100 years since the first female MP was elected to Westminster

28 December 2018 marks the centenary of the election of the first female MP to the British Parliament. Imprisoned at Holloway Prison upon the time of her election, she didn’t take her seat in parliament…but her imprisonment was not the reason…

1918 was a revolutionary year in many respects. In November, the First World War finally came to an end, and almost immediately, the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George called a General Election. And it was a revolutionary election. Women over 30 were allowed to vote. But more than that – women could now stand for election.

Miles away from the Western Front, it had been a turbulent few years in Ireland. The long-running struggle for independence was reaching a head. The 1916 Easter Rising failed, but the nationalists were not ready to give up yet.

Most Irish nationalist were members of a party called ‘Sinn Féin’ – who had a policy of ‘abstentionism’. This meant that they took their seats in the Irish Parliament – Dáil Éireann in Dublin.

So when Markievicz was elected, she didn’t take her seat in Westminster. When the Irish Parliament first met in January 1919, she was still in Holloway Prison. When her name was called out at the meeting of the Dáil, she was described, like many of those elected, as being “imprisoned by the foreign enemy”.

The first women to take her seat was Nancy Astor (Viscountess Astor), after a by-election in December 1919.

Four Irish-Australian convicts that may surprise you

 

You don’t need to be Irish to know the story in the lyrics of ‘The Fields of Athenry’ – a father being transported on a ship to serve hard labour on the other side of the world for petty crime. We all know the story of Ned Kelly, himself not a transported convict, but rather, his father John Kelly, allegedly for having stolen two pigs. Between 1788 and 1868, around 162,000 British and Irish convicts were transported to the penal colonies of Australia, often for very small crimes. Figures vary, but it’s believed that somewhere between 12 and 24 per cent of those convicts were Irish. And while the stereotypical case was that of Michael from Athenry, the profiles of some of those Irish transported may surprise you. To mark the anniversary of it being 160 years since the end of British transportation to the colonies, below are the stories of four surprising Irish convicts transported to Australia.

 

WILLIAM SMITH-O’BRIEN

Many rebels were transported to Australia in the aftermath of various famous uprisings in Ireland: the 1798 rebellion, 1803, 1848 and 1868 – 1868 being the last year of transportation to the colonies. And among them was William Smith O’Brien.

Now this convict might surprise you – he was far from the stereotype of the  impoverished farmer who stole some corn to feed his children. He was actually the son of Sir Lucius O’Brien, and was born in 1803 in Dromoland Castle, County Clare. Despite being descended from Brian Boru, the Gaelic O’Brien’s were then part of the Protestant landed elite, and William was educated in public school in England, and later Cambridge University. Taking his seat in the House of Commons in 1828, he was a strong supporter of Catholic emancipation, but not of Irish self-government. He stance changed however when the British government imprisoned his rival Daniel O’Connell. Now Deputy-Leader of O’Connell’s Repeal Association, he led the Young Irelanders out of it in 1848 when O’Connell advised against the use of force. In 1848, he led the Young Irelanders into rebellion in Tipperary.

Convicted, he was originally sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life transportation to Tasmania. But political prisoners in the colonies had a different status to most convicts. They got special ‘ticket-of-leave’ treatment, largely due to the efforts of Colonial Secretary Earl Grey who felt that the Young Ireland rebels deserved gentlemanly status. ‘Ticket-of-leave’ was a type of parole issued to convicts, who could be trusted with certain freedoms.

O’Brien initially refused the ‘ticket-of-leave’ status, because that meant he couldn’t try to escape. So he lived on Maria Island, the most remote outpost of the penal settlement. A bungled escape attempt in 1850 let to him being transferred to Port Arthur. He was fairly isolated there, and wrote lots about his experiences to his family, especially his wife Lucy.After three months at Port Arthur, he successfully applied for a ticket-of-leave.

