanism’ were found in Irish newspapers.218 Advertisements for Sandow Developers, Indian clubs and dumbbells endured.219 There appears to have been a sense that, despite  Leo Bowes, The Sporting Irish (Dublin, 1976), pp. 5–7.  Ibid., p. 6. 210  ‘Strongman Moriarty’, Health and Strength, 82, no. 8 (1953), p. 20. 211  ‘John Moriarty’, Kerry People, August 28, 1920, 3. 212  Kerry News, 27 Apr., 1914; Freeman’s Journal, 22 Mar., 1915; Belfast Newsletter, 27 Mar., 1915. 213  The Irish Times, 21 Aug., 1917. 214  The Daily Express, 12 Mar., 1917; Conor Curran, Irish Soccer Migrants: A Social and Cultural History (Cork, 2017), p. 276. 215  The Irish Times, 17 Aug., 1915. 216  The Irish Examiner, 15 Jan., 1915; The Irish Examiner, 28 May, 1916. 217  As it did in other areas. See John Strachan and Claire Nally, Advertising, Literature and Print Culture in Ireland, 1891–1922 (Basingstoke, 2012), pp. 203–244. 218  ‘Maxalding Ad’, The Constabulary Gazette; Sligo Champion, 27 Jun., 1917; Belfast Newsletter, 14 Mar., 1918. 219  Limerick Leader, 11 Jan., 1915; Freeman’s Journal, 9 Sept., 1918. 208 209

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war, physical culture was still enjoyable. While many may have presumed that physical culture would deteriorate during the war, interest in bodily cultivation, with all its various meanings, remained. When calmer times returned to Ireland in the 1920s, recreational physical culture took a secondary role to institutional cultures. It remained and, in time, grew.

CHAPTER 3

‘With This Atmosphere of Unrest and Sinister Rumours…’: Military Physical Culture in Pre-Independence Ireland

Physical culture, as a recreational outlet, was steeped in military history. The first wave of physical training classes in the early nineteenth-century came from European nationalists, like Prussian gymnast Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who sought to use gymnastics and callisthenics as a means of strengthening the nation-state.1 The first gymnasiums in Ireland came during the 1860s following the British War Office’s decision to install gymnasiums in  significant imperial barracks. The military’s interest in physical training came following a decade of conflict which included the Crimean War (1853–1856) and the Indian Rebellion (1857). Both wars reiterated the perceived frailty, and unpreparedness of British recruits, which seemed reversible through exercise.2 Gymnasiums held an important part of military life then from the latter half of the nineteenth-century. Much like military sport, physical training spread from the barracks to public life which meant a public familiarisation with military exercise. Popular physical culture was built on the image of the individual and the individual body. Military and martial physical culture was an anthesis to this ideal. It was steeped in ideas of collective health and rigidity.

1  John D.  Fair, Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the manly culture of York Barbell (Pennsylvania, 1999), pp. 1–12. 2  Nikolai Bogdanovic, Fit to Fight: A History of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, 1860-2015 (Oxford, 2017), pp. 1–10.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_3

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Although individual bodies were treated with concern in the military and police force, the ultimate goal of such training was the achievement of group aims. For the British military training was linked to battle. Paramilitary groups in the pre-war period attempted to use physical culture systems to achieve Home Rule and/or the continuation of the status quo. Irish revolutionists twice used physical culture to win Irish independence, once successful and the other time less so. Feuding Irish groups used physical culture to achieve victory over former allies during the Irish Civil War. The above history has been well studied by historians; physical culture’s place within this narrative has not despite the benefits offered by such an approach.3 Nicolas Schillinger’s work on Chinese military regimes stressed the importance of institutionalised cultures in the formation of masculine identities.4 In this regard, he complimented the older work of Joanna Bourke, George Mosse and in a colonial context, Heather Streets.5 In the case of Irish history, historians have previously noted the highly masculine space found in military communities.6 Aidan Beatty’s work of Irish masculinity explained the ideological and social value given over to ‘strong’, white, male bodies in the Irish War of Independence and its aftermath.7 What has been missing from such accounts is how these bodies were built, and to what end. This is the focus of the present chapter. Unlike recreational physical cultures, physical culture in the military proved remarkably static in function. From the mid-­ nineteenth-­century, British military thinkers stressed physical training’s importance as a precursor for battlefield success. Using such a rubric, it was assumed that strong bodies were representative of courage and obedience. Physical training was used as a fillip to one’s induction and as a 3  R.F. Foster, Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890–1923 (London, 2014); Ronan Fanning, Fatal Path: British Government and Irish Revolution 1910–1922 (London, 2013); Diarmaid Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913–1923 (New York, 2017). 4  Nicolas Schillinger, The Body and Military Masculinity in Late Qing and Early Republican China: The Art of Governing Soldiers (Lanham, 2016). 5  Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the male: Men’s bodies, Britain, and the Great War (Chicago, 1996); George Mosse, The image of man: The creation of modern masculinity (Oxford, 1998). 6  Sikata Banerjee, Muscular nationalism: Gender, violence, and empire in India and Ireland, 1914–2004 (New York, 2012); Aidan Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884–1938 (New York, 2016). 7  Beatty, Masculinity and Power, pp. 23–45.

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corrective. In certain instances, physical training was used as a means of ‘breaking down’ new recruits and welcoming them into the realities of warfare. The intensity of such efforts varied across the groups studied in this chapter but an overarching commonality was found in the promotion of healthy bodies. A reoccurring theme was that trained bodies resulted in better soldiers and, stemming from this, military victory. Such ideas emerged in the mid-nineteenth-century and were never far removed from Irish military thinking. Studying this development, this chapter is divided into four separate but interlinked sections. Beginning with the development of military physical culture in the mid-nineteenth-century and the growth of military training in Ireland, the chapter next examines three distinct periods of military physical culture found during the move for Home Rule in 1913–1934, that found during the Great War and, finally, in the period 1916–1923.

‘The Object of Physical Training Is the Production of a State of Health …’: Physical Training in Peaceful Times A study of military physical culture in Ireland begins with a study of British imperialism during the mid-nineteenth-century. Great Britain was not the first military power to become interested in creating a standardised form of physical training, but it was unique in the depth of its programme.8 In 1860, Great Britain announced the creation of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps (RAPTC), a body responsible for troop training. Accompanying its establishment was the creation of a gymnasium in Aldershot and decrees that military barracks around the Empire would include a gymnasium.9 It was a radical change but one born from national insecurities. The Crimean War of 1853–1856 exposed the ill-health of British troops and their vulnerability to disease. The War’s aftermath witnessed a series of government enquiries, private reports and public commissions into troop health. In the realm of health and hygiene, Florence

8 9

 Bogdanovic, Fit to Fight, pp. 1-25.  Ibid.

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Nightingale notably led the way in improving hospital conditions for troops.10 The first efforts to introduce some form of dedicated physical training in the British military came actually during the 1820s when Henry Torrens, Adjunct General to the Forces, recommended the use of a wooden club in order to ‘supple the recruit, open his chest and give freedom to the muscles’.11 Prior to this time, physical training was a by-­ product of drill training, long marches and the fitness achieved through fighting. Recently returned from India, Torrens’ ‘wooden club’ was, in actuality, an ersatz ‘Indian club’, a piece of exercise equipment used for centuries in India by wrestlers and soldiers. Torrens’ motivations in promoting his club appears to have stemmed from concerns about troops’ health and physical fitness.12 Initially, it appeared that Torrens would enact a revolution in British training. Soon after his recommendation, a Swiss gymnast, Peter Heinrich Clias, was hired to oversee the training of the British Navy and Military. Clias’ tenure in England was, however, short-­ lived. Injured in a private training classes, when a female client punctured his stomach with a piece of training equipment, Clias convalesced in France where he eventually resumed his physical training classes.13 From Clias’ move to France in the late-1820s until the reforms of 1860, physical training returned to a secondary position. This, incidentally, made Britain an outlier at a time when France, Germany, Spain and Sweden incorporated some form of formalised gymnastics into their own militaries.14 When a decision was made to include physical training in 1860, the army was forced to recruit the services of a civilian instructor, Archibald MacLaren. Beginning with a  small group, later dubbed the ‘twelve apostles’, MacLaren trained the men using a combination of dumbbells and callisthenics. Increases in the men’s strength and muscularity convinced the British military of physical training’s benefits.15 When the RAPTC was established in 1860, its training was based on MacLaren’s 10  A.E.C.  Bredin, ‘The Army Physical Training Corps Centenary: 1860–1960’, Royal United Services Institution. Journal, 105, no. 620 (1960), pp. 568–570. 11  Conor Heffernan, ‘Indian club swinging in the early Victorian period’, Sport in History, 37, no. 1 (2017), pp. 95–120. 12  Ibid. 13  Jan Todd, Physical culture and the body beautiful: Purposive exercise in the lives of American women, 1800–1870 (Macon, 1998), pp. 36–50. 14  Bogdanovic, Fit to Fight, pp. 1–25. 15  Mason and Riedi, Sport and the military, p. 8.

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guidelines. Turning specifically to Ireland, such changes made an immediate impact. Aldershot was the birthplace of the British military gymnasium. Owing to Ireland’s imperial importance, both geographically and in terms of manpower, the second military gymnasium was built in the Curragh, co. Kildare, in the late 1860s.16 The next two decades witnessed a slow but steady diffusion of military physical training into Irish society. Despite Alexander Alexander’s lamentations that physical training was non-existent in 1870s and 1880s Ireland, it did exist, oftentimes in the form of recreational classes run by military officers.17 MacLaren’s training system appeared to be a great success. It was used across the Empire, and made visible improvements to troops’ bodies.18 That the system was accepted is illustrative from its longevity. MacLaren’s system, initiated in the 1860s, remained unchanged until the 1890s when a new generation of officers pushed for change.19 Colonel Fox, the man responsible for military physical training in the 1890s, may have been the most forthright critic of MacLaren’s system, but he echoed many contemporaries in deeming the system antiquated, expensive and lacking.20 His displeasure was influenced by the greater variety of physical culture systems circulating in Britain, not least those promoted by Eugen Sandow.21 The Second South African War (1899–1902), in particular, seems to have turned the tide against MacLaren’s system. Britain’s initial military failures and stories of physically degenerate troops defined the War’s early years. The British military, although successful, was forced to evaluate its training, and its troops, in public.22 In the House of Commons, House of Lords and in the media, questions were asked about the military’s training. The system’s reliance on additional equipment, like dumbbells or Indian clubs, was a point of increasing concern. Such equipment was expensive and difficult to transport. This meant that troops had difficultly 16  Con Costello, A Most Delightful Station: The British Army on the Curragh of Kildare, Ireland, 1855–1922 (Cork, 1996), pp. 80–94. 17  A. Alexander, A Wayfarer’s Log (London, 1919), pp. 105–112. 18  Bogdanovic, Fit to Fight, pp. 12–44. 19  Annual Reports of the Inspector General of Gymnasia (London, 1896), pp. 2–8 (British Library, IOR/L/MIL/7/17086, (Sub-series): 1902–1917. Paper No. 0035). 20  Oldfield, History of the Army Physical Training Corps, pp. 16–18. 21  Ibid. 22  Patrick Scott, ‘Body-Building and Empire-Building: George Douglas Brown, the South African War, and Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture’, Victorian Periodicals Review, 41, no. 1 (2008), pp. 78–94.

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training when on duty or in a barracks without a gymnasium.23 A new system was needed, one which could be done with relative ease. Such was the military’s desire to trial new systems that Eugen Sandow’s system was at one point a viable alternative. Sandow’s failure to adequately ‘sell’ his system to British physicians during a 1903 Royal Commission on Physical Training prevented further consideration of his methods.24 In the end, the military moved to the Ling system of Swedish gymnastics. Devised by the Swedish educationalist Pehr Henrik Ling in the early 1800s, ‘Ling’ gymnastics was one of the most popular forms of educational, and later military, training of the nineteenth-century. Requiring little equipment, and first introduced in Great Britain as a form of ‘medical gymnastics’ in the mid-nineteenth-century, Ling Gymnastics replaced MacLaren’s system in the late 1900s.25 This change was reflected in the military’s first official physical training manual published in 1908.26 The Manual of Physical Training introduced the military’s training system and the valued derived from it. Where recreational physical culture was driven, in part, by lean and muscular male bodies and slender female bodies, the military envisioned physical culture as a conduit to military success. Recreational and military physical cultures did however coalesce in condemning a modernity defined by physical degeneracy and nervous exhaustion. This was evident in the Manual’s primary objective—‘the production of a state of health and general physical fitness in order that the body may be enabled to withstand the strains of daily life’.27 The Manual began with a critique of modern society which had resulted in disproportionate physical development among British, and Irish, men. ‘Brain workers’, those working in offices, were neglecting their strength whereas those involved in manual labour were neglecting their intellect.28 Rectifying this one-sided development was the ‘harmonious’ system put forward by the military. The Manual acknowledged the likely frailty of incoming recruits and 23  Lieutenant Colonel G.P. Ranken, ‘The Practical Training of British and Native Troops with Reference to the Lessons of the War in South Africa’, Journal of the United Services Institution of India, 30, no. 144 (1901), pp. 153–180. 24  David Chapman, Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Bodybuilding (Chicago, 1994), pp. 128–130. 25  Campbell, ‘The Army Isn’t All Work’, pp. 63–74. 26  Manual of Physical Training (London, 1908). This manual was revised in 1914. 27  Ibid., pp. 1–5. 28  Ibid.

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Fig. 3.1  1905 postcard Depicting Military Gymnastics at the Curragh, Co. Kildare

promised that, in time, physical training would turn men into soldiers that were ‘well disciplined, a good marcher, intelligent, smart, active and quick, able to surmount obstacles in the field and capable of withstanding all the strains and hardships of active service’.29,30 (Fig. 3.1). In a reoccurring theme, the new system was lauded for its efficiency and battlefield application.31 Military physical culture, and the discourses surrounding it, were understood with reference to discipline and battlefield success. The Manual explained that the purpose of these exercises was not solely health but also the assumed effect these exercises had in battle. The fit and trained body became a disciplined and fit soldier. This was a radically different kind of motivation than that found recreationally. Research in other countries has stressed the impact that military training can have on troop identity and interaction.32 Produced in times of relative peace in 1908, the Manual noted the civilian and military applications for the  Ibid.  From author’s collection. 31  Weekly Irish Times, 22 Dec., 1906; Weekly Irish Times, 7 Nov., 1908. 32  Schillinger, The Body and Military Masculinity in Late Qing and Early Republican China. 29 30

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information contained within it. Drill served as an inculcation into military life and, from the military’s point of view, would lead to a fit and strong corps. Group bonding undoubtedly placed a role as well, as evidenced in the Manual’s plea for troops to remain together for the entirety of their training. William McNeill has suggested that military drill can affect a sense of group solidarity and identity.33 The process of training and marshalling the body was linked, seemingly unquestioningly, in military pamphlets to the development of discipline and courage. Revisions to the military’s training were done independently of Irish concerns. This did not mean, however, that the military’s messages did not find a similar home in Ireland. The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), Ireland’s primary police force during this period, adopted much of the military’s enthusiasm for physical culture. Established in 1822, the RIC gained a reputation by the mid-century for having strong and physically fit police officers.34 Part of this reputation stemmed from the RIC’s strict entrance requirements, which were more exclusive than those found in the military. From the late nineteenth-century, prospective recruits were expected to present with a thirty-seven-inch chest on a frame no shorter than five feet eleven inches.35 Once accepted, officers were faced with a strict training programme composed of military drill, gymnastics and, even, jiu-jitsu.36 Recruits underwent two weeks of physical drill at the Constabulary’s Depot in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. Conducted by Sergeant G.S. Greene and others, the training was a mixture of Swedish drill, Indian club swinging, weight training and marching.37 It was, for Greene, a training system of the highest standard, said to prepare men for the rigours of policework.38 Where the military trained men for battle, the RIC trained them for the streets.

33  William McNeill, Keeping together in time: Dance and drill in human history (Cambridge, MA, 1997). 34  Richard Hawkins, ‘The Irish Model and the Empire: A Case for Reassessment’, in David M. Anderson and David Killingray (eds.), Policing the Empire: Government, Authority, and Control, 1830–1940 (Manchester, 1991), pp. 19–20. 35  Royal Irish Constabulary List & Directory; Containing Lists of the Constabulary Departments, Dublin Metropolitan Police, Resident Magistrates, Coast Guards, Etc., 1889 (Dublin, 1889), p. 4. 36  Cyclops, ‘Cycling and Athletics’, The Constabulary Gazette, 4 September (1909), p. 366. 37  ‘Stray Jottings’, The Constabulary Gazette, 10 September (1898), p. 1678. 38  Greene and Marrinan, The Athletes’ Guide, p. v.

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Like the military, the RIC adopted Swedish gymnastics as its primary system in the early 1900s, although the absence of a formalised RIC manual has prevented a full appraisal of exactly what this system entailed.39 Instead, one must look at The Athlete’s Guide to Health and Fitness, a 1908 monograph produced by two RIC depot instructors, G.S.  Greene and P.A. Marrinan, as well as the RIC’s periodical, The Constabulary Gazette.40 The Gazette’s resident sport correspondent, ‘Cyclops’, was often the most vocal advocate of physical culture. Reflecting on the Force’s adoption of Swedish gymnastics, Cyclops, argued: The Swedish system of physical development stands out, it would appear, from all other systems and wins wider support from muscle culturists by the alleged fact that it brings good to the greatest number … This new system will … improve the muscular powers of every man who diligently practices the exercises.41

Such rhetoric was common in the periodical and, much like the 1908 Manual on Physical Training, training the body was seen as a means of instilling discipline, order and courage in charges. This fetishisation of the trained and disciplined body was not isolated to the RIC’s own writers but found support in national newspapers like the Weekly Irish Times.42 Found in the newspaper’s physical culture column articles, penned by ‘Huck Finn’, articles on the RIC praised the force’s strong bodies and offered advice to those seeking to join its ranks.43 In 1909, the newspaper ran a supplement on the RIC’s training. Replete with illustrations, the article detailed the force’s training and prerequisites for joining. Readers were informed that should recruits possess the desired measurements, they were ‘taught in the proper mode in which to hold his body’. This mode of instruction prevented an undesirable stature composed of a ‘slouching gait’ and ‘flat chest’.44 This would build their external appearance but integrate officers into the force.

 Cyclops, ‘Cycling and Athletics’, The Constabulary Gazette, 4 September (1909), p. 366  Conor Heffernan, ‘Physical culture, the Royal Irish Constabulary and police masculinities in Ireland, 1900–14’, Irish Historical Studies, 43, no. 164 (2019), pp. 237–251. 41  Ibid. 42  Weekly Irish Times, 20 Oct., 1906; Weekly Irish Times, 16 Jan., 1909. 43  Heffernan, ‘Physical culture, the Royal Irish Constabulary and police masculinities’. 44  Weekly Irish Times, 4 Dec., 1909. 39 40

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That the RIC’s training was considered to be of an elite level, explains the publication of Sergeant Greene’s 1908 work, The Athlete’s Guide.45 Written with fellow instructor, P.A. Marrinan, Greene attempted to publish a work for policemen and lay readers. Like other physical culture books, the Athlete’s Guide began with bodyweight exercises before addressing weightlifting.46 To those who doubted its efficacy, Greene’s retort was unequivocal: Speaking from many years’ experience as an instructor, I may add, that the continued practice of these movements has given to the Irish police as well set up and athletic a body of men as it is possible to find.47

Like his military counterparts, Greene used physical culture to build recruits’ bodies to fit premeasured standards. A trained body was an efficient and useful body. Wishful as this thinking may have been, the optimism surrounding these messages was striking. Writing, working and training in pre-war times, both the military and RIC spoke of conflict or violence in muted tones, far more important was the rehabilitation of the body. The period 1914–1923 made clear that physical culture was indeed related to warfare.

‘I Was Always Keen on Physical Training …’: Physical Culture and Home Rule The 1908 Manual on Physical Training provided a hint, however small, that the nature of warfare had changed. It is unlikely that the Manual’s drafters could not have foreseen the many ways its content would be used. In Ireland, the first group to truly use the Manual was not the military but rather paramilitary groups divided on the issue of ‘Home Rule’. Home Rule, that is some form of limited self-government, had been a divisive issue in Ireland since Isaac Butt and Charles Stewart Parnell agitated for it in the 1870s.48 An obvious problem to such a Bill was the presence of those in Ireland loyal to the British Crown, also termed ‘Unionists’, or those uninterested in Home Rule, who disavowed the idea of a separate  Greene and Marrinan, The Athletes’ Guide.  Ibid., pp. 3–64. 47  Ibid., p. v. 48  Alan O’Day, Irish home rule, 1867–1921 (Manchester, 1998), pp. 12–45. 45 46

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Irish legislature. In Britain, especially in the upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, Home Rule attracted a considerable amount of ire. That withstanding, the precarious nature of British politics, especially in the House of Commons, opened a pathway for Home Rule to re-enter the fold in the early twentieth-century. Led by the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), those desirous of Home Rule began to effect change through political negotiations and brokering. Substantive change did not come until after the IPP won substantive returns in both the 1906 and 1910 British general elections.49 The latter victory, which came in the December elections, resulted in a partnership between the IPP, Labour Party and Liberal Party, the last of whom relied heavily on IPP support to remain in power as a minority government.50 From 1910 to 1914 the IPP began pushing, successfully, for Home Rule’s establishment. By 1914, it appeared that Home Rule would come to Ireland.51 This development was not without its problems. From 1911, those opposed to Home Rule began to mobilise to voice their opposition. As the probability of Home Rule increased, so too did opposition. This point was evidenced in 1913 when an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) was established with the intent of opposing Home Rule through parliamentary means or otherwise.52 Galvanised by the UVF’s tactics, another organisation, the Irish Volunteers, was established in 1913. The Volunteer’s primary aim, as found in its 1913 manifesto, was to protect the ‘liberties of the whole of Ireland’.53 Both called on large numbers of men, trained them using physical culture and from late 1914, imported weapons into Ireland. Their existence served to disrupt the Home Rule Bill and threatened civil war.54 Thinking about the communities at play here, two groups using the same exercises, did so to create diametrically opposed masculinities. That this was a masculine enterprise was made clear in the focus given to men’s bodies and discipline during this period.

49  Thomas Hennessey, Dividing Ireland: World War One and Partition (London, 2005), pp. 1–5. 50  Conor Mulvagh, The Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, 1900-18 (Manchester, 2016), pp. 88–93. 51  J.J. Lee, Ireland, 1912–1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1989), p. 21. 52  R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (London, 1989), pp. 464-470. 53  The Irish Volunteers, Manifesto of the Irish Volunteers (Dublin, 1913), p. 13. (National Library of Ireland, ILB 300 p 7). 54  Marie Coleman, The Irish Revolution, 1916–1923 (London, 2013), pp. 9–12.

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Each group used physical culture to increase men’s fitness, and, if necessary, to prepare for conflict. It was the UVF that was the first Irish group to do so. From its establishment in 1913, several battalions mobilised volunteers using local gymnasiums and physical culture clubs.55 While contemporaries, like French journalist Louis Tréguiz, cited Lecale, Co. Down as the first site of Unionist mobilisation in 1911, it is difficult to pinpoint an exact date.56 It is clear however that by January 1913, efforts had begun in earnest.57 In late 1912, Dublin’s Kingstown and District Unionist Club secured and ran physical culture classes in Monkstown Park to drill volunteers.58 Using the drill exercises found in the 1908 Manual, classes were seen as a means of fostering political sentiment. This was made clear in the group’s minutes: The Vice President opened the meeting by a brief account of the steps that had been taken towards drilling of such members … who presented themselves at … Park School, pointing out that they would practically get the advantages of drill & physical culture without any expense … [also discussed] the importance attached to drilling by the clubs in the North of Ireland.59

The Dublin branch’s enthusiasm paled in comparison to efforts found in the north of Ireland. In 1913 the UVF’s Strabane branch secured permission from police officers to drill without disturbance.60 That same year, Joseph A. Orr wrote to his captain detailing his successes in Newry. Tasked with training volunteers across six divisions, Orr organised weekly drill sessions for recruits, 150  in total.61 For Orr, this signified the group’s 55  ‘Extracts from the Minute Book of the Kingstown and District Unionist Club, 6, 27 June, 4 July, 1 August, 12 September 1912, Relating to Proposals to Form Drilling and Rifle Sections (D 950/1/147)’, in Patrick Buckland (ed.), Irish Unionism, 1885–1923: A Documentary History (Belfast, 1973), pp. 154–155. 56  Louis Tréguiz, L’Irlande Dans La Crise Universelle (Paris, 1921), pp. 51–54. 57  David Fitzpatrick, ‘Ireland since 1870’, in R.F.  Foster (ed.), The Oxford History of Ireland (Oxford, 1992), p. 191. 58  ‘Extracts from the Minute Book’, pp. 154–155. 59  Ibid. 60  John Weir J.P. and A. Ricardo, ‘Authorisation Note for the Strabane Co. of the North Tyrone Battalion Ulster Volunteer Force to Drill in the Lecture Hall of the 1st Strabane Presbyterian Church’ (Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Belfast, D1414/26). 61  Joseph A. Orr, ‘Letter from Joseph A. Orr, Newry to Capt., 20 January 1913’ (PRONI, D1540/3/5).

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­rofessionalisation and made them a credible body.62 Lord Dunleath p echoed Orr’s sentiments in his 1913 letter to Sir Edward Carson, a leading Unionist politician, when he claimed that Unionist drilling forced the government to listen to their complaints.63 Public displays of drill and physical culture served three distinct purposes. It strengthened men’s bodies in preparation for potential conflict. It deepened the bond between those opposed to Home Rule, and finally, it served as a demonstration to politicians in London that opposition was being mobilised. Images of men lined in drill formations, marching and exercising, served as formidable and visual forms of opposition to Home Rule. Training became a means of threatening or, at the very least, attempting, to intimidate British and Irish politicians into revoking support for Home Rule. In terms of the exercises used, much of what the UVF did was appropriated from British military manuals. This was reflected in a 1914 training manual published by the UVF which contained exercises indistinguishable from the British military.64 The manual’s circulation coincided with the UVF’s first successful weapons acquisition and marked a further advance in the organisation’s professionalisation.65 Many appeared to believe, like W. Copeland Trimble, that the training demonstrated that ‘the cream of our young men … of fine physique’, were behind ‘the Union Flag’.66 He appeared to be correct. Soon after Trimble’s comments, a letter to Dublin Castle, the seat of British administration in Ireland, claimed that the UVF were ‘conscious of the strength given to their cause by the discipline and military organisation of the volunteers’.67 (See Fig. 3.2)68

 Ibid.  Lord Dunleath, ‘More Formal Letter from Lord Dunleath to Carson’ (PRONI, D1507/A/11/16). 64  Book of Standard Tests for Certificate and Proficiency and Fire Drill Exercises for The Ulster Volunteer Force (January, 1914), pp. 2-3. (PRONI, D938/14/1). 65  ‘Statement on the Arms Question, Laid Before Sir Edward Carson and Sir James Craig’, 20 Jan. 1914 (PRONI, D/1238/108)’, in Patrick Buckland (ed.), Irish Unionism, 1885-1923: A Documentary History (Belfast, 1973), p. 243. 66  W. Copeland Trimble, ‘Letter to Colonel Seely, 20 November 1912’ (National Archives, Kew (NAK), CO/904/27/1). 67   War Office Secretary, ‘Letter to Dublin Castle, 14 February 1913’ (NAK, CO/904/27/1). 68  Ulster Volunteer Force 1914 Drilling Demonstration at Limavady (Postcard). From author’s collection. 62 63

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Fig. 3.2  Ulster volunteer force 1914 drilling demonstration at Limavady.

Despite problems with attendance and adherence, government records reveal how seriously the British government treated the UVF.69 In a letter to Augustine Birrell, Ireland’s Chief Secretary from 1910 to 1916, one RIC officer worryingly noted that over 12,000 UVF men drilled regularly in Ulster.70 Reports to the War Office in 1912 and 1913 featured frequent accounts of physical drill.71 Members of the UVF were aware of the keen symbolic value of public drill displays. So too, it seemed, were those in power. In time, the numbers involved, especially those in Ulster, increased. Peter Simkins estimated that by 1914 roughly 100,000 men counted themselves as UVF members.72 Not all of these members engaged in drill sessions but the UVF’s size gave reason for concern. The RIC, in contrast, 69  Lists and rolls of J Company. Handwritten records. 1913–1914. PRONI, Ulster Volunteer Force: Cookstown area, D1132/6/2; Lists and rolls of ‘J’ Company. PRONI, D1132/6/2. 70  W.A. O’Connell, ‘Letter to Under Secretary, Drilling Ulster, February 23, 1912’ (NAK, CAB 37/109/30). 71  ‘Drilling by Civilians in Ulster’ (NAK, WO/141/26). 72  Peter Simkins, Kitchener’s Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914-16 (Manchester, 1990), p. 22.

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had a professional staff of 10,000.73 One RIC letter to the Colonial Office in 1913 stressed the seriousness of this disparity to those in London: There are some 20,000 drilled men in the City [Ulster Volunteer Force]. No doubt there are at least 3,000 rifles and ammunition …. The game may be bluff on the part of the leaders but it is impossible to doubt the fanaticism and determination of the rank and file.74

The potential for violence increased after the March 1914 ‘Curragh Mutiny’.75 On hearing prospective government plans to use force against the UVF, several senior military officers threatened resignation owing to their political sympathies.76 That the government considered using force against the group, but hesitated, suggests the latter’s success in protesting Home Rule. In appropriating military training, the UVF used physical culture, political intransigence and the importation of arms to oppose state decision-making. Where other regions saw physical culture used to uphold the state, the UVF used physical exercise to oppose contentious political decisions.77 The UVF was not the only group using physical culture in relation to Home Rule. Also founded in 1913, largely in response to the UVF, the Irish Volunteers boasted over 180,000 members by August 1914.78 Composed of members from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Gaelic League and IPP among others, the Volunteers exhibited a similar zeal for physical culture.79 One Volunteer’s recollection that he was ‘more interested in athletics and physical culture than politics’ highlighted this point.80 An interest in physical culture proved highly advantageous for some. Liam Murphy later told the Bureau of Military History (BMH) that 73  Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police, Appendix to the Report of the Committee of Inquiry, 1914 Containing Minutes of Evidence with Appendices (London, 1914), p. 338. 74  ‘Extracts from Police Reports on the Situation in Ulster in 1913’ (NAK, CO/904/27/3). 75  Desmond Bowen and Jean Bowen, Heroic Option: The Irish in the British Army (Barnsley, 2005), pp. 198–205. 76  Robert Lynch, Revolutionary Ireland, 1912-25 (London, 2015), p.  28; Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble, pp. 133–134. 77  Gordon S.  Marino, ‘Preparing the Boys for War–Compulsion or Coercion? Physical Education and Training, 1919-1939’, History of Education Researcher, 92 (2013), pp. 41–53. 78  J. Bowyer Bell, The Secret Army: the IRA, 1916–1979 (Dublin, 1979), p. 4. 79  Eoin O’Malley, Contemporary Ireland (Dublin, 2011), p. 33. 80  Bureau of Military History WS 492 (John McCoy, Kildare), p. 9.

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once superiors learnt of his love of physical culture he was quickly promoted.81 Employed as a trainer, Murphy prepared dozens of men for potential conflict. Murphy’s qualification came from a personal interest in fitness, but his fellow trainers typically came from the British military.82 Domhnall Ó Buachalla later remembered his Newbridge unit, totalling fifty men, being trained by Sergeant O’Toole of the British army.83 Ó Buachalla’s experience with a former military trainer was echoed by James Ormond in Waterford.84 While Ormond enjoyed his training, others were far less enthused. Michael Riordan from Cork complained of his experiences in 1913 that ‘the only type of training carried out by us was close order foot drill and physical drill’, which ‘was carried out in the fields and by roads’ under military instructors.85 Individual complaints aside, it is clear that membership in the Volunteers largely centred on physical training and improving men’s bodies. One reason for this was that training gave members a purpose for their political beliefs. Felix O’Doherty said of his experiences that ‘drilling, marching, etc. and physical culture took up much of the men’s time in the evenings’.86 This training was keenly linked to the Volunteers’ aim of securing and maintaining ‘the rights and liberties of common to all the people of Ireland’.87 Where the UVF used physical culture to oppose Home Rule, the Volunteers used it to protect, or oversee, it.88 Like the UVF, the group relied on military officers for training. The reason for this, according to former Volunteer Bulmer Hobson, was simple: Only one system of drill was practical for the Volunteers, namely the English Army Drill (1911) [sic], for the sufficient reason that every Corps in Ireland could at that time get ex-army men and reservists in their locality who knew this drill, to act as instructors, and no other instructors were available.89

 BMH WS 19 (Liam Murphy, Cork), p. 2.  Ibid., pp. 2–4. 83  BMH WS 194 (Domhnall Ó Buachalla. Dublin), pp. 1–4. 84  BMH WS 1289 (James Ormond, Cork), pp. 1–4. 85  BMH WS 1638 (Michael Riordan, Cork), p. 1. 86  BMH WS 739 (Felix O’Doherty, Cork), p. 9. 87  The Irish Volunteers, Manifesto, p. 14. 88  F.X.  Martin, ‘Introduction’, in F.X.  Martin (ed.), The Irish Volunteers 1913–1915: Recollections and Documents (Dublin, 2013), p. 12. 89  Bulmer Hobson, The History of the Irish Volunteers: Volume One (Dublin, 1918), pp. 53-54. (NLI, AA/15767). 81 82

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The UVF and Volunteers emphasised fit and healthy male physiques as archetypes for recruits.90 Training allowed Volunteers to embody these ideals. Sport, incidentally, aided this process. In Ulster, where Volunteers drilled on a regular basis, GAA clubs often offered their grounds and support for training.91 Elsewhere in Ireland, help was forthcoming, although with certain caveats.92 Despite the GAA’s self-congratulatory history on its involvement with nationalist groups, Paul Rouse found numerous occasions when the GAA failed to facilitate Volunteer training.93 The Volunteers heavy reliance on sporting organisations differentiated them from the UVF, who proved more adept at renting gymnasiums.94 Other differentials were Na Fianna Eireann, a nationalist group for adolescents, and Cumann na mBan, a republican women’s paramilitary group, both of whom supported the Volunteers. Founded in 1913, broadly as a female equivalent of the Volunteers, Cumann na mBan served as an outlet for women interested in promoting Home Rule and a secondary means of supporting the Volunteers. While Cumann na mBan’s activities, including military drill, signalled exercise’s importance for women, the group’s subordination in Irish military life makes broader discussions of its impact somewhat difficult.95 Louise Ryan’s assertion that Cumann was seen as a nuisance to nationalists despite their support appears to be apt.96 In the pre-war period, Cumann’s training was largely free from the ideological aspirations of the Volunteers. Na Fianna Eireann, on the other hand, had a far more loaded appreciation of physical training. Founded in 1909 by Bulmer Hobson, Constance Markiewicz and several others, Na Fianna represented a recreational, but martial, outlet for children.97 Envisioned as a nationalist equivalent to 90  Jane McGaughey, Ulster’s Men: Protestant Unionist Masculinities and Militarization in the North of Ireland, 1912–1923 (Belfast, 2012), pp. 21–40. 91   Mike Cronin, William Murphy and Paul Rouse, The Gaelic Athletic Association, 1884–2009 (Dublin, 2009), pp. 64–69. 92  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, p. 221. 93  Ibid., p. 222. 94  One exception was the Volunteer’s London branch. J.B.E. Hittle, Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War: Britain’s Counterinsurgency Failure (Nebraska, 2011), p. 5. 95  Cal McCarthy, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Revolution (Dublin, 2007), pp. 85–86. 96  Louise Ryan, Gender, Identity and the Irish Press, 1922–1937: Embodying the Nation (New York, 2002), p. 221. 97  Marnie Hay, ‘The Foundation and Development of Na Fianna Éireann, 1909–16’, Irish Historical Studies, 36, no. 141 (2008), pp. 53–71; Martin, ‘Introduction’, p. 2.

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Robert Baden Powell’s Boy Scouts, Na Fianna differentiated itself by mixing games, diversions and military tactics with an Irish ethos.98 Marnie Hay’s study of Na Fianna understood the group as both a breeding ground for nationalist fighters and an attempt to assuage anxieties concerning idleness among adolescents.99 Na Fianna was not unique in this regard as Irish Boy Scouts did exist.100 Where the Boy Scouts were part of an imperial framework, Na Fianna were decidedly nationalist. Several contributors to the BMH commented that their Fianna experiences led them to join the Volunteers prior to 1914.101 During this time, members heard stories of Irish heroism that they could emulate through drill and sport. While it would be spurious to suggest these experiences naturally led one to join the Volunteers, it is undeniable that, for some, Na Fianna facilitated this route.102 Likewise, Na Fianna proved an adequate source of military instructors. When IRB members in the Volunteers secretly trained men at the beginning of 1914, it was Na Fianna who provided instructors.103 Both the UVF and Volunteers took systems of physical culture and used them for definitive political purposes. They sought to create strong and healthy bodies, fit for battle, but also as a symbolic display of their strength. Prior to the outbreak of the Great War on 28 July 1914, opposition to Home Rule threatened civil war between the UVF and Volunteers.104 Passed just prior to the Great War, Home Rule was temporarily postponed once Britain declared war on Germany. While proposals for Home Rule briefly  returned to Ireland in 1920, domestic conflicts ensured a short existence.

 Bulmer Hobson, Ireland Yesterday and Tomorrow (Tralee, 1968), p. 15.  Marnie Hay, ‘An Irish Nationalist Adolescence: Na Fianna Éireann, 1909–1923’, in Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London, 2015), pp. 103–128. 100  Brendan Power, ‘The Boy Scouts in Ireland: Urbanisation, Health, Education, and Adolescence, 1908–1914’, in Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.), Constructions of the Irish Child in the Independence Period, 1910–1940 (London, 2018), pp. 257–278. 101  BMH WS 19, p. 1; BMH WS 630 (James Fulham, Dublin), p. 1; BMH WS 755 (Séan Prendergast, Dublin), p. 6; BMH WS 817 (Seán Saunders, Dublin), p. 1; BMH WS 219 (Sean O’Neill, Galway), p. 15. 102  Elaine Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots: St Enda’s and the Cult of Boyhood (Cork, 2004), pp. 115–130. 103  Martin, ‘Introduction’, p. 12. 104  Fanning, Fatal Path. 98 99

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‘If You Broke Your Mothers’ Hearts, You Won’t Break Mine …’: Physical Culture and the Great War Michael Anton Budd previously stated that pre-war physical culture was ill-suited to the Great War. In peaceful times, recreational and, to a certain extent military, physical culture focused on aspirational ideals which sought to protect health. Once war erupted, British military struggled to balance pre-war aspirations with the realities of conflict.105 Where the UVF and Volunteers used physical culture in relation to Home Rule, the military divided its use between aims of individual development and success in battle. Prior to 1914, military physical culture was often popularised, it seemed, with little regard to battle scenarios. The four-year conflict served as a stark reminder of the system’s original purpose. In 1914, the 1908 Manual was revised, this time with a much greater focus on battlefield application. Those who fought in the Great War were, for many years, marginalised in Irish society and historiography.106 While scant histories were produced from the mid-twentieth-century, far more work has been conducted since the 1980s.107 On the War’s centenary in 2014, a litany of work dealt with the numerous economic, religious and social pressures brought to bear on Irishmen’s involvement.108 Individual motivations for enlistment varied but group enlistment was one reason for the high number of recruits enrolled in the first year of war, roughly 80,000 men.109 Other discerning factors were the steady wages offered by enlistment. In some counties, a high number of recruits came from those who had previously been out of work.110 Enlistment figures did slow after the first year of conflict, more  Budd, The Sculpture Machine, pp. 101–116.  Adrian Gregory and Senia Pašeta, ‘Introduction’, in Adrian Gregory and Senia Pašeta (eds.), Ireland and the Great War: A War to Unite Us All (Manchester, 2002), pp. 1–7. 107  David Fitzpatrick (ed.), Ireland and the First World War (Dublin, 1986); Keith Jeffrey, Ireland and the Great War (Cambridge, 2000); Nuala C. Johnson, Ireland, the Great War and the Geography of Remembrance (Cambridge, 2003); John Horne (ed.), Our War: Ireland and the Great War (Dublin, 2008); Eugenio F. Biagini, ‘A Long Way to Tipperary: The Irish in the First World War’, The Historical Journal, 61, no. 2 (2018), pp. 525–539. 108  Catriona Pennell, ‘A Truly Shared Commemoration? Britain, Ireland and the Centenary of The First World War’, The RUSI Journal, 159, no.4 (2014), pp. 92–100. 109  David Fitzpatrick, ‘The logic of collective sacrifice: Ireland and the British army, 1914-1918’, The Historical Journal, 38, no. 4 (1995), pp. 1017–1030. 110  Ian Beckett, Timothy Bowman, and Mark Connelly, The British Army and the First World War (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 100–120. 105 106

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rapidly, in fact, than in Great Britain, but men continued to enrol until the War’s cessation in 1918. It would be foolish to provide blanket statements about the 200,000 Irishmen who fought in the military during the Great War, except that they underwent some form of military training.111 Although a substantial number were already serving prior to 1914, roughly 130,000 men enlisted during the War.112 The 1908 Manual sought to create a body able ‘to withstand the strains of daily life and to perform the work required of it without injury to the system’.113 Officers sought, instead, to create a body capable of marching, drilling, maiming and fighting. War in 1914 also reiterated an issue of increasing concern in British life, the poor physical condition of troops. Such concerns began in the 1860s and continued into the twentieth-century. Likewise, the perceived failure to adequately recruit enough healthy troops during the Second South African War (1899–1902) resulted in a near decade long concern with improving British men’s strength. It was the South African War which prompted the creation of the 1908 Manual. The 1908 Manual itself informed instructors that recruits were rarely ready for the physicality of military life. Because of this, they needed short periods of physical training during induction, which ideally, lasted several weeks.114 This stress on physicality stemmed from pre-war debates about Britain’s perceived degeneracy.115 Framed in pseudo-Darwinist terms, debates raged over how Britain could transform herself into an ‘A1 Nation’ through improvements in population health.116 These concerns fed into the revised 1914 Manual as evidenced by claims that it is owing to this law of nature that many of the occupations of daily life … cause some muscles to become unduly long, and others unduly short; the result being a bad carriage of the body, and possible injurious effect on the skeleton and internal organs.117 111  David Fitzpatrick, ‘Ireland and the Great War’, in Thomas Bartlett (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ireland, Volume IV: 1880s to Present (Cambridge, 2018), p. 231. 112  Ibid. 113  Manual of Physical Training (Reprint 1908), p. 7. 114  Ibid., pp. 8–14. 115  Heggie, ‘Lies, Damn Lies’, pp. 178–216. 116  Concerns intensified after the war. Ana Carden-Coyne, Reconstructing the Body: Classicism, Modernism, and the First World War (Oxford, 2009), pp. 158–164. 117  Manual of Physical Training (Reprint 1908), p. 208.

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Aspirations surrounding development were combined with the strictures of military life. Despite pleas that instructors treat men with respect, and avoid undue shouting, training, especially during war, was still an induction into military life.118 Men were expected to present for physical training in standardised uniforms and to rigidly hold their bodies.119 Military training served to change men’s posture, comportment and bodily understandings.120 The reality proved decidedly more complex. Irishmen’s war recollections suggest that one’s time and place of enlistment impacted their experiences of training. Henry Hanna’s 1916 The Pals at Suvla Bay is illustrative on this point. Based on his time with the ‘D Company’ of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Haana recollected days spent drilling prior to deployment.121 Hanna’s ‘D Company’ was formed at the request of the Irish Rugby Football Union. Enlistment came from Irish rugby clubs, hence the Company’s ‘Pal Battalion’ moniker.122 Reflective of an early optimism permeating the War—Hanna’s training came in 1914— which believed the conflict would be a short one, exercises were placed in the context of male bonding and fun.123 Hanna recalled the keen interest generals took in their company’s health and noted with pride that his unit was routinely praised for its physical fitness.124 Hanna’s enthusiasm for physical fitness was echoed by Bryan Ricco Cooper. Cooper, who later entered Irish politics, served as a major in Gallipoli, Thessalonica and Stavros.125 In this capacity, Cooper wrote of military drill in 1918: To teach men to act together, to recognise and obey the voice of their officer…there is nothing like drill … Only from drill can be obtained the surrender of individuality in order to achieve a common purpose which is the foundation of military discipline.126  Ibid., p. 19.  Ibid., p. 25. 120  Schillinger, The Body and Military Masculinity Soldiers, pp. 67–80. 121  Henry Hanna, The Pals at Suvla Bay: Being the Record of ‘D’ Company of the 7th Royal Dublin Fusiliers (Dublin, 1916), pp. 19–33. 122  Liam O’Callaghan, ‘Irish Rugby and the First World War’, Sport in Society, 19, no. 1 (2016), pp. 95–109. 123  Hanna, The Pals at Suvla Bay, pp. 14–18. 124  Ibid., p. 22. 125  Patrick Maume, ‘Cooper, Bryan Ricco’, in James McGuire and James Quinn (eds.), Dictionary of Irish Biography (Cambridge, 2009) (http://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a2014)[Accessed 14 February 2019]. 126  Bryan Cooper, The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli (London, 1918), p. 236. 118 119

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Cooper’s opinion of drill later found expression in William McNeill’s Keeping Together in Time which suggested emotional responses and bonding could be evoked during drill.127 For Hanna, Cooper and the drafters of the 1914 revised manual, military drill was imbued with ideas surrounding discipline, bonding and a military ethic.128 This was, in theory, the kind of emphasis that the 80,000 new Irish recruits faced in late 1914 when they took up arms.129 Not everyone shared such enthusiasm. Published posthumously, James Sullivan’s diary depicted physical training as the place where ‘they put you through your drill again and make you fit for the line. Drill and plenty of it!’130 Sullivan joined the 10th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in 1914 aged eighteen. One of eight Irish regiments raised in response to the war, Sullivan’s Company were given a week of training before being shipped to mainland Europe. Penned in 1918, three years and three months into his service, Sullivan was silent on what this training entailed, but remembered its monotony. Later accounts cite gymnasium work, drilling and route marching as basic training components used by drill instructors to ‘break men down’ and rebuild them into soldiers.131 What varied in men’s experience was the duration. As demand for troops increased, training periods were shortened in a desperate bid to get more men to the front.132 Sullivan’s weariness towards drill was corroborated by John F. Lucy’s subsequent memoir. Lucy, unlike Sullivan, survived the War and later became a physical culture instructor.133 Alongside lectures on esprit de corps and weapons, physical training was a cornerstone of Lucy’s induction, a period he described as the ‘worst six months of my life’.134 Like Sullivan, and many whose recollections were not collected, Lucy’s training was done as a means of introducing soldiers to the hardship of war. Despite the military’s official prescription that instructors treat men respectfully, Lucy’s experience proved far harsher:  McNeill, Keeping Together in Time, pp. 2–10.  Cooper, The Tenth (Irish) Division, pp. 236–238. 129  Nuala C. Johnson, ‘The spectacle of memory: Ireland’s remembrance of the Great War, 1919’, Journal of Historical Geography, 25, no. 1 (1999), pp. 36–56. 130  Rosemarie Meleady, World War 1 Diary of James Sullivan (London, 2011), p. 18. 131  Tom Johnstone, Orange, Green and Khaki: The Story of the Irish Regiments in the Great War, 1914–18 (Dublin, 1992), pp. 15–22 and 191–200. 132  Adam Clayton, Fighting Fit 1914 (Gloucestershire, 2014), p. 50. 133  David Murphy, ‘Lucy, John Francis’, in James McGuire and James Quinn (eds.), Dictionary of Irish Biography. (Cambridge, 2009) (http://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a4911) [Accessed 14 February 2019]; The Irish Times, 16 Jan., 1937. 134  John F. Lucy, There’s A Devil in the Drum (Uckfield, 2009), p. 37. 127 128

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We drilled, and drilled, and drilled …. This was our worst experience. We sprinted from one kind of torture to another while our mouths went dry … ‘If you broke your mothers’ hearts, you won’t break mine.’ A tall, lithe, elastic-muscled English sergeant put us through it …. It was a rotten life, and we were very, very sorry for having enlisted.135

Cooper may have viewed such training as necessary for instilling a group mentality, but individual experiences varied.136 Drill was often used as punishment, and men took a ‘perverse pleasure’ in watching others go through their own physical training.137 As war progressed, fewer Irishmen enlisted. Such trends were found across Great Britain but disparities existed between Irish and British enlistment. This was especially the case after 1916 when heavy military losses at the Front, most notably at Gallipoli and the Somme, were complimented by social unrest at home to further reduce numbers.138 Irishmen continued to enlist, albeit in smaller numbers. Training continued to be provided and the experiences continued to vary depending on one’s instructor and the fighting’s intensity. The contrast between official protocol and actual implementation was stark but in each instance, the control, training and breaking down of the body were linked to broader military aims. This continued throughout the course of the Great War and it is clear that many, like the aforementioned Lucy, retained memories of their harsh military training. For those involved, Britain’s military training was explicitly linked to the battlefield. How such training was implemented was a different matter.

‘I Myself Was Much More Interested in Physical Culture and Athletics than in Politics…’: Physical Culture and Revolution, 1916–1923 The Great War was Ireland’s largest military engagement but it was not its only one. Aside from labour strikes in the period preceding the Great War, and the spectre of a civil war regarding Home Rule, domestic strife manifested itself in a nationalist insurrection in 1916 (the ‘1916 Rising’), a War  Ibid., pp. 30–31.  Cooper, The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli, p. 236. 137  Ibid., pp. 29–31. 138  Niamh Gallagher, Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History (London, 2019), pp. 144–160. 135 136

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of Independence (1919–1921) and, later, a Civil War (1922–1923).139 During and after the Great War, groups in Ireland sought to achieve political independence from Great Britain through military means. This goal was partway achieved through the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which granted limited independence to an Irish Free State while maintaining the political link between Northern Ireland and Great Britain following its ratification in the early 1920s.140 Situating physical culture into this larger historical narrative, two transitional periods exist. First the 1916 insurrection, which marked the first twentieth-century instance of an armed nationalist campaign in Ireland. The 1916 Rising, although unsuccessful and often ad-­ hoc in terms of preparation, nevertheless set a foundation for the later Irish War of Independence.141 Where physical culture was an important component of preparations for the 1916 Rising, its symbolism and practicality grew in importance during the period 1917–1919. In either instance, marshalling, and transforming, the male body was seen as a pivotal step towards Irish freedom. The relationship between the physical body and nationalist ideals was not a particularly new idea in Ireland.142 It did, however, gain a renewed importance in the late nineteenth-century when emergent cultural groups, like the GAA, sought to develop a distinctly Irish physique and masculinity. One of the GAA’s founding aims, aside from sporting enjoyment, was ‘a nationwide campaign to resurrect the physical stature of the manhood’.143 The GAA’s cofounder and spiritual figurehead, Michael Cusack, was deeply concerned with promoting a specified form of Gaelic masculinity, free from British influence.144 This kind of masculinity was predicated on a love of traditional Irish culture, tough sporting play and a robust physique. Cusack’s creation coincided with a broader European concern for gymnastics, such as those of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in Germany, which 139  Diarmaid Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble: The Irish Revolution 1913–23 (London, 2015), pp. 17–98. 140  Thomas Hennessey, Dividing Ireland: World War One and Partition (London, 2005), pp. 1–16. 141  Marie Coleman, The Irish Revolution, 1916–1923 (London, 2013). 142  Kate Barclay, Men on Trial: Performing Emotion, Embodiment and Identity in Ireland, 1800–45 (Manchester, 2019), pp. 15–30. 143  Patrick McDevitt, May the Best Man Win: Sport, Masculinity, and Nationalism in Great Britain and the Empire, 1880–1935 (Basingstoke, 2004), p. 14. 144  Paul Rouse, The Hurlers: The First All-Ireland Championship and the Making of Modern Hurling (London, 2018), pp. 1–25.

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linked the physical body to the state.145 Jahn’s nationalist gymnastics emerged in the first half of the nineteenth-century but the idea of linking cultural nationalism to physical activities caught hold in the decades following Jahn’s Turner movement.146 In Ireland, Cusack’s effort to revive a perceived lost ‘Irishness’ was echoed by the Gaelic League and educationalists, who emphasised the creation of a new Irish identity and, by proxy, manhood.147 The period 1914–1921 saw an intensification of interest in distinctly Irish masculinities. Promoted through sports, cultural events, education and military training, an idealised nationalist body understood by its cultural and physical strength was formed. Defined against supposedly effeminate or destructive British archetypes, this somatic and cultural masculinity was appropriated by nationalist groups in Ireland prior to, during, and after 1916.148 Sikata Banerjee and Aidan Beatty have both explained how the Irish Republican Army (IRA), formed in 1917, used such ideals to attract recruits and motivate existing members.149 Itself an adaption of the military masculinities found in the British Army, this identity was predicated on the idea of strong soldiers defending the Motherland.150 Where Banerjee and Beatty dealt with drill and physical culture in passing phrases, their importance and meaning is fully expanded here. Physical and moral strength were the foundation for the kind of nationalist body promoted during these conflicts. Routinised movement, practiced ad nauseum, changed bodies and drew them closer to the nationalist ideal. In other countries, the relationship between the fit and muscular male body with ideas of nationalism and strong nationhood was long established.151 In Ireland, physical culture became a means of creating, embodying and continuing this identity, which was always defined against an external enemy 145  George Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford, 1998), pp. 7–15. 146   Christiane Eisenberg, ‘Charismatic Nationalist Leader: Turnvater Jahn’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 13, no. 1 (1996), pp. 14–27. 147  Joseph Valente, The Myth of Manliness in Irish National Culture, 1880–1922 (Chicago, 2011), pp. 12–33. 148  Lisa Weihman, ‘Doing My Bit for Ireland: Trangressing Gender in the Easter Rising’, Éire-Ireland, 39, no. 3 (2004), p. 242. 149  Banerjee, Muscular Nationalism, pp. 7–23; Beatty, Masculinity and Power, pp. 1–15. 150  Jane McGaughey, ‘Blood-Debts and Battlefields: Ulster Imperialism and Masculine Authority on the Western Front 1916–1918’, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association/ Revue de la Société historique du Canada, 20, no. 2 (2009), pp. 3–27. 151  Mosse, The Image of Man.

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be they British or, during the Civil War, Irish. Fostered prior to the 1916 Rising, this identity found its truest expression in the months leading up to the Irish War of Independence.152 The 1916 Rising lasted only five days, but required years of planning.153 While the Volunteers represented the most overt nationalist appropriation of physical culture prior to 1916, many involved in the Rising spent close to a decade promoting physical culture and/or using it on a personal basis.154 One example of this was Patrick Pearse, one of the Rising’s leading figureheads, and his St. Enda’s School in Rathfarnham, Dublin. Established in 1908, St. Enda’s marked Pearse’s unique vision for Irish education. Disillusioned with British models of education and actively trying to create a new system specific to Ireland, St. Enda’s stressed Irish customs and pastimes in the classroom.155 As part of this approach, Pearse was determined to include drill and physical culture at his school. To this end, he spent several months searching for a gymnastics instructor who was not affiliated with Britain’s military and could teach physical culture.156 Once a suitable candidate was found, Pearse promoted physical drill in newspapers like An Claideamh Soluis, St. Enda’s magazine Macaomh and in school curricula.157 In St. Enda’s, physical culture was combined with hurling and Gaelic football to build an embodied ‘Irishness’ among students.158 Pearse’s educational physical culture became imbued with a nationalist ethos linked to military discipline.159 Whereas earlier gymnastic teachers in the school were gymnasts, later, more militaristic, classes were taught by Con Colbert and Thomas MacDonagh, both of whom served in the Rising.160 Other combatants in the Rising had a similar early interest in physical culture as evidenced by Na Fianna Eireann. Former member James  Beatty, Masculinity and Power, pp. 27–45.  F.X. Martin, ‘The 1916 Rising: A Coup d’État or a Bloody Protest?’, Studia Hibernica, 8 (1968), pp. 106–137. 154  Honor O’Brolchain, Joseph Plunkett: 16 Lives (Dublin, 2012), p. 46. 155  Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots, pp. 115–130; Brendan Walsh, Boy Republic: Patrick Pearse and Radical Education (Stroud, 2013), pp. 1–20. 156  Seámas O’Buachalla (ed.), The Letters of P.H. Pearse (Dublin, 1980), pp. 133–135. 157  An Claideamh Soluis, 28 Aug., 1909; ‘Annála na Scoile, 1908–1909’, An Macaomh (Dublin, 1909), p. 81; Scoil Eánna 1910–1911 (Dublin, 1911), pp. 13–14. 158  Scoil Eánna 1910-1911, pp. 13–14; Joost Augusteijn, Patrick Pearse: The Making of a Revolutionary (London, 2010), pp. 163–167. 159  Walsh, Boy Republic, pp. 134–155. 160  Ibid. 152 153

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Fulham fondly recollected physical training sessions in Na Fianna under later insurrectionists Con Colbert and Séan Kavanagh, both of whom linked the boys’ physical training to their duty to Ireland and, stemming from this, a distinctly Irish masculinity.161 Séan Prendergast noted that his Na Fianna training in 1911 largely centred on military and Swedish drill with messages centred on his duty to Ireland as well as the importance of strength for Irishmen.162 Physical culture was used as part of a nationalist education whose ultimate end was Irish cultural, political and spiritual independence from Britain. This latter motivation was evident in Pearse’s 1914 work To the Boys of Ireland. Written as a rallying cry for Ireland’s youth to join ‘in a knightly service’ for the Motherland, the monograph stated: We are not mere ‘Boy Scouts’, although we teach and practise the art of scouting. Physical culture, infantry drill, marching, the routine of camp life … are all included in our scheme of training … we believe that mental culture should go hand in hand with physical culture, and we provide instruction in Irish and in Irish history.163

Two points were clear. First that na Fianna and other nationalist groups were distinctly different from their British counterparts, regardless of their similarities and second that physical training was part of a young man’s training into Irish nationalism. It served as a link with Ireland’s venerated past and, implicitly, prepared them for a glorious future. When more serious military preparations were initiated, the relationship between physical culture and Irish nationalism intensified. In late 1914, John Redmond of the Irish Parliamentary Party implored Volunteers to join the war effort and go ‘wherever the firing line extends’.164 Motivated by the prospect of achieving Home Rule in a post-war context, Redmond’s speech precipitated a split in the then roughly 150,000 strong Volunteers.165 A great deal of men did indeed go to ‘the firing line’ while a minority dissented. This latter group became the basis for the 1916 Rising. Prior to  BMH WS 630, p. 1.  BMH WS 755 (Séan Prendergast), pp. 6–7. 163  Pádraic Pearse, To the Boys of Ireland in Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin, 1924), p. 114. 164  James McConnel, ‘John Redmond and Irish Catholic Loyalism’, The English Historical Review 125, no. 512 (2010), pp. 83–111. 165  Maria Coleman, The Irish Revolution, 1916–1923 (London, 2013), p. 9. 161 162

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the Rising, and during the initial months of the Great War, Volunteer units spent a great deal of time engaged in drilling operations.166 It was for this reason that the group’s periodical, The Irish Volunteer, claimed prior to the 1914 split that ‘physical culture was of utmost importance for men’s discipline and bearing. It was thus treated with the utmost of seriousness’.167 This emphasis did not abate in the following months. It was at this time that one Volunteer, Mr. O’Reilly, gave expression to physical culture’s importance at a regional meeting soon after the organisation’s split: There could be no question about it: the country which devoted itself to the training of its youth physically reaped many benefits …. The general health was better, vitality, courage, self-confidence, everything that went for manhood, sprung naturally [emphasis added] from trained muscles.168

The following year in 1915, when Patrick Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh took up key positions in the Volunteers, physical culture continued to be used in a nationalist campaign.169 Free from more moderate voices or those happy with Home Rule, members could plan an insurrection. While planning was at times haphazard and long conducted without a definitive date in mind, physical culture continued to be used for political ends.170 The February 1915 edition of the Irish Volunteer spoke of new military gymnastics courses used to train new recruits.171 Once more the training system was largely indistinguishable from that promoted by the British military but, importantly, it was presented as new and attuned to the realities of Irish nationalism. Despite its British origins, the Volunteers’ training was continually linked with the group’s idealism regarding Ireland’s autonomy.172 In late 1915, Padraig O’Riain’s articles in the Irish Volunteer linked Na Fianna’s commitment to Irish independence with physical 166  Nuala C.  Johnson, Ireland, the Great War and the Geography of Remembrance (Cambridge, 2003), p. 23. 167  W.H. Gratten Flood, ‘An Awakened Nation’, The Irish Volunteer, 1, no. 1 (1914), p. 3. 168  ‘Fine Meeting in Athboy’, The Irish Volunteer, 1, no. 9 (1914), p. 4. 169  Thomas MacDonagh, ‘Company C. 2nd Battalion Report on Drills and Describes Activity on a Weekly Drill Taking the Route to the Phoenix Park via Broadstone and North Circular Road’. (Thomas MacDonagh Additional Papers, 1870-1967, NLI, MS 20, 643/3/2). 170  Fearghal McGarry, The Rising: Ireland, Easter 1916 (Oxford, 2016), p. 108. 171  ‘Programme of Military Training for Irish Volunteers’, The Irish Volunteer, 20 February (1915), pp. 5–6. 172  Foster, Vivid Faces, pp. 223–240.

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c­ ulture and military drill.173 Covering adolescent and adult physical culture, O’Riain spoke of the duty incumbent on na Fianna boys to train diligently and improve their strength. Likewise, O’Riain proudly noted the strong and athletic bodies on display in Volunteer physical culture sessions. Through text and training, physical culture served an important ideological role. By 1916, physical culture’s remit extended beyond callisthenics in the Volunteers to include, in the words of one member, Liam Gaynor, ‘gruelling drill marches’ enjoyed by few.174 The Volunteers, especially in the aftermath of the split, were not the only group using physical culture for political purposes as both the Irish Citizen Army (ICA) and Cumann na mBan took to physical culture prior to the 1916 Rising. The ICA’s use of military drill largely echoed that of the Volunteers. Concerned primarily with improving labour conditions and later with an, at times, undefined sense of Irish nationalism, the ICA was founded following the 1913 ‘Dublin Lockout’ which saw 20,000 workers engage in industrial action.175 The ICA’s initial figurehead, James Larkin, encouraged ICA members to drill on a daily basis following the Lockout’s failure.176 Like the Volunteers, Larkin implored the ICA to model itself on the UVF by using drill as an opportunity to further their goals and achieve some level of parity for workers.177 Frank Robbins, an ICA member, later remembered that ‘no drill or outdoor parade ever finished without a short address by either James Connolly or Michael Mallin’ on the group’s aims or events.178 Much like the Volunteers, physical culture became a means of preparing men but also as a means of furthering their indoctrination. The ICA’s focus on workers’ rights, through armed struggle if needed, was eventually pivoted into the 1916 Rising where 220 ICA members joined with roughly two thousand other combatants.179

173  Padraig O’Riain, ‘Notes on Training’, The Irish Volunteer, 18 December (1915), p. 8; Padraig O’Riain, ‘Na Fianna Eireann: Duties of Scouts’, The Irish Volunteer, 25 December (1915), p. 8. 174  BMH WS 183 (Liam Gaynor, Dublin), p. 11. 175  Ann Matthews, The Irish Citizen Army (Dublin, 2014), pp. 1–20. 176  Austen Morgan, James Connolly: A Political Biography (Manchester, 1989), pp. 144–145. 177  Sean O’Casey, The Story of the Irish Citizen Army (Dublin, 1919), pp. 1–16. 178  BMH WS 585 (Frank Robbins, Dublin), p. 12. 179  Lauren Arrington, Revolutionary Lives: Constance and Casimir Markievicz (New Jersey, 2016), p. 127.

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In Cumann na mBan, physical culture was equally important, albeit with some restrictions. Formed in 1914 following a merger between Cumann and Inghinidhe na hÉireann, Cumann’s charter stated its aims and the role of drill in supporting them.180 In ‘achieving liberty for Ireland’, each member agreed to ‘engage in training, including for first aid, drill and signalling, and rifle practice’.181 Much like its male equivalents, Cumann used exercise as a means of achieving its aims. Controlling the body was not an afterthought, but a guiding focus. Sinéad McCoole previously depicted Cumann as a unique organisation owing to the group’s decision to train itself rather than rely on the Volunteers or ex-­ military men.182 This approach held true when it came to physical culture. Although unconventional, especially when compared to pre-war forms of physical culture, the group was effective in this regard and garnered praise from others. When members marched at nationalist figure O’Donovan Rossa’s funeral in 1915, one of the few instances when the group’s physical culture training was allowed in a political and public setting, the Irish Citizen’s report praised their system’s success and, owing to the newspaper’s feminist origins, framed it within a wider suffragist framework. Large Contingents of women marched in O’Donovan Rossa funeral procession, taking an integral part of it and as far as discipline, bearing, and physical endurance went, proved themselves fully equal to the men.183

Returning, briefly, to Chap. 1, comments on female physical endurance were secondary in recreational physical culture. Ideas suggesting an equality between male and female physicality were non-existent. Acknowledging gender disparities between Cumann and their male equivalents, who often depended on the Cumann during the 1916 Rising, there is still a hint that within a nationalist discourse, dedicated physical culture could prove emancipatory for those involved. Further evidence of this is found in the women’s own training. Where Seamus Kavanagh and Commandant Henderson were used sporadically as drill instructors prior to 1916, many women were, like Cumann member Eilis Bean Uí Chonaill, trained by 180  ‘Manifesto from Cumann Na mBan (Irishwomen’s Council): The Women’s Section of the Volunteer Movement, 1914 Oct 5’. (NLI, MS 41,652 /8). 181  Ibid. 182  Sinéad McCoole, No Ordinary Women: Irish Female Activists in the Revolutionary Years, 1900–1923 (Dublin, 2003), pp. 29–31. 183  ‘Are Women People?’, The Irish Citizen, 7 Aug., 1915 (NLI, EPH F992).

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women.184 It appears that after the Volunteers’ split in 1914, during which time the Cumann aligned itself with those opposed to joining the war effort, a dedicated effort was made to include more female instructors within the Cumann.185 This, itself, was a reflection of the primacy the organisation placed on physical drill as a means of breeding discipline among members and to contribute, in some way, to the struggle for Irish freedom. It was for this reason that a Cumann manifesto declared during this time: Physical drill was practised at each branch meeting because Cumann na mBan realised … that discipline was one of the most essential things in the organization.186

In the Cumann, as in the ICA and the Volunteers, physical culture was attached to political and social objectives. While the Cumann’s role, save some individuals, was at times confined to support services during the Rising, the group used physical culture to support their activities while also acting as an emancipatory role for women.187 The Rising’s failure in Easter 1916 did not, however, discourage efforts towards independence. It acted as a rallying force for Ireland’s War of Independence, begun in 1919. Once more physical culture served as both an ideological and a practical tool for Irish nationalists. Over four thousand men and women were arrested following the 1916 Rising, many without recourse.188 The Rising’s aftermath witnessed mass arrests take place in Dublin as British authorities sought to come down on those responsible for inciting violence. Many were soon released, and imprisonment conditions varied, but historians have cited an intensification of nationalist feeling post-1916.189 Many, especially in Dublin, disapproved of the Rising in its immediate aftermath but feelings changed 184  BMH WS 648 (Catherine Rooney, Dublin), p.  1; BMH WS 195 (Molly Reynolds, Dublin), p. 2; BMH WS 568 (Eilis Bean Uí Chonaill, Dublin), p. 31. 185  Senia Pašeta, Irish Nationalist Women, 1900–1918 (Cambridge, 2013), p. 158. 186  Kathleen Clarke, Revolutionary Woman: My Fight for Ireland’s Freedom, ed. Helen Litton (Dublin, 1997), p. 45. 187  Louise Ryan, ‘Furies and Die-hards: Women and Irish Republicanism in the Early Twentieth Century’, Gender & History, 11, no. 2 (1999), pp. 256–264. 188  Mark McCarthy, Ireland’s 1916 Rising: Explorations of History-Making, Commemoration & Heritage in Modern Times (London, 2016), p. 104. 189  William Murphy, Political Imprisonment and the Irish, 1912–1921 (Oxford, 2014), pp. 54–78.

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following the execution of leading organisers and wide scale arrests. For those arrested and sent to prisons, either in Ireland or Great Britain, the experience could be a formative one. Some chose to serve their sentences before eschewing nationalist actions, if they held them at all. Others, however, viewed prisons as impromptu training camps to reorganise and radicalise men.190 In such instances, it is clear that exercise in prison yards played a role extending beyond health. Interned at Knutsford prison in Cheshire in May 1916, Séan Prendergast later told the BMH that he, and fellow inmates, used exercise periods to organise interned Irishmen under the guise of physical culture.191 Where physical culture classes were provided in prisons, especially in Britain, Irishmen often used the opportunity to exchange ideas and plans for a future rebellion.192 This situation was echoed elsewhere as Michael Brennan and Art O’Donnell, both interned in late 1916, remembered physical training sessions being used as subterfuge for military drill and organisation.193 This prison-based physical culture appears to have fostered a shared ethos among those engaging in it, a point which further reiterated McNeill’s ‘muscular bonding’ thesis.194 Prison physical culture proved highly valuable to Irish nationalists. It created a sense of control among inmates, broke the monotony of sentences and indoctrinated men into the importance of training for future conflict. When the men were released from prison, which began a fortnight after the arrests and continued from there, many were eager to continue training. Equally influential was the return of Irish soldiers from the Great War post-1916, who proved pivotal in the build-up to the Irish War of Independence. Ex-servicemen held two distinct advantages over those released from prison. They had experience of prolonged combat and, generally speaking, had encountered far more violence than those who remained in Ireland. Additionally, they were trained by the British military and had an intimate knowledge of its training system. It was for this reason that returning soldiers were highly sought after by those seeking and opposing Irish independence. For the latter, the 190  Michael Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: the Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 49–76; Ferriter, A Nation and Not a Rabble, pp. 170–184. 191  BMH WS 755, p. 172. 192  Ibid. 193  BMH WS 1068 (Michael Brennan, East Clare), p. 15; BMH WS 1322 (Art O’Donell, Clare), p. 36. 194  McNeill, Keeping Together in Time, pp. 2–10.

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creation of the ‘Black and Tans’, a division of ex-British soldiers established to assist the RIC in 1920, witnessed a considerable escalation in violence from both sides.195 Proficient with weapons, versed in military drill and indoctrinated in the use of violence, ex-servicemen were ideal candidates for warfare.196 While the majority of Irishmen did not return until after the Armistice of 1918, many of those released earlier voluntarily, or through peer pressure, joined the republican cause.197 Records from the BMH suggest that many ex-servicemen were co-opted by IRA members to act as physical drill and shooting instructors from 1918 onward.198 Where preparations for 1916 witnessed small pockets of men and women engage in military drill, largely taught by physical culture enthusiasts rather than instructors, the period after the Rising saw an intensification of physical culture which coincided with a growth of republican sentiment. From an institutional standpoint, 1917 was pivotal in Irish preparations for conflict as thousands of men began openly drilling in republican formations, much to the dismay of British officials.199 Recorded by the RIC and subsequently relayed to Britain’s War Office, reports were collected in several counties around this time detailing incidents of physical drill.200 Many were arrested for their involvement, but the vast majority were left, it seems, unperturbed. A common approach appears to have been the recording, but not arresting, of Irishmen engaged in public displays of drill and physical culture. Month by month, reports came in to Irish law enforcement of eighty men undergoing drill in Mayo or over a hundred in Kerry.201 The Volunteers, soon termed the IRA, used displays as a means of training men and demonstrating the group’s growth. The trained body became the dangerous body. Those loyal to the Crown in Ireland were 195  Paul Taylor, Heroes or Traitors? Experiences of Southern Irish Soldiers Returning from the Great War 1919–1939 (Oxford, 2015), pp. 19–74. 196  Tom Garvin, The Evolution of Nationalist Politics (Dublin, 2005), pp. 142–147. 197  Joseph McKenna, Guerrilla Warfare in the Irish War of Independence, 1919–1921 (Jefferson, 2011), pp. 121–149. 198  BMH WS 1709 (Michael F. Ryan, Waterford), p. 14; BMH WS 742 (Thomas Halpin, Cork), pp. 24–25; BMH WS 759 (John Jones, Cork), p. 6. 199  ‘Armed Meetings, Agrarianism, Street Preaching, Drilling, Importation of Arms  Reports, Returns and Opinions of Legal Advisors’ (NAK, C.O. 904/182). 200  ‘Drilling of Irish Volunteers in County Kerry, Lists of Ringleaders; 1917-1918’ (NAK, W.O. 35/99.16); ‘Illegal Drilling - Chief Secretary’s Office, Ireland’ (NAK, 17333/S). 201  B.  Mahon, ‘Lieutenant-General, Commanding in Chief, the Forces in Ireland to Headquarters, Irish Command, Parkgate, Dublin, 30 December 1917’ (NAK, 17333/S).

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keenly aware of the dangers in allowing such actions to continue. In a letter to the War Cabinet in late 1917, one Irish constable implored the British government to act, noting that ‘from a military point of view nothing can be more dangerous than the policy of allowing open sedition to be practised’.202 In a highly symbolic turn, physical culture exercises came from an Irish, and not British, training system. Using British physical culture exercises, and British trained instructors proved problematic at an ideological level. How could one claim Irish cultural independence while still being reliant on British approaches? To rectify this issue, and in doing so, create some form of distinctly Irish form of training, a new physical culture manual was completed during this time in the Irish language. Slí na Saoirse, published by Aodh Ruadh in 1917, represented the first Irish language training manual of its kind.203 Written in Irish, the booklet was dedicated to the memory of those Irishmen who died in the 1916 Rising.204 Aodh Ruadh’s manual continued with an appraisal of the swelling in republican sentiment before praising those involved in the reorganisation of nationalist efforts. These bombastic statements were followed by a series of drill exercises, all in Irish.205 The exercises themselves were taken, almost in their entirety, from the 1914 British manual familiar to many. Their translation into Irish, regardless of how much the manual was used, represented a rejection of the English language and customs. It provided an Irish form of physical culture for a new Irish war. This conflict saw roughly 15,000 Irishmen join the IRA, of which 3,000 were estimated to be active combatants.206 Like the Great War, such numbers ensured that the impact of military drill spread far across the Irish population. Furthermore, Aodh Ruadh’s combination of Irish and British physical cultures highlighted the fact that although Irish nationalists often claimed a distinct and exclusive sense of ‘Irishness’, they relied on British structures and examples. This tension continued in following decades.207

 A.G. ‘Extract from War Cabinet, 31/10/17’, (NAK, W.O. 252/1/11/17)  Aodh Ruadh, Sli na Saoirse: Leabhar Drille dÓglaig na hÉireann (Áth Cliath, 1917), pp. 5–6. 204  Ibid., p. i. 205  Ibid., pp. 7–15. 206  Oonagh Walsh, Ireland’s Independence: 1880–1923 (London, 2003), p. 67. 207  Jeffrey Prager, Building Democracy in Ireland: Political Order and Cultural Integration in a Newly Independent Nation (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 203–209. 202 203

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Despite the idealistic manner with which Aodh Ruadh treated drill, it is clear that for individuals, physical training was a regular occurrence. Some, like Michael Murphy or James Fulham, recollected their exposure to drill in passing sentences, but others were clearly affected by it.208 John McCoy in Armagh argued that all men were aware of the high level of fitness needed for battle.209 Throughout their training, the message was continually imparted that training and fitness would ensure an Irish victory. The ‘nationalist soldier’ ideal began to reign supreme in military thinking. Unlike J.F. Lucy’s training for the Great War, which was marred by his instructor’s cruelty, IRA instructors were generally fondly remembered. This was certainly the case for Thomas Halpin, drilled by ‘Old Horse’, Joe O’Neill. O’Neill taught physical training in the United States before returning to Ireland after 1916. Brother-in-law of an IRA officer, O’Neill was co-opted into training IRA recruits before pressure from RIC members persuaded him to cease.210 O’Neill ceased training men but many continued despite RIC warnings. When conflict began in 1919, the IRA redoubled its physical training efforts. In 1920 and 1921, a series of training courses were provided to officers, whom it was expected, would subsequently train men.211 Tom Barry’s Guerrilla Days briefly recalled the programme’s ‘trickle down’ ethos which Barry, unlike his fellow officer Ernie O’Malley, enjoyed.212 Barry recorded the serious but immersive nature of training sessions, noting the bonding it created among participants. O’Malley, on the other hand, recalled the terrible anxiety he experienced when tasked with instructing his troops in physical culture exercises. The disparity in the men’s experiences reiterated the fact that no matter how venerated the subject may have been, not all found themselves enamoured with it. The course that Barry, O’Malley and others were subjected to comprised field training, physical exercise and rifle practice. Often beginning at 6 am with physical exercise, the courses sought to elevate men’s military

 BMH WS 479 (Michael Murphy, Dublin), p. 1; BMH WS 630, p. 22.  BMH WS 492 (John McCoy, Armagh), p. 32. 210  BMH WS 742, pp. 24–25. 211  BMH WS 759 (John Jones, Cork), p.  6; BMH WS 1543 (Patrick J.  Lynch, Cork), pp. 13-14; BMH WS 1738, (Jeremiah Deasy, Cork), pp. 11–12. 212  Tom Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland: A First-hand Account of the Black and Tan War (1919-1921) (Dublin, 1956), pp.  16-20; Ernie O’Malley, On Another Man’s Wound: A Personal History of Ireland’s War of Independence (Cork, 2013), pp. 53–58. 208 209

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and physical fitness to bolster the war effort.213 For men, the utility of such training was evident in a guerrilla campaigns that necessitated long marches and quick movements. Diarmaid Ferriter’s previous observation that the IRA’s tactics were predicated on fit and healthy troops, capable of travelling the length of the country on bicycle or foot, holds true.214 Maurice Donegan’s testimony that he had to carry a hundred-weight box up a steep ascent, a feat he described as ‘the severest physical test I was ever put to’, spoke of the strength needed to fight.215 In Mayo, Geoffrey Ibberson’s likewise saw the value of strength for political fighting.216 Ibberson recalled one encounter with British troops where ‘physical fitness which, coupled with anger, made the endurance possible’.217 Physical training allowed Ibberson and countless others to continue fighting, thereby ensuring that the conflict would be protracted, but ultimately successful. A peace treaty was signed between Ireland and Great Britain on 6 December 1921. The victory, of course, was not without its costs. During the conflict, a 1920 Government of Ireland Act split Ireland into two separate entities, a Northern Ireland comprised six counties while the other twenty-six were subsumed into a quasi-independent Ireland. Both were to have their own form of Home Rule, but war disrupted any real implementation. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in 1921, the division of Ireland was solidified, the ramifications of which are discussed in Chaps. 4–6. The signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty did not, of course, quell political unrest and certainly the Irish Civil War (1922–1923) ensured that domestic turmoil continued for at least another year. There is little to suggest that physical culture’s importance did not extend into the Irish Civil War where combatants likewise told the BMH of their experiences of training camps, drill and physical training.218 Here physical culture not only contributed to the war, it sustained it. This was clear to Michael Collins,  BMH WS 1543, pp. 13–14.  Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland, 1900-2000 (London, 2005), p. 190; BMH WS 639 (Maurice Donegan, Cork), p. 4. 215  BMH WS 639, p. 4. 216  John Borgonovo, The Dynamics of War and Revolution: Cork City, 1916–1918 (Cork, 2013). 217  BMH WS 1307 (Geoffrey Ibberson, Mayo), p. 3. 218  BMH WS 927 (Sean Gibbons, Mayo), pp. 14–18; BMH WS 1235 (William O’Flynn, Tipperary), pp.  2–4; BMH WS 1008 (Thomas Brady, Roscommon), pp.  2–3; BMH WS 1207 (Alfred White, Dublin), p. 4. 213 214

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whose post-war monograph stated that ‘as fit habitations for healthy minds, we must have healthy bodies’.219 Collins’ contemporary, Arthur Griffith, wrote in 1904 that physical culture was intimately linked to the nation’s soul.220 Both placed a high emphasis on physical fitness and, in doing so, revealed a long-held theme in Irish cultural nationalism regarding the importance of fit and healthy bodies, one which continued into the post-war period. Between the British military, and Irish nationalists, hundreds of thousands of Irishmen, and in the case of Cumann, Irishwomen, had been exposed to physical culture in some way, shape or form. Never a benign encounter, the movement and marshalling of their bodies was linked to the battlefield, often with varying success.

 Michael Collins, The Path to Freedom (Cork, 1996), p. 107.  Arthur Griffith, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (Dublin, 1918, third edition), p. 140. 219 220

CHAPTER 4

‘The Production and Maintenance of Health in Body and Mind’: Educational Physical Culture in Pre-Independence Ireland

How children are discussed, treated and encouraged tells of a society’s hopes, aspirations and prejudices. How a society discusses children’s bodies is doubly important. Over the past decade, Irish historians have come alive to the value of children’s history.1 Much of the early work on childhood in Ireland has tended to focus on the ‘constructed child’ as found in adults’ debates, books and teachings, rather than the lived experience of the children involved in, or targeted by, these discourses.2 Efforts have been made to rectify this disparity in later works but an ongoing difficulty for historians of childhood in Ireland is dealing with the nexus between societal idealism and childhood experience.3 Physical culture, or physical education, for children was no exception. In the pre-independence period, childhood physical education was linked to issues of class, gender, nationalism and militarism.4 Intimately tied to developments in children’s education, physical culture was thought to play a key role in the transition to adulthood. It helped reform sickly bodies, instil a sense of discipline and 1  Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London, 2015); Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.), Constructions of the Child in the Independence Period (London, 2018). 2   Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox, ‘Introduction’, in Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London, 2015), pp. 1–14. 3  Ibid. 4  Conor Heffernan and Conor Curran, ‘Much ado about nothing?: The problems of Irish physical education, 1820–1920’, Sporting Traditions, 37, no. 1 (2020), pp. 65–80.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_4

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prepare children for a life of productive work. As Mary Hatfield recently argued, ‘the child throughout history has served as a receptacle of adult ideologies, expectations and desires’.5 The late nineteenth and early twentieth-­centuries were pivotal in fostering new understandings of the child as distinct from the adult. It was during this time in Ireland that child labour decreased, children’s leisure culture grew while schooling became a reality for hundreds of thousands.6 These were not universal truths, and varied depending on one’s class, creed and county, but they spoke to the increasingly privileged site of childhood for some in Ireland. As a means of physically developing the child’s body, physical culture, in the form of physical education, held a special position in turn of the century debates on childhood. Largely ignored for the first half of the nineteenth-century, institutionalised physical culture for children became a means of impacting body and brain in equal measure. By the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, physical culture held a high ideological status in developing children, despite its haphazard implementation. Although previously considered in passing sentences by Irish historians, the role of sport and physical education in Irish schools has, more recently, enjoyed far more attention as a key phase in Irish childhood. Richard McElligott, Marnie Hay, and Brendan Powers, among others, have discussed the role of extracurricular sport and physical education, such as the GAA, Boys Scouts or na Fianna Éireann, in helping to indoctrinate boys into a nationalist or otherwise worldview.7 Likewise, Deirdre Raftery and Catriona Delaney have, alongside Brendan Walsh and Elaine Sisson, stressed the gendered nature of children’s exercise.8 Much like adult physical culture, exercise in schools was often predicated on developing boys 5  Mary Hatfield, Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland: A Cultural History of Middle-Class Childhood and Gender (Oxford, 2019), p. 2. 6  Ibid., pp. 1–12. 7  Richard McElligott, ‘Boys indifferent to the manly sports of their race: nationalism and children’s sport in Ireland, 1880–1920’, Irish Studies Review, 27, no. 3 (2019), pp. 344–361; Marnie Hay, ‘The Foundation and Development of Na Fianna Éireann, 1909–16’, Irish Historical Studies, 36, no. 141 (2008), pp.  53–71; Brendan Power, ‘The Boy Scouts in Ireland: Urbanisation, Health, Education, and Adolescence, 1908–1914’, in Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.), Constructions of the Irish Child in the Independence Period, 1910–1940 (London, 2018), pp. 257–278. 8  Deirdre Raftery and Catriona Delaney, ‘Un-Irish and un-Catholic: sports, physical education and girls’ schooling’, Irish Studies Review, 27, no. 3 (2019), pp.  325–343; Brendan Walsh, Boy Republic: Patrick Pearse and Radical Education (London, 2013); Elaine Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots: St Enda’s and the Cult of Boyhood (Cork, 2004), pp. 115–130.

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into men and girls into women. What these aspirational male and female identities represented were, of course, was highly loaded. Studies of physical education in Ireland during the nineteenth and early twentieth-­ centuries exist, and are commented on in the aforementioned work, but a detailed examination, spanning public and private histories, is lacking. Beginning in the early nineteenth-century, when Ireland’s first recognised physical education programme began, this chapter examines the zeal attached to children’s physical culture, and the messages underpinning them. Physical culture, in the guise of physical education, represented the most embodied form of education for children. Working in this vein, the chapter begins with an exploration of early physical culture in Irish schools, beginning with Monsieur Beaujeu’s experiments in the 1820s. Set against the backdrop of growing schooling in Ireland, Section II examines the first steps towards mass-scale childhood physical culture. Section III discusses efforts from the late 1890s to formalise and fund physical education in schools while Section IV highlights the continued efforts to continue physical education, and education in general, during the wartime period. Motivations differed across groups and periods, but the promise of physically changing and controlling, the child’s body held true throughout these decades.

‘Souls of Fire in Iron Hearts’: Early Physical Education in Ireland Childhood physical education was, for the most part, fuelled by schools. It was in schools that children had access to the facilities and structure needed to maintain regular physical activity. Where adults could join recreational clubs, children were often forced to undertake physical activity regardless of their enthusiasm. Schools became sites of physical education despite an initial reluctance or apathy towards the subject. State-funded education came to Ireland almost forty years before its equivalent in England. Described by John Coolahan as a landmark moment in Irish history, the development of a national school programme in 1831 was born from both domestic and imperial considerations.9 Driven, in part, by a desire on the part of religious orders and parents to educate schoolchildren, the first wave of Irish schools sought to provide some basic level of 9

 John Coolahan, Irish Education: Its History and Structure (Dublin, 1981), pp. 4–12.

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literacy and comprehension among children.10 On the part of British policymakers, the decision to formalise state education in Ireland was prompted, in part, by concerns about maintaining social stability to lessen sectarian divisions.11 The new system, non-denominational in theory, operated on the assumption that Irish schoolchildren could be ‘converted into law-abiding, British citizens, who could contribute to Irish progress’ through education.12 State schools would also, it was hoped, divert children away from private, illegal, ‘hedge schools’, which by the 1820s taught between 300,000 and 400,000 Irish schoolchildren.13 Instructing children through English, and with little reference to Irish culture, such schools marked the formalisation of education in Ireland at a surface level. For a variety of reasons, not lest economic, attendance at such schools was often paltry. Tom Walsh pointed out that as late as 1870, only 36% of the school-going cohort in Ireland regularly attended schools.14 What accompanied the state system was a growth in teacher training colleges. This proved to be just as significant as the growth of the schools themselves. From the early 1830s, a series of teacher training colleges emerged, many of which were later used to train teachers in physical education. From the formalisation of state education in 1831 to the next major revision to Irish education in the 1870s, physical education was sporadically found only in schools. This, incidentally, is not too surprising. Although European gymnasts, like Friedrich Ludwig Jahn and Pehr Henrik Ling, popularised gymnastics for children and adults, such programmes existed on the fringes of society.15 Sport among children, informal and formal, grew in popularity, but systematised and regimented physical education was a rarity. That withstanding, room still existed for some early experiments with physical education in Irish schools.

 Ibid.  John Coolahan, ‘Education and ethnicity: Education as cultural imperialism: The denial of the Irish language to Irish speakers, 1831–1922’, Paedagogica Historica 37, no. 1 (2001), pp. 16–33. 12  Riordan and Catherine Cox, ‘Introduction’, p. 5. 13  Thomas Bartlett, Ireland: A History (Cambridge, 2010), p. 274. 14  Tom Walsh, ‘The national system of education, 1831–2000’, in Brendan Walsh, ed., Essays in the history of Irish education (London, 2016), pp. 7–43. 15  Fred Eugene Leonard, ‘Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, and the Development of Popular Gymnastics (Vereins-Turnen) in Germany. II’, American Physical Education Review, 10, no. 1 (1905), pp. 1–19. 10 11

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One of the earliest trials of physical education in Ireland came with physical trainer and educator, Monsieur J.A. Beaujeu. Said to have arrived in Dublin from a ‘city in Spain’ in 1824, Beaujeu claimed to be a ‘Professor of Fencing’, who had previously served in the French military.16 While it has proven impossible to discover Beaujeu’s background prior to Ireland, he and his wife, Madame Beaujeu, quickly made themselves known. Supposedly stopping in Ireland on route to Greece, the Beaujeus were persuaded to give demonstrations of their athleticism which evolved into a position, for both, at the Royal Hibernian Military School in Dublin in 1825.17 Established in the eighteenth-century, the school was created as a place for children orphaned by war.18 Monsieur Beaujeu’s introduction to the school’s board of governors was facilitated by the Frenchmen’s admirers.19 Within a year of his arrival in Ireland, during which time the Beaujeu’s ran private gymnastic classes, Monsieur Beaujeu made the acquaintance of several physicians and public figures with ties to the school. At the school, Beaujeu was tasked with leading nearly six hundred children in gymnastics.20 Continually depicted as a means of improving the children’s weak physiques and, by proxy, their attention, Beaujeu’s teachings were not immune to criticism. Following an inspection of the school’s new gymnastic classes, one school board member admonished Beaujeu for making working-class children better criminals as evidenced by the heights they could now vault from.21 Beaujeu’s relationship with the working-class did not, however, deter others from attending his private classes. From 1828, Beaujeu and his wife ran additional classes catered for ‘young ladies’ and ‘gentlemen’, to, it seems, great success.22 Singled out for particular praise by contemporaries was Beaujeu’s training for women. Women’s place in Irish society was slowly shifting at this time from more restrained and constricted identities towards greater involvement in the public sphere. This did not mean, however, that the idea of women s­ trengthening  Freemans Journal, 15 Mar., 1824.  J.A. Beaujeu, A Treatise on Gymnastic Exercises, or Calisthenics for the use of Young Ladies: Introduced at the Royal Hibernian Military School, Also at the Seminary for the Education of Young Ladies, Under the Direction of Miss Hincks, in 1824 (Dublin, 1828), pp. 1–18. 18  Desmond Moore, ‘The Royal Hibernian Academy’, Dublin Historical Record, 21, no. 1 (1966), pp. 28–37. 19  Beaujeu, A Treatise, pp. 1–5. 20  James Macauley, Observations on Gymnastics, and the Gymnasium (Dublin, 1828), p. 19. 21  Ibid. 22  Freeman’s Journal, 15 Mar., 1828; Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1828. 16 17

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their bodies was acceptable. Jan Todd stated that Beaujeu’s female classes were highly subversive in their promotion of strength and even muscularity.23 Those in favour of Beaujeu’s training system nevertheless praised the trainer for combating the perceived scourges of civilisation embodied by children, especially girls, as evidenced in postural or overall weakness.24 It was here where the early symbolism of physical education came to the fore. It was a means of reversing the ills of civilisation as written on the bodies of children and instilling in them the discipline needed to maintain educational success. Beaujeu’s public displays, alongside his classes, proved equally impressive for peers. Conducted for the medical and lay public, his demonstrations sought to entertain and inform. Aside from Giovanni Belzoni, a contemporary theatre performer turned explorer, formal displays of muscularity and strength in Dublin were rare.25 The Beaujeus and their charges brought these displays to a wide audience, several decades before the arrival of physical culturists. They normalised formal displays of strength in the theatre or public arena. In Beaujeu’s first display, he used the opportunity to petition Dublin’s elite classes to open a gymnasium. M. Beaujeu’s object is, to impress on the public mind by this preliminary and gratuitous display, the many advantages likely to accrue from the formation of such an Establishment in this city; similar ones having been formed with the greatest success in London, Edinburgh, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Brussels and St. Petersburg.26

Beaujeu’s appointment to the Hibernian School and his list of patrons, published in 1828, suggests he succeeded in cultivating considerable interest among Dublin’s influential classes.27 Certainly, Beajeau’s influence was far reaching. During this period, he divided his time between Dublin and Liverpool where he also taught gymnastics to children.28 At one point, it appeared that Beaujeu would exclusively teach in Liverpool before being

23  Jan Todd, Physical culture and the body beautiful: Purposive exercise in the lives of American women, 1800–1870 (Macon, 1998), pp. 45–55. 24  Macauley, Observations on Gymnastics, pp. 14–15; Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1828. 25  John Harris, The History of the Theatre in Dublin (Dublin, 1870), pp. 47–48. 26  Dublin Evening Post, 25 Nov., 1826. 27  Beaujeu, A Treatise, p. viii. 28  Liverpool Mercury, 23 Jan., 1829.

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persuaded by the Hibernian’s Board of Governors to remain in Ireland.29 For the Irish public, Beaujeu’s displays offered new and diverse forms of entertainment. Written soon after a display in 1828, Freeman’s Journal highlighted the spectacle provided for the public: Twenty-five girls of the Hibernian School, who had been taught gymnastics by Madame Beaujeu performed these exercises in a manner which elicited the applause of a numerous assemblage of spectators.30

The novelty of Beaujeu’s displays was echoed by their co-authored work on physical training, which became the first physical education tract for Irish schools. Dedicated to his school governors, the monograph, written by Beaujeu and his wife, detailed the exercises prescribed under their command.31 Beaujeu publicly stated that while gymnastics for men had transformed their physical and mental strength, no one had ‘adapted to the capacity and wants of the female sex and brought within their reach, the incalculable advantages’ of gymnastics.32 Beajeau challenged readers to ‘tear the rising generation from our voluptuous habits, from the effeminacy of our degenerate manners, that we may, thereby produce ‘souls of fire in iron hearts’.33 Gymnastic exercises offered a path, while hinting at the differing motivations which could be applied to women’s physical education. Jan Todd has written extensively on the popularity of gentle, and at times demeaning, forms of female gymnastics at this time. Beaujeu was part of another group, one that was committed to vibrant womanhood through activity.34 Beaujeu’s training was said to address the ‘want of bodily exercise for young ladies, especially in schools [that] has long been felt and lamented’.35 Here one saw glimpses of a later nineteenth-century concern with physical degeneracy, as well as the belief that strong children were studious children. These ideas were to form the foundational arguments for bringing regulated physical education into Irish schools. Positive reviews of Beaujeu’s treatise suggested a growing demand for physical training in  Macauley, Observations on Gymnastics, pp. 14–15.  Freeman’s Journal, 14 Apr., 1828. 31  Freeman’s Journal, 15 Mar., 1828; Freeman’s Journal, 3 May, 1828. 32  Beaujeu, A Treatise, pp. iv. 33  Ibid., p. 7. 34  Todd, Physical culture and the body beautiful, pp. 45–55. 35  Ibid., p. 19. 29 30

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Ireland or, at the very least, an awareness of it.36 While it was unlikely that Beaujeu would effect an entire change across the Irish education sector, his short tenure curtailed a broadening of his system. In an instance of ill-­ judgement during a demonstration for two private clients, Beaujeu suffered a fatal fall in his gymnasium in 1829. Beaujeu snapped his neck and struggled to maintain consciousness before medical help could be called. His last words, according to the 1833 work, A Tour in England, Ireland and France, were ‘here it is, the end of gymnastics in Ireland’.37 Despite his seemingly prophetic words, there is evidence that Beaujeu’s short time at the Royal Hibernian Military School had a small, transitory, effect on schoolmasters. In 1827 advertisements appeared in the Dublin Evening Mail requesting a teacher versed in Beaujeu’s teachings.38 Likewise, a pupil of Beaujeu’s continued his teachings into the 1880s.39 Sporadic instances did not, of course, mean lasting change. In 1826, the Commissioners of Education in Ireland issued their third report on the Irish school system. The report mentioned Beaujeu’s classes, and praised its results. One contributor cited children who, thanks to Beaujeu, looked ‘much better and walk better, and seem to use their limbs more freely’.40 The report ultimately fell silent on implementing physical education across Irish schools, preferring instead, to leaving it to a schoolmaster’s discretion. This continued to be the case, with varying success, until the late nineteenth-century when physical education became a recognised component of the school curriculum.

‘The Conditions of Modern Civilisation’: New Directions in Irish Education The early 1830s witnessed the first great change to the Irish education system, at least in realm of state funded schools. In 1870, the sector underwent yet another change. Spurred on by the publication of A Royal 36  Macauley, Observations on Gymnastics, pp.  22–23; Egerton Smith, The Melange: A Variety of Original Pieces in Prose and Verse: Comprising the Elysium of Animals (Liverpool, 1834), p. 88; Freeman’s Journal, 15 Mar., 1828. 37  A German Prince, Tour in England, Ireland and France in the Years 1828 and 1829 with Remarks on the Manners and Customs of the Inhabitants and Anecdotes of Distinguished Public Characters in a Series of Letters (Philadelphia, 1833), p. 509. 38  Dublin Evening Mail, 18 Jun. 1827. 39  Freeman’s Journal, 5 Nov., 1881. 40  Third Report of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry (London, 1826), p. 42.