He was to spend 2.5 years in lodgings near Hobart, and play a big role in drafting a model constitution for the Tasmanian Legislative Council.

Conditional pardon came his way in summer 1854. He departed Tasmania after five years away and lived in Brussels until his full pardon in 1856, when he returned to Ireland to a heroes welcome, passing away in 1864.

LAURENCE HYNES HALLORAN

From nationalist rebel, to unordained clergymen, the list of unusual Irish convicts just grows. Laurence Hynes Halloran was to become famous as a controversial writer and schoolteacher in Sydney, but not before leading a life of crime and false claims. Born in Co. Meath in 1765, Halloran was orphaned at a young age, so he ran away to join the Navy. Aged 17, he was jailed for stabbing a fellow midshipman in 1783 (to death). He was acquitted the next year, moving to Exeter where he married and ran a school. It was during this time that he began to make his first steps on the literary stage, publishing Odes, Poems and Translations (1790), and Poems on Various Occasions.

Claiming to be an ordained minister, he managed to re-enter the navy though as a chaplain, and was installed at the Cape of Good Hope. But after running afoul of his boss, he was removed from his position. He then published a satire Cap-abilities or South African Characteristics. Proceedings were taken against him and he was banished from Cape Town and returned to England, not before the governor of the colony had to declare valid those marriages conducted by Halloran during his time there. Back in England, and once again posing as a clergyman under various aliases, in 1818 he was convicted of forging a tenpenny frank and transported to Sydney.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Halloran’s rebellious streak had run out by then – but no. Upon his arrival, he was given a ticket-of-leave by the local governor. Despite having a wife and six children back in England, he decided that he and his niece would pose as his wife, and they are alleged to have had issue. Upon his niece’s death in 1823, he married bigamously, fathering even more children.

But that didn’t stop him getting embroiled in even more lawsuits. Bankrupt, he served a prison sentence for debt, some of which was petitioned to found a Public Free Grammar School – for which he had called for the establishment of. Upon the opening of the school, the Sydney Gazette reported that Halloran was constantly drunk, constanlty swearing, and telling student stories about fighting and his perpetual drunkenness. Halloran was jailed once more, and the responsibility of running the school passed elsewhere.

His story doesn’t stop there, however – upon his release, Halloran started his own newspaper – which failed – largely because he wrote most of the articles himself, and they were mainly about he libel suits issued against him. Upon the fail of that business, he was briefly appointed as Sydney’s coroner. He was removed from that position when he threatened to start publishing more libelous articles. He died soon after that, in 1831, having led a varied and colourful life.

 

HENRY BROWNE HAYES

(A big thank you to the authors of http://www.sirhenrybrownehayes.com/foreword.html for their wonderful site which helped me greatly with my research on Henry Browne Hayes).

Another breaker of the stereotype convict is Henry Browne Hayes, a captain of the South Cork Militia, a sheriff, a Freemason, and a Knight! This may be one of the most colourful of Irish convicts. Ironically, as Sheriff of Cork he processed the first shipment of Irish convicts to New South Wale. Knighted in 1790, and then widowed in 1797, and struggling to take care of his children, he decided to kidnap a wealthy Quaker heiress named Mary Pike and force her to marry him., even bringing in a man dressed as a priest to perform the ceremony. Pike was rescued by her family, and a bounty put on Haye’s head, so he had to go into hiding. Declared an outlaw, he could be shot on sight. A government reward of £200 was offered for his capture and ₤50 for each of his accomplices.

 

After three years hower, he gave himself up for trial. Knowing the price that would be awarded to whoever reported that Hayes had turned himself, Hayes offered himself up to his friend Charles Coghlan, a fellow freemason. Hayes was found guilty and was given a death sentence which was later changed to a life sentence in Australia.

 

Arriving in New South Wales in 1802, Hayes was immediately put in jail for misbehaviour on the ship, which included harassing the ship’s surgeon. He was linked to an uprising a few years later in 1804, after he successfully founded the roots of Freemasonry in Australia. Whether or not he actually had the authority to set up the Freemason’s is up for debate, but the meeting he held in Sydney in 1803 is nonetheless regarded as the founding of the Freemasons of Australia.

 

Hayes was to purchase Vancluse House, which was turned into a national monument and became known as a snake-free property thanks to an age-old Irish commodity – turf! It turns out turf was a very successful reptile repellent, and Vancluse House was surrounded with it. (You can read more about Vancluse House on this site: http://www.sirhenrybrownehayes.com/)

 

Finally pardoned in 1809, Hayes returned to Ireland in 1812, and died in 1832. In Australia, he was noted to be “a restless, troublesome character”…you can see why, in fairness.

 

GEORGE BARRINGTON

One of the earliest Irish transportees was George Barrington was transported to New South Wales in 1791, just three years after Australia became a convict colony. Barrington was infamous pickpocket with a very colourful track record.

 

Born in Kildare, his crime sprees began early when he stabbed a fellow student with a penknife at age 16. He later robbed his schoolmaster and ran away from school. After a period with a touring theatrical company in Drogheda, he arrived in England and was to became one of London’s most colourful pickpockets in the 1770s – managian to mix with the upper classes and the elite, getting arrested numerous times, but managing to get acquitted. One of his most famous exploits was the attempted theft of a diamond studded snuff box, allegedly worth £30,000 from the Russian Prince Orlow at Covent Garden, but he pleaded his case with such a display of emotion that the prince refused to press charges.

 

He also once posed as a clergyman and removed the diamonds from the clothing of a member of the Knights of the Garter.

 

But his luck ran out in 1790, when he was sentenced to transportation for theft of a gold watch. Arriving in Sydney in September 1791, he spent a year labouring on a Toongabbie farm. He could never stay at the same thing for long, with his ‘irreproachable conduct’ gaining him an absolute pardon after just a short time. He was then trusted with the job of watching over crucial supplies for the new government. Five years after his transportation, he became a police constable in Parramatta, Sydney. Quite a turnaround!

Sadly, he was declared officially insane in 1800, and died four years later. However he did leave a major legacy on the literature of the early colonies. Credited with writing a number of texts, including a history of New South Wales, his name is attached to many others that in reality he had nothing to do with, EG texts that were actually about political items but to make them more salesworthy they became attached to the pickpocket who stole diamond-encrusted snuff-boxes!

The small Wexford village forever affected by the deaths of three young women during WWII

You can read my article for http://www.thejournal.ie in remembrance of the bombing of a small village in Wexford during WWII here: http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/campile-bombing-ireland-4203766-Aug2018/

Remembering Cheiro, the Dublin man who became an infamous member of the Occult

82 years ago today, a man from Dublin passed away in Hollywood, California, having been one of the most famous figures of astrology of his time. Born in 1866, and also going by the name of Count Louis Hamon, ‘Cheiro’, as he is best known, was to become a symbol of the occult, a self-described clairvoyant and a world-renowned fortune-telling expert. Known for his ability to foresee world events, his clients are claimed to have included Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt and even Joseph Chamberlain. So how did a man from Dublin become arguably THE symbol of the occult in the early 20th century?

BACKGROUND

It was while travelling in India as a teenager that Cheiro met the Indian Brahmans, who was to become his Guru. Cheiro wrote in his memoirs that he was permitted by Brahmans to study an ancient book that has many studies on hands. After studying thoroughly for two years, he moved to London and started his career as a palmist, becoming popularly known as ‘Cheiro’ (taken from ‘chirology’ meaning studying the hands to tell fortunes).

PREDICTIONS

Some of the phenomenons Cheiro is purported to have predicted include the Boer War and the death of Queen Victoria. In 1925, he is alleged to have predicted the future partition of India. And he also claimed to have predicted the sinking of the Titanic, 13 years before it sank, while reading the palm of Harland and Wolff chairman William Pirrie. His office in the West End of London famously always had a queue of people waiting to hear about their future.