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Commission of Inquiry into Primary Education, school curricula were revised to provide a greater focus on exam results, rather than individual development.41 Underpinning such a change was a belief in the benefit of rote learning and encyclopaedic knowledge as indicative of the demands of working adulthood. Aside from passing comments in the Inquiry, physical drill and physical education was almost entirely absent from the Commission’s recommendations.42 This came at a time when physical education in British schools was first taken seriously. In 1870, a new education act paved the way for the introduction of physical drill in English and Welsh schools as a compulsory subject.43 Substantiating Alexander Alexander’s complaints about Irish apathy towards physical activity, compulsory physical education in Ireland had to wait another two decades before it became a reality.44 The reasons for this lag were multiple. In his study of late nineteenth-century Irish education, Brendan Walsh explained that despite a broader societal recognition of education’s importance, learning was hampered by wider issues related to class, health and housing.45 The interest in childhood education was, in part, fuelled by the emergence of childhood in the societal lexicon. As detailed by Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox, the latter half of the century saw an increased emphasis, as well as anxiety, placed on childhood development.46 Politicians, schoolmasters and public officials in the post-1870 period began to focus on the best, and most efficient means, of turning children into adults. These hopes and aspirations fed into the attention given to education.47 The revised education system of the 1870s was predicated on a new ‘payment by results’ model. Under such an approach, state schools would be paid on the basis of student examination performance. This overarching focus on student’s exam results produced two effects. It negated the  Coolahan, Irish Education, p. 24.  The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Primary Education 1870 (London, 1870), p. 706. 43  Hamad S. Ndee, ‘Physical Education in State and Private Schools in Britain in the LateNineteenth and Early-Twentieth Centuries: Elementary Schools and Other Schools’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 27, no. 5 (2010), pp. 872–904. 44  A. Alexander, A Wayfarer’s Log (London, 1919), pp. 105-112. 45  Brendan Walsh, ‘Introduction’, in Brendan Walsh (ed.), Essays in the History of Irish Education (London, 2016), p. 2. 46  Riordan and Cox, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–14. 47  Thomas Walsh, ‘Concepts of Children and Childhood from an Educational Perspective 1900–1940: Context, Curriculum and Experience’, in Ciara Boylan and Ciara Gallagher (eds.), Constructions of the Child in the Independence Period (London, 2018), pp. 25–48. 41 42

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inclusion of subjects deemed superfluous or difficult to examine, like physical drill or dance. Likewise, it put the Irish Board of Education under an increasing amount of financial pressure. In time, schools tailored their teaching directly towards the examinations, meaning that results improved. Improved results meant more payments which, in turn, put greater pressure on the board. Compounding matters was the sheer number of state-­ supported national schools operating in Ireland by the end of the nineteenth-century. In 1900, this number totalled over 8,000 schools, excluding those run by private religious orders.48 The Irish Board of Education struggled to finance all of these schools adequately, and their teachers, sufficiently.49 From its creation, the ‘payment by results’ model proved problematic for student and teacher. For teachers, the model brought increased pressures and a need to teach directly for the exam. Students, on the other hand, were forced to revise information ad nauseum and with little chance for physical activity. When physical education was finally brought to Irish schools in the early 1900s, its introduction was done to rectify the ills of inactive school life wrought by the ‘payment by results’ system. Within two decades of its implementation in 1879, criticism of the system grew. In 1897, an educational committee, run under Earl Belmore’s supervision, was tasked with determining how best to implement manual and physical instruction in schools.50 The ‘Belmore Commission’ sought to rectify the monotonous nature of the existing system which, many contemporaries argued, was failing to provide schoolchildren with the rounded education needed to support children. In essence, the system established in the 1870s failed to mesh with an understanding of childhood as a phase encompassing physical and mental development.51 The popularity of other education models, like Froebel or Kindergarten, furthered perceptions that the Irish system was in need of modernisation.52 Carried out as part of larger educational reforms, the Committee’s findings on the existing state of physical education found that the majority of schoolchildren  Ian Maxwell, Everyday Life in 19th Century Ireland (London, 2011), 84.  Áine Hyland, ‘The treasury and Irish education: 1850–1922: The myth and the reality’, Irish Educational Studies, 3, no. 2 (1983), pp. 57–82. 50  Commission on Manual and Practical Instruction in Primary Schools under the Board of National Education in Ireland (Dublin, 1898) (NAI, B2929). 51  Maura O’Connor, The Development of Infant Education in Ireland, 1838-1948: epochs and eras (Bern, 2010), pp. 200–240. 52  Ibid. 48 49

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received no physical training.53 The ‘payment by results’ model had, perhaps unsurprisingly, led teachers to focus their attention almost entirely on exams. At a time when fears of adult physical degeneracy were intensifying, the Belmore Commission appeared to promise that future generations would be similarly affected. Certainly, the Commission’s initial conclusions fuelled perceived notions about future degeneracy and/or racial decline in Ireland.54 In response to this perceived crisis, the subsequent 1898 Belmore Report recommended using army officers as drill teachers for primary schools.55 At this time military officers had been successfully used in England for nearly two decades, albeit with some resistance.56 In schools, the military’s emphasis on discipline through training was combined with broader goals centred on fostering the next generation’s health and encouraging educational achievement.57 It was here where the ideological aspirations surrounding children’s bodies, and futures, came to the fore. From the Belmore Report, a series of new initiatives were created. In 1900, the Revised Programme of Instruction was published in Ireland, stipulating that, where possible, physical education be taught in schools.58 Concerns about schoolchildren’s health were reaching a crescendo, physical education movements in Europe appeared to offer tangible improvements in educational success, and, the inclusion of physical education would balance out the ‘mental work’ expected for exams. The Programme’s overarching goal was to revise and revitalise Irish education. In 1901, the Commissioners of National Education complained that only 50% of existing teachers were trained in traditional methods, that attendance was far too low—roughly 63% in 1901—and that many classrooms were unsuitable on safety grounds. That a major overhaul was needed was not disputed by many in Ireland. Encouraged by the Belmore Report’s  Commission on Manual and Practical Instruction, pp. 50–60.  Aine Hyland, ‘The process of curriculum change in the Irish national school system, 1868 to 1986’, Irish Educational Studies 6, no. 2 (1986), pp. 17–38. 55  Commission on Manual and Practical Instruction, pp. 57–58. 56  J.A.  Mangan and Hamad S.  Ndee, ‘Military Drill-Rather More than Brief and Basic: English Elementary Schools and English Militarism’, European Sports History Review, 5 (2003), pp. 65–96. 57  Ibid & Commission on Manual and Practical Instruction, pp. 50–60. 58  The Sixty-Seventh Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland Year 1900: Presented to Parliament by Command of His Majesty (Dublin, 1901), p.  37; Denis O’Boyle, ‘Examinations in Physical Education an Irish Perspective’, Irish Educational Studies, 6, no. 2 (1986), pp. 176–180. 53 54

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recommendations and the Revised Programme, physical education in schools became a topic of considerable interest. Within a year, a Commissioners of National Education in Ireland report stated that of 8,684 national schools, progress had been made in the implementation of ‘School Discipline and Physical Drill’ in 6,494 schools. This figure, representing 74.8% of all national schools in Ireland, marked a remarkable level of progress in a short period of time.59 More important than this progress was its representation. In practical terms, this meant that the messages surrounding adult health, and adult physical culture, trickled into school debates. From Chap. 2, it is clear that adult physical culture, at least for men, was linked to social and societal success. In schools, it was linked to exams and character. This was evident in the Belmore Report’s recommendations for physical drill’s introduction and the comments made in the Commissioner’s report on education in 1900. Highly pleased with the rapidity with which Irish schools had responded by the demand for physical drill, the Commissioner’s reports, published every year, contained a series of rousing statements concerning the value of exercise, and the groups likely to benefit from it. Accordingly, physical education was ‘to form part of the curriculum for all the standards, from the lowest to the highest’. Exercise would be open to all as ‘exercise of this character is beneficial to the children of all national schools, but particularly to the children of town schools’.60 Towns, and especially cities, were by then a site of major hygienic concern for public health officials.61 Echoing patterns in England, government officials were increasingly concerned with the health of city dwellers, but especially children. Much of this concern was rooted in eugenic debates, but schoolchildren, in particular, held a twin danger. Unless cared for properly, physically and mentally, children had the potential to grow into physically, and spiritually, weakened adults who further burdened the state. Eugenic and paternal thinking coalesced to provide ‘a source of pleasure for schoolchildren in the form of physical education, one which ‘broke the monotony of the school day, improves the health of the children, trains them to hold themselves erect, and to walk and move properly’.62  The Sixty-Seventh Report, pp. 38–39.  Ibid., p. 76. 61  Greta Jones, Captain of all these men of death: the history of tuberculosis in nineteenth and twentieth century Ireland (Amsterdam, 2001), pp. 101–126. 62  The Sixty-Seventh Report of the Commissioners of National Education, p. 77. 59 60

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Such optimism was not ubiquitous—Raftery and Delaney cited concerns among the Catholic clergy and parents that physical drill would become a recruitment tool for the British military—but neither was it confined to the Commissioners.63 In 1901, an anonymous report for The Irish Times commented, somewhat misleadingly, that physical culture was now compulsory in schools.64 This was presented as a welcome recourse from the largely sedentary existence led by children, especially during the ‘payments by fees’ method. Taking issue with the previous curriculum, which had students ‘shackled’ to desks, the unnamed reporter praised a new direction in Irish education which cultivated, and celebrated, physicality. It was only through physical education, and the development of a healthy body, that schoolchildren could truly succeed. Other newspaper articles supported the idea that ‘most of our schools have gymnasiums and gymnastic instructors and much is done to improve the health and physique of the rising generation’.65 That same year, the Commissioners issued another report which seemed to bolster the Irish Times’ claims. Out of 8,600 schools funded by the state, it was now stated that 8,439 or 97.1% were now providing some form of physical education. This explains why, in 1902, W.J.M.  Starkie, the Resident Commissioner of National Education for Ireland, informed the British Board of Education that physical education was now universally taught in Ireland despite the Belmore Commission’s findings three years previously.66 Part of the initial response to the Belmore Report’s recommendations was an influx of military officers within Irish schools. The British military trained Irishmen in drill since the 1860s and, in recreational life in Ireland, military officers were used in a variety of physical culture classes. Through Belmore they now had a place in schools.67 Few disputed the benefits of physical education for schoolchildren. The inclusion of military officers did, however, prove problematic. In England and Wales, objections to military officers in schools stemmed from fears that the inclusion of military drill would, in some way, act as a recruitment  Raftery and Delaney, ‘Un-Irish and un-Catholic’, p. 330.  The Irish Times, 5 Jul., 1901. 65  Weekly Irish Times, 27 Sept., 1902; Walsh, ‘The Revised Programme of Instruction, pp. 131–132. 66  W.J.M. Starkie, Recent Reforms in Irish Education: Primary and Secondary, with a View to their Co-ordination (Dublin, 1902), p. 20. 67  Commission on Manual and Practical Instruction in Primary Schools under the Board of National Education in Ireland (Dublin: Alexander Thom and Co., 1898), pp. 1–12. 63 64

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tool for the British Army.68 Such concerns existed in the Irish context but were heightened by additional nationalist objections.69 An overarching criticism of the education system in Ireland from cultural nationalists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries was that school’s curricula ignored the Irish language, Irish pastimes and Irish interests.70 Espoused by groups like the Gaelic League, a cultural nationalist group founded in 1893, there was a growing distrust and criticism of a ‘British model’. Physical drill was part of this model, and its links to the British military proved doubly problematic. The differing motivations attached to physical culture in the political and adult realm were reiterated for children. It could be a means of instilling British discipline or, for some, nationalist indoctrination. This explains why Patrick Pearse, one of the later leaders of the 1916 Rising, proudly advertised the fact that his school, ‘St. Endas’, offered Irish forms of physical culture taught by a teacher with no links to the British military.71 Those in charge of physical drill in Ireland proved remarkably tone deaf to many of these concerns. In 1902, the Board of Education, in association with the British War Office published a new physical education book for schools entitled A Model Course of Physical Training.72 Based on the military’s own physical training, the Manual, the first of its kind for Irish schools, did little to assuage worries concerning the militarisation of the subject. Remembering from Chap. 3, the heightened emphasis nationalists placed on the adolescent body, it is easy to see why many objected to an education system which appeared to be ignoring the Irish language and trained children as ersatz soldiers.73 Objections from parents, and cultural figures like Pearse, may explain why, in 1901, the Commissioners of National Education reminded schools that ‘physical drill does not necessarily or generally mean military drill’ and that ‘games of a suitable character may be substituted for drill’.74 Part of these recommendations were  Mangan and Hamad S. Ndee, ‘Military Drill-Rather More than Brief and Basic’.  Seámas O’Buachalla (ed.), The Letters of P.H. Pearse (Dublin, 1980), pp. 133–135. 70  Brendan Walsh, The pedagogy of protest: The educational thought and work of Patrick H. Pearse (Amsterdam, 2007). 71  O’Buachalla (ed.), The Letters of P.H. Pearse, pp. 133–135. 72  Thomas O’Donoghue, ‘Sport, recreation and physical education: the evolution of a national policy of regeneration in Eire, 1926–48’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 3, no. 2 (1986), pp. 216–217. 73  Ibid., pp. 216–7. 74  The Sixty-Eighth Report of the Commissioners of National Education, p. 82. 68 69

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Fig. 4.1  Unidentified school in the west of Ireland c. 1909

practical. Even at this early juncture, it was clear that many schools didn’t have the space or finances to support a full-scale physical drill programme. There was also, perhaps, an effort shown to decrease schools’ reliance on the military inspired system (Fig. 4.1).75 As schools were being forced to take physical drill seriously, teacher training colleges responded to the changed educational landscape. At the beginning of the twentieth-century, seven teacher training colleges existed in Ireland, the oldest of which dated to 1833.76 Four were based in Dublin, with the remaining three found in Waterford, Belfast and Limerick. Echoing broader institutional inequalities in Ireland, knowledge tended to revolve around commercial, rather than rural, centres. Responding to the new educational curricula, many colleges trained teachers in drill from 1901. By the end of the decade, physical education was taught to teachers 75  Roswell Duncan, ‘Physical Culture Among the Children of the World’, Physical Culture, 32, no. 5 (1909), p. 392. 76  Heffernan,and Curran, ‘Much ado about nothing?, pp. 70–75.

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in all training colleges. The kind taught still came from the military but efforts were made to soften its instruction through the use of civilian instructors. In England, female instructors long held prestige in teaching physical education.77 Aside from greater financial resources, English schools could also rely on female-only physical training colleges established in the 1880s. This, at times, led to a disparity between the sexes wherein more female than male physical drill instructors worked in England. No such disparity existed in Ireland, despite the efforts of some colleges, like Alexandria College, to cater towards female instructors.78 The profession in Ireland remained, for several decades, largely male dominated. The burden physical drill’s inclusion in the curricula had on schools should not be underestimated despite its generally positive reception. Those schools which neglected to include physical education prior to 1900 were faced with three choices. They could hire military or outside personnel to teach the subject, a decision with the potential to cause trouble with parents and existing faculty. Newly qualified teachers could be taken on, or existing teachers could retrain. There is evidence that many schools relied on military personnel and newly qualified teachers. In some cases, schools employed female instructors whose qualifications came from one of the highly regarded English training colleges. Some encouraged and sponsored existing teachers to undertake a short-term course in the subject. In November 1900, The Irish Teachers’ Journal, a periodical founded in the mid-nineteenth-century, proudly reported that ‘large numbers’ of existing teachers had begun the process of learning how to teach physical drill.79 A month later, it was reported that no less than thirty-seven candidates attained a new qualification in physical education.80 The inclusion of physical education in national schools was not an easy endeavour. It required, and necessitated, changes to the way teachers were taught, how teachers conducted classes, and how schools arranged curricula. The efforts underpinning this change highlight the seriousness with which the subject was treated. Despite the rushed nature of this transition, it appears that the move to include physical education in schools, at least at a primary level, was successful.  Ibid.  Ibid. 79  Irish Teachers’ Journal, 3 Nov. 1900. 80  Irish Teachers’ Journal, 15 Dec. 1900. 77 78

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Six years after the Belmore Report’s recommendations, another enquiry, led by school inspector F.H. Dale, was made into the state of Irish education.81 Unlike the Belmore Report, Dale’s evaluation of physical drill was positive, albeit to a point. Dale, then His Majesty’s inspector of schools under the Board of Education, was entrusted with creating a report comparing the typical Irish national school with its English counterpart. Studying and observing the premises, equipment, staffing and instruction found in both, Dale’s report was done to highlight structural and financial deficiencies in the Irish education sector.82 While praising some Irish schools, especially those run privately by religious orders, for their level and depth of instruction, Dale’s report was largely critical. Comparing Irish and English schools, Dale found that a lack of financing, expertise and space was hampering education in many schools. Particularly problematic in this regard was the poor level of instruction given in subjects ranging from mathematics to physical education. Despite his rather damning report on the material nature of schools, Dale noted a significant increase in schools that provided some form of physical education, usually military drill, in their syllabus.83 In just four years, a significant change had been affected in Irish schools, albeit one which, perhaps, flattered to deceive. This progress was tempered by the finding that, despite a growth in educational physical culture, playgrounds and play areas were often absent.84 Regional and class disparities existed, a point which continued to plague Irish education. In this instance, however, Dale was quick to assert that certain rural schools were providing an excellent level of education, which perhaps suggests that disparities were more class based than geographical. What was undeniable, however, was that some schools were providing a sub-par level of instruction. This meant that the kind of physical education being taught in schools was far from the expressive and expansive style envisioned by the Belmore Commission or the subsequent revised Programme. Without gymnasia, playing fields or playgrounds, physical education was taught within classrooms, a point considered in that 1902 teaching manual co-authored between the Board of Education and the War Office. In such a situation, 81  F.H. Dale, Report of Mr. F.H. Dale, His Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, Board of Education, on Primary Education in Ireland (Dublin, 1904). 82  Ibid., pp. 1–8. 83  Ibid., p. 70. 84  Ibid., p. 3.

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classrooms would be converted into make-shift gymnasiums, either by pushing all of the desks to the peripheries of the classroom or, more commonly, by getting students to do exercises standing behind their desks. Physical education was being taught. How effective or enjoyable classes were for students was an entirely different matter. Of the now eight thousand plus schools offering physical education, Dale proved silent as to the kind of teaching directed at Irish schoolchildren.85 Dale’s report on Irish primary schools was not conducted in a vacuum. Tom Walsh explained that following the publication of Dale’s report, several minor modifications were made to the Revised Programme, most of which related to infant education.86 Walsh may have been correct in asserting that there was little evidence of a major change in the concept of childhood in Irish society during this period, but within schools a significant and long-lasting commitment to the child as a physical and mental being was established.87 Physical education served as material evidence of this commitment. Physical education continued to be underfunded well into the second half of the twentieth-century but its necessity was rarely questioned. Many schools failed to adequately teach physical drill, but its presence spoke to this new turn in childhood, one which sought to train the child’s body as a means of instilling societally desirable attributes like discipline. Returning to Dale, it is important to note that his 1904 Report was the first of two Board of Education reports given over to the state of Irish education. One year later in 1905, Dale joined with fellow inspector T.A. Stephens to study the state of education in Irish secondary schools. Much like Dale’s report into Irish primary schools, the 1905 Report on the intermediate system was done to reveal existing defects and highlight areas in need of support. Here the Report’s verdict was for strong and long-lasting reform. Condemning the result fees system, which resulted in ‘grave educational defects’ for students and regions, the Report made for difficult reading, especially when compared to the previous year.88 Regional disparities for pupils aged fourteen and up were stark. In Connacht, only 728 pupils were being educated in intermediate schools, a figure which 85  Model course of physical training for use in the upper departments of public elementary schools, 1902 (London, 1902), pp. 73–76. 86  Walsh, ‘The national system of education’. 87  Ibid., p. 14-20. 88  F.H. Dale and T.A. Stephens, Report of Messrs. F.H. Dale and T.A. Stephens: His Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools, Board of Education, on Intermediate Education in Ireland (Dublin, 1905), pp. 1–22.

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highlighted the role agrarian work played in pulling children from school once they completed their primary education.89 Dale and Stephens’ Report stressed the need for more coordination between schools in the form of a new centralising authority. Result fees would be abolished, schools would have greater control over curricula and proposals for a teacher’s registration council were set out. It is within this context that the two men’s comments on the derisory state of physical education in intermediate schools must be placed.90 Unlike primary schools, physical education in secondary schools was not a mandatory subject, a point both investigators found deplorable. Combined with the result fees system, this reiterated the men’s belief that the intermediate system placed too much attention on results, to the detriment of teenagers physical and moral development. The same problems thought to be plaguing Irish primary schools were being replicated in secondary schools. Impressed by the Prussian system of compulsory gymnastics, which dated to the mid-nineteenth-century, the authors recommended introducing some form of physical education because, at present, ‘the results fees system … takes no account of physical training’.91 That comparisons with Prussia were made highlighted the transnational nature of educational, and health, practices at this time. John Coolahan previously stressed the influence European approaches had in Irish educational reforms.92 Encouraged by the Prussian system, and the results it seemed to produce regarding pupils’ mental and physical development, the two concluded their examination with the plea that ‘the need for systematic provision on this side of education is as imperative in Secondary as in Primary Schools’.93 Dale and Stephens’ suggestions were, however, ignored. Owing, in part, to a deep suspicion among school authorities concerning any proposal made to increase state involvement in education, the recommendations were, for the most part, cast aside. It is true that, in time, some of the more palatable suggestions regarding subject provisions were adopted but it took several decades for physical education to become compulsory in Irish secondary schools.

 Ibid., pp. 41–43.  Ibid., pp. 61–66. 91  Ibid., p. 62. 92  Coolahan, Irish Education, pp. 33–34. 93  Dale and Stephens, Report of Messrs. F.H. Dale and T.A. Stephens, pp. 63. 89 90

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‘Maintenance of Health in Mind and Body’: Physical Exercises for Schools Despite the disparity between primary and secondary education, the Board of Education did attempt to improve existing teaching standards through several changes. As no formal college of physical education existed, and many schools relied on military instructors, the Board took the unprecedented step of issuing a syllabus for teachers.94 Published initially in London and subsequently in Ireland in 1909, Physical Exercises for Schools highlighted the Board’s commitment to a formal, and, clear, system of physical education. Advertised in Irish newspapers as a ‘new departure for schools’, the monograph offered a clear and concise system for instructors. Prior to this time, schools welcomed a range of different systems ranging from strict drill appropriated from military barracks to the more expressive form of Ling gymnastics favoured by teacher training colleges. No longer a fringe subject, physical activity was seen as integral to a child’s education and their development as a citizen.95 This was made clear in the work’s opening lines: The object of Physical Training is to help in the production and maintenance of health in body and mind. The conditions of modern civilisation … restrict opportunities for natural physical development, [and] all require that children and young people should receive physical training … to promote and encourage, by means of such training, the health and development of the body.96

In a manner similar to the physical culturists covered in Chap. 2, the Board understood physical training as a solution to modernity’s perceived ills.97 Unlike physical culturists, their focus was on education and holistic development as opposed to ideas surrounding sexual or social status.98 The sense that children needed development and cultivation, that it was something to be cared for, was by now established in Irish physical education. Renouncing the idea that physical training was superfluous for children, 94  Mike Sleap, ‘A Survey of Physical Education in Irish Post-Primary Schools’, The Irish Journal of Education/Iris Eireannach an Oideachais, 7, no. 2 (1978), pp. 107–118. 95  Board of Education, Physical Exercises for Schools 1909 (Dublin, 1911), pp. vi–vii. 96  Ibid., p. 1. 97  Ibid., pp. 2–6. 98  Ibid., pp. 18–23.

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the monograph highlighted the benefits that routine exercise could have on resolving ‘defects or evil habits induced by an unhealthy physical environment’. Furthermore, they were packaged as part of the ‘moral, mental and physical development’ necessary to turn children into productive adults.99 The attention given to the benefits of physical exercise, which counted a substantial amount of the syllabus’ content, can be contrasted with the 1902 monograph devised by the Board of Education and the War Office. The earlier work gave a list of instructions and explanations for the exercises expected of schoolchildren. The 1909 monograph was careful to stress why these exercises were important. The monograph’s opening pages explained the benefits of physical education in schoolchildren’s lives. This was very much a new body project in Irish schools premised on the idea that exercise would induce in children ‘a cheerful and joyous spirit, together with the qualities of alertness, decision, concentration, and perfect control of brain over body’.100 In these expected, and hoped for, results, the symbolic value of the fit and healthy body was revealed. What was missing from the syllabus was the acknowledgement that physical education would be compulsory in schools. It was often imposed on children’s bodies who had little choice about whether or not they wanted to partake in it. The expressive forms of physical culture which defined recreational exercise were absent from state-funded schools. Just like the military, participation was mandatory. There was no choice in the kinds of exercise they could engage in. Furthermore, the expected results were defined by those instructing, rather partaking in, the exercises. The, at times, messianic zeal brought to physical education could not overcome the structural defects found in many Irish schools or even those found in England. When Dale completed his report on primary schools in 1904, he cited the material shortages found in many Irish schools. Playgrounds, gymnasia and playing fields were all found wanting around the country. Such spaces were, for obvious reasons, the cornerstones of any exercise regime. Echoing what was already being done in practice, the 1909 Physical Exercises informed teachers to use their classrooms, to make space and to modify exercises were necessary.101 Despite the Irish Review’s assertion in 1911 that ‘gymnasiums are coming into existence in our country towns’, it is clear that the material constraints highlighted by Dale  Ibid.  Ibid., p. 2. 101  Ibid., p. 160. 99

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continued to plague Irish schools well into the 1930s.102 It is likely that even with the new syllabus, many schools continued to provide a sub-par standard of instruction, one marked by ill modified ‘arm wings’, ‘marches’ and ‘heel raising’ done in cramped classrooms. Such issues aside, the syllabus marked a further commitment to physical education in schools and unlike its 1902 predecessor gave explicit and defined instructions as to the benefits one was expected to find from a new corps of fit, strong and presumably healthy schoolchildren. Reactions to the syllabus in public were, for the most part, positive. Deemed as a new beginning, the syllabus marked a wide ranging, and easily accessible collection for schools and schoolteachers alike.103 The 1902 training guide appears to have enjoyed a limited circulation, and may have even been forgotten about, but the 1909 monograph was widely discussed and warmly welcomed. From September 1909, the syllabus was available in Ireland but this did not stop people commenting on it beforehand. Writing in the Belfast Newsletter on August 23 1909, one unnamed journalist praised the Board’s wish for ‘more decided general progress in the matter of physical education’.104 Pivotal in this move was the inclusion of those exercises capable of promoting the ‘harmonious’ development of all parts of the body. Taking inspiration from the syllabus, the journalist stressed the general good that such a programme would provide not only for the children but also for the nation. In this, it was hoped that the ‘careful and well-balanced cultivation’ of children’s physicality could protect future generations.105 Linking childhood welfare to the nation-state was, by then, a well-trodden tactic, especially by those enamoured with the possibilities offered by eugenics. At the same moment that the syllabus was being discussed, the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland held a discussion on physical deterioration, the main object of which was to promote the training and regulation of children’s bodies.106 The 1909 syllabus seemed to promise such an intervention. For primary schools, where some provision of physical education, of varying levels of quality, was provided, the syllabus was an asset in an ongoing project to deliver physical education to schoolchildren. Secondary 102  ‘Editorial stating that the Irish Review wishes to appeal to group interested in Irish culture, stressing the need for physical fitness’, The Irish Review, 1, no. 4 (1911), pp. 53–56. 103  Board of Education, Physical Exercises, pp. 12–30. 104  Belfast Newsletter, 23 Aug., 1909. 105  Ibid. 106  Irish Times, 26 Oct., 1909.

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schools, on the other hand, were not required to provide physical education. This did not mean that it wasn’t happening. An inspector’s report for the 1909–1910 school year found that the majority of boys’ and girls’ schools offered some physical education to students.107 What this teaching entailed was unfortunately not specified. Physical education, as taught using either the military’s system or the lighter brand of Swedish gymnastics, was used, it seems, in a great deal of Irish schools. The motivations for doing so appear largely to have aligned with the 1909 syllabus’ message about fostering brain and brawn in equal measure. Reports on physical education competitions in secondary schools in Irish newspapers featured journalists and schoolmasters praising the training of adolescent bodies.108 This was done both for the children’s benefit but, in a time that many supposed was one of physical deterioration, for the continuation, and even improvement of the nation, or citizenry. Thus far, a great deal of attention has been brought to the ideological and symbolic value given over to physical education at this time. That physical education was valued by educators, physicians and many in the public is clear. What is also clear is that the ideological importance given over to the subject did not always result in actual, on the ground, results. The Commissioners of National Education were not blind to this fact. From 1909, the year of the manual’s publication, to 1914, the outbreak of the  Great War, annual reports on education in Ireland reiterated the importance of physical drill for schoolchildren while simultaneously noting the difficulties involved in teaching it. The report for 1909–1910, the first school year to include the syllabus, commented bitterly that owing to the scarcity of playgrounds and to the fact that so many of the schools have not suitable classrooms drill is not as systematically taught as it might otherwise be. In many cases the exercises are not performed in a manner to be of much service. The educational value of drill is not well apprehended. In schools where it is well taught it has a beneficial effect on the general discipline.109

The majority of Irish schools, despite encouragement to use more vibrant forms of physical education, restricted themselves to marching, turning 107  The Seventy-Sixth Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. Year 1909. (Dublin, 1910), pp. 82–90. 108  Weekly Irish Times, 25 Dec., 1909. 109  The Seventy-Sixth Report, p. 67.

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and arm exercises. Such movements were strongly associated with the military. The following year’s report for 1910–1911 continued in this vein. Surveying the northern section of the Donegal Circuit, the inspectors commented worryingly that ‘few schools have any appliances for physical culture’.110 Conor Curran previously addressed the forgotten nature, in terms of funding, that characterised Donegal sport during this period.111 The inspector’s comments suggest that education echoed sport in this regard. Where Donegal was perhaps one of the hardest hit counties, others too suffered from a gross lack of resources. Reports on the Londonderry Circuit were equally damning the play-grounds are usually too cramped for games. I have not observed that the teachers, fresh from the Training Colleges, have put into practice anything that they have seen of the organisation of games in the practising schools connected with those institutions.112

A clear message from the 1910–1911 report was that a disparity of interest in teaching existed. At times this was framed in generational terms between existing and newly qualified teachers. For example, St. Patrick’s College, one of Ireland’s seven teacher training colleges, was praised for embracing drill. That year two drill instructors, a Miss Millar and Mr Warnock, travelled to Denmark to train under Mr Junker, the State Superintendent of Physical Training. Back in Ireland, it was assumed that Millar and Warnock would help train the next generation in the latest theories of physical education.113 Such motivations could be contrasted with those schools criticised for including physical training in the school day but neglecting its implementation at a practical level. It was unsurprising then that later reports commented that although drill had been taken up in almost all the colleges, it produced ‘varying results’.114 The twin difficulties in introducing physical education were a want ‘of adequate accommodation for

110  The Seventy-Seventh Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland Year 1910–1911 (Dublin, 1912), p. 34. 111  Conor Curran, The Development of Sport in Donegal, 1880–1935: The Development of Gaelic Games in Donegal, 1884–1934 (Cork, 2015), pp. 1–22. 112  The Seventy-Seventh Report of the Commissioners, p. 34. 113  Ibid., p. 10. 114  The Seventy-Eighth Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. Year 1911–12. (Dublin, 1912), Section I, p. 6.

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physical exercises’ and the ‘want of a properly trained instructor’.115 Both confirmed a need for greater material funding which was ultimately withheld. Those responsible for physical education in Irish schools could perhaps be proud of their progress. It was, after all, taught in over 8,000 primary schools by 1912 and was being offered in many more secondary schools.116 This alone was cause for celebration. In little more than a decade, the subject had grown from obscurity and suspicion. Although not as important as core areas like English, Mathematics or Irish, it still held an important symbolic value. Troubles did of course exist. Material resources varied, teaching was not standardised and there is evidence of discontent on the part of those entrusted with teaching the subject. In July 1912, the Navan Teachers’ Association held their quarterly meeting during which questions were raised about physical education’s utility for schoolchildren. During the course of the evening, one unnamed teacher was reported by the Drogheda Independent asking if there was much wisdom of spending valuable time in teaching physical drill to children attending the country schools of this country is questionable, we consider that this subject should be optional in such schools; and that it should not, under any conditions, be allowable to practise it in the school-room or in the country road, as has been done in many cases for want of a suitable playground.117

Such criticisms are hard to come by. The Commissioners’ reports continually noted the problems facing the subject but never teachers’ experience of it. Whether or not the Navan Teachers’ Association was a hotbed of dissident activity is, of course, unlikely but difficult to know. That the teacher raised such questions, and felt the group was open to these conversations, suggests not everyone was as enamoured with physical education as the Board of Education. Physical training in state-run schools, as recorded by the Commissioners’ yearly reports, was dictated by the board’s syllabus, an instructor’s whims and the school’s material resources. The subject was compulsory for primary students and voluntary for those in secondary schools. The latter 115  The Sixty-Eighth Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. Year 1901. (Dublin, 1902), p. 6. 116  Ibid., pp. 38–39. 117  Drogheda Independent, 13 Jul., 1912.

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educational pathway was still optional for Irish students which meant that oftentimes, those from poorer or agrarian backgrounds never progressed past primary school. What then of the middle and upper classes? Fee-­ paying schools run by religious orders often had varied and well-resourced classes. In Dublin, King’s Hospital, All Hallows College, Blackrock College, and St. Vincent’s College had dedicated physical education instructors.118 Hiring private physical culturists as teachers, these schools still relied on Swedish and military gymnastics. Differences came primarily in the space and equipment offered to train children.119 The educational board stressed the utility of a training system that required no equipment, but private schools provided students with pommel horses, gymnastic rings and weightlifting equipment.120 This disparity in provision was made clear in Dale and Stephens’ 1905 report, which cited a dearth of playgrounds or equipment in many state-funded schools.121 The absence of adequate training spaces was contrasted with privately run schools, which boasted a material and ideological interest in cultivating health. Despite their relative wealth, some fee-paying schools hired military officers with decidedly mixed results. In King’s Hospital Dublin, students later recalled their  eccentric drill teacher, Sergeant Heefey, who many believed was still affected by his wartime experience in South Africa.122 What may be described today as post-traumatic stress disorder or in the post-war period as ‘shell-shock’, was remembered by students as Sergeant Heefey’s erratic nature which moved from hushed tones to pierced screams. Sporting a ‘gammy leg as a memento of the Boer War’, Heefey had the students drill with mock guns and may, or may not, have encouraged them to use the gymnasiums as a place to settle grievances through boxing.123 As one of the few teachers not required to lodge in the school, Heefey was remembered by students as a conduit with the outside world. 118  Board Minutes 1856–1905, p. 618 (The King’s Hospital Archives, MS 15); All Hallows Annual, 1896-97 (Dublin, 1897), p. 11 and 24; ‘Gymnastics Images’ (Blackrock College Archives, 1920 Box Su2); St. Vincent’s College Castleknock Centenary Record, 1835–1935 (Dublin, 1935), p. 250. 119  See All Hallows Annual, 1899 (Dublin, 1899), p. 37. 120  Such equipment was visible in end-of-year photographs. ‘Gymnastics Images’ (Blackrock College Archives). 121  Dale and Stephens, Report of Messrs. F.H. Dale and T.A. Stephens, p. 41. 122  ‘J.B.  Neligan Recollections, 1913–1919’ (The King’s Hospital Archives, Dublin, 1008/9). 123  ‘Herbert Chapman Recollections, 1913–1919’ (The King’s Hospital Archives, Dublin, 1009/13).

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In matters of physical education Heefey was known for his stern teaching style which stemmed from his military background.124 King’s Hospital was not unique in relying on military instructors as other fee-paying boys’ schools who couldn’t find civilian instructors did likewise.125 What distinguished King’s Hospital were the reminisces of students who proved ambivalent about their teaching. The Board of Education and individual schools expressed a desire to foster a balance between mind and body. In the case of King’s Hospital, students recalled a strict military officer shouting orders across the gymnasium rather than a holistic education. One of the few instances we have of an Irish school attempting to disavow British styles of physical training, and indeed British style education, was Patrick Pearse’s alternative teaching project, St. Enda’s. St. Enda’s School, or Scoil Éanna, was founded by Pearse in 1908 following years of agitation and planning. An enthusiastic member of the Gaelic League and a trained teacher, Pearse spent a great deal of the early 1900s supporting a complete overhaul of the education system in Ireland.126 A passionate promoter of Ireland’s cultural heritage, Pearse spent several years critiquing the British education system which he classed as the ‘Murder Machine’ in an essay with Irish Review in early 1913.127 Brendan Walsh and Elaine Sisson have both discussed Pearse’s unique approach to education.128 Influenced by the educational theories of Maria Montessori and the ‘Direct Method’ of language teaching, the latter of which Pearse experienced during a tour of bilingual schools in Belgium, Pearse supported an educational approach concerned less with examination results and more in fostering children’s innate sense of wonder. Accordingly, he claimed that ‘the main objective in education is to help the child to be his own true and best self’.129 It was this commitment to new forms of education which spurred Pearse, and his supporters, to establish St. Enda’s School. Originally situated at Cullenswood House in Ranelagh—the school moved to The Hermitage House, Rathfarnham in 1910—St. Enda’s marked a bilingual  ‘J.B. Neligan Recollections, 1913–1919’.  Vice-Regal Committee of Inquiry into Primary Education (Ireland) 1913, Appendix to the First Report of the Committee: Minutes of Evidence 13th February–12th March 1913 (London, 1913), pp. 138–139. 126  Walsh, The pedagogy of protest. 127  Padraic Pearse, The Murder Machine and other essays (Dublin, 1976), pp. 3–8. 128  Walsh, Boy Republic; Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots. 129  Padraic Pearse, Collected Works of Padraic H. Pearse (Dublin, 1917), p. 19. 124 125

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school with a difference. Not only would students be versed in the Irish language, but also in Irish mythology, dress and play. It was an educational project which served the desires of cultural nationalists and educational idealists. Prospective curricula sent out by St. Enda’s during the period 1909–1914 continually stressed the school’s unique appreciation of Irish culture, literature and history.130 The strongest example of this was the school’s decision to teach subjects, aside from the sciences, through Irish. Such a decision reflected Pearse’s own background in the Gaelic League and helped further the divide between St. Enda’s and its state-funded counterparts. St. Enda’s was an intermediate school set up for boys—a separate girls’ school, St. Ita’s, was founded in 1910—and was aimed at the children of individuals connected with, or sympathetic towards, the Gaelic League.131 As such, enrolment in St. Enda’s could never be described as large. In 1908, 30 boys went to the school and while this figure rose to 130 for the 1909–1910 academic year, numbers shrank to 70 a year later. From 1911 to the outbreak of the 1916 Easter Rising, numbers vacillated between the low twenties and high fifties.132 Despite its small stature, St. Enda’s nevertheless held a high symbolic value for Irish nationalists. Brendan Walsh’s evaluation of St. Enda’s depicted it as a potent political tool for propagandists of Irish culture, and its perceived superiority over British norms and education.133 There was a sense, and in Pearse’s own case a personal mission, of fostering a new generation inoculated from the perceived scourges of British education. Certainly, Joost Augusteijn stressed the importance of the ‘hero cult’ fostered in St. Enda’s, one which drew on the strong men of Irish mythology and one which Pearse wished his students to learn through ritual and training.134 For Pearse physical drill offered a means of embodying and indoctrinating students. In his writings, Pearse boasted of the novelty of his curriculum which embraced subjects often ignored or undervalued. Rather than a peripheral subject, or one taught unenthusiastically in cramped classrooms, physical culture played a key role in the day-to-day experience of students.135  Scoil Eanna Prospectus 1910-1911 (Dublin, 1910).  Walsh, The Pedagogy of Protest, pp. 262-270. 132  Joost Augusteijn, Patrick Pearse: the making of a revolutionary (London, 2010), pp. 197–212. 133  Walsh, The Pedagogy of Protest, pp. 12–34. 134  Augusteijn, Patrick Pearse, p. 172. 135  McElligott, ‘Boys indifferent to the manly sports of their race’. 130 131

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Training Pearses’ students, at least initially, was William Carroll, an Irish champion gymnast with no links to the military. Preparing for the foundation of his school, Pearse spent several months seeking an instructor completely independent from the military.136 His school’s charges would be trained by an Irishman and within the context of Pearse’s unique cultural nationalism. In An Claideamh Soluis, Pearse claimed that his students’ physical fitness distinguished them from contemporaries trained under the English system.137 The school Prospectus for 1909–1910 positioned physical culture alongside hurling, football and handball—all distinctly Irish sports—and spoke of the manly benefits found in such a system.138 Elaine Sisson’s evaluation of Pearse’s educational experiment cited his efforts to manipulate athletic activities for social and moral ends.139 Marnie Hay reiterated this conclusion and situated physical culture into a broader nationalist attempt to build masculine figures in anticipation of a new, distinctly Irish, future.140 Taught in the gymnasium, and on the school’s grounds, physical culture classes, taught through Irish, built mind, body and soul. In To the Boys of Ireland, initially published in February 1914, Pearse promoted physical culture’s value alongside infantry drill, marching and scouting as the key parts of a boys’ upbringing.141 The goal in all of this was to produce a generation of Irishmen worthy of the title. Pearse shared an appreciation of the need for holistic development, a point often found in the Board of Education’s explanation for why physical education was needed. Pearse perhaps understood its importance more than most. Where he differed was in the harnessing of physical education for national ends. His experiment was ultimately short-lived as Pearse’s own financial mismanagement and involvement in the 1916 Rising disrupted St. Enda’s future.142 More pressing, however, was the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 which impacted education across Ireland.  O’Buachalla (ed.), The Letters of P.H. Pearse (Dublin, 1980), pp. 133–135.  An Claideamh Soluis, 23 Aug., 1913. 138  Scoil Eanna Prospectus 1909–1910 (Dublin, 1909); Scoil Eanna Prospectus 1910-1911 (Dublin, 1910). 139  Sisson, Pearse’s Patriots, pp. 1–12. 140  Hay, ‘The foundation and development of Na Fianna Éireann, 1909–16’. 141  Pádraic Pearse, To the Boys of Ireland in Political Writings and Speeches (Dublin, 1924), p. 114. 142  Norman Atkinson, ‘The Educational Ideas of Patrick Pearse, 1879–1916’, Comparative Education Review 11, no. 1 (1967), pp. 68–74. 136 137

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‘A Methodical Course of Physical Exercises Beneficially Affects Mental Alertness …’: Physical Education in Wartime It was somewhat inevitable that the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 would have an adverse effect on Irish education. The Commissioners’ report for the 1914–1915 academic year made clear the impact war had on the provision of education and the maintenance of school facilities.143 On the declaration of war, the Board of Education in Ireland was informed by the British treasury that effective immediately, all monies directed towards schools’ upkeep would be suspended. Likewise, administrative duties were curtailed as a cost-saving measure. Given that the two barriers to physical education in the pre-war period centred around teaching and the physical space in which the subject was taught, the 1914–1915 report signalled a temporary cessation of physical education’s progress.144 It is telling that the report did not mention physical education, physical culture or even game playing. This continued throughout the war as it became clear that the Commissioners’ main concern during this period was not the holistic development of students in body and brain, but rather the continuation of some form of education.145 This highlights the relative luxury that concerns about physical education represented. In peacetime, and with the requisite income, educators worried about improving children’s physiques. Despite protestations about its importance in peaceful times, the war reiterated the subject’s secondary nature. With resources under pressure, the subject was dropped from interest. As war progressed, education in Ireland was increasingly struggling with the material resources needed to teach children and the attendance. By the end of 1916, the Commissioners on National Education admitted that ‘the war conditions which have prevailed during the past two years have to some extent affected the position and progress of National Education in Ireland’.146 Reforms were made to teacher salaries owing to murmurings of unrest. Equally problematic was the absence of new male instructors, many of whom joined the War effort. Cited as a ‘serious’ 143  The Eighty-Second Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. School Year 1915–16. (Dublin, 1917), p. 5. 144  The Eighty-Fourth Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. School Year 1917–1918. (Dublin, 1918), pp. 1–12. 145  Ibid. 146  Ibid., p. 5.

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problem by the Commissioners, it was clear by this point that the mere continuation of education was an achievement in and of itself.147 Student participation was similarly impacted. At a macro-level, attendance decreased by 8,000 pupils, which represented roughly 1.6% of the school-­ going population.148 What such figures failed to fully account for was the disproportionate number of schoolchildren absent from different parts of the country. This was alluded to in discussions of why attendance had diminished the decline in the attendance appears to be due principally to one or other of two causes, viz.: elder pupils have left school in rural districts in order to assist in agricultural labour, and in certain localities the attendance has diminished owing to the removal to England of the families of soldiers and other persons employed with the army or navy at home stations in that country.149

From 1916, primary school teachers were given a war bonus because of ‘the serious increase in the cost of living due to war conditions’ as these had ‘pressed heavily on the national teachers in common with other classes of the community’.150 That same year the Board of Education made a number of recommendations to the English government on improving national education in Ireland. Two of the greatest concerns, a lack of ‘higher grade schools’ and skilled teachers, spoke to the continual money problems plaguing Irish education.151 Steadfast in the belief that such funding could not mimic that found in England, the Commissioners stressed the peculiarised nature of Irish education. Education in Ireland was well established, but it needed a great deal of money before it could be brought to the same standard, or close to the standard, found in England. Some concessions were made, although the Commissioners voiced their frustration that the level of funding directed to Irish schools was not enough.152 When War ended in 1918, the Commissioners  Ibid.  Ibid., pp. 4–16. 149  The Eighty-Second Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, p. 5. 150  Ibid. 151  Eighty-third report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland for 1916–17 (Dublin, 1918), pp. 17–22. 152  The Eighty-Fifth Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland. School Year 1918–1919. (Dublin, 1919), pp. 7–12. 147 148

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expressed a great deal of optimism. Funding, albeit limited funding, was allocated to the ‘many unsatisfactory schoolhouses’ found around the country.153 Male teachers were joining the profession again, in the form of new recruits or those returning from the Front, while attendance had reached a ‘satisfactory’ stage.154 It was not the wide-sweeping reforms many wished for but the Commissioner’s report for 1918–1919 gave hope for the future of Irish education. What the Commissioner’s failed to foresee was the continuation of conflict in Ireland. At the same moment that the Commissioner’s expressed a restrained form of optimism, Irish nationalists were declaring war on Great Britain. If the Great War, a war conducted away from Ireland’s borders, caused material hardships for Irish schools, such hardships were multiplied tenfold by the Irish War of Independence which brought the conflict directly to the country. With the Irish War of Independence in full effect, the Commissioner’s task became increasingly difficult. Reports on physical education during the Great War were non-existent, which perhaps spoke volumes. Those published during the War of Independence suggest that the subject was deeply impacted by conflict. In one of the last British educational reports on Ireland, the Commissioners stressed the importance of physical education before claiming that, for a variety of reasons, most notably the continued conflicts: Apart altogether from health considerations, it is submitted that a methodical course of physical exercises beneficially affects mental alertness and outlook and it is regretted that some of the schools find it impractical to include drill in the timetable.155

It was the first time since the Great War began that the Commissioners returned to the subject of physical education. A subject depicted as vital for children’s health and upbringing had, for half a decade, been completely ignored by many Irish schools, and certainly their inspectors. This neglect, however understandable it may have been, nevertheless spoke to the high symbolic value that the subject had—one which was routinely undercut by a continual lack of material funding.  Ibid., p. 6.  Ibid., 7–18. 155  Annual Report of the Commissioners of Education in Ireland for the Year 1920 (Dublin, 1921), p. 13. 153 154

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Where some form of continuity existed in physical education was in the juvenile detention centres. Contrasting the lacklustre positioning of physical education in existing schools during the Great War was the Borstal prison for teenage boys, established a decade previous. Founded in Ireland in 1906, during a broader sweep of juvenile centres across Great Britain and India, the Borstal schools were an intense site of reform for adolescent bodies.156 Bounded by much stricter rules and interventions, Borstal schools were envisioned as a place for wayward children to address misbehaviours and become functioning adults. Directed towards teenagers, those closest to adulthood, Borstal prisons represented one last effort at state intervention in an adolescent’s life. Conor Reidy’s work on Borstal prisons in Ireland made clear the regimented nature of this institution (only one Borstal prison was opened prior to the Great War).157 Each morning the boys rose at 5.30 am, given a short period of time to get ready and then underwent gymnastic and physical drill exercises.158 That gymnastics were done before everything else, even breakfast, gave some indication of its presumed importance for inmates. Despite the low number of inmates—between 1910 and 1921, only 516 inmates were detained—and its underfunding when compared to English counterparts, the Borstal prison was well kept during the Great War.159 This included ongoing support for its physical education programmes. From 1913 to 1917, material facilities at the site in Clonmel improved to include a new gymnasium, a trained instructor and greater opportunities for amusement among the boys.160 Here the physically trained body was a cornerstone to reforming and re-educating the teenage body. How inmates responded is impossible to know but it is telling that one former inmate wrote to the General Prisons Board in 1918 to thank them for the high emphasis Borstal placed on drill and training, noting that ‘if I had not got the training I did get I would have been a complete

156  Peter Quinn, ‘The penal reformatory that never was: proposals to establish Borstal training in New South Wales, 1900–1948’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, 88, no. 2 (2002), pp. 115–123. 157  Conor Reidy, Ireland’s Moral Hospital: The Irish Borstal System, 1906–1956 (Dublin, 2009). 158  Ibid., pp. 77–88. 159  Ibid., pp. 97–110. 160  Ibid., p. 133.

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duffer at the present time’.161 In this regard, the Borstal site proved exceptional when compared to Irish schools. Both taught children and adolescents with the proviso that the prison was still receiving adequate funding at this time.162 Through funding, physical education could exist. Thus far the experiences of state-funded institutions have been discussed. It is important to stress, however, that the troubles facing public schools were not always found in fee-paying institutions. Yes, education, and certainly physical education, was strained, but it persevered. From surviving Commissioner Reports, it is clear that the Great War, and subsequently the War of Independence, significantly impacted schools and schoolchildren. One exception was Dublin’s King’s Hospital where boys continued to engage in military drill under the erratic Sergeant Heefey each week.163 Treated with bemusement by students, Heefey’s military connections proved vital for boys during the 1916 Easter Rising when Heefey proved to be the sole source of accurate news for pupils confined to the school. As a trustworthy news source Heefey may have been beyond reproach despite his heavy ‘Dubalin’ accent which ‘provided much material for school mimics for a long time’.164 As an instructor, however, the stern military ethos of his classes endured. One former student, Ludlow de Courcey Oswald Sealy, recalled Heefey’s strict classes and harsh punishments. When Sealy and a group of his friends skipped drill class on 25 March 1915, they were beaten by Heefey as a warning to themselves and others.165 While no student recalled being trained explicitly for war, as often happened in English public schools at this time, the military ethos underpinning physical drill remained.166 Not all private schools could rely on former military instructors, especially during a time of war. Male teachers were at a premium during this time, and those currently serving in, or formerly of, the military were 161  General Prisons Board, Fortieth Report of the General Prisons Board, Ireland, 1917–1918 (Dublin, 1918), p. xi. 162  Lord Justice Cherry, ‘Juvenile Crime and its Prevention’, Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, 12, no. 91 (1910/1911), pp. 435–450. 163  ‘Ludlow de Courcey Oswald Sealy Diary 1910–1916’ (The King’s Hospital Archives, 1008/8); ‘J.B. Neligan, 1913–1919 Recollections’ (The King’s Hospital Archives, 1008/9); ‘Herbert Chapman Recollections’ (The King’s Hospital Archives, 1009/13). 164  ‘J.B. Neligan, 1913–1919 Recollections’. 165  ‘Ludlow de Courcey Oswald Sealy Diary 1910–1916’. 166  Malcolm Tozer, Education in Manliness: The Legacy of Thring’s Uppingham (Portscatho, 2015), pp. 1–14.

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quickly included in the war effort. This meant that aside from some notable examples, Sergeant Heefey being one of them, military-grade instructors were largely absent from Irish schools during this period. Those continuing to teach the subject were civilians trained in physical culture. Drill continued in Mary’s College and All Hallows College, but both faced their own challenges, especially as they tried to maintain some semblance of normality. In the early years of the Great War, Swedish Drill competitions were held between fee-paying schools.167 There is evidence that this continued to be the case but the pressures brought to bear on the schools grew as the conflict continued. In the case of All Hallows, the school was faced with a drill instructor who, despite his good intentions, claimed in 1915 that ‘I have started a Swedish Drill Class with the boys of the school here and they like it very well, but all my knowledge has run out’.168 When the aforementioned All Hallows instructor, Francis Hickey, needed help, he reached out to friends teaching abroad, as well as the school’s former drill instructor Mr Wright. Even during difficult times, provisions could be made for those with means. One of the few fee-paying girls’ school to continue with physical culture during this time was Alexandra College, based in Dublin. Prior to the outbreak of the Great War, the College opened its own physical training course for aspiring teachers.169 This meant that the College welcomed girls under and over the age of eighteen. In surviving student memoirs, little was recalled of the war. Instead students, like Nancy McIntosh, Lois McConnell and May Ferher, fondly remembered time spent in the gymnasium, dance class and physical education.170 McConnell joined the College’s secondary school in 1919 and found a ‘comradery fostered’ in the gymnasium and dancing hall. This was echoed by McIntosh, whose two years in the physical training course were marked by the enthusiasm and friendliness of her classmates. The youngest of the three, Ferher,  The Irish Times, 27 May, 1916.  William A.  Maher, A History of St. Mary’s College Rathmines, Dublin 1890–1990 (Dublin, 1994), pp. 69–70; All Hallows Annual, 1914–15 (Dublin, 1914), p. 121. 169  ‘Editorial Notes’, Journal of Scientific Physical Training, 7 (1914–1915), pp. 1–3. 170  ‘Nancy McIntosh, 1915–1917’ (Alexandra College Archives, Memories 1910–1984, K5/1 1910–1920); ‘Lois K.  Smiley McConnell’ (ACA, 1910–1984, K5/1 1910–1920); ‘May Ferher’ (ACA, Memories 1910–1984, K5/1 1910–1920). 167 168

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commented on the freedom given to her in Alexandra which allowed her to become absorbed with hockey and gymnastics. Ferher’s experience spoke to the fact that despite its highly vaulted reputation, physical culture could, in the right circumstances, provide fun and diversion in trying times. That it was schoolchildren who picked up on this fact, and not those promoting the subject, spoke volumes about the disconnect between ideology and reality. This distinction between aspirations and reality continued in the post-conflict period.

CHAPTER 5

‘Physical Culture Is Good for Body and Soul’: Recreational Physical Culture in Interwar Ireland

On 6 December 1921, a formal truce was called between the Irish Republican Army and her Majesty’s government, thereby ending the Irish War of Independence. For two years, a fierce guerrilla campaign was waged against British rule in Ireland which disrupted business, educational and recreational life at a cost of over 2000 deaths.1 It was a landmark moment in British and Irish histories. By March of the following year, and after a series of contentious debates, a treaty was ratified which solidified the partition of Ireland between an Irish Free State comprising 26 counties and effectively politically autonomous, and a six county Northern Ireland self-­ governed but part of Great Britain. Not a forgone conclusion, the Treaty’s promises came to fruition in late 1923 following a bitter Civil War. The Civil War broke out in June 1922 and lasted until May the following year. Responsible for over 1000 deaths, and millions in damages, the Civil War ensured that the Free State’s first years of independence were defined by a need for economic conservatism.2 This new dawn in Irish history, on both sides of the new political border, have for obvious reasons, garnered a great deal of historical

1  Joseph McKenna, Guerrilla warfare in the Irish War of Independence, 1919–1921 (Jefferson, 2014), pp. 28–44. 2  Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green–The Irish Civil War: A History of the Irish Civil War, 1922–1923 (Dublin, 2004).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_5

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attention.3 For the Free State, and its ruling government Cumann na nGaedheal, who held power until 1932, political freedom brought additional responsibility. Studies in recent years have shown the acute anxiety expressed on the part of many Irish politicians to ‘prove’ that the Free State was worthy of, and could handle, freedom.4 In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party presided over a landmass whose demographics split between those perceived to be loyal to Great Britain and those whose allegiances were questioned. Often crudely split on class and religious lines, Northern Ireland became a highly segregated state which privileged Protestant lives other Catholic ones. One island thus saw two, at times diametrically opposed, states emerge. Governed by different political parties, with differing ideologies, and indeed motivations, the interwar period was a time of disruption and creativity in Irish politics. It is within this context that interwar physical culture in Ireland must be placed. In the past studies of interwar physical culture has tended to focus on the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy which, by the 1930s, took state intervention in the promotion and organising of physical culture to its very zenith.5 Under the German Nazis or Italian fascists, strong, fit and healthy bodies became physical ambassadors for the state. More recently historians have turned towards French and British physical culture, which although influenced in later years by the fascist regimes discussed, struggled with domestic concerns surrounding physical degeneration, the need for healthy children and the requirement for a strong military.6 Such work has been substantiated by those few studies existing outside of Europe.7 Arguably far more expressive than the institutional physical cultures discussed in Chaps. 6 and 7, recreational physical culture encompassed a broad remit of ideas and movements based on the idealised male and 3  Ciaran Brady ed. Interpreting Irish history: the debate on historical revisionism, 1938–1994 (Dublin, 1994). 4   Seán Donnelly, ‘Republicanism and Civic Virtue in Treatyite Political Thought, 1921–1923’, The Historical Journal (2020), pp. 1–24. 5  Alessio Ponzio, Shaping the New Man: Youth Training Regimes in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Wisconsin, 2015), pp. 1–25. 6  J.  Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford, 2013); Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain 1880–1939 (Oxford, 2010). 7  Simon Creak, Embodied Nation: Sport, Masculinity, and the Making of Modern Laos (Honolulu, 2015).