HIGH SOCIETY

But Cheiro’s unusual gift for the occult was not his only talent. He also befriended and read the palms some of the most eminent people of the day. Some of his clients included King Edward VII), General Kitchener, William Gladstone, Joseph Chamberlain as well as other leading military, judicial and political figures from both sides of the Atlantic.

He also read the hands of many literary and artistic figures such as Mark Twain, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde -and is alleged to have been a major source of inspiration along the way. Mark Twain included references to fingerprint identification in his novel Puddin’ Head Wilson, and Oscar Wilde is believed to have written the short story Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime based on his encounter with Cheiro. Mark Twain said of his visit: “Cheiro has exposed my character to me with humiliating accuracy. I ought not to confess this accuracy, still I am moved to do so.”

WRITER

And Cheiro was also a writer himself. He wrote numerous books on fortune-telling, some of which are still in print today. His books reveal something about his abilities. Although he undoubtedly had a gift for the occult, Cheiro was known to have ‘premonitions’ more so that actual reading things from people’s hands. In Confessions – Memoirs of a Modern Seer, it’s clear that Cheiro saw himself more as psychic than a palmist.

DEATH AND LEGACY

Moving to America is his later years, he read the palms of the Hollywood elite as the infamous neighbourhood was gathering pace. He is also alleged to have tried his hand at screenwriting. Upon his death on October 8, 1936, his widow claimed that he predicted his own death to the hour, the day before he died. Later that month, Time Magazine wrote: “On the night he died, said his nurse, the clock outside his room struck the hour of one thrice.”

CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO READ MORE ABOUT CHEIRO:

The Irishwoman hanged for Witchcraft – Ann “Goody” Glover

 

November 16, 2018 this year will mark 30 years since Boston City Council announced a new remembrance day – Goody Glover Day, marking 400 years since the last person was hanged in Boston for supposed witchcraft. Her name? Ann Glover (known as ‘Goody’ Glover), born in Ireland earlier in the century. Four years before the infamous 1692 Salem Witch Trials, what circumstances led to this woman being hanged?

EARLY LIFE
Not much is known about Ann’s early life in Ireland. It’s known from her trial records that she was Irish, and a Roman Catholic. It’s understood that she was transported to Barbados, initially to work on a sugar plantation, probably as part of Oliver Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland the subsequent transportation of thousands of Irish people to the Caribbean to work as slaves. It is also alleged that her husband was executed in Barbados, allegedly for refusing to give us his Catholic faith. While this is doubtful (the authorities in the colonies, despite being anti-Catholic, were unlikely to execute a good worker for his faith alone), it wasn’t uncommon for Irish female slaves to go to New England from Barbados. And another allegation – it is rumoured that just before he died, Mr Glover declared that his wife Ann was a witch.

Records are thin, but we know from that by 1680s, Ann and her daughter Mary were living in Boston, working as housekeepers for a man named John Goodwin. In 1688, Goodwin’s 13 year-old daughter Martha accused Ann of stealing laundry, causing Ann to have an argument with Martha and the rest of the Glover children. Ann was arrested and her trial date arranged. The children are said to have then become unwell, and began to start acting strangely. Their doctor concluded that “nothing but hellish Witchcraft could be the origin of their maladies”. The medical diagnosis was that the Irish woman had “bewitched” the children of John Goodwin.

EVIDENCE
New England was a hotbed of religious conflict in the 1600s, and the witchcraft hysteria grew out that. Initially settled by Puritans from England looking to practice their faith free from persecution, by the 1680s various other denominations were found to be living in the region, causing a lot of religious hostile.