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female body. Studying this phenomenon, which broached domestic and global trends, this chapter is divided into three sections. Beginning with recreational physical culture in the 1920s, Section I highlights divergences and similarities between the Free State and Northern Ireland. On the former point, attention is given to the mingling of nationalism and physical culture in the Free State, most notably the creation of the Tailteann Games in 1924. In Northern Ireland, greater efforts were made to retain British influence over recreational physical culture. Differences existed, it would be foolish to claim otherwise, but they were secondary to the similar behaviours and rhetoric found in both states. It was the similarities, more so than the differences, which remained in the 1930s, the period covered in Section  II. Despite the Free State’s efforts to censor those physical culture materials deemed obscene, physical culture flourished. It was during the 1930s, more so than the 1920s, that eugenic concerns, when applied to physical culture, reached something of an apex. Northern Ireland’s Physical Training and Recreation Act was one very obvious example. Political interventions aside, individual responses were equally zealous, a point highlighted when discussing a short-lived spate of ‘perfect man’ competitions in the Free State. Such activities were primarily driven by the middle and elite classes. While middle and upper-­ class experiments were complimented by several instances of working-class co-operative gyms. This marked a definitive opening up of secular and working-class physical cultures. Recreational physical culture in interwar Ireland was more expressive and more open than previous decades. This was certainly the case with the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, the organisation discussed in the chapter’s final section. Founded in London in 1930 by Mary Bagot Stack, the League became one of the most popular outlets for female physical culture in Europe, and parts of the British Empire. Owing to Bagot Stack’s Irish heritage and connections, the organisation’s first overseas branch came to Belfast in late 1930. Four years later, a Dublin branch was formed, and by the end of the decade, classes could be found in several locations around the island. Preaching a new form of vibrant womanhood, one which although rooted in ideas of motherhood and domesticity nevertheless praised the strong female body, the League marked a new turn in

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female physical culture in Ireland. In 1928, Reverend Patrick Morrisroe told crowds that ‘physical culture is good for body and soul’.8 Such esteem defined the interwar age.

‘That We Need Systematic Physical Training in Ireland Is Obvious to Anyone…’: A Nation Born? Physical Culture in 1920s Ireland Surveying recreational physical culture in Ireland in the first decade after partition, two overarching trends are apparent. First, that in line with educational and military sectors, many in the Free State believed not enough was being done to promote physical culture. The same discourses were found in Northern Ireland, albeit at a lesser rate compared to the Free State. This will be a reoccurring theme across the remaining chapters—the Free State and Northern Ireland exhibited the same anxieties and interest in physical culture but often embraced different pathways. A separate, although equally important, trend in recreation was the juxtaposition of previous kinds of physical culture with new technologies. Continuities with previous decades were complemented by advances in radio and recording technologies. Within this era physical culture was both a reflection, and vessel, of broader social, political and economic changes. This was especially apparent in the Irish Free State where physical culture was quickly tied to a definitive sense of Irish cultural heritage. In 1924, J.J. Walsh, postmaster general and chief organiser of the 1924 Tailteann Games, publicly claimed that the purpose of the Games had been in part, the revival of gymnastics in the country following previous failed efforts.9 To rapturous applause, Walsh declared that, in line with other countries, physical development should be compulsory in schools and that more Irish gymnasiums were needed. Walsh was optimistic about physical culture’s growth in the coming years, with the Tailteann Games envisioned as a catalyst for this development.10 The Games themselves were a multi-sporting and cultural competition open to Irish athletes and those of Irish birth. Viewed by contemporaries and later commentators as a ‘race Olympiad’, the Tailteann marked the state’s most ambitious sporting

 Western People, 23 Jun. 1928.  The Irish Times, 18 Aug., 1924. 10  Ibid. 8 9

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event.11 Conducted over two weeks in the summer of 1924 and subsequently in 1928 and 1932, the Games marked a celebration of the Free State’s political and cultural independence.12 The games were primarily understood as a sporting event with a long Irish heritage. The Tailteann were said to have been a re-enactment of an ancient Irish festival which died out during the Norman invasion of the twelfth-century. It was linked, therefore, to a period when Irish cultural and political identity had yet to be aligned with England.13 Previous research on the 1924 Tailteann Games has focused on the rich cultural tapestry played out during the Games, with the role of the physical body often considered only in passing terms.14 The opening ceremony featured processions led by a ‘Queen Tailte’, Irish wolfhounds, traditional Irish music and a series of other assertions of Irish cultural independence. Also significant was the inclusion of gymnastics, a practice with little to no Irish connection. This was the result of several efforts made during its planning stages to include some form of physical culture as a means of showing that Ireland’s cultural strength was matched by its physical strength.15 Culture was mapped onto the body while the body spoke to Irish culture. As early as February 1922, J.J. Keane, the first president of the National Athletic and Cycling Association in the Free State, successfully petitioned the Tailteann’s organising committee for a gymnastic event to be held during the Games.16 Subsequent efforts by Keane and fellow board member, J.B. Richardson, saw a series of strength-based displays, like weightlifting, physical culture displays and tug-of-war, mooted over the next two years.17 For reasons of availability and practicality, it was eventually decided 11  Mike Cronin, ‘Projecting the Nation through Sport and Culture: Ireland, Aonach Tailteann and the Irish Free State, 1924–32’, Journal of Contemporary History, 38, no. 3 (2003), pp. 395–400. 12  Conor Heffernan, ‘An Irish Race Convention? Body Politics and the 1924 Tailteann Games’, Irish Economic and Social History, 46, no. 1 (2019), pp. 46–65. 13  Cronin, ‘Projecting the Nation through Sport and Culture’. 14  Heffernan, ‘An Irish Race Convention’, pp. 46–52. 15  T.H. Nally, The Aonac Tailteann and the Tailteann Games: Their Origin, History and Ancient Associations (Dublin, 1924); M.J. MacAuliffe, The History of Aonach Tailteann and the Ancient Irish Laws (Dublin, 1923). 16  23 February 1922, Minute Book of the Tailteann Games Committee, Dec. 1921–June 1925 (Croke Park Library and Archive, Dublin. Henceforth CPLA). 17  28 February 1922, Minute Book of the Tailteann Games Committee, Dec. 1921–June 1925 (CPLA).

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that gymnastics would be the chosen path, despite the difficulties this presented.18 In March 1922, Keane complained of disorganisation among the country’s gymnastic clubs owing to the War of Independence and Civil War.19 Other committee members, like T.A. Burke, promoted gymnastic competitions in schools, with the ultimate aim being the elevation of the younger generation’s health and a gymnastics revival in the Free State. Like Keane and Richardson’s previous suggestions, this too was accepted.20 Undiscouraged by the Games’ first delay in 1922, a gymnastic sub-­ committee was formed in June 1923 tasked with encouraging existing efforts in the country and planning for the Tailteann. Headed by Sergeant Major Wright from the Free State Army, the committee announced its intention to hold a mass display in October 1923.21 This display, consisting of ‘Swedish Drill Standing Exercises’, would serve, it was hoped, to demonstrate the nation’s health and fitness. As the prospect of the Tailteann Games moved from ideological to practical, plans to hold a mass display intensified. Over time it was decided to include male and female performers. At one point, Richardson enthusiastically promised a series of mass displays of 1500 women and girls.22 In the end, a gymnastic display of several hundred schoolchildren and adults featured in the opening ceremony.23 As per Walsh’s wishes, the eventual incorporation of physical culture in the Games was positively linked to the nation’s wellbeing and, as argued elsewhere, offered an attempt to highlight the new state’s vibrancy and athleticism.24 Walsh and the Tailteann Game’s organising committee were not the only ones concerned with physical culture’s status in the Free State, especially in light of its independence. A year before the Games, J.M. Neilly or ‘Huck Finn’ as he was known to pre-war readers, complained bitterly of 18  08 March 1922, Minute Book of the Tailteann Games Committee, Dec. 1925 (CPLA). 19  14 March 1922, Minute Book of the Tailteann Games Committee, Dec. 1925 (CPLA). 20  05 December 1922, Minute Book of the Tailteann Games Committee, Dec. 1925 (CPLA). 21   29 May 1923, Minute Book of the Tailteann Games Committee, Dec. 1925 (CPLA). 22  08 January 1924, Minute Book of the Tailteann Games Committee, Dec. 1925 (CPLA). 23  Irish Examiner, 4 Aug., 1924; Anglo-Celt, 9 Aug., 1924. 24  Heffernan, ‘An Irish Race Convention’, pp. 46–52.

1921–June 1921–June 1921–June 1921–June 1921–June

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the Civil War’s impact on Irish physical culture.25 The decade of conflict had, for Neilly, ‘heavily handicapped’ evening classes and public demonstrations.26 Physical culture was presented as non-existent in some areas for this very reason. The inability to hold classes forced several male and female physical culture clubs, especially in Dublin, to cease operations, sometimes entirely.27 Dublin was not the only city thought to be under-­ resourced when it came to physical culture. In 1925, ‘Periscope’ argued in the Irish Examiner that no physical culture movement existed whatsoever in Cork.28 He cited Cork’s relaxing climate and atmosphere which ‘put energy and abounding vitality at a sad discount’.29 Periscope, continuing in this vein, stated that ‘the young men of Cork to-day are very inferior, physically and intellectually, to the young men of Cork thirty or forty years ago’ and that the health of future generations demanded greater efforts be made.30 In 1907, an anonymous author made similar assertions about Belfast in Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture only to be rebuked by subsequent contributors for his remarks.31 Periscope received no such censor and was in fact praised for his ‘bravery’ in highlighting a perceived ill. Within a week, the Examiner received several endorsements of Periscope’s claims. One author stated that physical training’s importance was ‘obvious to anyone with eyes’, while ‘Elcono’ blamed modern inventions which made ‘life too easy’ for the young people seen ‘lolling lazily in motor cars or riding on the train cars’.32 Bryce Evans’ research on interwar adolescence in Ireland succinctly explained that ‘according to their parents’ generation, Irish adolescents of the 1930s and 40s had degenerated physically as well as morally’.33 Such concerns existed prior to the Great War and were routinely found in conversations of physical culture. Given the physicality associated with the War of Independence, it was perhaps inevitable that unfavourable comparisons would be drawn. Reflecting the 25  J.M. Neilly, ‘Sport in Ireland To-Day: Dublin Gymnasts and the Tailteann’, Health and Strength, 31, no. 14 (1922), p. 21. 26  Weekly Irish Times, 27 Oct., 1923. 27  Ibid. 28  Irish Examiner, 3 Nov., 1925. 29  Ibid. 30  Ibid. 31  ‘What is the Matter with Belfast? A Reply’, Sandow’s Magazine, 20 June (1907), p. 790. 32  Irish Examiner, 30 Oct., 1925; Irish Examiner, 11 Nov., 1925. 33  Bryce Evans, ‘How Will We Kill the Evening?: ‘Degeneracy’ and ‘Second Generation’ Male Adolescence in Independent Ireland’, in Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London, 2015), pp. 151–175.

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Free State’s noted anxiety about its international reputation, many contributors cited the United States or Germany as examples to emulate, failing to recognise that the same discourses reverberated throughout these societies.34 These contributors may have been viewed as fanatics by some, but their pleas were echoed by other civilians and, as will become clear in the next chapter, politicians, physicians and military officers.35 Even the growth of Irish sport and athletics was viewed by some as problematic during this period. In an article for the Donegal News, Aodh Buidhe complained that few modern Irish athletes were physical culturists whereas ‘the athletes of thirty years ago had to be physical culturists in spite of themselves’.36 The reason for this was simple: Motors, trams, and cycles had not yet made it unnecessary for the people to use their limbs… There were no picture houses and dance halls with impure atmospheres to keep young men out of their sleep, in a word, ‘life was clean’ and tended towards physical fitness.37

For some, ‘modernity’ and its attendant ills weakened the nation. The lack of adequate physical culture was proof. That the modernity they railed against had in part contributed to the growth of physical culture in the first place seems to have been lost in these debates in favour of a timeless ‘pre-modern’ tradition from which all subsequent generations were measured. For those like Periscope, Elcono, or Aodh Buidhe, one’s interest and involvement in physical culture was significant evidence of a timeless masculinity not yet softened by new comforts. In such discourses, the men stood out as exceptional in an era when the physical body was deemed to be ignored by the populous. These ideas were later contrasted with remarks in 1928 that ‘of late years physical culture has become a positive craze’, but it is clear that the idea that the population had declined racially, and that action was needed, 34  Irish Examiner, 30 Oct., 1924; Irish Examiner, 11 Nov., 1925; Susan Currell, ‘Eugenic Decline and Recovery in Self-Improvement Literature of the Thirties’, in Susan Currell and Christina Cogdell (eds.), Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in the 1930s (Ohio, 2006), pp. 44–69. 35  Ronald M. Deutsch, Nuts Among the Berries: An Expose of America’s Food Fads (New York, 1967), pp. 1–15. 36  Donegal News, 5 May, 1928. 37  Ibid.

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held considerable sway in the Free State.38 Diarmaid Ferriter found that many Free State commentators at this time cited a decline in public standards and hinted at traces of degeneration.39 These fears existed in the pre-war period but were exacerbated by a decade flowing with new inventions, ideas, behaviours and political identities.40 It is telling that many of those who experienced pre-war physical culture as children viewed the generation of the 1920s as physically weaker. For many of the older generation, physical culture served as a vessel for their disdain with how society was changing.41 It is telling that criticisms of modernity often centred on new means of leisure rather than commercialism or industry.42 One’s body spoke not only of their own self, but their generation and its attendant ills or virtues. The provision of physical culture, as individuals argued prior to the Great War, would protect citizens against the deleterious effects of modernity and ensure future generations’ health. In Northern Irish periodicals, the idea that more needed to be done regarding physical culture failed to gain the same momentum and certainly, when compared to the Free State, lacked global comparisons. Articles from bishops and laymen citing the sorry state of training in Northern Ireland occasionally arose, but such articles were outnumbered by positive reports of physical culture in Belfast, Derry, Larne and other cities.43 It is possible that faced with economic instability and religious tension that groups had more pressing matters to discuss.44 While it may have been the case that physical culture was flourishing, the introduction of a recreation act in the late 1930s suggests that

 Irish Independent, 13 Jan., 1928.  Diarmaid Ferriter, Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland (London, 2010), p. 100. 40  Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay Winter, The Fear of Population Decline (London, 2013), pp. 13–44. 41  Evans, ‘How Will We Kill the Evening?’, pp. 151–175. 42  McKayla Sutton, ‘Harnessed in the Service of the Nation: Party Politics and the Promotion of the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme 1924–1932’, in Mel Farrell, Jason Knirck and Ciara Meehan (eds.), A Formative Decade: Ireland in the 1930s (Kildare, 2015), pp. 86–107. 43  Northern Whig, 1 Oct., 1923; Belfast Newsletter, 11 Feb., 1929; Larne Times, 27 Jul., 1929. 44  Riordan, ‘Politics, Economy, Society’. 38 39

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this was unlikely.45 Far more probable is that commentators focused their efforts elsewhere. In the Free State, it is clear that the dichotomy between modernity and virtuous living, as epitomised by physical culture, was informed by broader societal discourses. Philip O’Leary and Catriona Kennedy both cited the rise of anti-modern and anti-foreign sentiments in the Free State during the 1920s.46 Crusades arose against  certain kinds of modern cinema, music, literature and the dance hall among other activities.47 A series of conservative measures, not least the 1929 Censorship of Publications Act, ensured that the Free State, in line with other European countries, sought to protect citizens against the perceived scourges of modernity.48 In comments on physical culture in the press, the same ‘enemies’ were found. In the Free State, the regularly cited dearth of physical culture as connected to the perceived allure of modern living.49 Modernity, or cultural modernity, in 1930s Ireland was linked by many to ideas of racial suicide for the Irish people.50 The push for physical culture became linked to measures to ban unsavoury books, close dance halls and expel foreign leisure.51 As happened elsewhere, an emphasis on the strong body was seen as a means of bulwarking the nation’s cultural soul.52 Despite the aforementioned discourses, continuities existed. In the Free State, public physical culture demonstrations continued despite commentators’ fears that physical culture was floundering. By the mid-decade mark, several institutions that had been forced to close their doors during 45  Philip Ollerenshaw, Northern Ireland in the Second World War: Politics, Economic Mobilisation and Society, 1939–45 (Oxford, 2016), p. 198. 46  P. O’Leary, Gaelic Prose in the Irish Free State: 1922–1939 (Pennsylvania, 2010), p. 54; Catriona Kennedy, ‘Women and Gender in Modern Ireland’, in Richard Bourke and Ian McBride (eds.), The Princeton History of Modern Ireland (Oxford, 2015), p. 373. 47  Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland, 1900–2000, p. 337. 48  Lance Pettitt, Screening Ireland: Film and Television Representation (Manchester, 2000), p. 35. 49  Irish Examiner, 3 Nov., 1925; Donegal News, 5 May, 1928. 50  Ferriter, Occasions of Sin, p. 191. 51  Una Crowley and Rob Kitchin, ‘Producing ‘Decent Girls’: Governmentality and the Moral Geographies of Sexual Conduct in Ireland (1922–1937)’, Gender, Place and Culture, 15, no. 4 (2008), pp. 355–372; Paul Rouse, ‘The Politics of Culture and Sport in Ireland: A History of the GAA Ban on Foreign Games 1884–1971: Part One: 1884–1921’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 10, no. 3 (1993), pp. 333–360. 52  James Stark, The Cult of Youth: Anti-Ageing in Modern Britain (Cambridge 2020), pp. 145–188.

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the 1910s, like the middle-class Dublin School of Physical Culture, once again held ‘first class’ programmes for the public.53 In Connacht, physical culture clubs in Ballyheane were noted for their public engagement, while in Dunmanway, clubs regularly engaged in public displays.54 Just as in the pre-war period, displays encouraged participants of all ages and genders to demonstrate their skills and proficiency.55 While male-dominated displays attracted the greatest column inches, attention was still reserved for female gymnasts and physical culturists.56 Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the concerns noted in the Free State, adolescent demonstrations were often signalled out for considerable praise.57 It was the youthful body which faced the most danger and promised the most potential. A particularly important outlet in this regard remained the Father Mathew Feis, which held annual demonstrations for gymnastics and physical culture.58 Organised along pre-war lines, the Feis was a reminder of older forms of physical culture which sought to expressly link cultural strength with physical power, complimented by an overtly religious aesthetic. Outside of participatory contests, theatre demonstrations and the circus served as a leisure outlet for those whose interest in physical culture was more visual than active.59 Theatre demonstrations, especially in Dublin, were a regular occurrence, as were lectures on physical culture from Irish and foreign-born experts on a host of topics.60 Likewise, John Moriarty, the Kerry-born strongman, continued to travel the country with his strength act in Duffy’s Circus.61 Far from an isolated figure, Moriarty was emulated by a series of other circus strength acts including a Mrs. Brown who was credited with a ‘remarkably heavy weightlifting exhibition’.62 For individuals, gymnasiums continued to operate, with the YMCA gymnasiums across Ireland particularly relevant for those unable to access

 Weekly Irish Times, 27 Oct., 1923.  The Irish Times, 8 Dec., 1926; Southern Star, 29 May, 1926. 55  Weekly Irish Times, 27 Oct., 1923; The Irish Times, 30 Jul., 1924. 56  The Irish Times, 28 Sept., 1923; The Irish Times, 4 May, 1928. 57  Weekly Irish Times, 27 Oct., 1923; Northern Whig, 27 Feb., 1924. 58  Father Mathew’s Feis Programmes 1920s (Capuchin Archives, Ireland, FMH/32 Box 1). 59  Herald, 23 Dec., 1924; Ballymena Observer, 14 Dec., 1928. 60  Irish Independent, 22 Sept., 1921; Northern Whig, 1 Oct., 1923. 61  ‘Strongman Moriarty’, Health and Strength, 82, no. 8 (1953), p. 20. 62  Westmeath Examiner, 1 May, 1926. 53 54

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private gymnasiums or those charging prohibitive fees.63 The continued popularity of such gymnasiums, with their broader religious ethos, has yet to be fully studied in the Irish sporting context but their relevancy is clear.64 The importance of YMCA gymnasiums was echoed in Northern Ireland, which depended on them for equipment and teaching.65 In Northern Ireland, public displays and physical culture clubs continued.66 Crosscurrents between physical culturists in mainland Britain and Northern Ireland also grew during this period. When Olympic-style weightlifting came to Northern Ireland during the Great War, its reach was small and, in general, short-lived. The sport’s popularity grew rapidly, however, during the 1920s. Physical culture demonstrations in the Free State tended to focus more on military drill, light dumbbell work and callisthenics, while those held in Northern Ireland were accompanied by weightlifting contests or demonstrations.67 The ability to afford and transport weights—weighing anywhere from 90 to 150 pounds—around the country suggested a greater wealth among physical culturists in Northern Ireland or, at the very least, the penetration of cheaper materials into the Northern market.68 This helps explain why weightlifting, as a sport, grew first in Northern Ireland during the interwar period.69 It also highlights the strength of bonds with England. The continual reference to ‘Inch medallists’ or ‘Health & Strength Leaguers’ from Northern Ireland in the British physical culture periodical Health and Strength further highlighted the influence of English practices

63  ‘Minute book for meetings of the Executive Committee of the Y.M.C.A.’ (PRONI, D3788/1/5, 1901–1922); ‘Londonderry Young Men’s Christian Association, Report and Financial Statement for Year Ending, 31 December 1924’ ((PRONI, YMCA 1917–1939, D3788/3/19 1917–1970). 64  Tom Hunt, Sport and Society in Victorian Ireland: The Case of Westmeath (Cork, 2007), p.  45; Neal Garnham, Association Football and Society in Pre-Partition Ireland (Belfast, 2004), pp. 45–52. 65  Londonderry YMCA, The Popular Centre for Men Prospectus, 1925–1926 (PRONI, Londonderry YMCA 1917–1939, D3788/3/19, 1917–1970). 66  PRONI D3788/2/1, 1918–[1930]. 67  Northern Whig, 2 Dec., 1927; Ballymena Observer, 14 Dec., 1928. 68  Anthony McKinley, ‘An Irish Veteran’, Health and Strength, 27, no. 10 (1920), p. 172; ‘Our Leaguers’ Rendezvous’, Health and Strength, 39, no. 9 (1926), p. 215. 69  Conor Heffernan, ‘The iron rusted and decayed in our clubs’: the failure of weightlifting in early twentieth-century Ireland’, Sport in History (2020), pp. 1–22.

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absent in the Free State.70 Occasional references were made to ‘Leaguers’ in the Free State, but the majority of Irish contributors to Health and Strength during the 1920s came from Northern Ireland.71 Letters often came in asking for dietary or weightlifting advice.72 Others, similar to the lonely heart advertisements studied by H.G. Cocks, sought to meet fellow strength enthusiasts from Great Britain.73 Health and Strength’s articles on Ireland focused predominately on ‘The Iron Game’ as applied to Northern Ireland while articles on Irish weightlifting were dominated by Northern Irish discussants.74 This disparity was temporarily rectified by the creation of an ‘Irish Notes’ column in September 1927, which promised to provide greater coverage to the Free State, but it too shifted its attention to Northern Ireland.75 The reason for this disparity, according to Health and Strength’s writers, was that recent troubles in the Free State had largely negated the development of physical culture.76 Northern Ireland, on the other hand, was presented as stable enough to sustain a prolonged interest in weightlifting. Irishmen’s continued reliance on British physical culture, despite the disparity in attention given to Northern Ireland, endured. Irish physical culture, especially in the Free State, was associated with ideas of modernity, positive or otherwise. Despite continuities with previous decades, Irish physical culture, like Irish society, had changed. Advances in transport, commercialism and communication impacted several layers of society, not least the social sphere.77 Whereas physical culturists in the pre-war period used newspapers, monographs and books for advice and entertainment, those in the 1920s had access to radio, film and 70  Tom Inch, ‘Pedes-Physi-Cult: A New Form of Physical Exercise’, Health and Strength, 26, no. 6 (1920), p.  89; ‘League Notes and News’, Health and Strength, 30, no. 7 (1922), p. 108. 71  Our Irish Correspondent, ‘Among Irish Athletes’, Health and Strength, 30, no. 5 (1922), p. 74. 72  ‘League Gallery & Notes’, Health & Strength, 35, no. 15 (1924), p. 239. 73  ‘Ireland Stepping Forward–League Gala and Carnival Successes’, Health and Strength, 41, no. (1927), p. 180; H.G. Cocks. Classified: The Secret History of the Personal Column (New York, 2009). 74  McMullar, ‘Among the Ulster Gymnasts’. 75  ‘League Notes and News’, Health and Strength, 30, no. 15 (1922), p.  252; ‘League Notes and News’, Health and Strength, 30, no. 8 (1922), p.  124; ‘The Roll of League Officers—Xmas 1924’, Health and Strength, 35, no. 25 (1924), p. 417. 76  ‘A Dublin Nightmare: Why Siki and McTigue Defied Rebels’, Health and Strength, 32, no. 13 (1923), p. 99. 77  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, pp. 218–222.

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print material.78 Radio, in particular, marked a significant change from previous decades. Robert Savage cited the mid-1920s as a period when the technology truly began to infiltrate Ireland’s popular sphere.79 In 1926, 2RN, the first state sponsored radio station in the Free State, was formed.80 Far from a monopoly, the station was forced to compete with foreign radio stations, many of which were accessible in Irish towns.81 When Lieutenant Tichy was co-opted in the mid-1930s to speak on Sokol physical culture, discussed in the next chapter, he joined a long line of physical culture commentators in Ireland. The advent of radio stations ushered in a new development in physical culture, the physical culture show. In the Free State, radio owners could listen to the Birmingham-based Louise Thibnult conduct a series of radio programmes on physical culture from 1926.82 Those in Northern Ireland, and to a lesser extent the Free State, had access to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)’s ‘physical jerks’ morning programme, which served as an exercise class that could be done before work.83 The emergence of physical culture radio programmes was not, however, to everyone’s liking. Writing in the Sunday Independent in the Free State in 1926, ‘Joxer’ sardonically wrote: There is some talk of a daily morning broadcast of health exercises, and listeners are being asked to suggest a suitable hour …. For my own part, I would suggest between 3.30 and 4 a.m., which is a time too late for me to stay up and too early for me to get up.84

In jovial tones, Joxer argued that radio physical culture shows marked another area of life taken over by technology.85 Despite his objections, an Irish-based radio programme for physical exercise emerged in the 78  On the importance of radio see Susan Grant, Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society: Propaganda, Acculturation, and Transformation in the 1920s and 1930s (London, 2012), p. 55. 79  Robert J.  Savage, ‘Broadcasting on the Island of Ireland 1916–2016’, in Thomas Bartlett (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ireland: Volume 4, 1880 to The Present (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 533–540. 80  Richard Pine, 2RN and the Origins of Irish Radio (Dublin, 2002), pp. 2–12. 81  John Horgan, Irish Media: A Critical History Since 1922 (London, 2012), pp. 5–27. 82  The Irish Times, 12 Jan., 1926. 83  Northern Whig, 9 Mar., 1925. 84  Sunday Independent, 15 Aug., 1926. 85  Ibid.

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mid-­1930s. While programmes of this kind did not garner a large amount of interest in the 1920s, their popularity increased in the following years. Several historians have discussed the importance of radio in the development of the GAA in the 1920s, stressing its ability to strengthen ties between fans and players.86 In the realm of physical culture, radio programming offered a convenient method of ‘attending’ classes, receiving instructions and continuing health practices in a variety of locations. Connected to this point was the emergence of gramophones in Irish society at the beginning of the decade. Seen by Gearoid Ó hAllmhuráin as a luxury in large parts of rural Ireland, the gramophone offered individuals with the requisite finances far greater autonomy in their exercise habits.87 From 1920, advertisements for gramophone records sold by physical culturists emerged in Ireland.88 By 1928, ‘Grampus’ of The Irish Times was reviewing physical culture records as part of their gramophone column.89 One such record was ‘Breathing Made Easy’ by Tromp van Diggelen. With claims he could make clients ‘healthier than they had ever been’, van Diggelen’s exercises were similar to those promoted by physical culturists in the pre-war period.90 What differed was the medium. Physical culture radio programmes and records signalled a modernisation of physical culture and ensured that it remained relevant in a new age of consumable technologies. More than that it signalled an opening out of the practice in terms of both resources and knowledge. In previous decades, van Diggelen, whose reputation as a physical culturist in South Africa was beyond reproach, would have remained unknown to Irish consumers.91 By 1928, they could participate in his exercises at a moment’s notice.92 Discourses in recreational physical culture, at least in the Free State, suggested that physical culture was struggling and, more pressingly, that generations were now physically degenerating. While physical culture may have lagged 86  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, p.  246; Patrick P.  Guthrie, The GAA and Radio Éireann, 1926–2010: The Story of the Commentators who Broadcast Gaelic Games (Dublin, 2013). 87  Gearoid Ó hAllmhurain, O’Brien Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music (Dublin, 1998), pp. 123–126. 88  Irish Examiner, 4 Jun., 1920. 89  The Irish Times, 20 Sept., 1928. 90  Tromp Von Diggelen, ‘Breathing Made Easy’ (British Library, London, 1CS0026311). 91  Tromp Van Diggelen, Worthwhile Journey: The Autobiography of Tromp van Diggelen (London, 1955), pp. 1–10. 92  William Ward Johnson, The Gramophone in Education: An Introduction to its Use in School and in the Home (London, 1936), pp. 3–8.

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at the beginning of the decade, the situation had begun to rectify itself through the reopening of gymnasiums, continuation of public shows and emergence of new technologies. In Northern Ireland, concerns that physical culture was being neglected were given far less expression as exercisers had greater access to physical culture media and equipment. Partition’s impact was softest when it came to recreational physical culture but differences still arose at both the conversational and experiential level. This continued in the following decade.

‘Physical Culture Is Worthy, One Feels, of More Attention…’: Rebuilding the Nation in 1930s Ireland In 1933, a GAA annual featured an image of Eugen Sandow pressing a horse overhead.93 Used to promote Murphy’s Stout, Sandow’s image spoke of physical culture’s continued presence in Ireland. The image had first been used in the late 1890s in the aftermath of Sandow’s brief time in Cork. Its reappearance highlighted the fact that, despite the great changes facing Irish physical culture in the 1930s, continuities from previous ages existed. If the 1920s was a time of re-establishing recreational physical culture, the following decade was about harnessing its potential. The clearest continuity from the 1920s, and before, was found in the body types, and gender identities, promoted by physical culturists. For men in particular, muscular and strong physiques continued to be promoted as the ideal form albeit against the backdrop of a society grappling with issues of eugenics and sexuality. Media discourses regularly cited the dangers of modernity for male bodies, a situation rectifiable through physical strengthening. This was made clear by Reverend Meagher in Tipperary, whose promotion of physical culture in 1931 was accompanied with claims that the physically unfit were ‘misfits’ and that ill health was ‘a menace’.94 Likewise, reports on drill noted its impact on ‘weedy townsmen’ bereft of muscle.95 Mayo’s Western People bluntly concluded one article with the assertion that ‘the race today is degenerate’.96

 The Gaelic Athletic Annual, 1932–33 (Dublin, 1933), frontispiece.  Irish Independent, 25 Feb., 1931. 95  The Irish Times, 30 Aug., 1930. 96  Western People, 17 Oct., 1931. 93 94

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The Irish Times’ medical correspondent, ‘Physician’, reminded readers that the present age demanded strength and health.97 Part of this interest in men’s physiques was drawn from continental developments like the well-publicised fitness campaigns found in Europe.98 A letter from ‘E.B.S.’ to the Evening Herald in 1931 stating that Ireland needed to emulate Germany’s interest in the ‘proper development of the body’ was testament to this.99 Writers in Ireland were not unique in looking to Germany, or Italy, for inspiration.100 What fuelled these interests were geopolitical concerns and political grievances. That the Free State had no pretensions to economic or political parity with Nazi Germany did not stop similar comparisons. For men seeking to reverse the ravages of modernity, physical culturists appeared to offer a solution. Whereas previously consumers turned to Eugen Sandow, those in the 1930s had Harry Broom or Lionel Strongfort as role models. Both men, and this signalled a definitive break with previous decades, overtly discussed sex and sexuality in advertisements. Here one finds an evolution in messages and communities from those who alluded to sexuality using words like ‘vim’ or ‘vigour’ to outright claims that women were attracted to muscular physiques. Said to operate a successful mail-order course, Broom likewise utilised muscular physiques to entice consumers. One such advertisement, produced for the Irish Independent, promised readers a ‘magnificent physique’ comprising ‘big bulging muscles’ and ‘robust health, strength and stamina’.101 Broom’s hyperbole was echoed by Strongfort, a German-born physical culturist. His advertisements told Irishmen that ‘women judge you by your appearance, your health, your bodily and mental powers’ (Fig. 5.1).102 Diarmaid Ferriter previously noted the influence Anglo-American culture had over Irish society in the 1930s.103 That Strongfort’s correspondence courses

 Weekly Irish Times, 1 Jul., 1939.  Alessio Ponzio, Shaping the New Man: Youth Training Regimes in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (Wisconsin, 2015), pp. 1–25. 99  Evening Herald, 27 Nov., 1931. 100  Daphné Bolz, ‘Reversing the Influence: Anglo-German Relations and British Fitness Policies in the 1930s’, Sport in History, 34, no. 4 (2014), pp. 569–594. 101  Irish Independent, 16 Jul., 1938. 102  Irish Independent, 28 Jun., 1933. 103  Diarmaid Ferriter, The Transformation of Ireland, 1900–2000 (London, 2004), p. 360. 97 98

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Fig. 5.1  1938 Broom Advertisement. (Lionel Strongfort Institute, Lionel Strongfort Course, 1931)

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published in New Jersey 1930s included a pleased client from Westport in Co. Mayo highlighted his influence.104 Those writing to British physical culture journals, which in the 1930s offered far more equality between Free State and Northern Irish submissions, often reiterated these strict gender ideals. Health and Strength continued to attract Irishmen, especially in matters of weightlifting but Superman magazine proved equally informative.105 Later understood by Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska as a pseudo-fascist periodical, Superman welcomed sporadic Irish submissions during this time.106 For J.T. Molloy, it provided a platform to critique male physiques.107 Others, like the Irish émigré wrestler Steve ‘Crusher’ Casey, were praised for the rugged manliness evidenced by his body.108 For men interested in physical culture, the muscular, strong and athletic body remained a coveted ideal. In the newly renamed Ireland/Éire, this interest reached its zenith in 1939 through a public ‘Keep Fit Crusade’, the committee for which planned a ‘Dublin’s Perfect Man’ competition.109 Little information on the committee remains, save a newspaper article which cited a Sean Collins as the group’s organiser. It appears that the group, which disappeared quickly from public life following a series of organising mishaps, were motivated by a broader eugenic interest in finding perfect body types.110 Advertised over several weeks, the Committee declared itself uninterested in finding the next ‘Adonis’, as the winner would be judged on the ‘many aspects of manhood’ needed ‘to make perfect specimen’.111 Despite the organisers’ public promotions in Irish newspapers, the qualifying rounds and final were postponed on several occasions, with little reason given. A hastily reorganised final was announced, and an absence of subsequent reports suggests it was ill attended.112 Regardless of the outcome, the event’s existence spoke of an Irish interest in perfect forms of masculinity. It also  Lionel Strongfort Institute, Lionel Strongfort Course (New Jersey, 1931), p. 2.  ‘Plain Talks’, Health and Strength, 24 December (1938), pp. 997–998. 106  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain 1880–1939 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 208–210. 107  John T. Molloy, ‘Finest Paper of its Kind’, The Superman, 2, no. 6 (1932), p. 44. 108  H. Harvey Day, ‘Meet Steve ‘Crusher’ Casey’, The Superman, 5 (1939), pp. 116–117 and 123. 109  Irish Press, 20 Jan., 1939; Evening Herald, 26 Jan., 1939; Irish Independent, 4 Feb., 1939. 110  The Irish Times, 19 Jan., 1939. 111  Irish Press, 20 Jan., 1939. 112  Irish Independent, 4 Feb., 1939. 104 105

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highlighted the vibrancy of masculine communities operating in Irish physical culture. In Northern Ireland, discourses applied to male bodies echoed those found in the Free State with one noticeable difference. Northern Irish physical culturists often reiterated distinctly British fears surrounding fascism in far greater terms. This is no real surprise, especially given the influence of the British Union of Fascists in Northern Ireland in the interwar period.113 Concerns surrounding the population’s health in England intensified in the early 1930s and trickled into Northern Ireland through formal, and informal, means.114 The rise of Italian and, later, German fascist governments was accompanied by state-endorsed forms of physical culture.115 For international spectators, the efficacy of fascist training systems was evidenced in mass gymnastics displays, sporting victories and films showcasing strong and vibrant citizens.116 Seeking to mimic fascist nations, while retaining a sense that citizens would not be forced to exercise, calls were made for a British fitness campaign among politicians, sportsmen and physicians.117 The move toward state involvement in Britain more broadly influenced Northern Irish debates. As part of a health lecture at a Ballymena physical culture display in 1938, Dr. Armstrong cited the poor physical condition of men and, in particular, ‘over educated’ children. The doctor also told spectators that Northern Ireland was ‘ludicrously’ behind Britain when it came to fitness.118 Based on his belief in a Greco-Roman past in which men were physically strong, Armstrong criticised his generation’s disinterest in physical culture.119 Armstrong was not alone in such thinking. In an article for the Belfast Newsletter, Mary Gordan expressed her amazement at the region’s lethargy, especially during summer months when ‘people seem at 113  James Loughlin, ‘Northern Ireland and British fascism in the inter-war years’, Irish Historical Studies, 29, no. 116 (1995), pp. 537–552. 114  Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern, pp. 10–15. 115  Gigliola Gori, ‘Model of Masculinity: Mussolini, The ‘New Italian ‘of the Fascist Era’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 16, no. 4 (1999), pp. 27–61; Arnd Krüger, Fabian Krüger, and Sybille Treptau, ‘Nudism in Nazi Germany: Indecent Behaviour or Physical Culture for the Well-Being of the Nation’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 19, no. 4 (2002), pp. 33–54. 116  Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body, 45–88. 117  Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern, pp. 35–50. 118  Ballymena Observer, 27 May, 1938. 119  Ibid.

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a loss just what to do to get the best out of the sunny days’.120 Other columns accused citizens of making excuses for not exercising.121 An anonymous Derry Journal article published in 1936 proved boldest in proclaiming that the present generation’s weakness was ‘exemplified in bone and sinew of the youth of the nation’.122 In this vein, the contributor linked physical training to national spirit. Under such discourses the trained body was patriotic or, at the very least, not degenerate. Commentators in Northern Ireland and the Free State presented the idea that men needed to be physically strong, but reasons differed. In the Free State, discourses were linked to masculinity, whereas Northern Irishmen’s health was routinely cast in terms of state prosperity. While Aidan Beatty was correct in highlighting linkages between the Free State and Irish masculinity during this time, those identities fostered away from overt political or nationalist messages were equally important, and, arguably, more appealing.123 Northern Irishmen also differed from their Free State counterparts by virtue of their regular contributions to British physical culture magazines like Health & Strength or Superman. The former displayed some equality between the  Free State and Northern Ireland, but Superman primarily welcomed those from Northern Ireland. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, but perhaps the overtly sexualised nature of articles in Superman prevented its sale in the Free State. Whatever the reason it meant that the kind of discourses, information and communities, available to men on each side of the political border differed. The impact of this should not be underestimated, especially given Ina Zweiniger-­ Bargielowska’s depiction of Superman as a proto-fascist journal.124 On this point it is notable that one of the few Free State contributors was Irish athlete Bob Tisdall, who wrote on the benefits of nudism, accompanied by his own revealing images.125 That no Free State newspaper commented on Tisdall’s nudism perhaps highlights the periodical’s limited reach or taboo nature. No such issues affected its popularity in Northern Ireland.  Belfast Newsletter, 12 Jul., 1937.  Belfast Newsletter, 24 Jan., 1935. 122  Derry Journal, 16 Dec., 1936. 123  Aidan Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884–1938 (London, 2016), pp. 190–205. 124  Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body, p. 208. 125  Neville Buckley, ‘Science of Nakedness: Nudist or Sunbather?’ The Superman, 3, no. 5 (1933), pp. 21–22. 120 121

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Self-­proclaimed ‘Paladins’, a name given to readers who championed good health, wrote to Superman of their love for the magazine, a desire to meet others and an appreciation of muscularity.126 When reflecting on their physiques, readers, like twenty-one-year-old Herbert Thompson from Belfast, proved acutely aware of their own perceived shortcomings. In his admission that ‘almost every boy desires to be strong’, Thompson vowed to train until his ‘physique is one of which I may be proud’.127 For women in both states, a new form of female vibrancy and body type emerged, contrasted with previous decades and ideas about the female form.128 Physical culture for women had previously been predicated largely on ideas of domesticity and delicacy, but the 1930s witnessed a celebration of female beauty in the public sphere. Male physical culturists largely exhibited the same understandings surrounding the ideal male form and its meanings. Women interested in physical culture combined traditional ideas with newer meanings, which linked the body to female empowerment.129 The most obvious example of this was the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, an organisation which originated in London in 1930 and came to Ireland that same year. Other organisations and individuals supported the concept of a strong, working woman with a keen interest in health, but the League proved the most popular outlet. Cognisant of the League’s importance, it will be fully explored in the next section. Gender identities, at least for men, were not the only areas of continuity when it came to physical culture. Also relevant were the mediums through which physical culture was consumed, implemented or demonstrated. The 1920s saw tentative radio broadcasts emerge. These programmes grew in popularity from 1930. In 1937, Captain John F.  Lucy, whose wartime training was discussed previously, began hosting a series of morning classes through Radio Athlone.130 Lucy’s 6.25 am broadcasts came two years after Lieutenant Tichy’s series of popular talks on Sokol physical culture, discussed in the next Chapter.131 The emergence of this kind of programming 126  G.A. MacCord, ‘Our Controversial Subjects: An Irishman’s Opinion’, The Superman, 4 (1933), p. 42. 127  Herbert Thompson, ‘My Part in the National Fitness Campaign’, The Superman, 10 (1938), p. 272. 128  Charlotte Macdonald, ‘Body and Self: Learning to be Modern in 1920s–1930s Britain’, Women’s History Review, 22, no. 2 (2013), pp. 267–279. 129  Macdonald, ‘Body and Self’. 130  The Irish Times, 16 Jan., 1937. 131  The Irish Times, 5 Dec., 1935.

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was aided by the popularity of radios in Ireland at this time. Terence Brown found that the number of radio licences held in Ireland rose from 50,500 in 1935 to 100,000 in 1937.132 Whether or not Lucy had captive listeners, he had a potentially larger audience. In one of his first broadcasts, Lucy began by noting Ireland’s previous reputation as people of ‘good stock and physique’, before claiming: We neglect physical culture more than any other nation. There has been no great national drive to preserve it…. This is an incalculable loss to our country.133

Lucy’s shows, and a subsequent monograph, presented followers with two messages. First that individual and state health were linked and second that training could be fun. In dealing with the former, Lucy categorically stated that ‘the nation that is physically fit is … successful’.134 On this point, he cited Germany as inspiration. It was, for Lucy, a country where ‘physical culture was fostered under the most difficult of circumstances’.135 Lucy’s admiration for Nazi Germany, in matters of fitness, was by no means unique but it was telling of the kinds of areas people sought inspiration from. Also illustrative were Lucy’s remarks on suitable physical culture for Irishmen and women. Despite his military background, Lucy did not advocate ‘physical jerks’ as the ‘very name of physical jerks sounds poisonous in many ears’.136 Instead Lucy stressed fun and gentleness in his broadcasts, something he believed distinguished him from ‘strong man physical culture systems’.137 His intention was ‘not to build up bodies and make Sandows of people, but to tone their bodies’, a statement which revealed the diversity, and perceived necessity, of Irish physical culture at this time.138

132  Terence Brown, Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1922–2002 (London, 2004), p. 141. 133  Captain John F. Lucy, Keep Fit & Cheerful for Young and Old of Both Sexes Including Ten Broadcast Talks on the Conscious Control of Physical Fitness (London, 1937), p. 9. 134  Ibid. 135  Ibid., p. 79. 136  Ibid., p. 11. 137  Ibid., p. 53. 138  Ibid., p. 11.

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In Northern Ireland, where access to Lucy was possible, the situation was much the same.139 The BBC began a ‘physical jerks’ programme in 1926. By the 1930s, those with access to radios could choose from the BBC, Radio Athlone and National Radio for exercise classes. The BBC, like Radio Athlone, was the most regular contributor of physical culture programming and, in line with the British government’s concern with national health, attempted several fitness programmes during this period.140 In 1939 a physical jerks programme for men over forty was created alongside one for women and another for men under the age of thirty.141 Like Lucy’s shows, emphasis was placed on fun exercises that could be incorporated with ease and stressed the need to open up physical culture for the masses.142 In this way, the two states featured programmes that depicted physical culture as something fun, healthy and beneficial. It was, importantly, also deemed necessary for those in their mid-life. That the messages were adapted from strain and muscularity to health and fun pointed to the variety of communities found in the sphere of health and exercise. That physical culture also benefitted the state was often presented as a happy, but nonetheless important, afterthought. The places, competitions and displays used to promote physical culture were also similar to previous decades. In terms of physical space, numerous Irish physical culture groups dated their origins to previous decades. In Northern Ireland, religious organisations, like the YMCA, continued to hold importance.143 In the Free State, late nineteenth-century organisations, like the Dublin Physical Culture Society or Ling Gymnasium, remained relevant. Outside of Dublin, older gymnasiums could be found in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Kildare, among other counties.144 State programming on Radio Athlone or the BBC was directed at home exercisers, but many continued exercising in gymnasiums. This continuity was echoed in the popular domain of physical culture, which had long centred on drill and weightlifting displays. Weightlifting emerged as a competitive  Derry Journal, 15 Jan., 1937.  Belfast Newsletter, 12 Jul., 1932. 141  Larne Times, 19 Sept., 1936. 142  Belfast Newsletter, 9 Feb., 1937. 143  ‘Shankill Road YMCA Club, National Council of YMCA’s Inc. Annual Survey of Local Activities 1931’; ‘City of Belfast, 12 Wellington Place, YMCA Club, National Council of YMCA’s Inc. Annual Survey of Local Activities 1931’ (PRONI, D3788/2/1). 144  Irish Examiner, 2 Jun., 1930; Meath Chronicle, 10 Oct., 1931; Kerryman, 2 Dec., 1933; Kildare Observer, 29 Dec., 1934; Meath Chronicle, 11 Apr., 1936. 139 140

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sport in Northern Ireland during the 1920s, and its popularity grew during the following decade. Contributors to Health and Strength attested to weightlifting’s popularity in the state.145 Likewise, coverage on Northern Irish weightlifting in Health and Strength was generally praiseworthy, citing, in particular the sport’s growth in a short period.146 In Ireland, weightlifting found a home in Dublin’s Hercules gymnasium, established in 1935.147 Continuities in Irish physical culture existed, but changes arose in its emphasis. First, it is clear that fascism’s rise in mainland Europe impacted discourses in Ireland both sides of the border. From 1931 contributors to newspapers, from anonymous contributors like ‘E.B.S.’, to influential athletic authorities, promoted German body cultures.148 E.B.S. highlighted Eoin O’Duffy’s high estimation of fascist physical culture and indeed, many expressed personal endorsements for fascist exercise programmes.149 In 1936, The Irish Times endorsed the ‘Reich Physical Culture League in Germany’, while simultaneously citing a lethargy in Irish physical culture.150 Prior to the Second World War, the same newspaper spoke of the ubiquity of healthy bodies found in Italy and Germany, using them as a counterpoint to the perceived failures of the Irish case.151 Just as Sandow and others helped bring European conceptions of physical culture to Ireland, so did the fascist regimes in the 1930s. At other points, attention was reserved for the United States, whom an unnamed Irish Times correspondent believed was successfully mimicking fascist physical culture systems.152 What differentiated understandings of fascist physical culture in the Free State from those found in Northern Ireland was the former’s appreciation, rather than fear, of state fitness programmes. In Northern Ireland, similar discourses were found. As explained by Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, fascist physical culture was regularly discussed in Britain at this time as commentators feared Britain was lagging physically

 ‘Weight Lifting in Ireland’, Health and Strength, 2 January (1937), p. 27.  ‘Ulster Weight Lifting Championships’, Health and Strength, 6 March (1937), p. 354. 147  ‘Hercules Amateur Wrestling and P.C. Club, Dublin’, Health and Strength, 27 February (1937), pp. 317 and 322: Sunday Independent, 3 Apr., 1938; Irish Press, 1 Apr., 1939. 148  Evening Herald, 27 Nov., 1931. 149  Maurice Manning, The Blueshirts (Dublin, 2006). 150  The Irish Times, 2 Dec., 1936. 151  The Irish Times, 13 Jun., 1939. 152  The Irish Times, 1 Feb., 1933. 145 146

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behind continental counterparts.153 Driven partly by a desire to prepare the nation for conflict, public commentators began encouraging and espousing fascist body ideologies. For Northern Irish physical culturists, such rhetoric was found in newspapers like the Northern Whig, Belfast Telegraph and Ballymena Observer.154 Likewise, contributors to Superman often endorsed fascist body cultures and messages.155 Outside of periodicals, short-lived Ulster fascist movements endorsed fascist-style exercise programmes and briefly trialled them in public.156 In a different, but still militaristic, vein, Major Henderson told the Belfast Scout Council in 1936 of his admiration for European physical culture, commenting that ‘in Germany, Italy and other countries, a perfect system’ of youth physical training existed which he longed to see come to Northern Ireland.157 Some found a sternness in German physical culture, one devoid of play.158 Many, however, cited their desire to see similar efforts in Ireland. Further illustrating the multiplicity of messages and communities found in Irish physical culture was the rise of communal gymnasiums in poorer, often working-class areas.159 In Northern Ireland, this took the form of Health and Strength affiliated gymnasiums. In club listings for 1939, the magazine cited clubs in Ballymena, Belfast, Ballymoney and Derry.160 As per the magazine’s broader aspirations, these clubs were run co-­operatively, priced competitively and emphasised community over commercialism.161 This latter point related to the magazine’s Health and Strength League, a nebulous transnational community recognisable by its badge and pseudo-­ religious creed linking strength to spirituality. Founded first in 1906, the

 Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body, pp. 87–124.  Northern Whig, 18 Nov., 1933. 155  Joseph Wilson, ‘Features I should Like to See in Superman’, The Superman, 9, no. 4 (1939), p.  102; F.  Urquhart, ‘My Favourite Exercise and Why’, The Superman, 9, no. 8 (1939), p. 218. 156  James Loughlin, ‘Northern Ireland and British Fascism in the Inter-War Years’, Irish Historical Studies, 29, no. 116 (1995), pp. 537–552; Belfast Newsletter, 20 Dec., 1930. 157  Belfast Newsletter, 2 Dec., 1936. 158  MacDonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern, pp. 170–175. 159  Brian Girvin, ‘Industrialisation and the Irish Working Class Since 1922’, Saothar, 10 (1984), pp. 31–42. 160  Health and Strength Annual 1939 (London, 1939), pp. 211–212. 161  Ibid., Melanie Tebbutt, Being Boys: Youth, Leisure and Identity in the Inter-War Years (Manchester, 2012), pp. 109–111. 153 154

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League was revived during the interwar period to great effect.162 The gymnasiums, secular in theory but perhaps not in location, offered predominantly working-class men the opportunity to socialise, compete and congregate. The gymnasium’s organisational and class structure marked a change in Irish physical culture more generally whereby private gymnasiums were no longer predominantly middle classes.163 Few records on Northern Irish Health and Strength clubs exist, but a Free State example, Dublin’s Hercules gymnasium, provides an insight into these institutions’ broader importance. Founded by George Dale, an English bantamweight wrestler, in 1935, Hercules was the first in a line of working-class co-operative gymnasiums in the Free State.164 Small in numbers and facilities, the club benefitted from word-of-mouth recommendations in the local area. One member, Eddie O’Regan, recounted his first experience entering the club in 1937; I joined the club … and came three nights a week to work out …. The premises were primitive … but what it lacked in fittings it made up in enthusiasm, particularly among the few devoted founder-members who had built the whole thing themselves from nothing … Considering most of them were unemployed … it was a remarkable achievement.165

From club records, it appears that Dale’s original intention was to discourage juvenile delinquency through weightlifting.166 The gymnasium was run not as an entrepreneurial endeavour, as was the case with the Dublin Physical Culture Society, but rather as a cooperative. This meant that each member, on paying their annual fees of two shillings sixpence, owned a share in the club, had the opportunity to join the club’s board and vote in annual meetings.167 Due to ad-hoc record keeping, it is impossible to state how many members joined in its early years. What is clear however is that 162  Neil Carter, Medicine, Sport and the Body: A Historical Perspective (London, 2012), p. 109. 163  Stephen G. Jones, Sport, Politics and the Working Class: Organised Labour and Sport in Inter-war Britain (Manchester, 1988), p. 112. 164  Eddie O’Regan, ‘Reminisces’ (Hercules Gymnasium, Lurgan Street Dublin, Private Records). On Hercules’ early years see Sunday Independent, 3 Apr., 1938; Irish Press, 1 Apr., 1939; ‘Clubs in Eire’, Health and Strength, 73, no. 28 (1944), p. 33. 165  O’Regan, ‘Reminisces’. 166  Jimmy Jennings, ‘Writings on Hercules, 2012’ (Hercules Gymnasium, Private Records). 167  Health and Strength Annual 1939, p. 212.

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by 1939, Hercules had enough members to stage wrestling and weightlifting exhibitions, enter men in competitions and gain nationwide media attention.168 Whether or not the club attempted to honour Dale’s goal of discouraging delinquency, the club quickly became associated with strength and athleticism. In Health and Strength, being a Hercules member, was taken to mean being a physically strong man.169 O’Regan’s experience in 1937 spoke to the club’s working-class connections. He was quick to note, however, that over time membership expanded to include both those in trades and the professional classes.170 Hercules represented a communal site for men to build, and compare, their strength. It was an individual interest in physical culture reminiscent of the early 1900s. By 1939 Hercules was hosting its own weightlifting and wrestling competitions for the public.171 Its foundation and demographic marked an interesting shift in Irish physical culture. Whereas the physical culture promoted by Sandow and many of his successors focused primarily on the middle classes, Hercules began as a working-class institution.172 Both promoted physical culture but operated in different ways, and with different consequences. In pioneering this style of club Dale inadvertently encouraged others as evidenced by the emergence of similar clubs in the Free State during the 1940s.173 These clubs, roughly ten in number, tended to congregate in areas like Dublin and, much later, Cork and Waterford. They represented physical culture’s growing democratisation in Ireland.174 Whereas Hercules marked the continuation of individual physical culture, the 1930s also saw direct state intervention in matters of exercise. Northern Irish and Free State governments displayed much interest in physical culture, albeit with some contradictions. In the Free State a definitive form of physical culture was simultaneously censored and encouraged. After a 1929 Censorship of Publications Act, publications deemed subversive, based upon their sexual, social or political mores, were banned

 Sunday Independent 3 Apr., 1938; Irish Press, 29 Mar., 1940.  See ‘Hercules’, Health and Strength, 27 February (1937), pp. 317–322. 170  O’Regan, ‘Reminisces’. 171  Irish Press, 1 Apr., 1939. 172  Budd, The Sculpture Machine, p. 118. 173  ‘Clubs in Eire’, Health and Strength, p. 33; ‘Irish Amateur Lifers’, Health and Strength, 74, no. 51 (1945), p. 455. 174  Irish Press, 1 Dec., 1949. 168 169

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in the Free State.175 Due to the perceived lurid nature of physique magazines, a large collection of physical culture periodicals, including Health and Strength, were banned from Irish circulation in the early 1930s.176 Censorship could be circumvented, as evidenced by Hercules’ Health and Strength affiliation and O’Regan’s testimony that such magazines circulated the gymnasium, but it likely encouraged the disparity between Northern Irish and Free State correspondents to such periodicals.177 For acceptable forms of physical culture, the Free State government expressed far greater interest than previous years, although support was often ideological. In 1939, a government committee published the Report of the Committee Appointed by the Government to Examine the Question of the Promotion of the Revival of Athletics.178 Done alongside an enquiry into physical education, the report was later described as an attempt ‘to produce a healthy physique in the youth by means of physical culture’.179 As ambitious as its physical education counterpart, it supported the expansion of playgrounds and production of cheap physical training texts.180 Also envisioned were improvements in training courses and the awarding of badges for children’s physical education.181 Through these recommendations, emphasis was placed on Irish identity and prosperity expressed through fitness. Similar to the physical education report, the outbreak of the Second World War arrested its momentum. Shelved for the duration of the war, the report sporadically appeared in inter-departmental memos before being discarded.182 For those desirous of actual change, they would have to wait several decades before serious commitments were made. In Northern Ireland, the 1938 Physical Training and Recreation Act extended to civil society. While Northern Ireland’s Ministry of Education 175  Senia Pašeta, ‘Censorship and its Critics in the Irish Free State 1922–1932’, Past & Present, 181 (2003), pp. 193–218. 176  Irish Censorship Board, Censorship of Publications Acts, 1929 to 1967, Register of Prohibited Publications (Dublin, 1946). Unfortunately, files pertaining to these decisions no longer exist. 177  O’Regan, ‘Reminisces’. 178  Rouse, Sport and Ireland, p. 316. 179  Private Secretary, ‘Economic Planning for Inter-Departmental Report, 15 January, 1944’ (NAI TSCH/3/S11053 A). 180  ‘Inter-Departmental Committee for Promoting the Revival of Athletics and Physical Training, Roinn an Taoisigh 14/12/43’ (NAI, TSCH/3/S11053 A), pp. 1–3. 181  Ibid. 182  Runaí Príobháideach, ‘Letter to Roinn an Taoisigh, 06 December 1943’ (NAI, TSCH/3/S11053 A).

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took on a much greater role than its counterparts in Britain, Canada or New Zealand, a point covered in Chap. 8, money was available for voluntary and sporting organisations.183 This was made clear in the act’s acknowledgement that Stormont would ‘provide for the development of facilities for and the encouragement of, physical training and recreation, and to facilitate the establishment of centres for social activities’.184 A large proportion of this money was sectioned off for the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, but money was given to other groups.185 Over its brief lifespan, the committee entertained requests from a range of groups including the YMCA, the Boy Scout Movement and Ulster Women’s Hockey Union.186 At times, applications were refused, including that from the Hockey Union, but the committee proved willing to grant funding.187 In 1938, Portrush’s City Council received funding for a mass gymnastic display.188 Other grants included money for the Millisle Boys Brigade Camp and funding for a swimming pool in Belfast.189 That the committee proved generous in its allocations and was praised for doing so in the press revealed an optimism regarding this initiative.190 Despite the short-lived success of the National Training and Physical Recreation Act, the Second World War ensured both governments’ attempts to improve the nation’s wellbeing stopped prematurely. The state’s growing involvement and concern with the health of the citizenry spoke of a new turn in Irish physical culture, one that although taking several decades to truly emerge, marked a definitive break with the past. This was not, however, the most definitive break of the decade. That honour undoubtedly went to the Women’s League of Health and Beauty.

 ‘Physical Training and Recreation Bill (Northern Ireland)’ (PRONI, CAB/4/398/20).  Ibid. 185  ‘Minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the Grants Committee held in Tyrone House on Friday, 9th December, 1939’ (PRONI, FIN/18/17/254). 186  Ibid; Adam Scott, ‘YMCA National Office Application to the Grants Committee, 4 November 1938’ (PRONI, FIN/18/17/254). 187  ‘Minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the Grants Committee’. 188  ‘Minutes of the Third Meeting of the Advisory Council held in Tyrone House, Ormeau Avenue, on Thursday the 29th June, 1939’ (PRONI, ED/13/1/1494), p. 1. 189  Ibid., p. 5. 190  Aldermon, ‘Letter Ministry of Finance, 09 September 1939’ (PRONI, FIN/18/17/254, A/865737). 183 184

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‘Movement Is Life’: The Women’s League in Ireland Founded in London in 1930 by Mary Bagot Stack and fifteen other women, the Women’s League of Health and Beauty was one of the most recognisable faces of female exercise during the 1930s.191 By 1939 the organisation boasted over 150,000 members across several states. In providing weekday and weeknight classes in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada and New Zealand, the League was driven by its founders’ vision of ‘racial health’ for women of all ages and demographics.192 Importantly for this book, the League’s founder, Mary Bagot Stack, was born in Dublin in 1883 and regularly promoted her Irish heritage.193 Such was Bagot Stack’s fondness for Ireland, that the League’s first overseas branch was founded in Belfast in 1930, long before the League emerged in Canada, New Zealand or elsewhere. For this reason, Ireland, and in particular Belfast, was praised for its inviting and pioneering spirit.194 When the League came to Belfast in October 1930, exercise classes for women had been running in Ireland since the late nineteenth-century, a point discussed in Chap. 2.195 What is important to reiterate here is the relative unoriginality of female exercise classes during the first three decades of the twentieth-­ century. Where men indulged in military drill, Indian club swinging, weightlifting and a great variety of other exercises, female physical culture tended to be restricted to modified forms of military drill, Ling Gymnastics or light dumbbell work.196 Female physical culture existed, but paled in comparison to the scope, and discourses, applied to male exercise. During the 1920s and 1930s, overt outlets for female physical culture, in the form of periodicals or exclusive gymnasiums, were limited. Though the popularity and engagement with exercise classes increased during the early twentieth-century, the disparity between the sexes remained and, as is often stressed, exercise systems were often a means of reinforcing strict gender hierarchies. As regularly advertised by physical 191  Lynn Ashburner, In a League of Their Own: The Story of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty (Drayton, 2005), p. ix. 192  Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern; Mary Bagot Stack, Building the Body Beautiful (London, 1931), p. 3. 193  Ashburner, In a League of Their Own, p.  7; Mary Bagot Stack, The Romance of the League (London, 1934), pp. 15–20. 194  Bagot Stack, The Romance of the League, pp. 17–20. 195  Budd, The Sculpture Machine, pp. 1–10. 196  Contrast Dublin Daily Express, 14 Dec, 1895 with The Irish Times, 15 Sept, 1893.

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culture experts and public officials, physical culture would imbue men with the discipline, and physique, capable of dominating their sexual, social or business worlds. For women, physical culture was similarly presented as beneficial but for vastly different reasons.197 It was linked to women’s supposed frailty, the need for healthy mothers or breeding strong children.198 While male physical culture aided in challenging the world, female physical culture, it seemed, would help to sustain it. Prior to the League’s arrival, messages relating to female physical culture, as circulated in the media, stressed women’s position in the home, the need for a slender body and woman’s frailty. Articles suggesting housework was the ideal form of physical culture for women could be found in both the 1900s and 1930s.199 Seven months after it was founded in London, the first branch of the Women’s League in Northern Ireland was established.200 Soon conceptions of what physical culture for women meant, and what if offered, changed. Writing in Mother and Daughter, the League’s magazine in 1934, Peggy Matthews, one of the League’s original founding members in 1930, wrote of Eileen MacMurray’s struggles to set up the Belfast branch. Encountering difficulty securing a hall for classes, MacMurray nevertheless managed to sustain the branch long enough for it to flourish.201 Though the Belfast branch did not have its own headquarters until 1935, it boasted 281 members by December 1932 and close to 1000 by the end of 1934.202 Spurred on by this success, a Dublin branch, led by Kathleen O’Rourke, was established in 1934. Trained in London, O’Rourke’s experiences were vastly different from MacMurray, her Belfast counterpart. Unlike the Belfast branch’s disorganised opening, O’Rourke’s introductory class boasted nearly 600 spectators, with over 400 signing up as members.203 Such was the enthusiasm with which the Dublin branch was met that one man was heard correcting his wife in the wake of the 197   Shannon Leigh Walsh, ‘Muscular Maternity: Progressive Era Physical Culture, Biopolitics, and Performance’. (Minnesota, 2011). 198  For earlier discourses see Jan Todd, Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful: Purposive Exercise in the Lives of American Women, 1800–1870 (Macon, 1998). 199  See Chap. 1. 200  ‘Letters from Members’, Mother & Daughter, 2 (1933), p. 33. 201  Ibid. 202  ‘News from the Branches’ Health and Beauty, 1 (1933), p. 41; ‘Belfast’, Mother and Daughter, 6 (1934), p. 14. 203  ‘News from the Centres’, Mother and Daughter, 10 (1934), p. 13.

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branch’s opening that ‘you girls and your Health and Beauty, you talk of nothing but your League!’204 This is not to claim that the League’s creation in Ireland, was unproblematic. From League histories, it appears that the woman chosen to open the Dublin branch, Kathleen O’Rourke, was related to the Catholic cleric, John Charles McQuaid, who became Archbishop of Dublin in 1940.205 An influential voice in Irish political and social life, research on McQuaid’s contribution to female exercise in Ireland has generally focused on his disapproval of mixed athletics in the 1930s.206 Alerted to the League’s opening in Dublin, McQuaid met with O’Rourke on several occasions and discussed changes that would need to be made to make the League amenable to the Free State. McQuaid insisted on changes based on his religious beliefs, specifically those related to female modesty. In the first instance, the League’s traditional logo, which depicted League teacher Peggy St. Lo gracefully leaping through the air, was changed to a simple Dublin logo thought more respectable.207 There is also evidence that the League’s Free State uniforms were changed from the League’s traditional tunic and shorts to include skirts and shorts. As one League member later noted, this sartorial change had little to do with practicality. This point was exhibited when members performed exercises on the floor in which the legs were brought into the air and their skirts turned upside down.208 McQuaid’s personal papers are quiet on this familial connection but League records provide some insight. In a letter to an exasperated O’Rourke in 1934, Mary Bagot Stack told her to ‘change the name’ and ‘do anything’ necessary to bring the League to the Free State.209 The League may have promoted a new vibrancy in female exercise but in the wider society the female body was still an object of great anxiety. In Northern Ireland, the League was likewise subject to suspicions. In November 1930, Andrew Bonaparte Wyse, the undersecretary for the

 Ibid.  Ashburner, In a League of Their Own, pp. 44–45; McCullagh, Isolde’s Way, p. 56. 206  John Cooney, John Charles McQuaid: Ruler of Catholic Ireland (New York, 2000); Ferriter, Occasions of Sin, p.  204. On the latter point see Ó hÓgartaigh, Quiet Revolutionaries, p. 175. 207  Ashburner, In a League of Their Own, pp. 44–45; McCullagh, Isolde’s Way, p. 56. 208  McCullagh, Isolde’s Way, p. 56. 209  Ashburner, In a League of Their Own, pp. 44–45. 204 205

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Ministry of Education, attempted to reject the League’s application for an exemption to the North’s entertainment tax because their displays will apparently consist of a series of physical exercises, including dances and other evolutions by young ladies very scantily attired and will no doubt prove a considerable attraction to many of the unsophisticated inhabitants of Bangor.210

Like McQuaid, he too appeared to fear the League’s potentially provocative nature. One week later, and in the face of the League’s objections, Bonaparte Wyse’s opinion intensified: It is pretty obvious that a demonstration of such training to a mixed audience will have attractions of a sort that by no defensible system of accurate terminology can be described as ‘wholly educational’.211

To combat suspicions, the League’s Northern Irish patron, Oscar Henderson, commented on the League’s healthy depiction of womanhood, its educational function and the seriousness with which it was treated by members and spectators alike.212 When confronted with accusations of being subversive, the League returned to a traditional and unassuming image of womanhood. This was a common tactic used by women’s groups in Ireland at this time to avoid undue stress.213 In this regard then, the League was not unique but it was, undoubtedly, popular. Staring with 16 members in 1930, the League had 47,000 paid members across the world by 1934.214 The Irish branches mimicked, albeit on a smaller scale, this growth. From 1935 to 1939, the Dublin and Belfast branches continued to grow and additional branches were established. It a somewhat obvious, but important fact, that the availability of sporting

210   A.N.  Bonaparte Wyse, ‘Letter to Ainsworth, 22 November, 1930’ (PRONI, FIN/18/10/128). 211  Mr. Wyse, ‘Letter to Mr. Duggan 29 November 1930’ (PRONI, FIN/18/10/128). 212   Oscar Henderson, ‘Letter to Mr. Duggan 1 December 1930’ (PRONI, FIN/18/10/128). 213  Beaumont, ‘Women, Citizenship and Catholicism’; Caitriona Beaumont, ‘Gender, Citizenship and the State, 1922–1990’, in David Alderson, Fiona Becket and Scott Brewster (eds.), Ireland in Proximity: History, Gender and Space (London, 1999), pp. 94–108. 214  Peggy Matthews, ‘The Women’s League of Health and Beauty’, Mothers and Daughter, 11 (1934), p. 2.

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facilities was paramount to an individual’s engagement.215 The emergence of League classes outside of Dublin and Belfast ensured that women in smaller, and often rural, towns could participate in the League. In line with other branches, the Irish branches sought to position themselves as an organisation open to all ages and demographics. In first instance, efforts were made to appeal to the young ‘business girl’, the married housewife and even the active grandmother.216 Prior to this time, female physical culture, and arguably at times male physical culture, was the preserve of the child, the teenager, and the exerciser in their twenties. Targeting housewives and grandmothers marked a distinctly new pathway in Irish physical culture and the creation of a new community dedicated to new brands of femininity through exercise. Revolutionary, in its own way, this revelation was tempered by the fact that messages for women in the League were not adjusted for age. Thus, the ‘slim through’ look much coveted and promoted by League teachers and organised was advertised towards all members regardless of age or circumstance.217 Much like Hercules Gymnasium, class prices for the League were kept artificially low, at a sixpence, so as to encourage participation.218 In Northern Ireland, where the League enjoyed better facilities, the admission price also included access to a local clubhouse where members could socialise.219 The Free State had no clubhouse which meant that teachers were forced to use a variety of venues for classes including, at one point, the iconic Bewley’s Café in Dublin.220 In this way, the League’s status as a charitable organisation rather than a business enterprise was highlighted.221 It should also be stated that although efforts were made to make the League as open as possible, the leaders of the Irish branches came primarily from the middle class. While more work needs to be undertaken on the League’s class composition among regular members in both rural and urban branches, it is likely that they too were predominantly middle class. Such women were targeted in League advertisements and public events, 215  Conor Curran, The Development of Sport in Donegal, 1880–1935: The Development of Gaelic Games in Donegal, 1884–1934 (Cork, 2015). 216  ‘News from the Centres’, Mother and Daughter, 10 (1934), p. 13. 217  ‘News from the Centres’, Mothers and Daughters, no. 10 (1934), p. 13. 218  McCullagh, Isolde’s Way, pp. 53–55. 219  Belfast Newsletter, 30 September (1939), p. 7. 220  Irish Press, 30 Dec., 1939. 221  Mrs. Cruickshank, ‘The League’s New Constitution’, Health and Beauty, 36 (1938), pp. 14–15.

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comprised the League’s teachers, and had the income to purchase additional League ephemera including tunics, badges, pamphlets and magazines. The League’s popularity was not confined, either, to one region. By 1939, the League had branches in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Larne, Dundalk, Ballymena and several other towns.222 Remarkably given the relative distances between them, branches were in almost continual contact with one another. The interaction between League classes in Ireland was unsurpassed in other realms of female physical activity aside, perhaps, from hockey.223 When a Ballymena branch opened in 1937, its introductory class featured a demonstration from Belfast.224 That same year O’Rourke and her Dublin class travelled to Belfast to celebrate the latter’s seventh anniversary.225 They were joined by classes from Portadown and Ballymena.226 In 1939, the Larne branch welcomed public exhibitions of League exercises from Belfast, Ballymena and Dublin branches for its grand opening.227 The willingness to encourage and contribute to one another’s efforts marked an impressive level of co-operation between Irish branches. This co-operation was often found wanting in male organisations as evidenced by a schism within Irish athletics at this time over who controlled the sport.228 The League’s Irish branches also regularly exhibited exercise sequences as one national group called ‘Ireland’, rather than as separate Northern Irish and Free State entities. Owing to the League’s non-­ sectarian identity, the decision to compete as one island and encourage cross-border activities proved unproblematic for those outside the League.229 Indeed it is notable that no politicians or journalists appear to have taken offence on this point. The League was, aside from its initial sartorial choices in the early 1930s, relatively inoffensive to many.

 ‘The Women’s League of Health and Beauty’, Health and Beauty, 39 (1939), p. 2.  John Lucey, ‘Women’s Hockey in Ireland: A Short History’, History Ireland 26, no. 5 (2018), pp. 44–47. 224  ‘Ballymena’, Mother and Daughter, 26 (1937), p. 43. 225  ‘News from Northern Ireland’, Health and Beauty, 30 (1937), p. 34. 226  Ibid. 227  ‘Larne’, Health and Beauty, 39 (1939), p. 30. 228  P. Griffin, The Politics of Irish Athletics, 1850–1990, (Ballinamore: Marathon, 1990). 229  Cormac Moore, The Irish Soccer Split (Cork: Cork University, 2015), demonstrates how problematic representation could be. 222 223

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From 1930 onwards, the League’s calendar of events centred on an annual display held first in London’s Hyde Park and later in the Royal Albert Hall.230 The demonstration was a celebration of the League’s successes, a renewal of its principles, and an opportunity to congregate. While initial demonstrations were populated by English groups, those in the closing years of the decade welcomed overseas teams, including an all-Irish team. In 1935, Mother and Daughter commented on the excitement surrounding their ‘all Ireland team’ comprising members from Dublin, Dundalk, Portadown, Coleraine and Portrush.231 The unproblematic nature of the united team was illustrative of the League’s effort to promote co-operation and comradery among members, regardless of politics. What factors explain the League’s success in Ireland? From Eilidh Macrae’s pioneering oral history on female exercise across the life-cycle in Scotland, it is clear that the League’s amicable character, its willingness to take members from across the life cycle and its training system attracted members.232 While not representative of every member—she became a League teacher—Isolde McCullagh’s recollections of joining the Dublin branch substantiate Macrae’s findings. Brought to class by her mother in 1937, McCullagh recalled an almost immediate appreciation of the League’s system. Having previously played hockey and engaged in competitive swimming, she relished the opportunity to develop her physique through League exercise classes.233 The League’s magazine, Mother and Daughter, hints at comparable experiences from unnamed members.234 During the 1930s, the magazine routinely featured reports from Irish correspondents noting the attendance of several generations of women from the same family.235 Aside from classes, members were regularly invited to tea mornings, dances, walks and social events. First emerging in Ireland in 1935, the annual League dance became a key fixture in the group’s social calendar. Open to League members, their partners and the public, dances were not characterised by jazz but by Irish jigs, Greek ‘Frieze dances’ and sequence dancing.236 Unlike dance halls in the 1930s which often incurred the ire of clerics, public commentators  Bagot Stack, The Romance of the League, pp. 16–22.  ‘News from Belfast’, Mother and Daughter, 20 (1935), p. 32. 232  Macrae, Exercise in the Female Life-Cycle. 233  McCullagh, Isolde’s Way, pp. 59–66. 234  Ibid., pp. 83–89. 235  The Editor, ‘Personalities: Mrs. King’, Mother and Daughter, 7 (1934), p. 32. 236  ‘Belfast’, Mother and Daughter, 6 (1934), p. 14. 230 231

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and politicians, League dances were rooted in traditional forms of dance, often associated with simpler, less ‘corruptible’ forms of womanhood.237 Further illustrating the League’s respectability in this regard were the venues chosen to hold dances. Whereas dance halls, especially those in rural Ireland, were viewed suspiciously by many officials, the League held its events in well-known hotels and ballrooms. In Dublin, dances were held in the Gresham and Metropole hotels. In Dundalk, they were held in ballrooms. The situation was echoed in Northern Ireland, which likewise saw dances held in plazas or hotels.238 From 1936, dances in Dublin and Belfast regularly recorded participation ranging from 300 to 400 attendees.239 In the wake of the unpublished Carrigan Committee Report of 1931, dance halls were placed under much stricter scrutiny in the Free State.240 This culminated in the passing of the Public Dance Halls Act 1935, which sought to regulate dance halls through the introduction of a licensing system and tax on admission tickets. Previous research has found that the act’s early years saw local district judges, who were bestowed with the licencing power for dance halls, take a hard stance against dances seen as disreputable.241 It was important then for the League to appease district court judges to ensure they gained licences. As early as 1935, the League gained approval from the Dublin District Court to extend its opening hours. From court reports produced in the Irish Press, it appears that the judge was initially sceptical of the League’s application, noting their English origins as a point for concern.242 He was soon convinced to grant the League’s request based on the organisation’s positive influence.243 Such momentum continued until the outbreak of the Second World War, as evidenced by the Dundalk branch’s successful motion to have its dance hours extended to 3 am in 1939.244 Whereas, the League’s cultivation of respectability appears to have been undertaken without an ulterior motive  Maguire, Precarious Childhood, pp. 189–193.  Evening Herald, 8 Dec., 1936; Belfast Newsletter, 25 Nov., 1936. 239  ‘Belfast’, Mother and Daughter, 25 (1937), p. 37. 240  Mark Finnane, ‘The Carrigan Committee of 1930–31 and the ‘Moral Condition of the Saorstát’, Irish Historical Studies, 32, no. 128 (2001), pp. 519–536. 241  Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, ‘Dancing on the Hobs of Hell: Rural Communities in Clare and the Dance Halls Act of 1935’, New Hibernia Review/Iris Éireannach Nua, 9, no. 4 (2005), pp. 9–18. 242  Irish Press, 12 Oct., 1935. 243  Ibid. 244  Irish Press, 7 Apr., 1939; Connacht Tribune, 15 Apr., 1939. 237 238

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it did have its advantages. It is for this reason that League reports on the enthusiasm, spirit and excitement of members in Irish branches were numerous. Connected to the League’s sense of respectability were issues of domesticity. Despite the League’s professed allegiance to the modern woman, the ‘business girl’ or the ‘busy’ woman, it adhered to forms of femininity centred on motherhood and domesticity.245 This was seen in the organisation’s promotion of motherhood above all else, an idea that meshed well with the 1937 Irish constitution, which reserved special mention for woman’s place in the home.246 In the first instance, the League was keen to stress the relationship between its founder and her daughter, Prunella. In popular media and the League’s magazine, the pair were depicted as inseparable partners.247 This theme continued throughout Prunella’s public career as autobiographies in the 1970s and 1990s addressed the strong bond between mother and daughter.248 Attention placed on the mother– daughter relationship was extended to League members. Great praise was given to Mrs. King, a League organiser in Belfast, who brought her daughter and granddaughter to classes. Similar comments were made about an unnamed Dublin family in 1934 which contained three generations of League members.249 In the popular press, the League celebrated the strong bond between mother and daughter, either through discussions of Mary and Prunella or those centred on Irish members.250 For many years, the League’s magazine, read in Ireland, was titled Mother and Daughter or some variation. Even at an implicit level, motherhood, and the domesticity it was routinely presumed to entail, marked the League’s raison d’etre. What distinguished the League from older physical culture groups who focused on motherhood was the insistence on active, vigour and female-­ led exercise. In the Bagot Stacks’ writings, readers were told that the League’s aim was healthy motherhood, that women were ‘race builders’ and that racial 245  ‘The Story of the League’, Health and Beauty, 1 (1933), p. 1; Bagot Stack, Building the Body Beautiful, p. 1. 246  Mary E.  Daly, ‘Women in the Irish Free State, 1922–39: The Interaction Between Economics and Ideology’, Journal of Women’s History, 7, no. 1 (1995), pp. 100–106. 247  ‘News from the Branches’, Health and Beauty Magazine, no. 1 (1933), p. 41. 248  Prunella Stack, Movement Is Life: An Autobiography (London, 1973), pp.  11–18; Prunella Stack, Style for Life (London, 1990), pp. 2–6. 249  ‘News from the Centres’, Mother and Daughter, 10 (1934), p. 13. 250  Sunday Independent, 16 Oct., 1938; Belfast Newsletter, 2 Mar., 1936.

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health began with mothers.251 Such discourses extended into Ireland as attested by the repeated reference to racial health in advertisements for classes.252 Concerns about eugenics and racial health were not, then, confined to male physical culture. As part of a public demonstration in Dublin in 1935, Mrs. Cruickshank told audiences that the League ‘assisted healthy motherhood’.253 Although the League was aimed at ‘young moderns’, it saw motherhood as woman’s natural purpose. This, especially in Ireland, was not a new phenomenon as many organisations co-opted ideas of motherhood to push for greater social and political freedoms.254 Few displayed the dual role between modern and traditional as intensely as the League. At a time in Ireland when women in the civil service were prevented from continuing work after marriage and an unmarried mother was often an object of scorn, the promotion of motherhood was implicitly a promotion of woman’s place in the home. Northern Ireland was less stringent, at least in terms of law-making, but the situation was much the same.255 While the League’s adherence to ideals of motherhood could prove empowering for some members, it signalled a comfort with potentially limiting visions of womanhood.256 Couched within this dichotomy was the novelty of the League’s training system. Irishwomen’s training systems were previously based on exercises designed for men and adapted, oftentimes poorly, for women. Contrasting this was the League’s system which combined dance, yoga, postural etiquette and drill. In hour-long classes, members performed exercises to music provided by an accompanying pianist with a special emphasis on the development of stomach muscles as both an aesthetic consideration of one’s silhouette and a recognition that strong pelvic muscles could ease the ordeal of childbirth.257 At the core of the League’s system was the founder’s insistence on the body’s ‘natural corset’—the abdomen.258  Bagot Stack, Building the Body Beautiful, p. 3.  Evening Herald, 15 Jun., 1936; Northern Whig, 21 Jan., 1932. 253  The Irish Times, 14 May, 1936. 254  L. Earner-Byrne, ‘Aphrodite Rising from the Waves? Women’s Voluntary Activism and the Women’s Movement in Twentieth century Ireland’, in E.  Breitenbach and P.  Thane (eds.), Women and Citizenship in Britain and Ireland in the Twentieth Century: What Difference Did the Vote Make? (London, 2010), p. 95. 255  Caitriona Clear, Women of the House: Women’s Household Work in Ireland, 1926–1961: Discourses, Experiences, Memories (Dublin, 2000), pp. 27–42. 256  Macrae, Exercise in the Female Life-Cycle. 257  Prunella Stack, The Way to Health and Beauty (London, 1938), pp. 5–8. 258  Ibid. 251 252

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Writing in 1938, Bagot Stack’s daughter, Prunella, argued that unlike other training systems, the League provided a ‘woman’s system of exercises whose aim is healthy motherhood’.259 Done diligently, the exercises allowed members to ‘become an embodiment of the highest meaning of that magical word—beauty’. Exercises focused on abdominal breathing, which Patricia Vertinsky noted were adapted from yoga, and combined with callisthenics designed to produce the ‘slim through look’ necessary for vibrant womanhood.260 Importantly, attention was given to parts of the female body such as the feet or the buttocks often overlooked in other exercise systems. The female body was publicly celebrated by the League, a point emphasised by their uniform. Whereas previously women wore gymnastic dresses covering the body, the League preferred a simple uniform consisting of black shorts and a white sleeveless tunic.261 While the exposure of the body in a much greater way incurred criticisms in Ireland, McQuaid included, the uniform was a sartorial symbol of the League’s commitment to the female form. The uniform and exercises were combined with that sense of whimsy and fun noted in J.J. Matthews’ 1990 study of the League.262 For instance, floor exercises which required members to lay on their stomachs and curl the back upwards were nicknamed the ‘seal’. Abdominal exercises were called the ‘wiggle waggle’ and warm up exercises began with a short jig.263 In 1935, several women and doctors attending a free class organised by the Dublin branch were asked their view on these kinds of exercises. Their responses, published in Mother and Daughter magazine, stressed the novelty of the League’s classes. Margaret Merrick, for instance, had nothing but praise to give your demonstration. Mrs. Cruickshank was a most effect and disarming speaker and the demonstration of the exercises very attractive.264

And Joseph Bigger, a doctor, said that he was

 Ibid., preface.  Bagot Stack, Building the Body Beautiful, p. 12. 261  Dublin Daily Express, 14 May, (1909), p. 2. 262  Matthews, ‘They Had Such a Lot of Fun’, p. 29. 263  Stack, The Way to Health and Beauty, pp. 16–28. 264  ‘Dublin’, Mother and Daughter, 17 (1935), p. 46. 259 260

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very much interested in the address and in the demonstration of the Bagot Stack System. In my opinion the system is well thought out and cannot fail to be beneficial to those following it. I particularly liked the freedom of the movements, the absence of fixation of the lungs of respiration, which was a feature of many of the old forms of exercises.265

Such comments were largely echoed by the press. In the Free State, the League’s popularity was demonstrated by reports of oversubscribed classes, engaging lessons and a vibrant social life. In Northern Ireland, reporters proved eager to praise the beauty, poise and grace of the League. It was no surprise that by 1939, the League was one of, if not the most, popular forms of female exercise in Ireland. More important was that the League provided a new and popular image for female physical activity. Where the muscular male body had long been celebrated, the athletic female form was routinely depicted as subversive if at all. The League helped, in some way, to challenge prejudice and opened a new space for female physical culture.

 Ibid.

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CHAPTER 6

‘Embracing the Whole Gambit of Physical Exercise’: Interwar Military Physical Culture

‘After every period of excitement, there is reaction.’ So declared the Sligo Champion on September 29, 1923.1 The previous five years had seen a War of Independence, and subsequent Civil War, ravage the country, disrupt education, close down businesses and, at times, encourage internecine killings. When the Irish Civil War ended in 1923, plans emerged to reduce the militarism which someway dominated life. Gone were the gunman, and in their place the farmer, mother or office worker. That, at least, was the rhetoric from some in Ireland at this time. ‘After every period of excitement, there is reaction’, the journalist’s words acted as an observation of the past and a desire for the future. If, and when, peace returned, the role of the military would be reduced. This proved to be the case during the 1920s when both the Free State and the Northern Irish government began reducing the size, and importance, of their armies. Formerly a valued part of Irish political, social and recreational life, the military’s public value began to diminish, however slightly. In their place rose the Garda Síochána in the Free State, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland. At least in matters of physical culture, and sport, it was the police force, rather than the military, which held influence over the wider body politic in the initial years following war. By the 1930s, military physical culture was once more an important topic for a Free State which vacillated between commitments to 1

 Sligo Champion, Sept. 29, 1923.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_6

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international cooperation and geopolitical ambivalence. Driven by a desire to emulate the strict military regimes found in fascist Italy and Germany, the Free State began to devote time, attention, and energy towards its military physical culture. It was during the 1930s that the Free State evaluated, and adopted, a European system of physical culture to replace a system which dated to the British reforms of the 1900s. Deciding on the Sokol system from Czecho-Slovakia, the Free State’s military, and its citizenry, became alive to the possibilities offered by military physical culture. First adopted in 1934, Sokol became a cultural phenomenon encompassing public displays, radio broadcasts, books, pamphlets and political speeches. It’s implementation, and celebration, stood in stark contrast to the previous decade. In Northern Ireland changes too were afoot. Where the Free State began taking military training seriously in the 1930s due, in part, to an admiration of fascist physical culture, Northern Ireland’s fear of fascist physical culture drove new changes in military training. Unlike the Free State, Northern Ireland’s training focused on preparing male troops for battle. Military training, especially during the 1930s, was driven by fears of physical degeneration and military failure. The tethering of Northern Ireland to Great Britain meant that Britain’s security concerns became Northern Ireland’s. As military physical culture grew in importance, that found in the RUC and Garda Síochána remained largely static, both practically and ideologically. In the military, police force and in schools, the Free State and Northern Ireland exhibited many of the same desires, anxieties and contradictions. What differed was their approach and it was this difference which spoke to the material impact of partition in Irish life. The Sligo Champion’s observation about peaks and troughs held true. For every reaction, there was a similar reaction. Messages jumbled, contrasted and competed with one another when it came to physical culture but the underlying premise, the need to reform and control the body, the linking of the body to the state, held true. Studying this phenomenon, this chapter divides its attention between military and policing reforms in the 1920s and 1930s. Beginning with martial reforms in the post–Civil War period, the chapter next examines physical culture in both police forces. As discussed, it was during the 1920s that military physical culture lagged behind the vibrancy of the RUC and Gardaí. This situation was reversed during the 1930s, a point discussed in the chapter’s final two sections.

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‘Drill Is Not Peculiar to Military Forces’: Military Physical Culture in the 1920s The Great War’s cessation witnessed the return of thousands of men to Ireland over a period of several years, many of whom retained some form of military status.2 In Ireland, the War of Independence, and subsequent Civil War, brought the mobilisation of several thousand combatants.3 In peacetime, politicians in the Free State, and Northern Ireland, were faced with bloated militaries in need of demobilisation.4 That war normalised conflict for a generation further compounded the necessity of returning to peaceful conditions.5 The phased demobilisation of Northern troops was relatively unproblematic. The Free State’s experience was far more contested. For a brief period in 1924, officers threatened mutiny owing to demobilisation and a perceived favouritism shown towards former British troops.6 The resistance highlighted the contentious nature of 1920s military politics but also the very bloated military system still in effect.7 By the end of the Civil War, the Free State military numbered 52,000 soldiers and 3,000 officers. Financially, the system was unmanageable.8 Dissent induced by such measures nearly led to a military mutiny but, ultimately, the Free State succeeded in reducing its military burdens in a short period. Eunan O’Halpin found that from 1924 to 1925, spending on the Free State’s military fell by £7 million.9 Spending reductions were also found in Northern Ireland, although they proved far less contentious owing to a politically shrewd decision to raise new Ulster forces amenable to Northern 2  David Fitzpatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900–1922’, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffrey (eds.), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), p. 388. 3  John Borgonovo, ‘Reorganisation of the Irish Volunteers’, in John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil and Mike Murphy (eds.), Atlas of The Irish Revolution (New York, 2017), pp. 313–318. 4  Alvin Jackson, Ireland 1798–1998: War, Peace and Beyond (London, 2010), p.  333; Eunan O’Halpin, ‘The Army in Independent Ireland’, in Thomas Bartlett and Keith Jeffery (eds.), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 408–430. 5  Karen Petrone, The Great War in Russian Memory (Indiana, 2011), p. 128. 6  Maryann Gialanella Valiulis, ‘The Army Mutiny of 1924 and the Assertion of Civilian Authority in Independent Ireland’, Irish Historical Studies, 23, no. 92 (1983), pp. 354–366. 7  Michael Geyer, ‘The Militarization of Europe, 1914–1945’, in John Gillis (ed.), The Militarization of the Western World (New York, 1989), pp. 65–102. 8   Marie Coleman, ‘Military service pensions for veterans of the Irish Revolution, 1916–1923’, War in History, 20, no. 2 (2013), pp. 201–210. 9  Eunan O’Halpin, ‘Politics and the Free State’, in J.R. Hill (ed.), A New History of Ireland Volume VII: Ireland 1921–84 (Oxford, 2003), p. 103.

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Irish officers.10 Whereas the previous decade was defined by battles in Europe, and at home, military personnel proved far more interested with the fight against needless expenditure. George Mosse previously claimed that as a symbol and as an emblem of a nation’s cultural power, few institutions surpassed the military’s importance.11 Well disciplined, strong in body and willing to defend their countries, soldiers were embodied expressions of a nation’s power. In other instances, newly independent nations relied heavily on the military as a means of solidifying power, and gaining prestige.12 This was not the case with the early Cumann na nGaedheal government which, as Jason Knirck demonstrated, had a firm commitment to parliamentary politics as a means of legitimising their rule domestically and internationally.13 At a time when Cumann na nGaedheal preached a gospel of financial conservativism, as defined by balanced budgets, it was unlikely that military finance would be forthcoming. It is here where discussions of military physical training must be placed. That there was a pride in the Free State military is clear, but pride was tempered with pragmatism. In the Free State, there existed then, a reliance on British systems remained despite independence.14 While General Mulcahy, who twice served as Minister for Defence under Cumann na nGaedheal, envisioned the military as an emblem of Ireland’s sovereignty and strength, the military’s structure was in many ways unchanged aside, of course, from the tempering of numbers in 1924.15 Published in 1917, Slí na Saoirse sought to provide a distinctly Irish form of military physical culture.16 It appears to have been quickly discarded by a new Free State military content with using a training

10  George Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford, 1998), pp. 41–45. 11  Ibid., pp. 51–55. 12  Tom Smith, Comrades in Arms: Military Masculinities in East German Culture (New York, 2020). 13  Jason Knirck, Afterimage of the revolution: Cumann na nGaedheal and Irish politics, 1922–1932 (Wisconsin, 2014). 14  Fearghal McGarry, ‘Southern Ireland, 1922–32. A Free State?’, in Alvin Jackson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History (Oxford, 2014), pp. 647–669. 15  Dáil Debates, S8, col. 6 (07 July 1924); Theo Farrell, ‘World Culture and the Irish Army, 1922–1942’, in Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff (eds.), The Sources of Military Change: Culture, Politics, Technology (Boulder, 2002), p. 76. 16  Aodh Ruadh, Sli na Saoirse: Leabhar Drille dÓglaig na hÉireann (Áth Cliath, 1917), pp. 5–6.

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programme based on British-modified Swedish gymnastics.17 This system, devised in the pre-War period, underwent several ad-hoc changes during the War. In Britain, the system was effectively scrapped in the post-war period, a decision discussed later in this section. That Britain discarded the system and the Free State maintained it without, it seems, any real discussion, spoke of the two region’s respective priorities. In the Free State, official recognition of physical training’s importance did not truly come until March 1926 when a Physical Training School was established at the Curragh camp in Kildare.18 The Curragh had been the site of the first British gymnasium in Ireland and was previously home to the British military’s physical training school. From 1923 to 1926, physical training continued there but in a disorganised manner. The establishment of the School was done to relatively little political or media coverage. Coverage of military physical culture during this period focused on sporadic public appearances. Soon after the opening of the Physical Training School, it was announced that eight new officers were commissioned with instructing physical training.19 The remainder of the decade was spent training teachers and drilling troops in Irish depots.20 Given the state’s military aims, which centred on re-envisioning the military as an affordable one, emphasis was placed on younger applicants.21 This reflected the job’s physical demands, but also signalled a desire to train soldiers with no connections to the British army or the revolutionary period. The Free State’s training and structure was still largely, and at times exclusively, based on British models. What differed were the discourses applied to physical training. From 1914 to 1923, the Irish Volunteers, and later the IRA, trained men with Ireland’s political future in mind. In the case of the former, men were trained to protect Home Rule. For the latter, men were trained to secure Irish independence. In peacetime, goals for national salvation were side-lined. In their place were nebulous and less well-defined ideas about the development and maintenance of strength and health among the troops. In this regard, the army magazine an 17  Thomas A. O’Donoghue, ‘The Attempt by the Department of Defence to Introduce the Sokol System of Physical Education into Irish Schools in the 1930s’, Irish Educational Studies, 5, no. 2 (1985), pp. 330–331. 18  ‘Physical Training School 15 March 1926’ (Cathal Brugha Military Archives (CBMA), 1926/MA/106–07). 19  Ibid. 20  ‘Special Courses, Second Physical Training Course’ (CBMA, 1928/MA/106–08). 21  ‘First Physical Training Course’ (CBMA, 1926/MA/106–07).

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tÓglach proves illustrative. Established in 1918, an tÓglach evolved from a revolutionary paper into a semi-official state periodical during the early 1920s. Integral to the Irish war effort from 1919 to 1921, the paper supported the Cumann na nGaedhael government throughout the 1920s until a Fianna Fáil coalition took power in 1932.22 Focused on a wide variety of topics, the magazine exhibited a sustained interest in physical culture. In 1921, an anonymous contributor explained physical training’s benefits as follows: (a) It greatly improves the physique and health of those undergoing it—a particularly important matter in the case of men in units in large cities, and (b) next to Close Order Drill it is the best means of giving the men a soldierly and instilling into them the idea of discipline.23

Midway through 1923, a series of exercise columns highlighted an intensification of interest in physical culture.24 Alongside readers’ comments, columns discussed best practice in training and individual exercises. Despite the admission that military training had not advanced further than the British 1914 drill manual, the column still attracted considerable attention.25 In June 1923, ‘Interested’ critiqued the editor’s description of exercises, deeming them unsuitable for bodily development.26 Explaining their motivation, the contributor claimed that  now was the time to see physical culture in terms of health rather than military discipline. Within the military community, attention shifted from drill as preparation for war to developing the ideal male body. The dichotomy between training for drill and training for health arose earlier that year when another contributor distinguished between drill necessary for health and that needed for discipline. Despite the author’s assertion that the two be viewed separately, the former was spoken of in particularly hallowed terms.27 In 1926, one enthusiastic contributor depicted military physical training as completely transformative in nature:

 Tom Mahon and James Gillogly, Decoding the IRA (Dublin, 2008), p. 175.  ‘The Need for Physical Training’, An tÓglách, 3, no. 3 (1921), p. 3. 24  ‘An Alert Reader’, An tÓglách, 2 June (1923), p. 15; ‘Training in Small Posts’, An tÓglách, 5 May (1923), p. 20. 25  ‘An Alert Reader’, An tÓglách, 2 June (1923), p. 15. 26  Ibid. 27  ‘An Alert Reader’, An tÓglách, 24 February (1923), p. 17. 22 23

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To develop ourselves morally, intellectually and physically should be the aim of every soldier …. In the Army we have the means whereby we can develop ourselves in these ways …28

This snippet largely encapsulated the role that military physical culture was to play during the 1920s in the Free State. Divorced from fighting, exercise became a means of self-development tied to the state. This ideal was in sharp contrast to the messages which permeated military thinking a decade earlier and undoubtedly marked a shift from war to peace. In Northern Ireland, developments and concerns in Westminster dictated military training in the territory. Where governments in both the Free State and Northern Ireland shared a recognition that peacetime required new approaches when it came to the military, they differed in their respective approaches. Due to Britain’s involvement in the Great War, large numbers of men enlisted, or were conscripted, for service. This mobilisation brought hundreds of thousands of men to the attention of military doctors, many of whom despaired at their lack of physical fitness.29 Thus continued a cycle of eugenic concerns and comments on Britain’s physical degeneration which held remarkable power in public debates.30 Similar to the Second South African War and preceding concerns in the 1930s, the 1920s saw a series of published reports and parliamentary debates on the supposed degeneracy of British men.31 As early as 1918, the Ministry of National Service stated: There is … ample evidence to show the baneful effect of modern conditions of life upon the physique of youths and men of military age, which cannot fail to effect some degree of deterioration of the stock and militate against the health of succeeding generations.32

 ‘15th Batalion, Limerick’, An tÓglách, 18 December (1926), p. 28.  Joanna Bourke, Dismembering the Male: Men’s Bodies, Britain, and the Great War (Chicago, 1996), pp. 120–145. 30  Dan Stone, Breeding superman: Nietzsche, race and eugenics in Edwardian and interwar Britain (Oxford, 2002), pp. 1–12. 31  Richard Soloway, Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth Century Britain (North Carolina, 1995), pp. 230–235. 32  Ministry of National Service, Report, Vol. I, Upon the Physical Examination of Men of Military Age by National Service Medical Boards, from November 1st, 1917–October 31st, 1918 (London, 1920), p. 22. 28 29

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This came at the same time Lloyd George warned the British public of the dangers of becoming ‘C3’ citizens physically.33 Physical strength was a matter of national importance. Concern about the nation’s health ebbed and flowed throughout British public discourse in the 1920s.34 For military officials in Britain, it prompted a re-examination of physical culture systems which trickled into Northern Ireland. From the late 1900s, Britain’s military used a modified system of Ling or ‘Swedish’ gymnastics to train troops. This system remained until the mid-1920s, when efforts to trial new systems were made. Incorporated by the British military in 1907, Ling gymnastics came to be seen as archaic in several European armies in the interwar period.35 In Denmark, the gymnast and educator Niels Bukh created his own system in response to Ling’s perceived defects.36 Bukh believed that traditional Ling gymnastics were no longer applicable to the battlefield, classroom or boardroom.37 Using Ling’s system as a foundation, Bukh moved from static and rigid movements characterised by Swedish gymnastics towards more rigorous and rhythmic movements. Driven by a desire for change, Bukh devised a system inspired by yoga and movements copied from Danish peasants.38 His system was created during the Great War and soon became popular throughout Europe. By the 1930s, Bukh had visited several English and non-English speaking states promoting his system.39 While his introduction to Britain is unclear, saved

33  David Monger, Patriotism and propaganda in First World War Britain: The national war aims committee and civilian morale (Liverpool, 2012), p. 199. 34  Martin Pugh, We Danced All Night: A Social History of Britain between the Wars (New York, 2013), pp. 155–165. 35   Peter C.  McIntosh, ‘Therapeutic Exercise in Scandinavia’, in J.G.  Dixon, Peter C. McIntosh, A.D. Munrow and R.F. Willetts (eds.), Landmarks in the History of Physical Education (London, 1957), pp. 81–107. 36  Hans Bonde, ‘Gymnastics as a Masculinity Rite: Ollerup Danish Gymnastics Between the Wars’, in J.A. Mangan (ed.), Making European Masculinities: Sport, Europe and Gender (London, 2000), pp. 140–159. 37  Hans Bonde, ‘Niels Bukh’s Gymnastics School in Denmark, 1912–1933: Gymnastics, Erotics, and Male Bonding’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32, no. 6 (2015), pp. 800–810. 38  Niels Kayser Nielsen, ‘The Cult of the Nordic Superman-Between the Pre-Modern and the Modern’, Sports Historian, 19, no. 1 (1999), p. 67. 39  Hans Bonde, The Politics of the Male Body in Global Sport: The Danish Involvement (London, 2013), pp. 108–126.