Cotton Mather was an infamous Puritan Boston prosecutor at the time (who would go on the work at the Salem Witch Trials). He led prosecuting Ann at her trial. The son of a Harvard president, Mather would later publish a book on the case of Ann Glover. When Cotton Mather visited her in prison before the trial, he claimed that she was engaged in night-time trysts with the Devil. To ensure she wasn’t mentally ill, a panel of physicians were engaged to examine her. Five of the six physicians who examined her had found her to be competent and her trial date set.

THE TRIAL
Initially, her answers could not be understood because she spoke Irish (although it was alleged that she was speaking the language of the devil). She did understand English, but apparently had lost all ability to speak it. An interpreter was found for her and the trial proceeded. Her inability to recite the Lord’s prayer would later be used as evidence against her.

Some small, doll-like images were found in a search of Ann’s house, which were used in the trial. Significance? When Mather was interrogating her she supposedly said that she prayed to a host of spirits and Mather took this to mean that these spirits were demons. Yet two male witnesses, allegedly Irish speakers, are said to have told the trial that Ann had previously confessed to them that she used the spirits for witchcraft. The identity of these two men is unknown, but it was later suggested that Ann may actually have been referring to Catholic saints.

It’s clear that a lot of the evidence used in the accusations against Ann was spectral. Either way, she was pronounced guilty of practicing witchcraft and sentenced to death by public hanging.

THE DAY OF THE HANGING
November 16, 1688 arrived, and with it, Ann’s execution date. Mocking crowds gathered to watch her life end. There are differing accounts of Ann’s final words. Some say that when she was taken to be hanged, she said that her death would not relieve the children of their “malady”. Others says that she not only said her death would not end the children’s suffering, but also that it would continue because she was not the only witch to have afflicted them. Another account claims that Ann still protested her innocence, and claimed that as a result, her death would have little effect on curing the affected children.

Tellingly, one contemporary writer recorded there having been “a great concourse of people to see if the Papist would relent.” The suggestion of her being Papist suggests some religious prejudice may have come into play. And even more tellingly, another writer, a Boston merchant named Robert Calef who knew Ann, said “Goody Glover was a despised, crazy, poor old woman, an Irish Catholic who was tried for afflicting the Goodwin children. Her behavior at her trial was like that of one distracted. They did her cruel. The proof against her was wholly deficient. The jury brought her guilty. She was hung. She died a Catholic.”

One contemporary writer recorded that, “There was a great concourse of people to see if the Papist would relent, her one cat was there, fearsome to see. They would to destroy the cat, but Mr. Calef would not permit it. Before her executioners she was bold and impudent, making to forgive her accusers and those who put her off. She predicted that her death would not relieve the children saying that it was not she that afflicted them.”

AFTER ANN’S DEATH
Ann was the last person hanged in Boston for witchcraft, but her hanging was part of a much wider fear of witchcraft in New England and Europe, and occurred just four years before the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Today, scientists are still trying to uncover a legitimate reason for the behaviour of those accused of witchcraft in New England.

After her death, Ann’s daughter Mary suffered a mental breakdown, and ended her days “a raving maniac”. However she may have been implicated in the witch trials herself. A “Mary Glover the Irish Catholic Witch” was recorded as being in a Boston jail with three pirates in 1689. We can’t be sure it was the same Mary, but it has been suggested.

Today, in Boston’s South End, there is a plaque to remember Ann “Goody” Glover, the last witch hanged in Salem, at a church on 27 Isabella Street.

 Read more about Ann Goody Glover’s story by clicking on the image here

2,500 year history of the Irish language

2018 marks 125 years since Conradh na Gaeilge (or the Gaelic League) was set up, marking the birth of the Irish language revival (in 1893). In the previous 300 hundred years, but largely in the 50 years since the Great Irish Famine, English had long surpassed Irish as the main language spoken on the island. Yet, the 2016 census revealed that around 37% percent of the population can speak Irish (up from 16% in 1901), so certainly, things have changed in the 125 years since Conradh na Gaeilge was founded. But where did the Irish language originate, and for how long was it prevalent in Ireland?