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perhaps for Bukh’s English publication Primary Gymnastics in 1925, his system came to the attention of British military officials at this point.40 In January 1926, Major T.  Wand-Tetley of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps travelled to Bukh’s headquarters in Denmark to evaluate his system.41 Soon after, Wand-Tetley arranged a trial of Bukh’s gymnastics among a select number of troops.42 Wand-Tetley’s praise for Bukh’s system was repeated by his fellow officers and, after Bukh visited Aldershot in October 1926, Captain Bradley-Williams published a report on Bukh’s methods and their military applications.43 Begun in the belief that the Ling system had long been misinterpreted, not only in England but also in Europe, the report wholeheartedly endorsed Bukh’s system.44 Where Ling’s system was now deemed outdated, based largely on its static movements, Bukh’s system was defined as a ‘modern’, and exciting mode of training. Bukh’s vigorous and rhythmic movements were believed to be more befitting for the youthful bodies soon to undergo military training. Within months of the report’s publication, Bukh’s system was formally adopted by the British military. Like the Free State, the incorporation of Bukh gymnastics marked a recognition that training was different in peacetime. Ling gymnastics was viewed as incapable of reforming a perceived ever-deteriorating population.45 For troops in Northern Ireland, Bukh’s training became the mandatory system. By 1929, the military toured the region, performing gymnastics demonstrations while simultaneously lecturing on health.46 This wasn’t the only change to the military’s training system, nor was it the most significant one. In 1922, Irish command in the British military was relocated to Northern Ireland following partition and the end of the War of Independence.47 The former site of British physical training in Ireland, the Curragh gymnasium, was transferred to the Free State, while 40  Nikolai Bogdanovic, Fit to Fight: A History of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps 1860–2015 (Oxford, 2017), pp. 88–91. 41  Sergeant Major I.F.F. Campbell, ‘Physical Education in Denmark and Sweden’ (Royal Army Physical Training Corps (RAPTC) Museum, Aldershot, 397). 42  Ibid. 43  ‘Niels Bukh System of Physical Training, Report On’ (RAPTC, HQ/PT/107/5/4). 44  Ibid., 1–8. 45  Ibid. 46  Northern Whig, 19 Dec., 1928. 47  ‘Niels Bukh System of Physical Training’, p. 76. On the ramifications of this see Jeffrey, ‘The British Army and Ireland Since 1922’, pp. 432–438.

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Belfast’s Victoria Barracks became the site for British training. Similar to the Curragh, Victoria Barracks became a hub of physical culture. The shadow of partition hung over martial cultures in the Free State and Northern Ireland, especially when it came to the emphasis underpinning these systems. In the Free State, Ling gymnastics from the pre-war period was still used, thereby marking both a continuity with an earlier time. Unlike the previous decade, emphasis was placed on health rather than nebulous, often political, aims. This change was to have greater ramifications the following decade when Free State military cultures grew in importance. In Northern Ireland and Britain, concerns about troop health likewise existed. Unlike the Free State, military officials were adamant that existing systems were inadequate and reform was necessary. Furthermore, the interest in health stemmed from a largely negative outlook. In the Free State, a great deal of emphasis was placed on the health-giving benefits of physical culture for troops. This was also true in Northern Ireland but there existed a belief, that physical degeneracy existed and needed to be addressed. This conviction resulted in the adoption of Bukh gymnastics. Understandings of physical culture were largely similar, but the resultant actions of both militaries varied. Thanks to broader societal concerns in Britain, Northern Ireland overhauled its system. In the Free State, there was a change in emphasis rather than training.

‘The Irish Nation Looks, and Not Unnaturally, to Its Trained Forces’: Policing in the 1920s For Irish police forces, change came too albeit often in a largely unregulated manner. In Northern Ireland and the Free State, few changes, if any, were made to the system of training itself but rather the promotion of it. In the pre-war period, the Royal Irish Constabulary was long active in sporting and physical culture circles. The appearance of officers in gymnasiums and athletic contests during the 1920s was not a surprise. What was surprising was how vocal officers proved in their love of physical culture. The RIC’s replacement in the Free State was first the Civic Guard, founded in 1922, and then An Garda Síochána, established the following year. In Northern Ireland, the Royal Ulster Constabulary took control of policing. Both the Gardaí and RUC continued the force’s relationship with sport and physicality. They did not overhaul systems as the British military did

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but intensified the meanings surrounding athletic policemen.48 In the RIC, physical culture was used as a means of asserting the force’s physical stature.49 This acted as both a subtle deterrent but also as a means of aggrandising the force’s position in the broader society. Studies of An Garda Síochána and the RUC have stressed the force’s initial fragility, and indeed quest for stability. During the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, police stations were a point of constant attack and harassment. The Irish Republican Army assassinated over 500 RIC men during the War of Independence and it is clear that animosities did not end with the cessation of war.50 Vicky Conway’s research found that even after 1921 former RIC men were targeted by Irish nationalists, while the new police forces struggled to slowly, but surely, gain legitimacy.51 Owing to several years of conflict, the RIC had, much like the military, grown beyond its financial means, totalling 17,000 men split across various branches.52 The 1920s was simultaneously a period of creating and curtailing the force. An Garda Síochána numbered 6,000 men by the mid-­1920s and the RUC held 3,000 men by 1927.53 Their smaller size marked a recognition that the time for open warfare had passed and a return to peace was now the modus operandi. Established with former Republican fighter and sporting evangelist Eoin O’Duffy as their Commissioner, the Gardaí quickly began aligning themselves with Irish customs and Irish cultural heritage. This self-legitimising process was further aided through the use of sport and physical culture. In the RUC, an initial effort was made to create some form of equality between Protestant and Roman Catholic members. The partition of Ireland between a Free State and Northern Ireland resulted in a clustering of Protestant populations in Northern Ireland which, it was feared, would result in 48  Correspondence with curators for both forces’ museums revealed that drill training continued largely unchanged. 49  Conor Heffernan, ‘Physical culture, the Royal Irish Constabulary and police masculinities in Ireland, 1900–14’, Irish Historical Studies 43, no. 164 (2019), pp. 237–251. 50  Tony Geraghty, The Irish war: The hidden conflict between the IRA and British intelligence (Baltimore, 2002), p. 332. 51  Vicky Conway, Policing twentieth century Ireland: A history of an Garda Síochána (London, 2013), pp. 30–45. 52  Andrew Silke, ‘Ferocious Times: The IRA, the RIC, and Britain’s Failure in 1919–1921’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 28, no. 3 (2016), pp. 417–434. 53  Conor Brady, The Guarding of Ireland–The Garda Síochána and the Irish State 1960–2014: A History of the Irish Police Force (Dublin, 2014), p. 28; Graham Ellison and Jim Smyth, The crowned harp: policing Northern Ireland (London, 2000), p. 22.

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discrimination against a minority Catholic community. Addressing this fear directly, early plans for the RUC stipulated that one-third of the force would comprise former Catholic members of the RIC and/or Catholic civilians.54 Such anti-discriminatory procedures ultimately came to nothing. Owing to both institutional prejudices and a Catholic reluctance to enlist, the RUC’s membership was predominantly Protestant and indeed it was seen as a largely Protestant force within the state.55 With the Gardaí presenting itself as a nationalist, even culturally nationalist group and the RUC presented as a Protestant force, sport offered diversion and symbolism. Vibrant police sporting cultures exhibited in the pre-war period by the RIC continued in the interwar years. Both forces continued to hold public demonstrations and sporting contests to display their strength and health.56 Diversion was a driving motivation behind such displays but contests and demonstrations continued to offer policemen a platform to demonstrate their athleticism. Matthew McCormack’s work on policemen in eighteenth-century England cited the importance of policemen’s physical bodies in deterring crime.57 A public platform, in either state, gave forces the opportunity to display their physiques in a seemingly banal and unproblematic manner.58 In each instance drill was used to train men capable of upholding law and order. A certain embodied police ethic was put on display for the public, which simultaneously acted as a show of force, admiration and deterrence. Certainly the Gardaí, following O’Duffy’s wishes, sought to create a distinctly masculine community built on traditional policing values, piety and physical strength (Fig. 6.1). The RUC’s interest in, and engagement with, physical culture and sport endured throughout this period but it rarely took on the depth of symbolism found in the Gardaí. In contrast to the RUC’s implicit association with Protestantism, An Garda Síochána made overt efforts to align with Roman Catholicism. This relationship with the Catholic Church was forged through the use of physical drill and physical culture, as evidenced by articles published in the force’s dedicated periodical, the Garda Review.  Ellison and Smyth, The crowned harp, pp. 1–22.  Ibid., pp. 25–40. 56  Northern Whig, 11 Jul., 1923; Freeman’s Journal, 29 Jul., 1924. 57  Matthew McCormack, ‘A Species of Civil Soldier’: Masculinity, Policing and the Military in 1780s England’, in David G. Barrie and Susan Broomhall (eds.), A History of Police and Masculinities, 1700–2010 (London, 2012), p. 56. 58  Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Peasant and his Body’, Ethnography 5, no. 4 (2004), p. 585. 54 55

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Fig. 6.1  ‘Precision marching from RUC physical culture team.’ (Northern Whig, 3 Jun., 1936)

Much like the Constabulary Gazette which reported on the RIC, the Garda Review, which began in the early 1920s, was used to publicise upcoming events, items of interest and, at times, produce bombastic jingoisms. Through the Review, physical health and strength were linked to ideas of Christian purity and Irish nationalism.59 Such messages differed from the eugenic and sexualised messages found in recreational male physical culture. In this community, a strong body was presumed to be a strong Catholic one which, in turn, was held as an ideal for the new state. The impetus for this likely came from the periodical’s editor and Garda Commissioner, Eoin O’Duffy. Commissioner from 1922 to 1933, O’Duffy fostered physical culture in the Gardaí to develop virtues of ‘self-­ reliance, manliness, high courage and abstinence’ among officers.60 His

59  Kano, ‘How to Live’, The Garda Review, 1, no. 11 (1926), pp. 775–776; Kano, ‘How to Live’, The Garda Review, 2, no. 1 (1926), pp. 146–150. 60  Fearghal McGarry, Eoin O’Duffy: A Self-Made Hero (Oxford, 2005), p. 119.

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commitment to sport encouraged him to take leadings positions in the GAA as well as in handball, athletic, cycling and Olympic committees.61 Articles in the Garda Review continually stressed the primacy of sport and physical culture in the police force in a self-aggrandising manner. In early 1926, readers were told that ‘the Irish nation looks, and not unnaturally, to its trained forces’ because the training found in the Gardaí ‘confers on them an advantage which is denied to the ordinary civilian’.62 Later articles continued in this vein. The next year, the periodical ran a serialised version of Irving Fisher and Eugene Lyman Fisk’s 1915 work How to Live.63 Members of the Life Extension Institute, Fisher and Fisk’s work covered everything from deep breathing to ‘rules for the lazy’. Endorsement for their philosophies was found in editorial notes which argued that ‘he [who] is decrepit in body, and his mind, is only superficially alert’.64 In time, Fisher and Fisk’s work was discarded in favour of a resident, but unnamed, expert of physical fitness who promoted the ‘Greek ideal’ in new recruits.65 The primacy of physical culture as a pastime and as a requirement for the Gardaí never wavered during this time. Nor did its global undertones. Fisher and Fisk were American physical culturists co-­ opted by the Gardaí to encourage health. Their fame, and influence, paled in comparison to fellow American Bernarr Macfadden, the proprietor of Physical Culture magazine, a periodical whose readerships encompassed hundreds of thousands. Macfadden was known for his outlandish views on physical culture best encompassed in his claim that ‘sickness is a sin, don’t be a sinner’.66 With such commandments, it should come as no surprise to learn that Macfadden even established his own religion—cosmopolitan— based on the principles of physical culture.67 Macfadden’s appearance in the Garda Review highlighted the extent of the periodical’s interest. In 1928, Sergeant J.  Hayden republished 61  Dónal McAnallen, ‘The Radicalisation of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ulster, 1912–1923: The Role of Owen O’Duffy’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 31, no. 7 (2014), pp. 704–723. 62  ‘Sport’, The Garda Review, 1, no. 6 (1926), p. 370. 63  Professor Irving Fisher and Eugene Lyman Fisk, ‘Our Health Department: How to Live – VI’, Garda Review, 2, no. 4 (1927), pp. 345–347. 64  Editor, ‘Editorial Notes’, The Garda Review, 2, no. 12 (1927), p. 1171. 65   ‘Our Health Department: How to Live’, The Garda Review, 2, no. 4 (1927), pp. 345–347. 66  William R.  Hunt, Body Love: The Amazing Career of Bernarr Macfadden (New York, 1989), p. 22. 67  Ibid., p. 81.

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Macfadden’s ‘Physical Culture Creed’ with the plea that members adhere to its five-point ethos encompassing the need for a ‘right mental attitude’ alongside ‘pure air and sunlight’.68 Accompanying Hayden’s article was Macfadden’s assertion that ‘weakness is truly a crime; that sickness is the penalty of violated health laws’ and ‘that every man should be a vigorous vital specimen of masculinity’.69 Later Review writers took inspiration, men like J.  Ellis Barker, who linked the force’s physical culture to the Bible’s teaching on cleanliness and godliness.70 Eoin O’Duffy likewise linked physical culture to Catholicism and the ‘eternal freshness and greenness of the land’.71 O’Duffy’s sentiments on physical culture, which explain why the subject featured so prominently in the first place, continually returned to the relationship between physical culture and the nation state. This relationship was encapsulated in his assertion that ‘the virile and undying beauty of the country has been mirrored in the strong graceful bodies of her sons and daughters’.72 O’Duffy’s fondness for physical culture was matched by his intense interest in athleticism more generally. Far from superfluous, physicality, in all its forms, was a driving interest for the commissioner. During his tenure, athletic teams dominated Irish athletics owing, in part, to O’Duffy’s commitment and zeal for physical fitness. For his biographer, Fearghal McGarry, O’Duffy envisioned sport and physical culture not as leisure outlets, but as political projects.73 O’Duffy’s writings in Reminiscences, his unpublished autobiography, made this clear. Discussing the importance of health and sport for Irish nationality, he argued that ‘Gaelic games not only develop muscle and mind, but help to preserve the individuality of our race’.74 For O’Duffy, British ‘barrack training’ was inadequate when compared with the ‘hardened and vitalised’ Irishmen produced by sport and physical culture.75 Exercise was, in O’Duffy’s mind, linked to nation, 68  Sergt. J.  Hayden, ‘Things We Ought to Know’, The Garda Review, 3, no. 6 (1928), pp. 613–614. 69  Ibid. 70  J.  Ellis Barker, ‘Good Health and Happiness’, The Garda Review, 4, no. 6 (1929), pp. 692–697. 71  Eoin O’Duffy, ‘The Garda Siochana: Chapter VIII  – The Coiste Siamsa’, The Garda Review, 4, no. 10 (1929), pp. 1122–1123. 72  Ibid. 73  Fearghal McGarry, Eoin O’Duffy: a self-made hero (Oxford, 2005, p. 16. 74  Eoin O’Duffy, ‘Reminiscences’ (NLI, Eoin O’Duffy Papers, MS 48300/2), p. 3. 75  Ibid., p. 22.

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race and national revival.76 In the Gardaí, his love of exercise found expression in efforts to associate the force with ideas of masculinity and Christian purity.77 Tom Hunt previously described O’Duffy as ‘the chief sport evangelist of the Irish revolutionary generation’.78 O’Duffy’s fervour was reflected in the Garda Review’s sustained coverage of sport and physical culture.79 That O’Duffy himself appears to have neglected some of the finer points of physical activity in his own life was irrelevant.80 He appeared to note the political and practical reasons underpinning police physical culture. This was made clear by one anonymous contributor in 1925—‘an athletic force is an efficient force’.81 As peace returned to the Free State by the mid-­1920s, the force was attached to a Christian ideal, which included the commissioner’s prescriptions on sobriety and morality.82 In 1928, the force made a pilgrimage to Rome to visit Pope Pius XI. Aside from noting the force’s overall devotion, the Garda Review commented on their bearing and athleticism.83 In the Gardaí, efforts were made, beginning with the commissioner, to align physical drill and physical culture to an elevated Christian ideal.84 In the RUC, physical culture was associated more so with ideas of discipline and police efficiency.85 The RUC and Gardaí enthusiastically promoted physical culture systems, but the latter overtly linked its interest in health and fitness to wider religious ideals. In the RUC, such a connection was only implied.86

 Ibid., p. 19.  Aidan Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884–1938 (London, 2016), pp. 70–88. 78  Tom Hunt, ‘The National Athletic Association of Ireland and Irish Athletics, 1922–1937: Steps on the Road to Athletic Isolation’, Sport in Society, 19, no. 1 (2016), p. 139. 79  ‘Sport and the Policeman’, The Garda Review, 6 (1936), p. 841. 80  McGarry, Eoin O’Duffy, p. 198. 81  ‘Athletics’, The Garda Review, 1, no. 12 (1925), p. 35. 82  ‘Teaches Self-Control’, The Garda Review, 4 (1930), p. 427. 83  The Garda Review, 4, no. 12 (1928). 84  C.H. O’G, ‘Physical Fitness in the Police Force’, The Garda Review, 9 (1934), p. 1201; ‘Our Mail Bag: Physical Culture Club at Depot?’, The Garda Review, 1 (1937), p. 238. 85  Belfast Newsletter, 13 Feb., 1929. 86  Kathleen Magee, ‘The Dual Role of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland’, in Robert Reiner and Malcolm Cross (eds.), Beyond Law and Order (London, 1991), pp. 78–85. 76 77

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‘Physical Training Aims at the Acquirement of Perfect Health’: Military Training in the 1930s Military physical culture existed in Ireland during the 1920s, albeit in a somewhat diminished capacity. Resources were allocated but in times of peace, attention shifted from battlefield practicalities to personalised health. During the 1930s, military training rose to national importance again. The Free State Army during the 1920s could be viewed as largely conservative, at least where physical training was concerned. An Army School of Physical Culture was established in 1926, but it was not until 1934  that modifications to its physical training were introduced in the form of Sokol physical culture.87 Sokol physical culture, which originated in Czecho-Slovakia in the mid-nineteenth-century, was one of several European gymnastic regimens which linked a nascent nationalist movement to physical activity. Founded in 1862 by Miroslav Tyrš and Jindřich Fügner , Sokol was, at times, a highly politicised form of physical activity.88 A contemporary system to Sokol in mainland Europe, Turnverein gymnastics, became embroiled in political disputes during the 1848 revolutions which swept across the continent. When conflict subsided, and the Prussian government regained control, the Turner movement was targeted for its role in flaming civil unrest. So harsh and draconian was the Prussian response to Turner gyms that thousands of Turner members emigrated from Prussia to other parts of Europe and the United States.89 Sokol was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire but promoted a form of Czech national identity and cultural heritage that held the potential to be subversive. Often viewed suspiciously by the Habsburg authorities, Sokol’s many promoters—by the 1880s hundreds of clubs existed— expanded Sokol’s cultural and political reach.90 In 1882, the first large-­ scale Sokol gymnastics competition or ‘slet’ was held in Prague as a celebration of the organisation’s twenty-year anniversary. By the time of the second slet in 1891, Sokol members could be found in the upper 87  ‘Physical Training School 15 March 1926’, First Physical Training Course (Cathal Brugha Military Archives (CBMA), 1926/MA/106–07). 88  Ladislav Jandásek, ‘The Founder of the Sokols: Miroslav Tyrš’, The Slavonic and East European Review (1932), pp. 572–587. 89  Jørn Hansen, ‘Politics and Gymnastics in a frontier area post-1848’, The International Journal of the History of Sport 14, no. 3 (1997), pp. 25–46. 90  Claire Nolte, The Sokol in the Czech Lands to 1914: training for the nation (London, 2002), p. 116.

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e­ chelons of political life. Sokol’s remit was also extended to adults as well as schoolchildren.91 By the early 1900s, Sokol’s domestic influence spawned several ersatz groups aligned to various political parties.92 Internationally Sokol clubs could be found in France, Poland, Russia and the United States.93 During the Great War Sokol was officially disbanded although many members played an important role in turning the tide of the war against the Austro-Hungarian army.94 When Czechoslovakia gained independence in 1918, it was the Sokol clubs which acted as the ‘Czech National Army’ during a short-lived campaign against the Hungarian Soviet Republic in the first half of 1919.95 In peacetime, Sokol’s cultural and political importance grew. Part of what made Sokol so popular, and indeed influential, was that by the early 1900s, Sokol was found in military life, in sporting life, and in recreational cultures in the form of Sokol dances.96 In Ireland, similarities were later drawn between Sokol and the Gaelic Athletic Association. Both were important cultural vehicles. Sokol was, however, far more multifaceted. This was reflected in the popularity and breadth of Sokol itself. By 1930, just four years before Sokol came to Ireland, Sokol clubs counted 630,000 members throughout the world.97 Enthusiasm for Sokol in Ireland dated to 1905 when Richard John Kelly, a barrister, journalist and cofounder of the Tuam Herald, wrote an article on the subject.98 An intensification of Irish-Czech relations in the following decades precipitated further interest.99 From 1905, until the Great War, Kelly’s Tuam Herald regularly reported on political and social developments in Austro-Hungary.100 In the post-war period, Kelly was appointed the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dublin and

 Ibid., pp. 110–135.  Ibid. 93  Petr Roubal, Spartakiads: The Politics of Physical Culture in Communist Czechoslovakia (Prague, 2020), pp. 68–72. 94  Ibid., pp. 72–88. 95  Ismo Nurmi, Slovakia—a Playground for Nationalism and National Identity (Wisconsin, 1999), p. 82. 96  Nolte, The Sokol in the Czech Lands, pp. 69–76. 97  Ladislav Jandásek, ‘The Sokol Movement in Czechoslovakia’, The Slavonic and East European Review (1932), pp. 65–80. 98  Samek, ‘The Czech Sokol Gymnastic Programme’, pp. 141–143. 99  Ibid. 100  Tuam Herald, 11 Jan., 1908; Tuam Herald, 31 Jul., 1909. 91 92

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tasked with promoting Czechoslovak exports and culture.101 Kelly’s replacement, Pavel Růžička, was a former officer of the czarist and Czechoslovakian armies. Coming to the position in 1929, Růžička was quickly co-opted by radio stations and newspapers to comment on Czechoslovak history and culture.102 It was during this time that Růžička gained the confidence of Robert Smyllie, the man who became the editor of the Irish Times in 1934. As a journalist, Smyllie’s ‘Irishman’s Diary’ column featured national and international developments, including those in Czechoslovakia.103 Caleb Richardson’s treatment of Smyllie shed light on the editor’s interest in Czechoslovakia. Smyllie twice visited the country during the 1930s, first in 1932 during the Sokol Congress and again later in the decade.104 One such article, ‘Czecho-Slovakia and the Sokol Movement’, explained Sokol’s embodiment of Czech nationalism and vigour. Beginning with the assertion that ‘this awkwardly named country is one of the most highly civilised portions of the globe’, Smyllie, writing under the nom de plumb of Nichevo, linked the ‘ideals of a renascent nations’ to the rhythmic movements found in Sokol demonstrations.105 In early 1934, and at the behest of Pavel Růžička, Robert Smyllie, now acting as the editor of The Irish Times, published even more endorsements of Sokol.106 Smyllie appears to have played some role in an invitation given to Major Pavel Růžička’s to deliver a lecture on shooting to the Irish military the very same year.107 Six months after Růžička’s well-regarded lecture, a Czechoslovakian lieutenant, Josef Tichy, was invited to Dublin to trial Sokol with Irish troops.108 The Irish Times was influential here too. Reprinting an article found in the Prager Presse, a German newspaper published in Czechoslovakia, the Times proudly continued its role keeping ‘the public informed on this matter’.109 Depicted by military officials in 101  Caleb Richardson, Smyllie’s Ireland: Protestants, Independence, and the Man Who Ran the Irish Times (Indiana, 2019), pp. 88–110. 102  Irish Independent, 25 Nov., 1929. 103  The Irish Times, 11 Aug., 1932. 104  Richardson, Smyllie’s Ireland, pp. 86–100. 105  The Irish Times, 11 Aug., 1932. 106  The Irish Times, 22 Feb., 1934; The Irish Times, 20 Jun., 1934. 107  Samek, ‘The Czech Sokol Gymnastic Programme’, pp. 144–146. 108  J.P.M.  Cotter, ‘Sokol  – Physical Training Course 11 Meitheamh 1934’ (CBMA, 1934–5/MA/106–03); Irish Independent, 16 Jun., 1934. 109  The Irish Times, 7 May, 1934.

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Ireland, including the Irish Chief Staff Major General Brennan, as a non-­ partisan form of exercise, Sokol was, as previously noted, deeply aligned with Czechoslovakian nationalism.110 Previous studies on Sokol’s introduction in Ireland have noted its ad-­ hoc implementation. Military physical culture in the 1920s had proven rather aimless from a policy and implementation perspective. It had, after all, taken several years for an official Military School of Physical Culture to be formed. The decision to trial, and subsequently implement, a new system of physical culture did not come about after several months of deliberations, trials and discussions, as was the case with Bukh gymnastics and the British military. Růžička’s lecture served as a catalyst for a somewhat unprompted, introduction. Reports by a Colonel McCorley in 1936, detailing the military’s first trial with Sokol two years previously give some indication as to both its reception and its promise. In the first instance, there appeared to be an agreement that Sokol ‘deals with the principles underlying physical training and is evolved to meet all requirements of age and sex’.111 The older system of Swedish Drill ‘definitely did not do this’ and had, in the minds of the first batch of recruits, failed to keep up with the demands of modern life.112 Continuing in this vein, it was stated that the Swedish system confined instructors to ‘narrow limits’, which failed to develop the entirety of new recruits. By way of contrast, Sokol was a described as a system which developed ‘the human body to a maximum degree’.113 Much like the educational discourses of the time, Sokol’s marshalling of the human body was said ‘to promote self-confidence and self-discipline’ in new and existing recruits.114 Because Sokol dealt with mind and body in equal measure it was ‘far in advance’ of the Swedish system.115 The irony that the Swedish system had once been treated in similarly enthusiastic tones, especially with regard to its holistic nature, was lost on the officer in question. More seriously it pointed to the fact that the body cultures, and body projects, 110  Mark Dimond, ‘The Sokol and Czech Nationalism, 1918–1948’, in Mark Cornwall and Robert J.W.  Evans (eds.), Czechoslovakia in a Nationalist and Fascist Europe, 1918–1948 (London, 2007), pp. 185–206. 111   Colonel F.  McCorley, ‘Report to Chief of Staff 2 February 1935’ (CBMA, DOD/2/34708), p. 1. 112  Ibid., pp. 1–3. 113  Ibid. 114  Ibid. 115  Ibid.

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ushered in during the 1930s were rarely coherent. Much like the pre-war decade, there was a tendency to praise the new and exotic, to imbue it with continued aspirations about holistic men and women, and to discard older systems. Thanks to Tichy’s trial with Irish troops, Sokol came to the Free State. Aside from the establishment of a new training school in the 1920s, this marked the State’s first revision its military physical culture.116 Sokol’s introduction was met with great excitement by commentators and military men. Much like their British counterpart, the Free State underwent a very public appraisal of its military systems. Significantly this also included public spectacles and public speeches. An obvious example came in the form of radio lectures. The first radio station, 2rn, came to Ireland in 1926 and lasted until 1936 when it was replaced by Radio Athlone.117 Alongside movie reels, radio stations became a pivotal centre for announcements, and advertising.118 Despite its ultimately neutral, and cooperative, approach to geopolitics, the Free State used new media to advertise the military and its system. This decision should be not viewed within the vacuum of Irish politics but rather in that broader European sphere which saw military physical culture gain a much greater prominence in civil society. Recreational physical cultures in the interwar period expressed a continued admiration for the fascist approach to physical culture, especially in military exercise.119 Brief reports on Sokol, especially in 1934, referred to other European states and their systems of exercise. That the Free State took to Radio Athlone to promote Sokol and its history hints at an effort to emulate the publicity campaigns going on in several other states. From 1935 to 1936, Lieutenant Tichy of the Czecho-Slovakian army gave a series of lectures to Radio Athlone. Tichy, the man tasked with teaching Sokol to the Irish military, was in great demand  at this time. Aside teaching Sokol to recruits, Tichy was asked to translate a Sokol exercise book into Irish, to co-ordinate songs with the military band and to speak to the press.120 That captains complained of Tichy’s glacial progress in translating Sokol exercises into Irish in 1935 suggests that the military  Samek, ‘The Czech Sokol Gymnastic Programme in Ireland’, p. 141.  Richard Pine, 2RN and the Origins of Irish Radio (Dublin, 2002), pp. 1–32. 118  Ibid. 119  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, ‘Building a British superman: physical culture in interwar Britain’, Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 4 (2006), pp. 595–610. 120  Conor Heffernan, ‘Soldiers, Sokol, and Symbolism: Forging a National Identity in 1930s Ireland’, Éire-Ireland, 54, no. 3 (2019), pp. 37–60. 116 117

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was unaware, or unappreciative, of the pressures being brought to bear on the Lieutenant.121 Tichy’s media commitments precipitated his appearance on Radio Athlone. Following a surge of media interest, and interviews, a decision was made to invite Tichy to provide four ten-minute speeches on Sokol, beginning in late 1935 and running into the new year.122 Eschewing editing of his scripts, Tichy gave the first of his talks in December 1935. Piquing even more interest with his ‘foreign intonation’, Tichy’s first lecture highlighted links between Sokol and wider nationalist revivals: The Sokol Movement has gone hand in hand with the revival of the Czech nation, and … there is a great similarity between the revivals of the Irish and Czech nations.123

Displaying an astuteness for his audience, Tichy’s speech noted the role of Sokol clubs in large-scale political movements like the 1848 rebellions which swept across Europe. In this regard, Tichy compared Sokol clubs, and their strong associational culture, with Daniel O’Connell’s efforts to repeal the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain.124 Building on this point, Tichy claimed that the men produced by Sokol were ‘self-­ conscious, modern and progressive’. More importantly, they were ‘ready to sacrifice himself for the general welfare of the nation’.125 Tichy’s lectures, which echoed the internal reporting by the military itself, linked Sokol to both personal efficiency and national prowess. The trained body was once more an asset and a necessity for the nation-state. In lectures, Tichy reiterated claims that Sokol had immediate parallels with Ireland’s own nationalist revival.126 Likewise, Minister for Defence (1932–1939) Frank Aiken stated that Sokol represented a kindred cultural system, which the Free State’s army could profitably use.127 For the incumbent Fianna Fáil government, such discourses aided their quest to realise

 M. J. Beary, ‘Letter to Miss Jill Noone 15 September 1937’ (CBMA, DOD/2/51153).  Commandant John M. MacCarthy, ‘Broadcast Talk – Sokol System of Physical Training 12 Samhain 1935’. (CBMA, DOD-2-44004). 123  Lieu. Tichy, ‘Sokol Physical Culture: History of the Sokol Movement’. 124  Ibid. 125  Ibid. 126  Lieu. Tichy, ‘Sokol Physical Culture: History of the Sokol Movement’ (CBMA, SOKOL/Broadcasts/DOD-2-44004). 127  Aiken replaced Desmond FitzGerald who held the post from 1927 to 1932. 121 122

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an intensely Irish and self-sufficient identity.128 There was, of course, a superficiality about such comparisons. The Free State may have adopted Sokol but it was not the only state to flirt with Sokol. Aside from Ireland, Turkish and Yugoslavian militaries briefly experimented with Sokol.129 Sokol also emerged, informally, in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939).130 Trials in Turkey and Yugoslavia came to nothing but Catalonia provides an interesting comparison. Introduced at a time of political unrest, Sokols’ nationalist past was linked to an aspirational Catalan independence. Sokol, as depicted in public writings and radio lectures, was linked to a distinctly Irish form of modernity and identity, one distinguishable from other parts of Europe. The fullest expression of this was found in public demonstrations held by the military in the months following Sokol’s adoption. In 1934, Sokol demonstrations were held in the Curragh, the RDS and several other public grounds around the country.131 From the military’s internal reports, such demonstrations were thought to highlight Sokol’s efficiency as well as the strong physiques now found within the military.132 The demonstrations became a common occurrence in Irish public life. They had played a pivotal role in the diffusion of physical culture in Ireland in the early 1900s. Where they differed in the 1930s was the pageantry involved. A great deal of finance, and effort, was put into public displays by the state during this period.133 The most common forms of displays were those which focused on Ireland’s proud cultural heritage or those which promised a bright new future. Sokol displays landed somewhere in the middle of these two approaches. New songs written in Irish, but mimicking traditional Irish songs, were devised specifically for these displays. The military also invested money in portable speakers which

 Heffernan, ‘Soldiers, Sokol, and Symbolism’.  Irish Press, 20 Jun., 1934. 130  James Edward Stout, ‘Breakaway Nations: The Use of Sport and Physical Culture to Create a Cross Class Catalan Identity During the Second Republic’ (Ph.D. Thesis, University of California, San Diego, 2016), pp. 268–313. 131   ‘Physical Training Demonstration Sokol System of Physical Training’ (CMBA, DOD/2/42894); The Irish Times, 16 Apr., 1935. 132  Heffernan, ‘Soldiers, Sokol, and Symbolism’. 133   Joan Fitzpatrick Dean, All dressed up: Modern Irish historical pageantry (New York, 2014). 128 129

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could be brought around the country and used to play the music accompanying Sokol displays.134 While the public’s response was overwhelmingly positive, it is interesting to note some pockets of dissension. In an article for the Catholic Bulletin, one reader, J.J. Murphy, expressed outrage that Sokol had come to Ireland. Why, he demanded to know, had the GAA been overlooked in favour of an ‘obnoxious import’?135 That Murphy wished to see a distinctly Irish form of sport used to train troops, regardless of the GAA’s inexperience in military matters, demonstrated the relationship some found between military physical culture and state identity. Muprhy was not alone in his dissent. Writing in the Irish Press, ‘Rory the Rover’ penned a satirical, but nevertheless critical, article on Sokol in the Free State under the admittedly clever title ‘Why Is Sokol So-kolled?’.136 Once again the main criticism was that Irish systems should be used rather than foreign ones. Such objections ignored a physical culture industry in Ireland which was often highly dependent on the global marketplace of ideas. Instead, it preferred the comfortable blanket of myopic nationalist pride in the Gaelic Athletic Association. There was then, a short, but ultimately futile contest over what systems should be used on men’s bodies. Aside from the military’s reports, which praised Sokol, the press and schools proved equally enthused.137 In an article written for the Irish Independent in 1934, one unnamed journalist described Sokol as one of the most ‘scientific and efficient systems of physical development’.138 That same year, the Evening Herald reported former Minister of Education, Eoin MacNeill’s dissatisfaction that Sokol was confined to garrisons.139 Sokol was also used to impress the military’s cultural importance. A common practice was for invitations to be sent to politicians and public intellectuals to attend demonstrations. Invitations stated that performances were conducted in Irish, a point which reiterated Sokol’s bulwarking of

 Heffernan, ‘Soldiers, Sokol, and Symbolism’.  J.J.  Murphy, ‘Physical Culture Plans: A Plea for National Principle (A Protest at the Adoption of the Sokol System and a plea to the G. A. A. to Produce a National System)’, The Catholic Bulletin, 24 (1934), pp. 577–584. 136  Irish Press, 10 May, 1934. 137  Irish Press, 20 Jun., 1934; The Irish Times, 16 Apr., 1935; Irish Independent, 7 Dec., 1936; CMBA, SOKOL/Newry CBS/DOD/2/41656. 138  Irish Independent, 16 Jun., 1934. 139  Evening Herald, 14 Nov., 1934. 134 135

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Irish customs.140 The attempt to associate Sokol with Gaelic Ireland was forged through ‘thrilling displays’, watched ‘by thousands’.141 As discussed in Chap. 3, the military had long played an important role in school physical education. This explains, in part, why the military continued to hold this position in both the Free State and Northern Ireland rather than, say, the police force. Likewise, a demand for Irish translations of Sokol manuals, ultimately unfulfilled by the overworked Lieutenant Tichy, began in 1935 when a series of schools applied to the military for assistance incorporating Sokol.142 Such demands did not always receive the kind graces of the military. In 1938, the same year the Free State formally changed its name to Ireland, Brother Newell from Newbridge College despairingly called on his friend, and Minister of Defence Frank Aiken, to ask the military to provide Newell with information on Sokol. Newell’s letters to the Military School of Physical Culture had been passed from desk to desk until they were forgotten.143 Aiken’s intervention was accompanied by more requests for educational material related to Sokol. In the end, several schools created ersatz Sokol systems. That Sokol was also used in Irish prisons, for adults and teenagers, reiterated its appeal.144 For some, Sokol’s allure extended beyond schools. In her educational thesis, written in 1939, University College Dublin student Ellen Cooney argued that ‘Sokol, especially for juniors, could be made to serve the Irish Revival … by using Irish dances, songs, stories, and games’.145 The military appeared to agree. Initially content using Czechoslovakian music during displays, traditional Irish music was used in military displays from 1938.146 Sokol’s use in Ireland also attracted interest from Northern Irish newspapers, the Czechoslovakian government and, at times, British  ‘Invitation’ (CBMA, DOD/2/42894).  Irish Examiner, 12 Jul., 1937. 142  Br. P.W.  Newell, ‘Physical Culture Instruction 13 March, 1935.’ (CBMA, Sokol/ Newry CBS/DOD/2/41656). 143  Heffernan, ‘Soldiers, Sokol, and Symbolism’. 144   Edward Fahy, ‘Borstal in Ireland (Public Lecture delivered 18th June 1941)’, Hermathena, 58 (November, 1941), p. 81; Capt. John J. Hogan, ‘Warder William Nyhan – Mountjoy Prison Staff, 20 June 1939’. (CBMA, 2/47002). 145  Ellen Cooney, ‘The Tendency Towards Physical Training in the Sokol Way’ (M.A. Thesis, University College Dublin, 1939), p. 25. 146  ‘Sokol Exercise, Purchase of an Amplifier for Pt Instruction – Manufacture of Records of Musical Selections’ (CBMA, DOD/2/50773). 140 141

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Pathé.147 In 1937, Pathé released a video of a Dublin Sokol display.148 Pathé’s narrator was not impressed. Opening with the claim that Sokol sounded like ‘a free fight’, the clip proceeded to show soldiers performing Sokol exercises to music.149 In a latter scene in which soldiers leap-frogged over one another, the presenter observed that ‘the difference between man and dumb animals is that man is upright on two legs … well I ask you’.150 Undoubtedly tongue-in-cheek, the video suggested both the promise and the limitations of Sokol’s allure. In Ireland, the system was associated with a distinct Irish identity forged through traditionally Irish emblems and strong male bodies. For others, like the aforementioned Pathé narrator, it appeared to be much ado about nothing. That it was such a talking point revealed the praise and anxiety afforded to the military displays found in mainland Europe were not absent from domestic Irish affairs. Despite Ireland’s, at times humble but certainly, modest geopolitical ambitions, a great deal of effort was directed towards the training of soldiers. Soldiers became emblems of the State’s military power, an embodied symbol of Irish nationalism and a promise of strong futures. In Northern Ireland, the military’s system differed from that of the Free State as British geopolitical concerns continued to dictate thinking. As explained by Stephen Jones, geopolitical changes during the 1930s prompted British military officials to revise their military training in preparation for potential conflict.151 The Bukh system brought in during the previous decade was kept but its importance, and integration into other parts of barrack life, grew. Encouraged by the belief that fascist Italy and Germany were physically stronger nations, fears arose that Britain’s public were physically lagging.152 Worsening matters for military leaders, and politicians, was the fact that in 1937, the same year a Physical Training and 147  ‘Physical Training Display in Ireland Aka Irish Physical Training Display’, British Pathé, 13 May 1937. Available at https://www.britishpathe.com/video/physical-training-displayin-ireland-aka-irish-phy/query/Irish+Physical+Training+Display [Accessed 30 November 2018]. 148  Basil Chubb, The Government and Politics of Ireland (London, 1992), p. 43. 149  ‘Physical Training Display in Ireland’, 9–14 seconds. 150  Ibid., 1 minute 52 seconds–1 minute 55 seconds. 151  Stephen G.  Jones, ‘State Intervention in Sport and Leisure in Britain Between the Wars’, Journal of Contemporary History, 22, no. 1 (1987), pp. 165–168. 152  Daphné Bolz, ‘Reversing the Influence: Anglo-German Relations and British Fitness Policies in the 1930s’, Sport in History, 34, no. 4 (2014), pp. 569–594.

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Recreation Act was passed in England, physical requirements for troops were lowered to account for the poor physical fitness of incoming recruits.153 As the prospect of war increased, interest in training grew. Minor training changes were made in 1931 with the publication of a revised manual but the messages underpinning this system differed greatly from the Free State.154 In the Free State, physical culture exercises were appropriated and applied to ideas of modernity and a specific Irish identity. In Northern Ireland, informed by British concerns, training was understood in the context of troop health and potential conflict, both of which underpinned the 1931 Manual of Physical Training. Based on the Danish system discussed previously, the 1931 manual marked an uneasy tension between benign and combative training. Put another way, the manual attempted to provide a holistic system of training but one which ultimately trained men for battle. In it, instructors were informed that the object of training was ‘to enable the man to acquit himself as a soldier’.155 Acknowledging wider fears, the manual noted that ‘an unsound man may do his best’ but will always ‘fall short of the physical capacity of a sound man’.156 A primary emphasis was placed on fighting capacities, but the manual did attempt to develop mind and body. Having established the need for ‘sound men’, a term regularly used but never defined—one suspects it harked back to the Victorian sound mind, sound body aesthetic—the manual discussed the ‘formation of character’ and ‘development of leadership’ produced by training.157 Despite this interest in character building, the manual stressed the importance of fitness for military victory: It is … vitally necessary that the soldier should be fit to be able to make the best … under the worst conceivable conditions of mental and physical strain.158

153  ‘Report of the Committee on Recruiting for the Army 14 January 1937’ (National Archives, Kew (Henceforth NAK), CAB 24/267/12). 154  Manual of Physical Training 1931 (London, 1931). 155  Manual of Physical Training 1931, p. 1. 156  Ibid., p. 3. 157  Ibid., p. 1. 158  Ibid., p. 10.

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Also important were efforts to facilitate diversion. Instructors were warned against making training ‘irksome’.159 To develop man’s moral and mental capacities, physical training could not be a punishment. The Manual’s focus on character building revealed the outcome British generals wished to cultivate. Britain’s army demanded ‘sound men’ capable of leading others, completing arduous tasks and fighting without ‘encumbering’ hospitals.160 ‘Sound men’, one was led to believe, were those of strong body and mind. For Irishmen in the British Army, the training system and its messages were different from those in the Free State. Steven O’Connor found that several thousand Irishmen enlisted in the British Army prior to 1939, which meant that aside from the roughly 31,000 men from Northern Ireland who joined, a number of Free State Irishmen were exposed to this sort of training ethos.161 Whereas those enlisting in 1939 were passed through physical training in a shortened period, those who joined prior to 1939 encountered weeks of physical training.162 For both regions, military training held a special importance. It was a means of regeneration, geopolitical survival and individual health. In this regard, Northern Ireland and Ireland were in line with broader European developments.

‘Fundamentally Man Is a Creature of Fine Proportion …’: Police Physical Culture in the 1930s Where military training was changing, training in An Garda Síochána and the Royal Ulster Constabulary remained vibrant but static during the 1930s. In the Gardaí, Eoin O’Duffy’s removal as commissioner in 1933 did little to stem the force’s association with physical culture and athletics.163 Before his removal, O’Duffy routinely expressed concern that the force’s physical prowess was waning, owing to physical degeneration in Irishmen. Ferghal McGarry’s biography on O’Duffy found numerous instances in which the commissioner cited degeneration on behalf of the public which could be contrasted with the Gardaí. It was unsurprising that the 1930s saw O’Duffy align himself with authoritarian regimes which

 Ibid., p. 20.  Ibid., pp. 1–5. 161  Steven O’Connor, Irish Officers in the British Forces, 1922–45 (London, 2014), p. 154. 162  Adam Culling (ed.), Fighting Fit (Gloucestershire, 2014), pp. 25–26. 163  McGarry, Eoin O’Duffy: A Self-Made Hero. 159 160

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likewise reviled physical degeneration and celebrated ‘manly’ sport.164 From the mid-1930s, his writings and public speeches oozed with a rhetoric of staunch government intervention and individual responsibility when it came to physical fitness. At an Olympic event in 1935, O’Duffy implored the rising generation to take to physical culture to lessen the burden placed by on asylums and hospitals.165 Some years prior he claimed that a nation indifferent to sport and physical culture was one was ‘doomed to deterioration’.166 This was the ideology of the man who oversaw and supported physical culture in the Gardaí. His zest for fitness, regardless of the ideologies underpinning it, could not be ignored. It is unsurprising then that his removal in 1933, and replacement by Eamon Broy, did little to temper police physical culture. During the 1930s, it became clear that the police force’s integration into Irish civil society was growing concurrently with the military. Newspapers routinely reported on police athletic demonstrations and competitions alongside physical drill.167 Also significant was the public’s reliance on current and former Garda instructors to teach physical culture. While this occurred sporadically in public gymnasiums, there is evidence that schools, most notably De La Salle schools, relied on Gardaí rather than the military.168 Why this was case is unclear although the military’s reticence in teaching Sokol physical culture provides some clues.169 Nevertheless far more military men taught physical education than police officers. The appearance of policemen in schools as instructors was usually done voluntarily although some civilians favoured formalisation. In 1937, E.  McGorry, wrote to the Department of Justice arguing in favour of mandatory Gardaí instruction for teenagers.170 In the letter, McGorry cited barracks as ideal training hubs, especially in rural Ireland. He also believed that Garda instructors could and should train boys aged between

 Ibid., pp. 140–165.  ‘Ireland at the Olympiad’ by Eoin O’Duffy c. 1943’, (Eoin O’Duffy Papers, National Library of Ireland, MS 48,299/1), p. 55. 166  Sport Saturday, 14 May, 1927. 167  Irish Press, 1 Oct., 1931; Irish Independent, 20 Nov., 1931; Evening Herald, 13 Jun., 1932. 168  Drogheda Independent, 4 Jul., 1936. 169  Heffernan, ‘Soldiers, Sokol, and Symbolism’. 170  Mr. E.  McGorry, ‘Letter Suggesting that Gardaí be used as Instructors in Physical Training of Youth’ (National Archives of Ireland (Henceforth NAI), DJ 90/5/78), pp. 1–4. 164 165

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fourteen and twenty-one.171 Physical culture in the Gardaí was said by McGorry to produce a recognisable corps of strong, and upstanding men. McGorry wished to see similar changes effected on the youth of Ireland.172 Nothing came of his suggestion but the letter highlighted the Gardaí’s relationship with health and fitness in the public mind. Within the force, the emphasis on sport and physical culture intensified. Indeed, the Garda Review regularly commented on sport and physical fitness with reference to broader ideas of manliness and Christian purity.173 Control of the body meant the cultivation of a higher self. Articles written in 1931, still buoyant following the Gardaí’s 1929 pilgrimage to Lourdes, spoke of the athletic bodies who travelled.174 The juxtaposition of spiritual and physical strength was a common motif. As part of the 1932 Eucharistic Congress held in Dublin, the Review stressed the use of physical culture for physical and mental strength.175 In 1934, the Review described the Gardaí as the ‘cream of Irish manhood’ owing to its athleticism and religious strength.176 Likewise that same year, an anonymous article entitled ‘Men the World Admires’ set forth the force’s relationship with physical culture. Despite his removal, the article reiterated O’Duffy’s despair at the current state of Irish fitness and a confidence in the force’s own physical fitness. However despairingly we may view the general height and physique of the people we encounter daily in the crowd street, we still have to admit that there are the men among the Irish police upon whom it is a pleasure to look.177

Continuing in this vein, the article spoke of the ‘physical strength in the height, the breadth of the shoulders and slenderness of hips’ evidenced in policemen’s bodies.178 Where the RIC focused on men’s chest size and height, these discourses suggested a far more refined and aesthetic focus  Ibid., p. 2.  Ibid. 173  ‘The Tailteann Games’, Garda Review, 2, no. 9 (1932), pp. 321–325; ‘Athletic Revival’, Garda Review, 2, no. 11 (1932), p.  871; ‘Irish Manhood’, Garda Review, 9, no. 12 (1933), p. 211. 174  ‘Pilgrimage’, Garda Review, 1 (1931), pp. 201–203. 175  ‘Eucharistic Congress’, Garda Review, 2, no. 11 (1932), pp. 903–910. 176  ‘Irish Manhood’, Garda Review, 9, no. 12 (1933), p. 211. 177  ‘Men the World Admires’, The Garda Review, January (1934), p. 234. 178  Ibid. 171 172

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among some of the force.179 Such ideas meshed well with a broader recreational physical culture far more concerned with appearance than function. Despite the Garda Review’s insular, and perhaps self-serving subject matter, its creativity was built on broader global trends. The publication of Bernarr Macfadden’s physical culture creed in the 1920s was evidence of this. During the 1930s, this pattern continued, albeit somewhat lazily. In 1935, an article on police physical culture was reprinted from the British Police Review with a comment stating that the same messages could, and should, be equally applied to the Gardaí.180 The brief inclusion of a ‘Women’s Realm’ section, penned by Oonah in the late 1930s, suggested that the Review also cared about female physical culture.181 Female Gardaí were not yet a reality, this took until the 1960s, when the Review began running this column for women. The section, too, became a rallying cry for physical culture. Beginning with an assertion that physical culture was necessary for the coming generations, Oonah cited physical fitness as an ideal that nations, and individuals, should strive for.182 Her conclusion that women needed to be as physically fit as men was also found in a previously published article on female police officers in Poland.183 The continued promotion of physical culture in the police force eventually led to tentative discussions about forming a physical culture club in the Garda depot. Such an idea had been suggested during the days of the RI.C before the Great War disrupted plans.184 Led by Garda R. Cooper, it was suggested that such a club would continue the force’s association as physically and morally strong, while simultaneously indoctrinating those formerly athletic police officers now ‘labouring under unnecessary weight’.185 And yet, despite such enthusiasm, the Gardaí’s training system remained unchanged. A gymnastic Garda department was formed in 1923 but the 179  Heffernan, ‘Physical culture, the Royal Irish Constabulary and police masculinities in Ireland’. 180  ‘Physical Fitness in the Police Force’, Garda Review, September, (1935), p. 1201. 181  Oonah, ‘Woman’s Realm: Physical Fitness and the Child’, The Garda Review, July (1936), p. 923. 182  Ibid. 183  Mary Allen, ‘The Police Women of Poland’, Garda Review, November, (1935), p. 1456. 184  ‘RIC Depot Physical Culture Club’, The Constabulary Gazette, 4 March (1916), p. 214. 185  Garda R. Cooper, ‘Physical Culture Club in the Depot?’, The Garda Review, January (1937), p. 238.

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force retained a training system devised during the RIC’s existence.186 In his response to a letter from the Swedish Consulate in 1929, J.R. Walshe, then Secretary of External Affairs, detailed this unchanged programme: The Garda recruit undergoes an hour’s instruction daily for five days a week in physical drill and his course lasts for six months … It is regretted the name of the system adopted is unknown beyond the general term of Swedish Drill or Physical Training. The various exercises have been standardised and the course is exactly the same as that which is followed in both National and British Armies.187

That such enthusiasm was directed towards a system indistinguishable from the British army, a body that the Gardaí tried to distance itself from through the cultivation of a hyper-Gaelicised identity, stressed the permeability of physical culture discourses during the interwar period. Physical culture systems were not necessarily, important, but the messages attached to them certainly were. The Gardaí were not the only non-military bodies using Swedish drill in the Free State. The Irish Republican Army and Eoin O’Duffy’s ‘Blueshirts’, two opposed paramilitary forces, relied on Swedish drill from 1933 to 1936 to train recruits.188 The Army Comrades Association, which morphed into the National Guard and ultimately the League of Youth, was a paramilitary organisation founded in the early 1930s to protect Cumann na nGaedheal members from anti-treaty IRA harassment.189 Colloquially known as the ‘Blueshirts’, in homage to Benito Mussolini’s black shirt movement, the group briefly became a point of considerable anxiety for the incumbent Fianna Fáil coalition government.190 Headed by O’Duffy, the Blueshirts preached the importance of military drill and physical culture, claiming that such exercise would promote good health, 186  ‘Letter to Secretary, Ministry of Finance, 7th November, 1923’ (NAI, Ministry of Home Affairs – Civic Guard – Authority for Payment for Equipment of Gymnasium 1923, FIN/1/1872). 187  Runaidhe Dlí agus Cirt, ‘Letter to Runaidhe, Roinn Gnothaí Coigriche’ (NAI, Gymnastic Training of the Defence and Police Forces in the Irish Free State, DFA/1/ GR/1203). 188  ‘Illegal Blueshirt Drilling County Cavan 1934’ (NAI, DJ 2008/117/23). 189  Mike Cronin, ‘The Blueshirt Movement, 1932–5: Ireland’s Fascists?’, Journal of Contemporary History 30, no. 2 (1995), pp. 311–332. 190  Ibid.