From the first settlers to the Celts (circa 8000-1500BC): Archaeology can trace human settlement in Ireland back to at least 8000 years before Christ (that’s 10,000 years ago!). The origin of the first Irish settlers is hotly disputed, but the most accepted view is that they originated in modern-day Spain, on the Iberian peninsula. Without any written evidence however, linguists can only rely on the modern Irish language itself for clues as to what languages it replaced. It’s been suggested that perhaps the early settlers spoke a language similar to that spoken in North Africa, but we aren’t sure what exactly they spoke. These pre-Celtic languages are thought to have some influence on what is now called the Irish language.

Common Celtic (500BC-1500 BC approx): Around 2-3,000 years ago, during the Bronze Age, Irish developed from a dialect brought to the island by the Celts. The Celts originated in central Europe, but seeing as Ireland was invaded many times in that period, we can’t be sure exactly when they arrived with their language.. What’s known, however, is that the Celts eventually succeeded in conquering the country and their language became widespread through it. The first mention of the word ‘Gaelic’ came from the Welsh, by Christian times the language was prevalent not just in Ireland, but also on the Isle of Mann (Mannish), the south-west of England (Cornish) and Scotland (Scots Gaelic).

Old-Irish (500-900 AD):The first real examples we have of the Irish language written down are from the remains of Ogham stones from around 1,500 years ago. The Irish language is the earliest known vernacular language written north of the Alps. Ogham consisted of various strokes and dots representing letters, and was usually inscribed on upright stones. Believed to have largely been memorials dedicated to warriors, hundreds of these still survive in Ireland today.  

Christianity arrived in Ireland in the 5th century, and in the succeeding years, Irish scribes would annotate Latin scripts with Old Irish. It’s from these ‘glosses’ that we known most about Old Irish.

Middle-Irish (900-1200 AD): Ireland was invaded many times in 900-1300 AD period, firstly by the Vikings, and later by the Anglo-Normans. It’s during the 900-1200 period that some Scandinavian words began to be adopted by the Irish language, and are still in use today. Words such ‘pingin’ (penny) and ‘margadh’ (market) and a number of nautical terms used in Irish today are believed to have originated with the Norse. But the syntax of the Irish language was largely unchanged by the Vikings.

Early Modern / Classical Modern Irish (1200-1600 AD): The Normans arrived in Ireland around 1169 and a started a period of multilingualism in Ireland. The vast majority of the Normans spoke French, but gradually, began to speak Irish as their main language, and it was to remain the main language of the country for a few hundred years. However there is significant evidence today of the French influence on Irish. Words such as cóta (coat/cloak), gáirdín (garden), seomra (room, chamber) and séípéal (chapel) are all words that are understood to have their roots in the Norman language. Additionally, the language itself went through many changes during the period 1200-1600, with many dialects emerging.

But although Irish was the most common language spoken by the ordinary people, it was during this period of English administration that English became more widespread, as it was necessary for administrative and legal affairs.

1600-present: Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish continued as the language of the greater part of the rural population, particularly in the West of Ireland. However English became the predominant language among the more prosperous members of the Irish-speaking community, and this increased greatly in the 19th century due a number of factors: after the Great Famine of the 1840s – English was adopted to prepare children for emigration to England, America and Australia in later life. The National Schools system, the first state system of primary education, was introduced in the 1830s, but one of it’s main aims was to teach Irish to children. Children wore a “tally stick” (the “bata scoir”) in the classroom, and a notch was carved into the stick if they spoke Irish. At the end of the day, they would be punished if they had notches carved on their tally stick.