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character and discipline.191 Exercise was not confined to men, as both a women’s and children’s branch existed which practiced physical culture.192 Such was the group’s brief importance that Eoin O’Duffy became leader of the newly created Fine Gael party founded after a merger between Cumann na nGaedheal and the agrarian National Centre Party in 1933. When O’Duffy was ousted from Fine Gael one year later, and replaced by former Taoiseach W.T.  Cosgrave, he redirected his efforts towards the increasingly authoritarian, but politically limp, Blueshirt movement. In a direct parallel with other communities such as the Ulster Volunteer Force in the early 1910s or the fascist regimes of mainland Europe, the Blueshirts attempted to use drill displays to highlight their political and military force. Done when the IRA were still in existence, sporadic clashes emerged during the early 1930s between such groups. Where the Blueshirts were perhaps the most public example of a paramilitary group using physical culture, the IRA were doing likewise. In the early 1930s the IRA was repeatedly caught engaging in illegal drilling and training sessions. In 1931, the IRA murdered Tipperary constable John Ryan after he gave evidence on their illegal drilling.193 It was a rare, but problematic, instance of the group’s lingering significance. Although much of the IRA had been subsumed with the creation of Fianna Fáil in the 1920s, the group that remained proved virulently anti-Treaty and were a source of continued anxiety for Éamon de Valera’s initial Fianna Fáil government.194 Drill and physical culture may not have occupied the same ideological importance for the IRA as the Blueshirts, but its practical function as a means of indoctrination and training remained. Such efforts were, however, fleeting. In 1935, the Fianna Fáil government banned both groups, a decision met with a largely passive resistance.195 These groups continued to be active in Irish and international politics, most notably during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, but their impact became largely negligible in the Free State. Their use of physical culture exercises at this time, however

 Mike Cronin, ‘Blueshirts, Sports and Socials’, History Ireland, Autumn (1994), p. 45.  Dale Montgomery, ‘No Suggestion of Suffragettism’: the Blue Blouses in Ireland, 1933–1936’, Women’s History Review 23, no. 5 (2014), pp. 776–792. 193  Colm Wallace, The Fallen: Gardai Killed in Service 1922–49 (Dublin, 2017), pp. 78–85. 194  Richard English, ‘‘Paying No Heed to Public Clamor’: Irish Republican Solipsism in the 1930s’, Irish Historical Studies 28, no. 112 (1993), pp. 426–439. 195  Bill Kissane, ‘Eamon de Valera and the Survival of Democracy in Inter-war Ireland’, Journal of Contemporary History, 42 no. 2 (2007), pp. 213–226. 191 192

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transitory, points to the fact that exercise was not just the preserve of official state bodies. It still held a paramilitary purpose, symbolic or otherwise. In Northern Ireland, which likewise encountered the continued thorn of the IRA’s presence, police physical culture continued to be a point of interest and contention In the Royal Ulster Constabulary, training systems remained consistent, much to the chagrin of some members. From 1930, The Constabulary Gazette promulgated the idea that although the RUC represented Northern Ireland’s fittest body of men, its training was antiquated.196 To promote the force’s strength, the Gazette regularly discussed officers’ athleticism and physical culture displays in tones similar to the Garda Review. In 1933, readers were informed of a Balmoral police tournament where ‘the cream of the athletes throughout the British Isles’ competed, with Irish officers singled out for considerable praise.197 The following year, W.F.  Osborne, a self-proclaimed ‘premier sports writer’, joined the Gazette and began listing the RUC as unequalled in its promotion of athletics and physical culture.198 These messages also appeared in the wider press. Articles in the Belfast Newsletter noted the RUC’s eye-­ catching displays while the Northern Whig approvingly wrote of the RUC’s physical culture expertise.199 To return to the Gazette, physical culture was a reoccurring theme as readers were continually confronted with Harry Broom’s physical culture advertisements which promised to provide men with ‘robust health and vigorous energy’.200 Similar to the marketing techniques previously used by Eugen Sandow and Maxick in the RIC’s Constabulary Gazette, Broom’s advertising targeted interested policemen.201 Another regular advertiser was Malcolm Ross, whose ‘Ross for Height’ system, ‘utilising physical culture exercises’, somehow promised increased stature through exercise.202 Like the Gardaí, the RUC maintained its system of physical culture during the 1930s despite members’ objections. That this didn’t seem to present a problem in the Gardaí spoke to a much broader discontent among  ‘Letters to the Editor’, The Constabulary Gazette, 1 October, (1933), p. 92.  ‘The Recent Sports’, The Constabulary Gazette, 1 July (1933), pp. 5–7 and 11–13. 198  W.F.  Osborne, ‘The Annual Sports: A Few of the Attractions’, The Constabulary Gazette, 1 June (1934), p. 309. 199  Belfast Newsletter, 1 Sept., 1937. 200  ‘Broom’s International Course’, The Constabulary Gazette, 1 October, (1933), p. 78. 201  ‘Mr. Sandow’s offer to the Irish Constabulary’, The Constabulary Gazette, 27 June (1908), p. 259; ‘Maxalding Ad’, The Constabulary Gazette, 23 October (1920), p. 75. 202  ‘Ross for Height’, The Constabulary Gazette, 1 November, (1933), p. 1. 196 197

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the RUC’s rank and file. In 1933, a Gazette contributor complained of ‘ancient RIC ideas’ regarding drill.203 Their complaints were substantiated by letters from ‘A Sympathiser’ and ‘Unfortunate Victim’, both of whom held similar views.204 The Gardaí’s management often depicted physical culture and the communities attached to it as an inherently transformative thing for men. In the RUC, it seemed an easy opportunity to critique the force’s structural lethargy. Other letters to the Gazette claimed that while a modified drill book had been introduced, some drill instructors—those described by Gazette contributors as disinterested—discarded it.205 ‘Irish Guards’ explained it thusly: Leaving drill instruction to men who probably only have a few months to go before retiring and who utilise it presumably in the disguise of despots, makes it heart breaking to men who know that they are treated in a despotic manner.206

‘Too Old at Sixty’ echoed these complaints when they asked, ‘why issue a drill book when its provisions are not carried out?’207 For many readers, the difficulty incorporating new exercises was compounded by the difficulty many faced trying to access the book.208 At the heart of such complaints were generational conflicts between those who served in the RIC and those who entered the RUC in the 1920s. A 1937 Northern Whig article suggested that the RUC was using different forms of drill in public exhibitions. There is little to suggest, however, that substantive changes had been made to the RUC’s system of physical training by 1939.209 Despite such discontent, few discounted the importance of physical culture for the force, nor the RUC’s self-serving reputation as fit and physically active. In the context of the interwar period, in which physical deterioration seemed to many a reality, that was enough.

 ‘Letters to the Editor’, The Constabulary Gazette, 1 October, (1933), p. 92.  Ibid. 205  ‘Letters to the Editor’, The Constabulary Gazette, 1 September (1933), p. 67. 206  ‘Letters to the Editor’, 1 November, p. 103. 207  ‘Letters to the Editor’, 1 September, p. 67. 208  ‘Letters to the Editor’, 1 October, p. 92. 209  Northern Whig, 10 Jun., 1937. 203 204

CHAPTER 7

‘In Ireland the Subject of Physical Training Had Perhaps, Been Neglected’: Interwar Physical Culture in Schools

In the interwar period, recreational physical culture returned to its previously vibrant levels. New communities arose, as did new technologies. Fears arose around individual health and how it related to the state but there still existed, on both sides of the border, a relative freedom in one’s interests. In the military and police force institutional physical culture, especially in the Free State, saw an intensification of interest in developing fit, strong and masculine bodies. This could be done as a means of defence, of practicality or, more often than not, to form a clear symbol. Where, then, does Irish education fit within this context? In Northern Ireland, physical culture, at an institutional and recreational level, was largely a mimicry of what was happening in Great Britain. Military and educational changes were dictated by British policymakers while recreational physical culturists bought their equipment, and garnered their knowledge, from primarily English sources. The Irish Free State, on the other hand, saw a series of efforts emerge which sought to differentiate the Free State from its imperial past. Changes were made to the education system, the military overhauled its training and Free State physical culturists appeared to interact with a global brand of physical culture. International thoughts, and anxieties, permeated both regions but domestic concerns held supremacy. Continuing from the pre-war ideologies discussed in Chap. 4, physical education was presumed to hold importance in strengthening children’s bodies and, in turn, their minds. Much like military physical culture, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_7

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Northern Ireland and the Free State often shared the same concerns but went down drastically different paths. Over the course of the interwar period two distinct patterns emerged in Irish education. First that physical education was important for schoolchildren and second that the subject was grossly underfunded. Contradictions existed and this disconnect between ideology and reality was never truly resolved. Exploring the problematic nature of physical education in the interwar period, this chapter is split between into three distinct periods. Beginning in the early 1920s, and at a time of great optimism in Irish education, Section I unpacks the politicised nature of physical education in the Free State and Northern Ireland in the first decade after partition. It was here the seeds for the next several decades were planted. Section II discusses physical education during the 1930s with reference to new trends. Specifically, the section examines the interplay between domestic and international thought at this time. As was the case elsewhere in Europe, ideas of physical education and its role in the 1930s were largely dictated by German and Italian physical culture. Section III explores efforts by respective governments to intervene in physical education. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party attempted to affect change through greater funding and support. This was made possible by the introduction of a Physical Training and Recreation Act in 1938. The same year, the Irish government, Fianna Fáil, issued a series of exploratory reports on physical education alongside a series of experimental trials. In all of this, the impact of partition, and the primacy of marshalling children’s bodies, never wavered.

‘A New and Awakened Interest in Educational Matters’: Physical Education in the 1920s Educational physical culture in Ireland during the 1920s was subject to two distinct forms of training. The reasons for this stemmed from financial and ideological constraints. In the Free State, an initial enthusiasm for physical education was tempered by structural and financial constraints.1 A dearth in finances, competency and interest regarding physical education in schools meant that its provision in the Free State, while widely agreed to be important, proved lacklustre. Contemporaries were not ignorant of 1  Patrick Duffy, ‘State Policy on School Physical Education in, Ireland, with Special Reference to the Period 1960-1996’ (Ph.D. Thesis, St. Patrick’s College, 1997), pp. 21–27.

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this fact and a common criticism was that more was needed to improve schoolchildren’s health. That this criticism continued in the following decade revealed the problematic nature of educational physical culture.2 Presented as integral in debates, reports and articles, it was superfluous in execution. Northern Ireland, at least during the 1920s, appeared successful by comparison. In 1919, the Board of Education issued a new physical training system to be used across Great Britain.3 Introduced at a time of substantial educational reform, including the introduction of an Education Act in 1923, the handbook gave teachers a clear system to use.4 Despite their differing fortunes, both regions emphasised physical education’s role for children, linking its importance once more to physical and mental health. Furthermore, physical education was imbued with ideas surrounding educational success and modern citizenship.5 In one of its last Irish reports in 1920, the British Commissioners of Education claimed that despite physical drill’s moral, mental and physical benefits, far too many Irish schools were neglecting the subject.6 Many schools found it ‘impractical’ to teach, which, at least in the Free State, foreshadowed events for the next several years.7 Schools operating during Ireland’s War of Independence were, depending on the region, under great financial and political pressure.8 In such conditions physical education was a luxury and not, it seemed, a necessity. Prior to the Great War a great deal of effort was expended promoting physical education. As peace slowly returned to Ireland following the War of Independence and Civil War, efforts resumed once more. In 1922, Irish schoolteachers met to create a new school curriculum, one fit for a newly independent nation with a rich cultural history. The Irish language would be privileged, students would gain a holistic education and, it appeared that physical education would become an important and core subject. 2  Department of Education, Report of the Department of Education 1932–1933 (Dublin, 1933), pp. 17–21. 3   Great Britain Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools, 1919 (London, 1922). 4  Ibid., pp. 3–12. 5  Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training, pp. 6–26. 6  Annual Report of the Commissioners of Education in Ireland for the Year 1920 (Dublin, 1921), p. 13. 7  Report of the Department of Education for the School Years 1925-26-27 and the Financial and Administrative Year 1926–27 (Dublin, 1927), p. 30. 8  Anthony Seldon and David Walsh, Public Schools and the Great War (Barnsley, 2013), pp. 66–71.

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Published in the Free State in 1922, the National Programme of Primary Instruction opened with optimistic comments about a revival of interest in Irish education evident among politicians and the public.9 In the document, the curriculum was altered, existing subjects were modified and Irish was introduced as the language of instruction.10 This last point echoed the educational ambitions of the Gaelic League a decade previous and marked a distinctly cultural nationalist turn in education.11 The elevation of Irish as a core subject was linked to new distinctly Irish identity which the Free State wished to cultivate.12 Within these changes, physical drill’s status remained an obligatory subject in primary schools.13 From then on, the Programme stated that schools were required to provide at least thirty minutes of physical drill a week.14 Professing to be unconcerned with the form taken, the Programme advocated the use of Swedish or ‘other approved’ systems. This, it was hoped, would improve children’s ‘energy, gracefulness and precision’.15 Thomas O’Donoghue previously claimed that the shift from military forms of physical education to Swedish gymnastics represented an attempt by the newly incumbent Department of Education to distance itself from the military and instead align itself with more gentle ideas surrounding health.16 While this may have been the case, many of the Programme’s presumptions about physical drill and physical education underpinned its previous military connotations. In the Programme, attention was placed on students’ manners and deportment as a means of training them in the ‘habits of prompt obedience’.17 9  National Programme Conference, National Programme of Primary Instruction (Dublin, 1922), pp. 3–15. 10  Ibid., pp. 1–6. 11  Timothy G.  McMahon, Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893–1910 (Syracuse, 2008), p. 77. 12  Adrian Kelly, Compulsory Irish: Language and Education in Ireland, 1870s–1970s (Dublin, 2002), pp. 2–22. 13  National Programme Conference, National Programme of Primary Instruction, pp.  6 and 14–16. 14  Duffy, ‘State Policy’, p. 21. 15  National Programme Conference, National Programme of Primary Instruction, p. 14. 16  Thomas O’Donoghue, ‘Sport, recreation and physical education: the evolution of a national policy of regeneration in Eire, 1926–48’, The International Journal of the History of Sport, 3, no. 2 (1986), pp. 216–233. 17  This vigilance extended to teachers. Dónal O’Donoghue, ‘Speak and Act in a Manly Fashion: The Role of the Body in the Construction of Men and Masculinity in Primary Teacher Education in Ireland’, Irish Journal of Sociology, 14, no. 2 (2005), pp. 231–253.

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By 1926, it became clear that enthusiasm for physical training was short-lived and arguably highly misplaced. In that year’s Department of Education report, physical training was relegated alongside drawing, domestic science and manual instruction, from an obligatory to optional subject owing to a want of adequate teaching and material facilities.18 Such issues plagued physical drill since its introduction into schools in the early 1900s but its place in the curriculum never wavered. Despite claims that physical training was adequately taught in larger schools, especially urban ones, the Department feared that the majority of schools faced too many obstacles teaching physical education.19 The changes to physical education were part of a broader restructuring of the 1922 National Programme. Owing primarily to material constraints, the Department claimed it was more prudent to focus on a smaller number of subjects, which could be taught well, rather than diluting the curriculum with too many topics. Becoming an optional subject allowed the Department to relieve pressures from smaller schools and echoed many of the arguments raised against making physical education a compulsory subject in secondary schools. The reversal of physical education’s importance reflected the starker realities of the Free State. Optimism at the outset of the decade was quickly met with a bitter realisation when it came to implementation. It arguably also reflected a naivety around state intervention. One of the arguments in favour of making physical education optional was that this would allow the Departments of Education, Local Government and Public Health to come together and provide medical and dental inspection alongside physical education in schools which taught the subject. How well developed this idea was is debatable as inspections proved patchy at best. To someway rectify the situation, and promote a subject recognised as vital ‘for national health’ among schoolteachers and politicians, reforms were made to the requirements for primary teaching. From 1926, primary instructors were required to undergo a new two-year course in a series of subjects, including physical training.20 Secondary schools, where attendance was not compulsory, were not required to offer drill. Those that did appear to have continued in relying on military instructors.21 18  Report of the Department of Education for the School Year 1924-25 and the Financial and Administrative Years 1924-25-26 (Dublin, 1926), pp. 25–27. 19  Ibid., pp. 26–30. 20  Ibid. 21  Joseph Moran, ‘The Role of the Military in the Development of Physical Education in Irish Schools from 1922 to 1973’ (M.A.  Thesis, University College Dublin, 2013), pp. 42–50.

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The following year in 1927, the Department reported on the increased proficiency and attention given to physical training in secondary schools. This success was contrasted with the observation that, compared with the previous year, drill in primary schools had ‘practically ceased’ following its designation as optional.22 Matters did not improve by the decade’s end. In 1929, the Department claimed that ‘drill seems to have been crowded out of the curriculum’ in primary schools.23 In secondary schools, where drill was deemed adequate a few years previously, the Department excluded it from the curriculum ‘to lessen the work’ of teachers.24 Despite the Department’s claims that physical education was deteriorating, some schools implemented the subject as best they could.25 Christian Brothers’ schools around the Free State, both primary and secondary, were routinely praised by the press for their promotion of physical culture, health and drill.26 Often competing in inter-school competitions with private schools, such schools marked a success in a largely problematic field.27 In state-funded schools it was hoped that physical education would improve children’s all-round development. This understanding was simultaneously linked to educational performance and the future of the Irish race.28 Petr Roubal has argued that children’s physical education is often taken to represent a future age of happiness and prosperity.29 Interwar Europe was a time of distinct anxiety surrounding health, strength and vitality. The child’s body held a promise for future strength. In direct contrast to its supposed importance, the subject’s implementation fell below its venerated status. A key factor in this was a lack of finance, an issue of considerably less concern for fee-paying schools. For fee-paying schools, a greater depth of finances and competency ensured drill was an integral and, at times, highly enjoyable pursuit. This was made clear in comments found in the 1922 All Hallows College Annual regarding the school’s 22  Report of the Department of Education for the School Years 1925-26-27 and the Financial and Administrative Year 1926–27 (Dublin, 1927), p. 30. 23  Report of the Department of Education 1928–29 (Dublin, 1929), p. 51. 24  Ibid., p. 57. 25  Fermanagh Herald, 20 Mar., 1920; Offaly Independent, 15 Oct., 1927; Irish Examiner, 20 Apr., 1927. 26  Irish Examiner, 28 Jul., 1925; Evening Herald, 22 May, 1928. 27  Irish Independent, 27 May, 1926. 28  National Programme Conference, National Programme, pp. 14–16. 29  Petr Roubal, Spartakiads: The Politics of Physical Culture in Communist Czechoslovakia (Prague, 2020), pp. 29–65.

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gymnastic team. Trained by Mr Wright, the schoolchildren, from youngest to oldest, were praised for their gymnastic prowess.30 Open to friends, family and the public, gymnastic competitions gave schools opportunity to advertise its educational acumen while also giving students a playful outlet. In St. Mary’s College, Father Sexton, and later Mr Flood, revived Swedish Drill and gymnastics in a bid to improve deportment and discipline among male students.31 Thanks to the privileged nature of the school, pupils were entered into regional gymnastic competitions found primarily among private schools in Ireland.32 For female colleges, drill and physical education likewise played an important role. Reflecting on their experience in Alexandra College, several former students cited their enjoyment of physical training during the 1920s.33 Alexandra was, owing to its own physical training college, exceptional in promoting physical culture and gymnastics throughout this period. Where many institutions, including Alexandra College, cited the disciplinary and physical benefits accruing from training, students recalled a far more jovial experience.34 Dorothy Robinson, who entered Alexandra in 1928, claimed: Gym class was an opportunity to put our surplus energy to the best use! It was an exhilarating time, especially the ‘vaulting only class’ (on Fridays after lunch) when we exhibited our skill or otherwise.35

Far from being neglected, physical education in fee-paying schools appears to have thrived. Aside from student recollections, which focused on physical culture classes, it is clear that physical culture competitions were also popular in schools. Loreto Colleges for schoolgirls held numerous demonstrations during the 1920s as a means of impressing the school’s holistic ethos on parents and the public.36 This was not a novel approach, nor was  All Hallows Annual, 1922 (Dublin, 1922), pp. 30–31.  William A. Maher, A History of St. Mary’s College Rathmines, Dublin 1890-1990 (Dublin, 1994), pp. 150–155. 32  Ibid. 33  ‘Sheila Polden Mitchell, 1929–1939’; ‘Dorothy Robinson, 1928’; ‘Cupithia Taylor, 1921’ (Alexandra College Archives, Dublin (ACA), K5/2 1920–1930). 34  Mrs. Stansfeld, ‘Letter to Mrs Preston’, 30 September 1932 (ACA, B5/2 Staff Application 1925–1947). 35  ‘Dorothy Robinson’, 1928. 36  Freeman’s Journal, 22, Mar., 1921. 30 31

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it unique to fee-paying schools in the Free State. In Belfast’s Mercantile College, the annual sports day included physical culture in the programme alongside rugby, athletics and other sports.37 In front of gathered parents, alumni and students, physical culture competitions at the event benefitted from the fact that sports days were an established practice. For state schools in the Free State, like the aforementioned Christian Brothers’ schools, opportunities to engage in competitive physical culture pursuits were possible, but far less common.38 Where Colleges like Loreto, or Blackrock, differed in the Free State was in both the regularity of these exhibitions as well as the coaches involved, the equipment used, and the setting itself. In this regard, the Brothers’ exhibitions often appeared to be an ersatz version of those promoted by wealthier, and private, colleges. It is also worth mentioning that many more fee-paying schools simply promoted physical culture programmes in advertising and curricula, which stressed either their instructor’s competency or varied facilities.39 Physical education, physical culture and gymnastics became a means of advertising schools to prospective parents. This explains why colleges began stressing the new and modern facilities available to teach physical education.40 Physical education may have been an optional subject in state-funded schools but for those with means it was either a necessity to the school going experience, or, in its own way, a symbol which exhibited one’s wealth. The seemingly unproblematic nature of physical culture in fee-­ paying schools, especially when compared with state schools, was possible thanks to several factors. These schools promoted physical activity in the form of sport for several decades. They placed a high ideological emphasis on exercise, both as an educational tool, and, even, as a status symbol. Fee-­ paying schools also had the means to buy equipment, hire instructors and finance competitions. It was for this reason that physical culture appeared to thrive in these schools while struggling in state schools. For Free State politicians, physical education was equally important, although their commentary focused primarily on barriers to teaching as well as its necessity to the nation-state. This was shown in July 1924 when physical education was brought to the Dáil chamber. In this instance, General Mulcahy pressed his fellow Cumann na nGaedheal member and  Belfast Newsletter, 23 Jun., 1928.  The Irish Times, 27 May, 1926. 39  Connacht Tribune, 17 Oct., 1925; Westmeath Independent, 5 Oct., 1929. 40  Ibid. 37 38

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then Minister for Education (1922–1925), Eoin MacNeill, to answer why justice was not being paid to physical drill.41 ‘At a time when we have our own police forces and our own army’, Mulcahy asked why more was not being done to promote physical drill. In particular, Mulcahy wished to know why the army and police were not physical education instructors in schools given that physical training had a direct impact on ‘the health of the people’.42 For Mulcahy, drill was viewed as a key component of Ireland’s independence and future. As a military man, it was perhaps inevitable that he placed a high emphasis on physical culture. Indeed, his desire to see physical drill taught by either soldiers or policemen revealed his faith in exercise’s martial importance. Throughout the interwar period, Mulcahy continually exhibited a zeal for physical education. Time and time again Mulcahy found supporters, even among those he criticised. The 1924 debate saw Mulcahy’s comments echoed by Sir James Craig, who represented Dublin University. Craig argued that physical drill and medical inspections for schoolchildren were primary causes for concern and cited the impossibility of teaching drill owing to the poor state of buildings.43 In a telling remark, Craig commented: My experience of National Schools at the moment is not very great, but any experience I have leads me to think that a great many of these structures should be burned to the ground.44

These 'incendiary' remarks were echoed by the Minister of Education who, while praising Christian Brothers’ schools in teaching physical education, agreed that innumerable school buildings were unfit for purpose.45 The Minister acknowledged that ‘the only physical exercise I imagine that could be carried on in some of the schools would be the proverbial whipping of a cat.’46 Such admissions from the Minister were not accompanied by material investments but empty platitudes. At a time when the Cumann na nGaedheal government often appeared more concerned with saving rather than spending money, investment in training and facilities was not, 41  General Mulcahy, Dáil Debates, 8, no. 6 (07 July 1924). MacNeill was succeeded by John Marcus O’Sullivan, whose tenure ran until 1932. 42  Ibid. 43  Sir James Craig, Dáil Debates, 8, no. 6 (07 July 1924). 44  Ibid. 45  Ibid. 46  Dr. MacNeill, Dáil Debates, 8, no. 6 (07 July 1924).

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it seemed, forthcoming.47 That Irish schools had by then two decades of experience teaching physical education in unsuitable conditions was scant consolation. Hence, in 1925, attention was brought once more to physical education. In this instance, the aforementioned Craig, and George Wolfe of Cumann na nGaedheal, criticised the poor state of school buildings, with the former noting that many schools lacked adequate heating during winter, while others lacked playgrounds.48 Wolfe cited a lack of expertise on the part of teachers alongside the poor living conditions many children experienced. Some of these concerns were about far more than physical education. Gymnastics could do little good to children sent to school without food, but Wolfe continually returned to the need for drill in schools. Finishing his plea for investment, Wolfe reaffirmed his belief that a ‘healthy mind and a healthy body go together’.49 Exercise for children in these instances was attached to much broader societal concerns and aspirations, Wolfe himself attached it to the nation’s survival. That many shared Wolfe’s beliefs explain many of the impassioned speeches on the subject. The most vocal critic of the government’s inaction was once more General Mulcahy who, echoing Wolfe’s criticisms, lambasted teachers who failed to teach physical training properly. Opposed to drill’s optional status in the curriculum, Mulcahy, supported by other Dáil members, accused the Department of Education of shutting their eyes to the problem.50 Mulcahy’s military connections perhaps prejudiced his desire to see military officers teach physical education, but his claim that physical education was necessary for the future of the Irish nation resonated with many of his fellow politicians.51 Speaking at a time when physical education’s place within the school curriculum was in doubt—it would become optional the following year—Mulcahy once more attempted to bring his beloved military officers into more Irish schools. Teachers had, in Mulcahy’s view, entirely abandoned their responsibilities

 Robert Lynch, Revolutionary Ireland, 1912-25 (London, 2015), p. 132.  Sir James Craig, Dáil Debates, 13, no. 3 (12 November 1925); Mr. Wolfe, Dáil Debates, 13, no. 3 (12 November 1925). 49  Mr. Wolfe, Dáil Debates, 13, no. 3. 50  General Mulcahy, Dáil Debates, 13, no. 5 (17 November 1925). 51  Tony Mason and Eliza Riedi, Sport and the Military: The British Armed Forces 1880–1960 (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 241–250. 47 48

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I feel that there is a general tendency on the part of a large body of teachers, as it were, to repudiate any responsibility for the physical training of the pupils attending the national schools.52

Mulcahy’s belief in the promise of physical education found favour in political and public life. In 1928, Dr Robert James Rowlette, who later became a a member of Dáil Éireann in 1933, penned an article on the benefits accruing from a national commitment to physical education. Not only would ‘the youth gain’, it would reform Irish characters and improve examination results. Significantly, Rowlette also played on the peculiarised nature of Irish eugenic concerns which combined fears of physical degeneration with Ireland’s mass emigration. Writing in the Irish Independent, Dr Rowlette claimed that Ireland, ‘with its high emigration rate, [was] required to take every precaution to promote the health of its people’.53 Such comments highlighted the peculiarised nature of Irish degeneracy and eugenic debates in the interwar period as the Free States seemed vulnerable to ‘deterioration’ as well as the drain of emigration. Such comments were, by the 1920s, several decades old, but they reached a peak by the 1930s. In 1929, Dáil members had a conversation on this very subject. Leading the charge was opposition member William R.  Kent of Fianna Fáil. Founded in 1926 following a split with Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil came to govern the Free State in the 1930s. During its early years, the party proved to be a vocal, and in time, well-supported critic of the Cumann na nGaedheal government. Criticising its treatment of physical education represented an easy target but Kent’s claims reflected a much more generalised concern. Kent began his speech noting a perceived deterioration of the nation’s youth, especially compared to forty or fifty years previously.54 The cause? Aside from new forms of media and entertainment was Irish children’s perceived sedentary existence. Many politicians referred to the men of the late nineteenth-century in hallowed terms, especially physically, and cited them as responsible for reviving an interest in Gaelic culture.55 In  Mulcahy, Dáil Debates, 13, no. 5.  Irish Independent, Sept., 15, 1928. 54  Mr. Kent, Dáil Debates, 29, no. 4 (17 April 1929). 55  Beatty, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, p. 22. 52 53

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such speeches, the men’s national importance was linked to their strength and tireless energy. Previous generations were said to have embodied an Irishness lacking in current generations. Physical exercise was offered as a possible restorative. Bryce Evans’ work on Irish adolescence during this period highlighted the often-­ repeated societal claims that Irish schoolchildren were weaker than previous generations.56 The failure to adequately teach physical culture had, in the eyes of many, led to deterioration from a golden generation at a time when other European nations were grappling with fears of physical deterioration on the part of their citizenry. What differentiated the Irish experience was the path to political independence which ensured previous generations enjoyed a hallowed reputation, bordering on hagiographic.57 In other avenues of public life, Cumann na nGaedheal’s expenditure proved novel and innovative, most notably, the Shannon Electric Scheme.58 In matters of physical education, it was generally agreed, both among politicians and educators, that some teaching was necessary for the generation’s health. This admission did not, however, encourage additional funding. The Department of Education’s failure to produce a syllabus of physical training for primary and secondary schools in the 1920s undoubtedly contributed to the subject’s secondary position in the curriculum. Many of the complaints levelled against the subject related to teachers’ inexperience delivering lessons, inadequate facilities and student disinterest.59 A set syllabus, sympathetic to the sector’s structural problems, may have mitigated against some of the problems that arose. Northern Ireland’s system acts as a counterpoint to the Free State in this regard. Although suffering from its own issues, physical education in Northern Ireland proved far more organised and substantive than in the Free State. Part of this disparity stemmed from its own set curriculum. It was here where the benefits of Northern Ireland’s relationship with Great Britain came to the fore. Scarred, physically and metaphorically, by the Great War, several high-profile British politicians expressed their desire to see improvements in the nation’s health. As early as September 1918, then Prime Minister 56  Bryce Evans, ‘How Will We Kill the Evening?: ‘Degeneracy’ and ‘Second Generation’ Male Adolescence in Independent Ireland’, in Susannah Riordan and Catherine Cox (eds.), Adolescence in Modern Irish History (London, 2015), pp. 151–175. 57  Ibid. 58  Sutton, ‘Harnessed in the Service of the Nation…’, pp. 86–107. 59  Report of the Department of Education for the School Year 1924–25, p. 25.

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David Lloyd George told British audiences that the ‘health and fitness of its people’ was now of vital importance, regardless of wartime or peacetime emergencies. Continuing George stated that Britain’s ‘A1 Nation’ could not be maintained by a ‘C3 people’.60 Individual health became tied, once more, in personal and political glory. Britain’s enthusiasm for public health measures went through several peaks and troughs in the interwar period but George’s beliefs continued to hold sway in great parts of Britain and, by association, Northern Ireland. An immediate example of this, which further distinguished education in Northern Ireland from that in the Free State, was the Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools. Published in 1919, the Syllabus marked the latest departure for the British Board of Education.61 The last major physical education syllabus came in the pre-war period. Mobilising men for the Great War made clear that Britain’s citizenry, despite the Government’s efforts, fell well below the physicality needed for warfare.62 It was this point that Prime Minister George spoke to in 1918. The syllabus, like its predecessors, reiterated the need for fit and healthy bodies as a step towards academic success.63 More than this, it sought to combine physical education into a broader remit which included medical inspection and an emphasis on school hygiene. Influenced by the previous decade’s military engagement, it stressed the importance of strong children for the future of the British race: The past ten or twelve years have been marked by the progressive recognition of the vital interest of the State in securing the physical well-being of children and young persons.64

Physical education was also presented as a defence against the deleterious effects of modernity and as a means of instilling discipline in an increasingly chaotic world.65 Some of these messages were also being used in the Free State. What distinguished the emphasis given in the 1919 syllabus 60  David Monger, Patriotism and propaganda in First World War Britain: The national war aims committee and civilian morale (Liverpool, 2012), p. 199. 61  Great Britain Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools. 62  Elizabeth Greenhalgh, ‘David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and the 1918 Manpower Crisis’, The Historical Journal, 50, no. 2 (2007), pp. 397–421. 63  Great Britain Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools, pp. 4–6. 64  Ibid., p. 1. 65  Ibid., pp. 6–9.

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was, of course, Britain’s imperial concerns. Furthering this difference was the actual implementation of physical education in Northern Ireland when compared to the Free State. In stressing the recreative and cathartic nature of games, the syllabus introduced teachers to a variety of equipment-free callisthenic exercises suitable for the classroom.66 While it is true that the Northern Irish government attained much greater control over educational affairs from 1922, there is little to suggest teachers deviated from the physical education syllabus. Roy Foster found that much of what was done in 1920s Northern Ireland aped developments found in mainland Britain.67 Education was no exception and the North’s first Ministry of Education Report demonstrated as much. Cognisant of the legislative and educational changes created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the report argued that the National Education’s original objectives should be maintained and that a good educational grounding should be given irrespective of students’ religion.68 That the 1919 syllabus stressed the importance of bodyweight exercises, which required no additional equipment and could be done within the classroom, eased the system’s implementation. Where disparities in teaching existed in Northern Ireland, they stemmed from financial imbalances and religious tensions. As was the case in the broader society, religion quickly came to be a defining factor in Northern education. This was despite efforts made in 1923 by the Lynn Committee, chaired by R.J. Lynn of West Belfast, and a subsequent 1923 Education Act undertaken to revise the Northern Irish school system along English lines.69 Created to review and reform the region’s schooling and, however marginally, provide some level of equality among schools, the Lynn Committee and the Act which emerged in its aftermath, proved divisive. Where it was hoped Roman Catholic priests or officials would sit on the Committee’s board, all abstained on the grounds that Catholic children needed a Catholic system of education, one free from government involvement. Compounding matters was the fact that many schoolteachers drew a wage from Dublin in a sign of loyalty to the Free State. Protests to the Committee’s various suggestions led to, among other things, an almost  Ibid., pp. 19–25.  R.F. Foster, Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (London, 1989), p. 528. 68  ‘Ministry of Education Interim Report 1922’ (PRONI, BCT/7/5/2). 69  Alan Smith, ‘Religious Segregation and the Emergence of Integrated Schools in Northern Ireland’, Oxford Review of Education, 27 no. 4 (2001), pp. 561–562. 66 67

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total segregation of Northern Irish schools along denominational lines. Under this system, the majority of funding was directed towards Protestant faith schools.70 Accepting that funding inequalities inherently restricted the level and kind of education given in Catholic schools in Northern Ireland, it is clear that when it came to physical education, a generally satisfactory provision was given. That Catholic schools were receiving less funding than their Protestant counterparts was negated somewhat in the 1919 syllabus which spent a great deal of time detailing how to exercise in classrooms or without equipment, a point discussed later in this chapter.71 The Ministry of Education may have noted a reluctance on the part of schools to devote time to a non-examined subject (physical training) in 1924, but their report into the matter conceded that across the state: The pupils on the whole enjoyed the lessons, and the humanising and generally beneficial influences of the work were reflected in an improved atmosphere in the schools.72

A holistic concern with children’s health continued in the coming months. The following year’s report stated that although local difficulties prevented a state-wide implementation of medical inspections, plans were underway to provide cod liver oil to ‘delicate’ children in Belfast schools.73 Such methods underpinned a growing government involvement, and concern, with regulating the body at every age of the lifecycle. Organised at a time when the North’s finances were under pressure, the provision noted the seriousness with which student health was being treated.74 Where problems arose in Northern Ireland, they came from the same regional and structural issues that plagued the region in the pre-war era. In 1927, the Ministry first discussed the differing provision of physical education in 70  George Beale, ‘Technical Education in Northern Ireland After Partition: A Case Study of the Work of a Newly-formed Local Education Authority, County Down 1925–1933’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, 38, no. 1 (2006), pp. 90–94. 71  Great Britain Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools, 1919. 72  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1924–25: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1925), p. 21. 73  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1925–26: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1926), p. 45. 74   Kieran Anthony Kennedy, Thomas Giblin, and Deirdre McHugh, The Economic Development of Ireland in the Twentieth Century (London, 1988), pp. 103–112.

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urban and rural schools, noting that the former tended to place a much greater emphasis on recreation and organised games as opposed to traditional callisthenics.75 This wasn’t based on any philosophical assertion that children should be playing games rather than going through regimented movements, but rather an indication that schools failed to find adequate teachers.76 The situation was much the same the following year. The 1927–1928 report cited disparities between rural and urban schools alongside a recognition that schools using traditional forms of physical training were forced to do so owing to a lack of playgrounds.77 Areas of greater wealth, like Belfast and its suburbs, provided physical training, outdoor games and swimming.78 Whereas issues in the Free State varied from a lack of expertise to decaying buildings, those in Northern Ireland centred on region, religion and class. Unlike the Free State, the educational board nevertheless proved satisfied with the state of physical education by the decade’s end. In 1929, the Ministry claimed that physical training is taught with greater or less efficiency in all schools, and in many cases, it is brightened by rhythmic exercises and games. It is a popular branch of the programme.79

Despite the financial and sectarian difficulties found in Northern Irish education, the provision of physical education appeared far more organised and reliable than the Free State.80 There was, of course, one caveat to the North’s success, the Lynn Committee and its aftermath. As we have noted, controversies surrounding the Lynn Committee and 1923 Education Act resulted in a bifurcation between state and voluntary

75  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1926–27: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1927), p. 24. 76  Ibid. 77  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1927–28: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1928), p. 16. 78  Ibid; D.S.  Johnson, ‘The Northern Irish Economy, 1914–39’, in Liam Kennedy and Philip Ollerenshaw (eds.), An Economic History of Ulster, 1820–1939 (Manchester, 1985), pp. 184–223. 79  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1929–30: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1930), p. 14. 80  Akenson, Education and Enmity, pp. 48–100; Hennessey, A History of Northern Ireland, pp. 41–48.

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schools.81 The former were predominantly Protestant faith schools, whereas the latter, the majority of whom were Roman Catholic, were often absent in yearly evaluations.82 Found in the Ministry’s reports, comments centred on the difficulty of ensuring the curriculum was adequately taught in schools.83 When Catholic bishops refused to sit on the Lynn Committee in the early 1920s their objections were based, in part, on the assertion that Catholic schools should have autonomy from the government. This conviction appears to have held true during the decade. A dearth of surviving sources from the voluntary institutions unfortunately negates direct comparisons between state and voluntary schools. The Ministry’s reports must be read, therefore, in the context of this exclusion. Given Michael McGrath’s assertion that Protestant schools were preferentially funded during this period, it is probable that voluntary Roman Catholic schools struggled to provide the same resources for drill and physical training.84 It is also probable that Roman Catholic schools did take the subject seriously, a point evidenced by sporadic newspaper articles from the period dedicated to ‘Christian Training’ in all schools which emphasised the need for physical training.85 Northern Irish politicians displayed many of the same tendencies as their Free State counterparts when it came to the importance of physical education in schools. Debates in the Stormont parliament regularly linked physical drill and physical education to the nation’s future wellbeing. Although physical recreation appeared far less frequently in politicians’ public concerns than in the Free State, questions to then Minister for Education (1921–1926) Lord Londonderry in 1923 demonstrated the extent to which physical education was being undertaken.86 Asked to comment on the number of boys undergoing physical education in schools, Londonderry approximated that 99,000 boys were receiving adequate drill.87 Figures for girls’ schools were not given. To the satisfaction of the  Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (Belfast, 1993), pp. 501–510.  Farren, The Politics of Irish Education, 1920–65, p. 60. 83  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1924–25, p. 21. 84  Michael McGrath, The Catholic Church and Catholic Schools in Northern Ireland: The Price of Faith (Dublin, 2000), pp. 45–55. 85  See Derry Journal, Oct., 5, 1927. 86  Londonderry was succeeded by James Caulfeild in 1926 who held the position until 1937 when it was given to John Hanna Robb. 87  Mr. McKeown, ‘Oral Answers’, Stormont Papers, 01 May 1923, 3 (Belfast, 1923), pp. 603–606. 81 82

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Chamber, Lord Londonderry, whose tenure was not to last beyond 1926, noted that a large number of schools were providing physical recreation of some sort and that children in Northern Ireland appeared to be healthy and active.88 Londonderry’s successor, Lord Charlemont, proved equally enthused with the subject and continued the assertion that the subject was being taught well in schools. More importantly, Charlemont stressed the visible effect it was having on children’s development. When asked to open a series of technical and vocational schools in April 1928, Charlemont took the opportunity to inform spectators that no subject was as important as physical education.89 In speeches to teachers, parents and pupils, the Minister declared that once students put their heart into their exercise, no subject could match its importance or fun.90 Three weeks later, Charlemont reiterated this enthusiasm at the opening of a new gymnasium for the Bangor Technical School.91 After praising the Amateur Gymnastic Association, which provided a short display during the opening, Charlemont expressed his optimism that educational physical culture would continue to hold an important place for schoolchildren. Their health, he informed the journalists, was intertwined with the future of the State.92 The Minister’s comments were echoed in the press. Throughout the 1920s, numerous advertisements for school physical culture, and articles praising it, appeared in newspapers.93 As early as 1922, the Londonderry Sentinel reported on the value of physical education, arguing that despite the public’s perceived complacency on the subject, it was integral for the region’s prosperity.94 The article reprinted British physician Sir George Newman’s comments regarding the ubiquity of medical drugs and the lack of open air characterised by city living. Physical education, it was hoped, would protect children against these scourges and ensure the state’s future.95 For Petr Roubal, trained bodies become ‘ideological  Ibid.  Northern Whig, 5 Apr., 1928. 90  Ibid. 91  Northern Whig, 21 Apr., 1928. 92  Ibid. 93  Belfast Newsletter, 1 May 1922; Portadown Times, 30 May 1924; Northern Whig, 25 Mar., 1929. 94  Londonderry Sentinel, 12 Oct., 1922. 95  Ibid. 88 89

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variables’ or fleshy tableaus upon which a society’s hopes, objectives and fears are written.96 Time and time again the untrained adolescent body became a site of intervention and, even, inspiration. If these bodies could be trained, strengthened and revitalised, future prosperity and security could be secured. Written at a time when the horrors of the Great War were still fresh, and through their influence, Northern Irish politicians, physical education seemed to promise much more than mere fitness. Further validation was given to these statements when the Northern Whig used American author and spiritualist, Eugene Del Mar’s writings in 1923 to link physical education and racial health, thereby marking it as an effective weapon against degeneration.97 These articles were complemented by individual school advertisements for Methodist College and Bangor Technical School, which boasted gymnasiums and qualified physical culture instructors.98 Likewise, reports on inter-collegiate gymnastic competitions looked towards future generations’ health.99 Similar to discourses found in the Free State, educational physical culture in Northern Ireland was intimately linked to ideas of racial stock and children’s development. While differences existed in funding and implementation between the two regions, they coalesced, at least, on this point.

‘Physical Education Stumbles Along …’: Physical Culture in the 1930s The 1920s witnessed a return to the principles underpinning physical culture in Ireland. Free from concerns of warfare, attention could be once more drawn to the training, and sustaining, of the adolescent body. This, to labour the point, was done for both the child and the nation. Despite the disconnect between the subject’s venerated social status and the reality of actually supporting it, the 1920s were important for re-establishing the subject’s place within the curriculum, optional or not. For much of the following decade, tentative efforts were made to build on this ‘success’. While educational physical culture in the Free State during the 1920s proved lacklustre at best, the 1930s saw greater efforts made to raise the  Roubal, Spartakiads, pp. 11–18.  Northern Whig, 28 Jul., 1923. 98  Northern Whig, 11 Dec., 1923; Northern Whig, 21 Apr., 1928. 99  Belfast Newsletter, 2 May 1921; Northern Whig, 3 Mar., 1924; Larne Times, 27 Jul., 1929. 96 97

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standard of physical training. Discourses in the Free State continued to focus on physical education’s importance for children and the nation, but new approaches were taken to ensure the subject could be taught in more and more schools. Key steps in this regard were the establishment of vocational schools, the introduction of physical training courses for teachers and the incorporation of military Sokol. Military teachers, and military training, came to play a pivotal role in each of these changes. The first of these measures, the introduction of vocational schools, stemmed from the 1930 Vocational Education Act passed after several years of discussion about the need for practical subjects for students.100 Prior to the Act, trade subjects, like woodwork, tended to exist on the periphery of curricula and held a secondary status to subjects like English, Irish or mathematics. The establishment of vocational schools, where ‘practical’ subjects would be taught, represented an effort to broaden the curriculum and help retain children in education post-primary school.101 This was especially the case among the working-class, low-income families and those from small, rural backgrounds. Found throughout the state— thirty-eight were established in 1930—vocational schools offered students courses in woodwork, technical drawing and, significantly, physical education.102 Whereas physical education was an optional subject for all schools owing to decisions taken in the 1920s, vocational schools were obliged to provide physical training for students.103 Vocational schools were established, in part then, to rectify deficiencies in Irish education. It was for this reason that physical culture marked an area of interest in debates on vocational schools. The impetus for physical education’s heightened role in vocational schools dated to the mid-1920s, when the Commission on Technical Instruction proposed the establishment of such schools.104 General Richard Mulcahy played a pivotal role in securing physical education teachers for the new schools.105 Mulcahy’s martial background granted  John Coolahan, Irish Education: Its History and Structure (Dublin, 1981), p. 84.  T.A.  O’Donoghue, ‘The Attempt by the Department of Defence to Introduce the Sokol System of Physical Education into Irish Schools in the 1930s’, Irish Educational Studies, 5, no. 2 (1985), pp. 331–334. 102  Sports and Cultural Council, Participation and Excellence: A Sixty Year History, (Dublin, 1995), pp. 8–11. 103  Ibid., pp. 9–12. 104  Duffy, ‘State Policy’, p. 23. 105  Sports and Cultural Council, Participation and Excellence, p. 9. 100 101

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him access to an established pool of trained teachers which meant that, prior to the Act’s establishment, several military officers were secured to teach physical culture.106 While a change in government in 1932 saw Fianna Fail’s Thomas Derrig become Minister of Education, he too was content in relying on the military in matters of physical education.107 The teacher training colleges previously discussed still existed, and continued to teach physical education to teachers. Vocational schools aligned themselves with the military. Based on a steadfast conviction that physical training would improve vocational students’ health, attention and future prospects, schools adopted military drill with an enthusiasm lacking in the previous decade. The military also proved important in establishing another change in Irish education, namely summer teaching courses, first run in 1932.108 Though the military had yet to fundamentally change its system of physical culture, a point discussed in the previous chapter, they were still deemed to be the most efficient, and well versed, body of physical educationalists in the country. A state-sponsored school of physical education had yet to be created and would not be done so until 1973.109 The military thus offered the closest thing the Irish Free State had to a consistent, and well-populated, group of physical educationalists. The inclusion of the military in education proved relatively unproblematic. In fact, it was celebrated. In 1933, a Department of Education report expressed gratitude for the military’s role in heading the teaching which they believed had already improved the quality of physical education being given to Irish schoolchildren.110 This, in turn, meant a strengthening of children’s education capabilities and the nation’s prosperity. In its evaluation of the first summer course given in 1933, the Department expressed its optimism that teachers across institutions would soon be proficient in physical education.111 Such training eventually allowed more civilian physical culture  Ibid., pp. 9–12.  Derrig held this position until September 1939 when he was replaced by Seán T. O’Kelly. Pauric Dempsey, ‘Thomas Derrig (1897–1956)’, in James McGuire and James Quinn (eds.), Dictionary of Irish Biography, Volume 3 (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 185–186. 108  Department of Education, Report of the Department of Education 1932–1933 (Dublin, 1933), p. 10. 109  Duffy, ‘State Policy’, p. 1–12. 110   Department of Education, Report of the Department of Education 1932–1933, pp. 15–20. 111  Ibid., pp. 9–10. 106 107

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teachers to emerge, but their numbers continued to pale in comparison to those of military instructors. In a 2006 interview, T.K. Whittaker, a civil servant in the Department of Education during the 1930s who became of Ireland’s most influential civil servants, claimed that the state’s reliance on the military stemmed from one simple factor: They were the only qualified people in physical education in the country. The Army was seen as an organisation of men loyal to the state with a great sense of duty.112

The idea that physical education required men loyal to the state reiterated broader claims that linked educational physical culture to a nation’s future. In this way physical education was understood with reference to both its educational and national importance. Whittaker’s comment also touched on a third revision to Irish education: the tentative introduction of Sokol physical culture in 1935. For the purposes of this discussion, it is sufficient to state that Sokol physical culture, a style of gymnastics which originated in Czecho-Slovakia, was adopted by the Free State military following a brief trial.113 Sokol was never formally adopted by the Department of Education but this did not stop several years of trials and agitations to bring it into schools. In the 1935–1936 Department of Education report, it was categorically stated that ‘we favour regular short periods of drill, especially when given by a trained instructor according to an approved system such as Sokol’.114 From then on, the Free State army was inundated with letters from schoolmasters interested in Sokol, few of whom received adequate help.115 Driven by a sense that physical education was necessary for schoolchildren, many schools used Sokol regardless. Newspaper reports on school Sokol from 1936 to 1939 suggest that, given the military’s reluctance to relay information, many schools appropriated Sokol for themselves.116 112  Moran, ‘The Role of the Military’, pp. 77–78; Anne Chambers, T.K. Whitaker: Portrait of a Patriot (Dublin, 2014), pp. 45–46. 113  Daniel Samek, ‘The Czech Sokol Gymnastic Programme in Ireland, c. 1900–1950’ in Gerard Power and Ondrej Pilney (eds.), Ireland and the Czech Lands Contacts and Comparisons in History and Culture (Häftad, 2013), pp. 141–143. 114  Saorstát Eireann, Commission of Enquiry into the Reformatory and Industrial School system, 1935–1936: Report (Dublin, 1936), p. 23. 115  CBMA, SOKOL/Newry CBS/DOD/2/41656. 116  The Irish Times, 16 Apr., 1935, Irish Independent, 7 Dec., 1936.