And so, by the late 1900s, the Irish language was almost extinct. The 1901 census revealed that only around 16% of the population could speak Irish. With this in mind, some scholars became interested in preserving and reviving the language, and this was something that was to tie in greatly with the Irish Independence movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. A sort of renaissance of the Irish language ensued. Organisations such as the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language (1876) advocated the need for the Irish language to be taught in schools. And as noted above, in 1893 Conradh na Gaeilge (the Gaelic League) was established to gather support or the resurgence of the language and to bring written and spoken Irish in line with each other.

The Official Standard (Caighdáin) Gaeilge was declared by the government in 1958. In 2016, 1.76 million people stated on the census that they could speak Irish, amounting to around 37% of the population. A sharp rise from 16% in 1901! And with more and more Irish language festivals taking place across the country from Belfast to Carlow to Donegal, with ‘meet-up’ groups such as Pop-Up Gaeltacht gathering ever more numbers, will Irish become a mainstream language once more?

Éire’s WWII neutrality?

When war broke out in September 1939, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Eamon de Valera announced that Ireland was to remain neutral. The 26 counties of what is today known as Éire had gained de facto independence from Britain in the 1920s. But in 1939 it was still part of the Commonwealth and de Valera was keen to keep up the momentum for achieving a full Republic, especially as the Irish people had voted for a new constitution to be adopted just two years earlier, which gave greater autonomy to the fledgling state. More than anything, he wanted Britain and the rest of the world to recognise Ireland’s right to it’s own foreign policy. However, he arguably took this attempt too far in 1945 by extending his sympathies on the death of Adolf Hitler to greater levels than when the US President Roosevelt had died just three weeks earlier.

Churchill was always opposed to Irish neutrality. It irritated him so much that he and Roosevelt collaborated to try and persuade Ireland to join the war, but garnering support for the Irish war effort by Irish Americans. Churchill at many times throughout the war considered invading Ireland, as he knew that the questions of Irish unity and sovereignty meant that it would not be easy to persuade Éire to abandon it’s policy. Neutrality was a policy generally supported by the general public in Ireland and despite numerous barriers it remained throughout the duration of the war.

When Roosevelt passed away in April 1945, the Dáil (Irish parliament chamber), held a special sitting in which de Valera delivered a moving tribute to Roosevelt. As Taoiseach, de Valera was also Foreign Minister, and together with his aide  Joseph Walshe, he visited the German Embassy in Dublin on May 2, 1945, to sign a book of condolences for the Fuhrer. They also met with a German envoy to Ireland, Eduard Hempel, to express condolences.

 

The visits were met with major opposition, particularly in the United States. De Valera had arguably intended it as mark of statesmanship, reflecting the fact that Ireland was a now a nation separate from Britain. Additionally, the decision of President Douglas Hyde to send condolences to Hempel further ignited the anger, notably because there had been no presidential delegate had visited the American embassy after the death of Roosevelt. This was a move backed by the government, which further adds to the curiosity surrounding de Valera’s actions.

 

The visit to Hempel’s home has puzzled historians ever since, and it is likely that the decision was taken purely in a domestic context. Éire was a fledgling state, trying to exert itself on the world stage as a neutral nation. De Valera later argued that he offered his sympathies purely on moral grounds, stating, “During the whole of the war, Dr Hempel’s conduct was irreproachable. … I certainly was not going to add to his humiliation in the hour of defeat.”

 

This “irreproachable” conduct could not be said for the American Ambassador to Ireland, David Walsh. Eleanor Roosevelt’s uncle, he led efforts to persuade Ireland to join the war, to the point that de Valera even requested that Gray be removed from his position after Roosevelt had died. Perhaps the bad relations between the two men were part of de Valera’s reasoning not to visit the American embassy when Roosevelt passed away, and probably further ignited anger when he visited the German embassy when Hitler died. Either way, the visit to Hempel created a storm of controversy, and never before had Ireland received such worldwide attention – perhaps a happy by-product of the visit to Hempel on the part of de Valera, as it parachuted the neutral State to the world media and told the world that it had maintained it’s own neutral foreign policy for the duration – if if it was for all the wrong reasons.