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This development was encouraged in part by the Czechoslovakian government, who presented the Department of Education with a challenge trophy for school displays in August 1937.117 Interested in establishing Sokol across Irish schools, that same year saw the Department trial Sokol in eight Donegal schools under the supervision of Corporal McIntyre of the Irish military.118 At the time of the trial, the Irish Press claimed that Sokol was now being taught in a ‘large number’ of Irish school although what this number entailed was unknown.119 Despite being commented on favourably in Irish newspapers, no definitive decisions regarding the trial were made. This meant that Sokol remained one among many school physical education systems. Even by the late 1940s, Sokol contended with the older system of Swedish drill in school physical culture.120 Nevertheless, the emergence of Sokol in Irish schools meant that efforts were made to address a lethargy surrounding physical education in the 1920s. Discourses still centred on individual and state health, a point noted by Eoin O’Duffy in 1932, but efforts to teach physical education had changed.121 Unofficial or otherwise, decisions to import military physical culture into Irish classrooms presented unforeseen consequences. The military’s emphasis on discipline was at times ill-suited to schools, especially in industrial schools which, from the late nineteenth-century, catered for neglected, ‘delinquent’ or orphaned children in Ireland.122 In a later letter to the Department of Education detailing his experience in the Artane School during the 1930s, an unnamed correspondent noted his instructor’s cruelty: Boys beaten, under the Shower Baths by Staff Mr Byrne, eleven Boys heads beaten on the Handball Alley Wall by Bro Acel … And a Drill Master who used say ‘do it where you stand’ when a Boy ask to go to the W.C.123

117  ‘Trophy to Be Presented for Competition by Irish Schools in Best Display in Sokol System of Physical Training. Trophy Presented by Czechoslovak Government’ (NAI, DFA/3/131/71). 118  Cooney, ‘The Tendency Towards Physical Training in the Sokol Way’, pp. 36–39. 119  Irish Press, Apr. 10, 1937. 120  ‘Request for Information Regarding the Teaching of Physical Culture etc. in Ireland’, (NAI, DFA/5/316/27/64). 121  Evening Herald, 13 Jun., 1932. 122  Sarah-Anne Buckley, The Cruelty Man: Child Welfare, the NSPCC and the State in Ireland, 1889–1956 (Manchester, 2013), pp. 111–125. 123  S. Ryan, Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Dublin, 2009), p. 117.

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In other institutions, priests instructing military drill also relied heavily on disciplinary tactics. In Tralee, one priest apologetically informed superiors of his mismanagement during a lesson with a seemingly unwilling pupil: Appealing to him several times I found that there was no improvement whatsoever. Not understanding what was wrong with the boy I gave him a few slaps whilst he was in this bent position … After this punishment I again asked him to perform the exercise. He then started to cry and said it hurt him to bend as his back was sore. On further inquiry he told me that he had been beaten on the back by the teacher.124

In other cases, Department officials criticised physical education’s monotonous nature. One investigator complained that: Monotonous marching round a school yard took the place of free play at the time for recreation. Such drill-like exercise, especially if prolonged, becomes a dreary routine deleterious to mind and body.125

Despite aspirations that physical education would benefit students, its lived reality was, at times, troublesome. Also problematic was a dearth in adequate facilities. Where state and vocational schools in urban areas were routinely praised for their modern facilities, rural schools were often left behind.126 At a time when the state’s economy lagged, owing, in part, to a global economic depression and a six-year trade war with Great Britain begun in 1932, there was little hope of increases in funding.127 The criticisms surrounding this problem once more spoke to the subject’s broader importance. In 1930, Archie Cassidy, a Labour TD, warned the Dáil chamber that, regardless of the educational standard, schools failing to produce physical fitness were not developing students to the highest standard.128 Cassidy’s support for physical education came from his conviction that ‘a fit body is conducive to a clear brain, just as an unfit body is

 Ibid., p. 412.  Saorstát Eireann, Commission of Enquiry into the Reformatory and Industrial School system, 1935–1936: Report (Dublin, 1936), p. 23. 126  Report of the Department of Education 1936-37 (Dublin, 1937), pp. 6–8. 127  J.J. Lee, Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 259–265. 128  Mr. Cassidy, Dáil Debates, 34, no. 18 (21 May 1930). 124 125

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conducive to a muddled brain’.129 General Mulcahy, continuing his interest in the topic, proved insistent, arguing that while the standard of physical education had risen in larger schools, those in smaller schools were left behind.130 In the Seanad, Colonel Moore of Fianna Fáil warned that Ireland may follow England and become a ‘C3 people, dwarfed and sickly’, owing to physical education deficiencies. Such comments revealed that the fears of Prime Minister George in 1918 were not restricted to Great Britain.131 Cross party support existed then for physical culture. Moore, like Mulcahy and Cassidy, feared inequalities would prove costly to the nation’s future health. Experiences in fee-paying schools yet again proved substantially different. In Blackrock College, students had access to a modern, well-equipped gymnasium.132 As a conduit to the school’s broader interest in rugby, the College library contained several physical culture monographs, including those of J.P. Müller, a well-known Danish physical culturist whose fame began in the early twentieth-century.133 In Dublin-based High School, pupils conducted physical education in a large hall specifically given over to fitness classes.134 Students exercised using the same Swedish drill exercises found in many public schools, but they had much greater facilities.135 St. Mary’s College, also in Dublin, witnessed the revival of its gymnastics and physical culture programmes during the 1930s. As part of this revival, the school procured gymnastic equipment in 1932 and, by 1935, re-­ established the subject to great effect.136 This experience was echoed in Alexandra where student recollections, like Geraldine Legg’s, recalled the fun had in physical education class.137 Likewise, Eleanor Benson Ticher cited gymnastics, hockey and drama as her favourite outlets during her

 Ibid.  General Mulcahy, Dáil Debates, 44, no. 7 (02 November 1932). 131  Colonel Moore, Seanad Éireann Debate, 19, no. 10 (20 December, 1934). 132  Seán P. Farragher, Blackrock College 1860–1995 (Dublin, 1995), pp. 320-344. 133  The College’s archives contain J.P.  Müller, My System: 15 Minutes Exercise a Day for Health’s Sake (London, 1937). 134  ‘Gymnastics Display in the Clock Room, c. 1930s’ and ‘Girls Gym Display 1937-38’ (High School Archives Dublin). 135  ‘Gymnastics Display in the Clock Room, c. 1930s.’ 136  William A.  Maher, A History of St. Mary’s College Rathmines, Dublin 1890-1990 (Dublin, 1994), pp. 162–166. 137  Geradline Legg, ‘Memories 1910  – 1984’ (Alexandra College Archives, Henceforth ACA, K5/2 1920–1930). 129 130

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Alexandra years.138 Letters from Alexandra’s headmistress to Bedford Physical Training College hint at why gym class proved enjoyable. In a letter to Mrs Stansfeld, the headmistress expressed her desire for affable teachers versed in physical training, anatomy and various forms of play.139 Unlike public schools, largely at the mercy of military instructors, fee-­ paying schools often had the means to provide an immersive physical culture programme, one which benefitted from civilian instructors. Had physical education in the Free State improved? As part of her lecture to Dublin’s Rotary Club in 1940, Kathleen O’Rourke, from the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, claimed that it was aimlessly stumbling along.140 On reflection, O’Rourke was right. In the 1930s, both the Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil governments attempted to reverse some of the damages wrought by decisions during the 1920s which made the subject optional. The creation of vocational schools, the inclusion of the military and even the trialling of Sokol in schools demonstrated a renewed commitment to the subject. The motivations for doing so had not changed from the late nineteenth-century. What changed were the actions being undertaken. It was not, as O’Rourke’s pithy assessment indicated, enough, and in the years leading up to the Second World War, the Fianna Fáil government undertook two exploratory reports into improving physical education, and physical fitness in Ireland whose results are discussed later in the next section (Fig. 7.1).141 In Northern Ireland, changes too were afoot. First, inequalities in funding began to be addressed thanks to a revised Education Act, produced in 1930.142 The 1923 Education Act saw a three-tiered funding scheme demarcated along largely religious lines.143 Minister for Education during the 1930s, James Caulfield, sought to rectify, at least somewhat, this inequitable state of affairs through the 1930 revision. Subject to its own criticisms, the Act improved, at least somewhat, funding allocations

 Eleanor Benson Ticher, ‘Memories 1910–1984’ (ACA, K5/3 1930–1940).  Mrs. Stansfeld, ‘Letter to Mrs Preston’, 30 September 1932 (ACA, B5/2 Staff Application 1925–1947). 140  Evening Herald, 21 Sept., 1940. 141  Irish Press, 27 Jun, 1936. 142  Donald H.  Akenson, Education and Enmity: The Control of Schooling in Northern Ireland, 1920-50 (Devon, 1973), pp. 104-115. 143  Sean Farren, The Politics of Irish Education, 1920-65 (Belfast, 1995), pp. 42–52. 138 139

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Fig. 7.1  Physical education class, Harold’s cross dublin

for Catholic schools.144 Increases in funding, however limited, offered the possibility for infrastructure improvements. Just as important were revisions to the physical education syllabus in 1933.145 Initiated by the British Board of Education, it marked the latest attempt to advance physical training. Produced in Belfast from 1934, the syllabus noted the ‘conditions of modern civilisation’ responsible for children’s poor physical development.146 Sander Gilman previously claimed that the importance of posture was heightened during this decade due to military demand for healthy bodies. The syllabus’ claim that ‘the maintenance of good posture is one of the primary objects of physical training’ appears to validate this point.147 With posture and breathing as the main focus, teachers were encouraged to avoid monotony through variety.148 The shift from military drill towards diversion was perhaps illustrative of the English government’s noted

144  Susannah Riordan, ‘Politics, Economy, Society: Northern Ireland, 1920–1939’ in Thomas Bartlett (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ireland, Volume IV: 1880s to Present (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 317–319. 145  Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools, 1933 (London, 1934). 146  Ibid., preface. 147  Sander Gilman, ‘Stand Up Straight: Notes Toward a History of Posture’, Journal of Medical Humanities, 35, no. 1 (2014), pp. 57–83; Ibid., p. 12. 148  Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools, p. 11.

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anxiety to differentiate itself from authoritarian regimes.149 Charlotte MacDonald’s work highlighted the continued efforts made in Britain to distinguish sport and play, seen as distinctly British, from the regimented forms of military drill found in fascist Italy or Nazi Germany.150 In Italy, Benito Mussolini’s government, which came to power during the 1920s, shrewdly used mass gymnastics and drill, especially for children, as a means of demonstrating the state’s power and vigour. This was echoed in Nazi Germany which from 1933 continually promoted youth physical culture and exercise, as a means of building ‘sound Aryans’.151 It was against these examples that countries like France, and Britain, reacted.152 In the 1933 Syllabus, the exercises promoted were presented as a democratic form of physical training, whose implementation would result in similar, if not better, results than regimented systems of military drill. In the work’s preface, it was claimed: What the board desire to secure is the careful and well-balanced development of the physical powers of each individual, not only in reference to his immediate bodily and mental growth … which will be of value in the future.153

Unlike the Free State, where physical education ‘stumbled along’, Northern Irish teachers had a definitive reason and plan for physical education. Another noticeable difference was the meaning applied to physical education in each state. In the Free State, physical education was primarily an insular matter, linked to education and nebulous ideas about future generations. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, conceptualised it with reference to broader European, and fascist, movements. This perhaps explains the urgency often given to Northern physical culture. Changes in funding and teaching syllabi did not, however, resolve the problematic nature of physical training in Northern Ireland. From education reports produced in the 1930s, it is clear that structural issues continued to cause problems. Nevertheless, the Ministry began the decade optimistically, with assertions that physical education was 149  Charlotte Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935–1960 (Wellington, 2013), pp. 28–38. 150  Ibid. 151  Ponzio, Shaping the New Man. 152  Daphné Bolz, ‘Reversing the Influence: Anglo-German Relations and British Fitness Policies in the 1930s’, Sport in History, 34, no. 4 (2014), pp. 569–594. 153  Board of Education, Syllabus of Physical Training, p. 8.

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taught ‘with greater or less efficiency in all schools’ and that educational authorities, like the Belfast branch, had encouraged greater participation through inter-school competitions.154 Belfast was not the only region whose schools placed a great emphasis on physical education. In 1932, the Ministry claimed that since 1920, physical training’s popularity had grown exponentially.155 Encouraged by this success, the 1934 report noted that due attention is given to physical training …. The number of specially qualified teachers … continues to increase … [and the] failure of an individual to benefit markedly in discipline, self-control, manner and carriage is well-nigh impossible.156

This positivity was not extended to school facilities. In a direct parallel to the Free State, the Ministry routinely cited a lack of adequate space. While the Belfast Education Authority was praised in 1930 for providing suitable gymnasia, there was a clear disparity between urban and rural areas.157 Inspections from 1934 to 1935 declared that much work needed to be done, especially in rural schools, to furnish gymnasiums.158 This was in stark contrast to playing fields, largely available to schools.159 Like the Free State, a lack of suitable gymnasia meant that physical training was often conducted in cramped settings. Larger schools had space to provide classes, but small and rural schools, estimated to comprise one-third of all schools, were limited.160 In certain voluntary schools, schoolchildren conducted classes on public roads. This led the Ministry, somewhat worryingly, to praise the ‘watchfulness and care exercised by all parties’ which had avoided accidents with passing traffic.161 By 1936 the Ministry was claiming, however, that ‘for physical education better accommodation in

154  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1929–30: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1930), p. 14. 155  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1931–32: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1932), p. 36. 156  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1933–34: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1934), p. 26. 157  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1929–30, p. 14. 158  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1933–34, p. 20. 159  Ibid., p. 26. 160  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1934–35: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1935), p. 9. 161  Ibid., p. 13.

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the form of suitable rooms is urgently needed’.162 The same report finished on the plea that it is again thought desirable to direct attention to the poor facilities for physical training in most schools … it is only a small proportion which provide a separate room for this purpose or equipment.163

Throughout this time, the state’s confidence in physical training never wavered. The objectives attached to it simply proved impossible in reality. The state’s precarious financial situation often precluded further action. Unemployment in Northern Ireland rose to 30 per cent in the late 1930s following downturns in key industries.164 Also problematic was the government’s economic autonomy, which was shared with England’s parliament.165 After the 1929 Wall Street Crash and a global economic depression, Northern Ireland’s ability to raise funds was severely curtailed.166 It was not until the late 1930s, and again owing to broader British geo-political concerns, that positive action was taken in Northern Ireland when it came to funding and supporting physical education.

‘Promoting the Revival of Physical Education’: State Intervention in the Late 1930s That the Free State and Northern Ireland both displayed an interest, and anxiety, in supporting physical education in schools was clear. Fit and healthy bodies were important in the classroom and for the nation. Likewise, that both regions were failing to support physical education in schools, no matter how strongly they professed their enthusiasm, was obvious. This confused situation came at a time in the interwar period when state intervention in physical activity was at an all-time high. The fascist regimes of Italy and Germany were arguably leading the way in marshalling state fitness, but the wave of state involvement in physical

162  Report of the Ministry of Education for the Year 1935–36: Presented to Parliament Pursuant to Section 106 of the Education Act (Northern Ireland), 1923 (Belfast, 1936), p. 7. 163  Ibid., p. 20. 164  Thomas Hennessey, A History of Northern Ireland (London, 1997), p. 56. 165  Riordan, ‘Politics, Economy, Society: Northern Ireland’, p. 301; Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (Belfast, 1992), pp. 514–516. 166  Bardon, A History of Ulster, pp. 520–525.

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education was not confined to Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.167 State involvement, specifically efforts to increase the health of the population, was found in Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, the United States, China and the Soviet Union among other territories. This point was not lost on Irish commentators, who continually compared Irish responses to physical activity in the rest of Europe and the United States. This transnational view, which was by then commonplace to the world of physical culture, ensured that Irish physical education likewise took a broader view. This helps to explain, in part, the attention and pressure brought on the Department of Education in the Free State to improve physical education in the late 1930s. Trials of Sokol in Donegal in 1937 suggested that tangible changes would be made in the future. The trials eventually came to nothing, but this did little to stop the Fianna Fáil government from continuing to experiment, albeit tentatively, with increasing physical education across schools. In 1936, an interdepartmental group was tasked with examining Irish physical education in the Free State, the report of which was first published in 1938. Done alongside a similar report on athletics, the report echoed a broader European interest in improving national health and demonstrated the manner in which physical culture practices were linked to national progress.168 Led by T.K. Whittaker and members from the Departments of Education, Defence and Finance, the Committee’s findings largely substantiated Kathleen O’Rourke’s later claim that physical education was ‘stumbling along’. On examination, the Committee found that 2,000 primary schools out of 5,943 provided adequate lessons with no figures available from secondary or vocational schools.169 In a comment which highlighted several of the issues previously discussed, the Committee claimed: In schools in which Physical Training forms part of the curriculum, there is no uniformity of method and no proper understanding of the aim to be achieved … there are no properly trained instructors in Physical Training in these schools … Physical Training … cannot but be haphazard.170

 Ponzio, Shaping the New Man.  Barbara J. Keys, Globalizing Sport (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 17–39. 169  T.K.  Whitaker, ‘Physical Education: The Report of the Committee, Albreán, 1938’ (NAI, TSCH/3/S11053 A), p. 3. 170  Ibid. 167 168

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Dividing its recommendations across three levels of commitment, from short-term to long-term funding, the report supported making physical education a compulsory subject, using physical education classes as an opportunity to further the use of Irish in schools and, somewhat unambitiously, the assignment of teachers who were ‘interested and enthusiastic and reasonably competent’. Their support stemmed from the conclusion made ‘by competent medical authorities, not only in Europe and America but also by those in Éire’. Criticising the ‘deplorable’ carriage and posture exhibited by so many Irish boys and girls, the report reiterated physical education’s positive influence over body and brain. In line with efforts found elsewhere—the report included excerpts detailing the systems found in several other European states—it was recommended that schools conduct standardised tests, that they have health and hygiene charts in classrooms and that they show physical training films. All this would ‘awaken interest in physical education’.171 In his evaluation of physical education at this time, Paul Rouse cited a lack of state resources and prioritisation, a conclusion found also in the 1938 report.172 In an attempt to improve matters, the Committee proposed an ambitious series of plans including an institute of physical education, making physical education compulsory and creating a school syllabus.173 Other suggestions included training grants, improvements to playgrounds and radio programmes.174 Critically the report proved unable, or unwilling, to provide an estimate for what such changes would cost. This helps explain, in part, why these suggestions were ultimately ignored. They read like a wish list than a substantive and detailed plan. In a letter to Taoiseach Éamon de Valera in 1943, the Secretary of Education claimed that nothing could be considered until after the war, a point that was soon forgotten. It was not until the 1970s that state endorsed physical culture syllabi or training colleges became a reality.175 Despite efforts made during the 1930s, physical education still lagged. Many agreed that it was important and associated it with educational or state prosperity. Few in the Free State provided tangible support.  Ibid., 3–7.  Paul Rouse, Sport and Ireland: A History (Oxford, 2015), p. 316. 173  ‘Inter-Departmental Committee for Promoting the Revival of Athletics and Physical Training, Roinn an Taoisigh 14/12/43’ ((NAI, TSCH/3/S11053 A), pp. 1–4. 174  Ibid. 175  Runaí Príobháideach, ‘Letter to Roinn an Taoisigh, 06 December 1943’ (NAI, TSCH/3/S11053 A). 171 172

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In drawing up the initial report, the Committee wrote admiringly about British efforts to improve physical education, which included substantial public relations campaigns, as well as the creation of a new funding body. Where a provisional report was instituted in the Free State, Northern Ireland, benefitting from the 1937 Physical Training and Recreation Act passed in England, created a legislative framework to improve physical education.176 The 1937 Act, borne from concerns surrounding England’s future fitness, marked the British government’s first major effort to intervene in matters of sport and recreation. The Act was seen by policymakers as an alternative to authoritarian fitness schemes found in mainland Europe. Whereas German and Italian programmes were depicted as rigid and involuntary, British acts were envisioned as a democratic alternative.177 A driving focus of the British schemes centred on voluntary participation. Supported by politicians, athletes and Britain’s royal family, the Act was exported across the British Empire. This period witnessed similar acts emerge in Canada, New Zealand and Australia.178 In Northern Ireland, a modified act, said to be sensitive to local considerations, was passed in 1938.179 This act sought to increase the region’s collective health through increases in funding for recreation. It differed from the English act in allowing state schools to apply for capital grants, a decision born from school structural issues.180 Whereas the Free State’s efforts to revive physical training centred on an exploratory report, the Stormont government sought to capitalise on a renewed British interest in physical training to finance state schools. A total of £20,000 was set aside for three years of grant funding to improve physical education facilities.181 Partition’s impact in Irish education was evident. Northern Ireland proved proactive, and productive, in furthering physical education thanks to its British links. Prior to the passing of the Physical Recreation Act in 1938, the Ministry of Education in Northern Ireland organised a series of conferences on the  ‘Physical Training and Recreation Bill (Northern Ireland)’ (PRONI, CAB/4/398/20).  Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern, pp. 28–38. 178  Ibid., pp. 151–165; Charles William Hackensmith, History of Physical Education (New York, 1966), p. 266. 179  ‘Physical Training and Recreation Bill (Northern Ireland)’, pp. 1–2. 180  ‘Ministry of Education, Scheme of Physical Training and Recreation 26 November, 1937’ (PRONI, FIN/18/17/254, A/865737), pp. 5–6. 181  ‘Physical Training: Memorandum of Discussion at Ministry of Education, 09 July 1937’ (PRONI, FIN/18/17/254, A/865737). 176 177

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topic. Focused on the inadequacy of gymnasia in primary state schools across the region, the conferences revealed physical training’s ad-hoc nature. Seventy-eight secondary and larger technical schools lacked a gymnasium in Northern Ireland.182 Of these, roughly thirty-two lacked halls or large rooms.183 Elementary schoolteachers received physical training instruction, few, however, were deemed to be sufficiently qualified.184 That Northern Ireland had access to a physical training syllabus since 1919, in contrast to the Free State, succeeded in giving teachers a basic level of competency but not enough to be considered qualified. Through capital grants and an improvement in teacher training, it was hoped that the Act would improve physical training’s influence over children’s development. In the press, the Act, and more importantly, the funding it promised, was a point of considerable interest. In December 1938, the Northern Whig published a full-length article of the Act, its powers, and its aspirations. Borrowing heavily from a speech given by H.G.H. Mulholland, the chairman of the Physical Training Advisory Council in Belfast, the article began with the assertion that the Act would build ‘up an A1 people’ in Northern Ireland. Next it continued by trying to distance the Act from other countries which associated physical education with the military—a thinly veiled reference to Italy and Germany.185 Such rhetoric meshed well with Advisory Council itself, whose first public statement claimed that it need scarcely be emphasised [emphasis added] that bodily fitness makes for national efficiency and the personal happiness of the people, and it is now universally recognised that physical training voluntarily undertaken is of the greatest importance in the training of mind and character.186

Driven by this goal, a number of new capital grants were rolled out. In June 1939, the Act’s grant committee allocated £1,000 to the Lurgan Technical School for a new gymnasium.187 The lack of adequate 182  ‘Physical Training and Recreation Facilities in Northern Ireland, 1937’ (PRONI, ED/13/1/1492), pp. 1–3. 183  Ibid. 184  Ibid. 185  The Northern Whig, 14 Dec. 1938. 186   ‘First Meeting of Advisory Council 09 September 1938’, (PRONI, ED/13/1/1494), p. 1. 187  ‘Minutes of the Third Meeting of the Advisory Council held in Tyrone House, Ormeau Avenue, on Thursday the 29th June, 1939’ (PRONI, ED/13/1/1494), p. 5.

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gymnasiums had been an area of great concern, not only for the Advisory Council but also for the Ministry of Education who had commented on the problem for several years. The Lurgan Technical School was one of the first institutes to successfully apply for, and receive, a grant. Soon after, the Committee was inundated with requests from schools, education committees and voluntary organisations seeking assistance.188 Before the Act’s full effect could be realised, the outbreak of the Second World War arrested its momentum. In September 1939, the Ministry of Education’s secretary, J.C. Aldermon, wrote to the Minister of Finance, J.M. Andrews, informing him that owing to the ‘national emergency’, no new grants would be entertained. Existing grants continued to be paid until 1943, but the desired effects failed to materialise.189 By 1943, a letter to the Ministry of Education stated that ‘the teaching of physical training has not been progressing too well in Northern Ireland’.190 By that time, it had all but ceased owing to the difficulties in maintaining, and sustaining, normality during a time of conflict. Physical education in Ireland, especially during the interwar period, marked an intensification of the discourses and paradoxes found in the pre-war period. Attempting to revise physical training during the 1930s, governments in Northern Ireland and the Free State sought to improve physical training for largely similar reasons, albeit through very different means. In the Free State, the military was relied on to deliver classes and was informally co-opted to do so from the mid-decade. The reliance on military officers testified to systemic problems with the country’s education system, at least when it came to physical education. Despite uncontroversial claims that physical education was important, that it aided in childhood development and would even benefit the nation itself, few tangible steps were taken. Privately funded schools displayed a greater variety in delivering physical education, but the majority of schoolchildren failed to receive adequate training. It took until the early 1970s until governments in Ireland began to adequately fund the subject. Up to that point, support was patchy at best regardless of its high reputation.

 ‘Physical Training and Recreation 1937–1939’ (PRONI, FIN/18/17/254).  J.C. Aldermon, ‘Letter Ministry of Finance, 09 September 1939’ (PRONI, A/865737); ‘Secretary Memo 05 September 1939’ (PRONI, FIN/18/17/254, A/865737). 190  ‘Letter from Rural Development Council of Northern Ireland to W.H. Smyth, Ministry of Education, 10 March 1943’ (PRONI, ED/13/1/1495). 188 189

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In Northern Ireland, the state had trained teachers and a set syllabus. Advantaged in these respects, Northern Ireland still faced its own problems in delivering a subject seen as increasingly important. By the early 1930s, it became clear that structural, and funding, deficiencies, impacted the subject’s reality. There was little indication that matters would change and, indeed, change only came from outside sources. In 1937, England initiated its own Physical Training and Recreation Act in a clear effort to keep pace with geopolitical rivals, and to reverse the tides of physical degeneracy thought visible in schoolchildren. Aping the English context, a Physical Training and Recreation Act was established in Northern Ireland in 1938 with a primary emphasis on schools. Passed at a time of financial unrest, the Act demonstrated the state’s commitment to improving physical training and stood in stark contrast to the Free State’s efforts. Both governments attempted to improve physical training in the belief that training was beneficial for the individual and the state. Methods and financing differed, but the end result was similar. Physical training was viewed as integral to a nation’s health and prosperity. Despite these claims, its provision and implementation fell, once more, well short of its venerated status.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion: ‘Physical Culture Is Nation’s Need’

In 1946, Health and Strength magazine included a feature on the inaugural ‘Ireland’s Best Developed Man’ competition. Depicted as the first Irish bodybuilding contest of its kind, the event featured men from across Ireland and Northern Ireland attired in posing trunks perfectly oiled, flexing their muscles for an assembled audience.1 The competition may have been the first recognisable bodybuilding competition, but it was not the first time that Irishmen had acted in such a manner. Four decades previous, men stripped, donned trunks and submitted photographs of themselves as part of Eugen Sandow’s ‘Great Competition’ of 1901.2 Just a few years later, W.N.  Kerr and a handful of other Irishmen competed in a physical development competition at the Empire Palace Theatre.3 This is to say nothing of the ever-present line of Irishmen who submitted images of themselves in physical culture magazines from the 1900s onwards. That Health and Strength, a periodical founded in the late nineteenth-century, Irish Independent, 9 Apr. 1945. 1  ‘Ireland’s Best Developed Man’, Health and Strength, December (1946), pp.  495 and 500. 2  ‘The Great Competition’, Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture, Vol. VII, July to December (1901) (London, 1901), pp. 207–213. 3  Conor Heffernan, ‘Truly muscular Gaels? W.N. Kerr, physical culture and Irish masculinity in the early twentieth century’, Sport in History (2019), pp. 1–24.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9_8

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seemed to forget this history in favour of a somewhat sensationalist headline appears strange at first sight. The era of physical culture was coming to an end. In its place was a new wave of bodybuilding, gymnastics, callisthenics and a series of other terms. Physical culture still appeared in Irish newspapers, magazines and political debates but far more attention was now given over to specialised pursuits. The periodical was perhaps correct in asserting that this was the first bodybuilding show of its kind but it was not the first time such behaviours had occurred. In his study of physical culture in twentieth-century Britain, Michael Anton Budd commented on several phases, or waves, of physical culture from the mid-nineteenth-century. First studying the nationalist gymnastic programmes of the nineteenth-century, Budd traced the dissemination of physical culture in European society through a variety of epochs and terminologies.4 Subsequent work has refined Budd’s periodisation, but his contention that ‘physical culture’ as a term largely disappeared in the mid-­ twentieth-­century, to be replaced by new and similarly fantastic sounding terms, holds true.5 After the Second World War, physical culture as a concept was replaced with other labels like bodybuilding, weightlifting, ‘keep fit’ or physique training.6 Was physical culture a passing phenomenon? Yes and no. In one sense physical culture was a set of practices and terminology which emerged during a period of great social and political upheaval. It rose in the late nineteenth-century and fell with a whimper in the mid-­ twentieth-­century. In Ireland the legacy of individuals like Eugen Sandow was relegated to sporadic comments on the story behind the Murphy’s Stout strongman campaign, readings of Joyce’s Ulysses and faded advertising boards. Irish strongmen, like John Moriarty, were remembered through childhood memories or by the stories told in gymnasiums like Hercules.7 This book stemmed, in part, from one such conversation. In the wider public, however, Moriarty’s legacy was small at best. The surface level of the physical culture movement, the celebrities and the characters, has largely been forgotten.

4  Michael Anton Budd, The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the Age of Empire (New York, 1997), p. xi. 5  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain 1880–1939 (Oxford, 2010). 6  Dimitris Liokaftos, A Genealogy of Male Bodybuilding: From Classical to Freaky (New York, 2017), p. 2. 7  ‘Jimmy Jennings Writings c. 2012’ (Hercules Gymnasium Dublin).

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What has remained is the normality of exercising. It may seem strange to celebrate the banality of physical activity but it is the unproblematic nature of physical activity in modern day Ireland which hints at the impact the physical culture movement had. Many of the discourses, debates and concerns found in the age of physical culture continue in Irish society. In 2009 and 2013, respectively, government agencies in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were created, and tasked, with the intention of improving the region’s health and wellbeing. Like their 1930s counterparts, the agencies explicitly cited their belief that physical activity was important, that more needed to be done and that intervention was necessary. Both were presented as new and novel frameworks, largely divorced from previous efforts.8 This was simply not accurate. When the Republic of Ireland decided to make physical education a subject for the Leaving Certificate in 2018, it mimicked some of the suggestions made during the 1930s. That the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are areas where weekly fitness classes can be found in parish halls, gyms, GAA clubs, recreation centres and public parks points to the normality of exercise in many Irish lives. For a dedicated portion of each state’s population, the legacy of physical culture is not in words, but deeds. At the same time, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland claim to be in the midst of an obesity epidemic. Those government agencies founded to improve the nations’ wellbeing were done in response to an  obesity, inactivity, and mental health crisis among Irishmen, women and children. Created at a time when many warned that Ireland, as a whole, was on course to become the fattest region in Europe, the agencies have struggled, but at times succeeded, in challenging people’s dietary and exercise habits.9 That a government, or in this case, two governments, felt the need to take explicit action highlights the fact that exercise is often  not optional in Ireland, but an expectation. The effect such policies will have, physically and mentally, is yet to be discovered but it is telling that many of the discourses found in the mid-2010s, the claims that life was too comfortable, that foods were unhealthy and that exercise improves one’s life would have made Health and Strength’s editors proud. This book has focused on the battleground of ideas imprinted on the flesh and the communities 8  The Northern Ireland Strategy for Sport & Physical Recreation 2009–2019, Sport Matters Strategy (Belfast, 2009), pp.  8–10; Healthy Ireland, A Framework for Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013–2025 (Dublin, 2013), p. 33. 9  The Irish Times, 10 Sept., 2018.

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sustained by these debates. The idea that a fit and healthy body, or indeed that a body needed to be improved through exercise did, and continues, to dominate Irish thinking. What produced the Irish interest in physical culture over a century ago? The answer is varied. At the individual level increases in leisure time, purchasing power and literacy ensured a new and willing market for budding physical culturists. The rise of codified sports in the nineteenth-century, and an intensification of associational culture more generally, encouraged men, women and children to attend gymnasiums, purchase equipment and take part in demonstrations. Likewise, physical culture magazines, books and newspaper articles piqued the interest of the Irish physical culturist. In 1908, A. Wallace Jones claimed that everyone understood physical culture’s meaning.10 This was likely an exaggeration, but it is clear that in Ireland, as was the case elsewhere in Europe, one could engage with physical culture through numerous channels and with a multitude of motivations. The Irish interest in physical culture was a product of leisure, education, policing and military fighting. The gradual growth of gym and exercise culture became ingrained, and reiterated, in generations. Throughout the period studied it was possible, and at times entertaining, to read critiques of exercise programmes ranging from John F. Lucy’s sadistic drill sergeant to Joxer’s boredom with physical culture shows. A rare find was anyone willing to critique or even question why so much attention was given to physical culture. That exercise was necessary and beneficial was a truism few questioned. This interest was not, of course, solely driven by the individual concerned with their health and/or appearance. Also critical were changes made at a political and nationwide level. Developments in Irish transport, communication and industry fostered an environment for physical culture’s growth. Such factors were complimented by an increased interest in military and educational fitness on behalf of the state. These changes ensured that hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens were exposed to physical culture exercises at some point in their lives. What is often underappreciated in studies of physical culture is the sheer numbers of people forced, or encouraged, to exercise. In the decades covered here, thousands and thousands of schoolchildren and soldiers were put through exercise programmes each year. This is to say nothing of those who did it voluntarily. For those in schools, armies or prisons, escaping some form of  A. Wallace Jones, Fifty Exercises for Health & Strength (London., c. 1908), p. 9.

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physical culture class during one’s tenure was a difficult form of exercise in and of itself. Those ordered, coerced or required to engage in physical culture classes had little control over the kinds of exercises they used, or the results that were expected to arise. Exercising, in any form, changes the physical and physiological stature of the body. Doing physical culture exercises, designed to build one muscle to the exclusion of others, meant very definitive body types and body regimens could be created. In the cases studied here, a heightened emphasis was given over to the soldier’s body in institutional physical cultures, as defined by straight posture, svelte frames and clear musculature. Recreational physical cultures proved more democratic as participants had a variety of coaches and trainers to choose from but it is clear that for men, more attention was given to the muscular body. For women, an emphasis across social classes was the removal of physical weaknesses and the production of slim bodies said to be strong enough to withstand the rigours of motherhood. Whether or not such goals were achieved is impossible to know. What is clear is that individuals knowingly, and even enthusiastically, set about trying to physically change their appearance. Although perhaps fun, this was not an easy or flippant process. Physically changing the body through exercise meant an ongoing project over weeks, months and years which could encompass one’s sleep, food, rest and play. For those dedicated to the cause of physical culture, like W.N.  Kerr, physical culture became a very lifestyle. Kathryn Hughes’s work on Victorian biographies accused other historians of forgetting, much like Joycean character Mr Duffy, the living, breathing and malleable body.11 Studies in Ireland could also be accused of this mistake. The body, and notably the female body, has long been commented on in Irish history but often as an ideological construct. Here one is dealing with the nexus between ideology and flesh played out through movement. Could a single ideology sum up the Irish experience of physical culture? The answer is no. For members of the UVF, Irish Volunteers, British military, IRA and even Eoin O’Duffy’s Blueshirts, physical culture became a means of indoctrinating men towards a political cause, to prepare their bodies for war and as a means of demonstrating one’s political strength all within a confined masculine space. The fit, exclusively male, body fostered in military cultures was one prepared and primed for warfare. Even in 11  Kathryn Hughes, Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum (London, 2017), p. xi.

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peaceful times the military attempted to train men’s bodies with reference to the discipline needed for combat. What changed was the mingling between military and nationalist identities. For Irish educators, athletic bodies were routinely linked to greater educational and employment prospects. Here the trained body, and this extended to women, became a means of advancing in the world, of avoiding illnesses and of ensuring the strength of future generations. That educators took their exercise systems from the military, and indeed actively sought out this connection, was telling. So too was the fact that although exercises were similar, the meanings attached to them differed greatly. This is to say nothing of the recreational cultures which saw Irishmen and women devote time and money in an attempt to become a woman of health and beauty or ‘Sandows’ in their own right. The ideology, or goal, of Irish physical culture was never coherent. Rather it was a chaotic interplay of individual and institutional motivations. In this regard, the Irish embracing of physical culture was in line with broader European developments. This should come as no surprise considering the porous nature of Irish physical culture. One of the great mysteries of this phenomenon, for which no clear explanation exists, is the Irish overreliance of foreign physical culture materials. Other histories of physical culture, those found in Germany, France, England, Australia and Laos, have all found evidence of domestic physical culture industries.12 In the United States or England, where physical culture magazines and entrepreneurs thrived, such industries were obvious. In China, Laos or New Zealand, their influence was not as large but existed. Ireland never had a thriving physical culture magazine or publishing house. Physical culturists existed, that much is clear, but outside of public appearances, they proved relatively absent from print media. This meant that Ireland proved overly dependent on English physical culture for information. In time this dependency extended to American and even French materials. Physical culture products were a global industry but the Irish case study proves almost entirely unique in the absence of print media. 12  Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain, 1880–1939 (Oxford, 2010), pp. 6–10; Andrew D. Morris, Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China (California, 2004), p. 240; Michael Anton Budd, The Sculpture Machine: Physical Culture and Body Politics in the Age of Empire (New York, 1997), p. xi; Joan Tumblety, Remaking the Male Body: Masculinity and the Uses of Physical Culture in Interwar and Vichy France (Oxford, 2012), pp. 8–12; Caroline Daley, Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body 1900–1960 (Auckland, 2003), pp. 41–82.

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Where the Irish case study also differed from other regions, at least in Europe, was the political use, and appropriation of physical culture. France, England and Germany all saw various political groups take up physical culture for their own means, especially during the 1930s. Ireland pre-dated such groups by a decade. Here physical culture became a means of resisting imperial rule, of upholding Ireland’s relationship with Great Britain, of securing labour rights, of female emancipation and to dispute the legitimacy of Irish independence. At times paramilitary groups mimicked each other’s exercises with vastly different motives in mind. At other points, dominant forms of martial physical culture reigned supreme. The politicised use of physical culture, especially in the lead up to the creation of the Free State, distinguished Ireland in the European context. In India, China and Laos, physical culture became a means of resisting imperial rule and achieving political independence. The same, ultimately, proved true for the Republic of  Ireland. The comparisons between Irish and Indian nationalist campaigns have already been discussed in great detail. The next step is to examine commonalities in body cultures. Irish physical culture, mimicking the experiences of other regions, was dependent on a clustering of individual, group and state interests concerned with the body and its cultivation. An individual’s engagement in physical culture exercises was not, however, unrestricted. The degree to which one was exposed to physical culture varied depending on their geographical location, sporting interest, economic class, gender and religion. Politicians, educators and military officers may have viewed physical culture as integral but for the individual there were multiple factors at play. Exercise was neither a neutral, nor easily accessible, pastime. It could be, however, a transformative one. For some individuals, like W.N.  Kerr or Kathleen O’Rourke, physical culture was not just a pastime but a vocation. For others, it was a fleeting interest, one which although begun enthusiastically was silently neglected soon after. Many were forced to engage in physical culture, through their education or workplace, while others simply ignored it. The difficultly in ignoring physical culture wholeheartedly during this period was that the body cultures it fostered, the confidence displayed in controlling the physique, and the optimism attached to athletic bodies trickled into Irish institutions and play. At its most basic level, this book highlighted first the existence, and subsequently the popularity, of physical culture in Ireland from 1893 to 1939. In doing so, it addressed a dearth in research on Irish recreational, educational, political and social histories which have often dealt with the

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body in passing phrases. It placed the Irish context into the broader historiographical landscape, that concerned with European and colonial body cultures, and cited when the Irish interest paralleled and differed from that of other states and at what junctures. It spoke of physical culture’s utility for a large and disparate number of groups. Furthermore, the book highlighted the barriers individuals often faced in attempting to further their interest in physical culture. At a deeper level, the book explored the identities and motivations surrounding the human body. For educationalists, training the body meant improving learners’ discipline, attention and futures. For police officers, it meant upholding the law while for military combatants, official or otherwise, it often meant success in battle. For politicians, it meant the continuation of the state while for individuals it could represent sociability, diversion or aesthetics. Where individuals and groups trained, how they trained and how they expressed their motivations for doing so thus mattered greatly. Put simply, the Irish body was not a banal or neutral thing. How it was trained, dieted and regulated told a great deal about the society in which it was situated. The birth of physical culture in Ireland marked the creation of something more than a renewed interest in exercise. It marked a growing confidence in controlling the body, marshalling it for societal and personal gain and, ultimately, creating new and improved citizens. For future histories, two clear paths are now evident. In an attempt to capture as much of the Irish interest in physical culture, this book was broad by design. This meant that a great deal of individual and regional stories were dealt with only in small snippets and anecdotes. More research thus needs to be done exploring the localised nature of physical culture in Ireland, especially across class and religious lines. How did a Roman Catholic farmer gain access to physical culture materials? How did this differ from their Protestant accountant counterpart? Physical culture magazines, Irish census records and regional newspapers provide many clues. Similarly, the need to divide attention across institutional and recreational physical cultures has somewhat dulled the gender disparities found within this field. The female experience of physical culture was different from the male, a point highlighted most clearly when discussing the Women’s League of Health and Beauty. Shedding light on such disparities, through school records and newspaper columns, could further highlight and examine this divide. Looking outside at Ireland and beyond, a great deal more work needs to be done examining the international component of physical culture.

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Aside from Charlotte MacDonald’s work, few historians have sought to explore the international marketplace of physical culture ideas, policies and products with anything other than a scant or isolated interest.13 The Irish experience of physical culture did not just include international markets, it fed off of them. Without access to British, European and American materials, it is doubtful that the intensity of Ireland’s interest in physical culture would have been the same. This book examined the influx of global ideas that were moulded and fixed to the Irish context. Projects stemming from this book could, as is now the case with Irish gender histories, explore global ideas of the body and determine how, when and why they came to Ireland. Just as the physical culturists studied here dedicated themselves to routine, sometimes arduous labour, there is a need to continue working on this field, to find the limits of its contours and situate them within a broader Irish and global context. The benefits, as shown here, extend far beyond a firmer understanding of the Irish gymnasium. In 1911, the French physical culturist and chronicler Edmond Desbonnet wrote that le prestige de la force physique est indéniable or ‘the prestige of physical strength is undeniable’.14 Surveying physical culture in Ireland across several decades, it is difficult to disagree. For individuals and the state, the need for fit and healthy bodies proved a powerful incentive in persuading and coercing countless men, women and children to lift weights, move their bodies and focus on their breathing. The ‘prestige of physical strength’ saw systems of physical culture co-opted by numerous individuals and groups, each with differing motivations, fears and aspirations. There was no one history of physical culture in Ireland but rather a variety of experiences and messages occurring simultaneously. Despite this conglomeration of multiple stories, one truth nevertheless emerged. Physical culture in Ireland not only existed, it thrived.

13  Charlotte Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935–1960 (Vancouver, 2013). 14  Edmond Desbonnet, Les Rois de la Force: Histoire de Tous les Hommes Forts Depuis les Temps Anciens Jusqu’à Nos Jours (Paris, 1911), p. vii.

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Index1

A Adolescence, 5, 133, 216 Aldershot Gymnasium, 6, 55, 57 Alexandra College, 125, 211 Athletics, 5, 11, 42, 46, 62, 67, 75–89, 119, 134, 145, 151, 159, 162, 168, 178, 179, 182–184, 196–199, 202, 212, 235, 246, 247 B Bagot Stack, Mary, 129, 157, 159, 165, 167, 168 Barracks, 2, 4, 7, 53, 55, 58, 110, 194, 197 Beaujeu, Monsieur, 93, 95–98 Belfast, 7, 17, 21, 25, 34, 36, 44, 46, 47, 105, 129, 133, 135, 148, 152, 156–158, 160–162, 164, 165, 219, 220, 231, 233, 238 Belmore Report, 101–103, 107

Board of Education, 100, 103, 104, 107, 108, 110, 111, 115, 117, 119–121, 217, 231 Bodybuilding, 33, 34, 241, 242 Borstal Prison, 123 Bukh, Niels, 176–178, 188, 194 Bureau of Military History (BMH), 67, 70, 84, 85, 88 C Censor, 129, 133 Childhood, 5, 38, 91–93, 99, 100, 108, 112, 239, 242 Circus, 48, 49, 137 Civil War, 15, 49, 54, 63, 70, 75, 76, 78, 127, 132, 133, 169–171, 179, 207 Colbert, Con, 78, 79 Commerce, 51 Commissioners of National Education, 101, 102, 104, 113

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Heffernan, The History of Physical Culture in Ireland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63727-9

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INDEX

Commission on Manual and Practical Instruction in Primary Schools under the Board of National Education in Ireland, 100n50, 103n67 Cumann na mBan, 69, 81–83 Cumann na nGaedheal, 128, 172, 200, 201, 212–216, 230 Cusack, Michael, 23, 38, 39, 76, 77 Cycling, 37, 41, 182 D Dáil Éireann, 215 Dale, F. H., 107–109, 111, 116 Degeneration, 14, 15, 128, 135, 170, 175, 196, 197, 215, 223 Department of Education, 208, 209, 214, 216, 225–227, 235 Drill, 1, 6, 8, 20, 43, 43n156, 56, 60, 64–66, 68–70, 73–75, 77–79, 81–88, 99–108, 110, 113, 114, 116, 118, 119, 122–125, 138, 142, 150, 157, 166, 171–178, 179n48, 180, 184, 188, 197, 200, 201, 203, 207–211, 213, 214, 221, 225–229, 231, 232, 244 Dublin, 18, 21, 25–27, 34, 35, 37, 42, 44, 46, 47, 49, 60, 64, 78, 83, 95, 96, 105, 116, 124, 125, 129, 133, 137, 150, 151, 153, 154, 157–167, 186, 187, 194, 198, 213, 218, 229–231 Dublin’s Perfect Man, 145 E Education, 1, 20, 42, 77, 91, 155, 169, 197, 225, 247 Enlistment, 42, 71, 73, 75

Eugenics, 35, 38–40, 102, 112, 129, 142, 145, 166, 175, 181, 215 F Feis, Father Matthews, 44, 137 Female physical culture, 28, 36–38, 129, 130, 133, 157, 158, 161, 199 Fianna Fáil, 174, 190, 200, 201, 206, 215, 225, 229, 230, 235 Fine Gael, 201 G Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), 5, 23, 38, 186, 192 Gardaí/Garda Síochána, 169, 170, 178–182, 184, 196–200, 202, 203 Gramophone, 141 Great War, 14, 15, 18, 19, 34, 41–43, 45, 51, 55, 70–76, 80, 84, 86, 87, 92, 119, 120, 122–125, 133, 135, 138, 171, 175, 176, 186, 199, 207, 216, 217, 223 Gymnasium, 1–4, 6–8, 10, 13–15, 17–20, 24, 25, 36, 42–45, 49, 53, 55, 57, 58, 64, 69, 74, 96, 98, 103, 108, 111, 116, 117, 119, 123, 125, 130, 137, 138, 142, 150, 152, 153, 155, 157, 173, 177, 178, 197, 222, 223, 229, 233, 238, 239, 242, 244, 249 Gymnastics, 12, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 37, 40, 41, 44, 53, 56, 58–61, 76–78, 80, 94–98, 103, 109, 110, 113, 116, 123, 126, 130–132, 137, 146, 156, 167, 173, 176–178, 185, 188, 199, 208, 211, 212, 214, 223, 226, 229, 232, 242

 INDEX 

H Health and Strength magazine, 35, 43, 45, 241 Hercules Gymnasium, 151, 153, 161 Home Rule, 54, 55, 62–71, 75, 79, 80, 88, 173 I Independence, 54, 76, 79, 80, 83, 84, 86, 127, 131, 132, 172, 173, 186, 191, 213, 216, 247 Irish Citizen Army (ICA), 81, 83 Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), 63, 67, 79 Irish Republican Army (IRA), 77, 85–88, 127, 173, 179, 200–202, 245 Irish Republican Brotherhood, 67 Irish Volunteers, 63, 67, 80, 173, 245 L Ling Gymnastics, 58, 110, 157, 176–178 Lucy, John F., 16, 74, 75, 87, 148–150, 244 M MacDonagh, Thomas, 78, 80 Macfadden, Bernarr, 30, 31, 40, 182, 183, 199 Maclaren, Archibald, 56–58 MacNeil, Eoin, 192, 213, 213n41 Manual on Physical Training, 61, 62 Marches/marching, 56, 60, 65, 68, 72, 74, 81, 88, 112, 113, 119, 181, 228 McQuaid, John Charles, 159, 160, 167

279

Ministry of Education, 155, 160, 219, 237, 239 Moriarty, John, 48, 51, 137, 242 Mulcahy, Richard, 172, 212–215, 224, 229 N Na Fianna Éireann, 5, 69, 78, 92 Nationalism, 1, 5, 13, 28, 39, 45, 77, 79–81, 89, 91, 119, 129, 181, 187, 188, 194 National Programme of Primary Instruction 1922, 208 Neilly, J. Maxwell, 32, 36, 40, 49, 132, 133 O O’Duffy, Eoin, 151, 179–181, 183, 184, 196–198, 200, 201, 227, 245 O’Rourke, Kathleen, 158, 159, 162, 230, 235, 247 P Partition, 13, 127, 130, 142, 170, 177–179, 206, 237 Pearse, Patrick, 78–80, 104, 117–119 Physical Recreation Act, 156, 237 Primary education, 109 Prison, 84, 123, 124, 193, 244 R Radio, 130, 139–141, 148–150, 170, 187, 189, 191, 236 Report of the Committee Appointed by the Government to Examine the Question of the Promotion of the Revival of Athletics, 155

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INDEX

Rising, 1916, 41, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81–83, 104, 119 Royal Hibernian Military School, 98 Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), 32, 41, 60–62, 66, 67, 85, 87, 178–181, 198, 200, 202, 203 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), 169, 170, 178–181, 184, 196, 202, 203 S St. Enda’s School, 78, 117 Sandow, Eugen, 8, 11, 14, 18, 26–36, 38, 39, 41, 49, 51, 57, 58, 142, 143, 149, 151, 154, 202, 241, 242, 246 Second World War, 14, 151, 155, 156, 164, 230, 239, 242 Sinn Féin, 39, 215 Sokol physical culture, 15, 140, 148, 185, 197, 226 Swedish gymnastics, 58, 61, 113, 173, 176, 208 T Tailteann Games, 129–132

Tichy, Lieutenant, 140, 148, 189, 190, 193 U Ulster Unionist Party, 128, 206 Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), 63–71, 65n68, 81, 201, 245 W War Office, 53, 66, 85, 104, 107, 111 War of Independence, 6, 14, 15, 49, 76, 83, 122, 124, 132, 169, 171, 177, 179, 207 Weightlifting, 8, 26, 34, 35, 45–50, 62, 116, 131, 137–139, 138n69, 145, 150, 151, 153, 154, 157, 242 Whittaker, T.K., 226, 235 Women’s League of Health and Beauty, 129, 148, 156, 157, 230, 248 Y Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), 25, 44, 137, 138, 150, 156