 

CONCLUSION

The Republic of Ireland was formally declared in 1949, but with 26 counties and not 32 as was de Valera’s long-held wish. Churchill never agreed with Irish neutrality during the war, and de Valera would later accuse him of not being able to “find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone, not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression…” in his famous radio broadcast on May 16, 1945.

 

Despite it’s success however, the neutrality policy combined with the visit to Hempel was probably the final nail in the coffin in terms of de Valera’s chances of ever securing the 32-county Republic he had always dreamed of. The international storm caused by the visit to Hempel meant that the support for Irish independence which at one time was rife (de Valera had enjoyed support from Irish America for over 25 years), waned, and so did any general support for it from the United Nations when it was established in 1945. The visit was a small but yet significant glitch to de Valera’s dream.

Nellie Clifden: the Irishwoman who nearly brought down the Monarchy

The future King Edward’s teenage fling in Ireland, a few months before his father’s death, caused a rift between him and his mother, Queen Victoria, that coupled with a scandal so deep, threatened the core of the image Victoria and Albert had built…

The Curragh Wrens was the harem of Famine orphans who made their living providing their services to the soldiers training on the nearby Curragh. Their lives revolved around their ‘work’, growing potatoes and raising their illegitimate children. But a disputed member of the Wren’s was to make a name for herself in history, thanks to a scandal erupting from her encounters with a ‘client’.

It is unknown whether or not Nellie Clifden was one of the Wrens, or if she was, as was claimed, an actress. She has been described as “a known habitué of the most vulgar dance halls in London”.What is known is that Nellie was to unwittingly lead to a major rift between Queen Victoria and her son and successor, something the Queen attributed to her husband’s death.

So very little is known about where Nellie Clifden was born, her background, or how she ended up being in the Curragh in the summer of 1861. However, she was to have one of the most prestigious clients of any of her co-workers-Edward, Prince of Wales: the future King Edward VII.

Historians have often noted the somewhat troubled relationship that existed between Prince Edward and his parents. Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. In 1861, aged 20, he was only to spend ten weeks at the Curragh, with the Grenadier Guards, to learn a little discipline. But his counterparts soon found that he was a sexual novice, and led arranged to encounter with Nellie Clifden for him.

And Nellie clearly impressed her client, who wrote in his diary after their third ‘meeting’, “NC – third time”.

However news of this “most disreputable liaison” quickly spread. Prince Albert, shocked that his attempts to discipline his son had backfired, visited Edward upon his return to Cambridge University. Despite already complaining of feeling ill, Albert insisted on visiting his son on rainy day in late November 1861, to discuss the scandal. He returned to London very weak, (presumably suffering from typhoid), but Victoria blamed the downturn in his health on the stress of the Clifden affair.

Prince Albert died in December 1861, a mere few months after “that dreadful business”. Queen Victoria blamed her son for causing Albert’s already fickle health to demise, writing, “I never can or shall look at him without a shudder!”[5] As for Albert (still then Prince Edward), he married Prince Alexandra of Denmark in 1863, but evidence exists of him keeping up to date with Nellie Clifden’s life, someone whom he clearly never forgot.

As for Nellie? She went back to being a largely unknown figure, with as little known about her life after meeting the Prince as is known about her life before it. But she made a name for herself in history, as the Irishwoman who nearly jeopardised the future of the British monarchy.

SOURCES

• Mrs Keppel: Mistress to the King (Tom Quinn)
  • Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2St1tyK
• Edward VII: the last Victorian King (Christopher Hibbert)
  • Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2St5TGb 
• Mrs Keppel and her Daughter (Diana Souhami)
  • Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2SqEsg3
• By Royal Appointment: The Love Affair that almost destroyed the monarchy (A O’Connor)
  • Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/2Vmoaqz 
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20782442
• http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_heroes/hist_hero_nellie_clifden.html