THOMAS JAMES (TOM) CLARKE

Born on 11th March 1858 on the Isle of Wight.
His Father was a soldier on the British Army who had served on the Crimean War and moved to South Africa where they did live in different British garrisons’ towns.
When Thomas was seven his family moved to County Tyrone.
In Tyrone he had meet John Daly, Uncle of his future wife Kathleen and an Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) organiser. Clarke also become involved with IRB Clarke was tried by court-martial and was one of the first to be executed on 3rd May 1916. Kathleen Clarke was pregnant at the time of the Rising but suffered a miscarriage due to stress.

At the age of 24 in the 1882 he emigrated to America and where he did join the Clann Na nGael.
The following year he was sent to London as part of a bombing campaign, where he was caught, and he did spend fifteen years in Penal servitude forced to do hard work as a form of punishment for his role in a bombing campain in London between 1883 and 1898. His health suffered because of the conditions in jail and a case for his release was taken up by Maud Gonne and Amnesty Association. John Daly was in prison for similar charges. When Thomas was released, he was awarded the Freedom of Limerick City.
He did meet Kathleen Daly in Limerick and corresponded with her when he once again oved to America in 1898. In 1901 she followed him over to America and they Got Married and his best man at the wedding was John MacBride.
In 1907 he returned to Ireland and helped reinvigorate the IRB, steering it steadily towards Insurrection which aimed to end the end British rule in Ireland and establish an Independent Irish Republic while the British was heavily engaged in World War 1 and is considered to have been the most significant Rebelion since 1798.
After their arrival in Ireland, they did open a Newsagents shop in Dublin. He did hold the Position as Treasurer of IRB and was a member of the Supreme Council of IRB from 1915.
Sean Mac Diarmada held the post of Secretary, and these two friends was the main organisers behind the Easter Rising.
when Jeremiah O’Donovan Rosa, one of the Founders of The Fenians died in 1915 Clarke planned a huge funeral as a demonstration of support for Irish Independence. Clarke chose Pádraig Pearse to give the graveside oration and, with thousands of Volunteers attending, the tone of the oration made it very clear that an attempt would soon be made to establish an Irish Republic by force of arms.

Thomas J. Clarke was chosen as the first signatory of the Proclamation of Independence because of his seniority and contribution to the cause over the years. As a member of the Provisional Government, he was one of those who occupied the GPO. After six days of fighting at the GPO, Pearse issued the order to surrender. Although Clarke objected to this, he was outvoted.
After the surrender, a British Amy Captain, Percival Lea-Wilson took Thomas Clarke, Sean MacDiarmada and Ned Daly aside to search them. Clarke had an old bullet wound which had not healed properly. Lea-Wilson found it difficult to remove Clarke’s coat because of the stiffness and forcibly straightened the arm, re-opening the wound and causing terrible pain3. He also made all three men strip to the skin in front of their comrades, including three nurses. Lea-Wilson took away Sean MacDiarmada’s walking stick forcing him to keep pace with the other Volunteers on their march to prison. This treatment of prisoners was noted by a young Captain, Michael Collins. Lea-Wilson was later murdered during the War of Independence in 1921 by the IRA in Gorey, Co. Wexford, where he was serving in the Royal Irish Constabulary. The Volunteers spent the night at the grounds of the Rotunda Hospital after the surrender before being moved to Richmond Barracks.

Clarke was tried by court-martial and was one of the first to be executed on 3rd May 1916. When he was executed for his Role as a Leader on the 1916 Rising he had on his possession in his pockets a book of stamps, a pencil and an empty spectacle case.
Kathleen Clarke was pregnant at the time of the Rising but suffered a miscarriage due to stress. Katheleen was a member of the Daly family in Limerick who had a Republican tradition, the most prominent was John Daly- Maior of Limerick and Leading Member of the IRB.
Katheleen wrote to the Major W.S.Lennon , the officer in command of Kilmainham Gaol overseeing the execution, to request the return of Tom’s Body for burial and was refused and the Tom’s pocket items wore returned to her instead

The railway station in Dundalk was named after Thomas Clarke in 1966 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Rising4. There is a commemorative plaque to Thomas Clarke at the site of his newsagent’s shop, now Griffins Landis convenience store, which is located at the corner of O’Connell Street and Parnell Street.

21st January 1919

The First Dail Eireann

On the opening Of the Meeting Rev Michael O’Flanagan delivered a prayer and the Proceedings began with the Appointments of a Speaker, Cathal Brugha, the Appointments of Clerks and a Roll call of the Members.

On the 21st of January 1919, Sinn Fein Candidates what had been Elected by the People of Republic of Ireland in The General Election, 32 Counties Assembled as a Revolutionary Irish Parliament Called Dail Eireann.

The elected Sinn Fein representative decided to Establish their own Assembly and to Declare Ireland’s Independence.

The Members Agreed that is Necessary the Separation from Britain’s to be Achieved by any Means of an Armed Uprising if Necessary.

Sinn Fein was very confident of it’s Radical Policies and of It’s Standing with the People of Republic of Ireland and the Fact that they Won 73 Seats out of 105 in the December General Election 1918 was a Testament to the Authority it Had Attained .

The First Meeting of First Dail Eireann was Held in the Round Room in Mansion House Dublin, and it was Attended by the Sinn Fein TD’s as the remainder were either incarcerated by the British Authorities because of so called ” German Plot ” of the previous year or out of the Country on Other Business.
It is to be Mentioned that Michael Collins Left Mansion House very early that day.

No Unionist or Irish Party Victors in the General Election Turned up, but instead they made their way to Westminster Parliament.

After the Results of the December 1918 General Election were Known it was Clear for the People of Ireland that the Polices of the Sinn Fein Resonated with The Biggest Majority of Irish People and very fast After they started working on the Establishment of the First Dail.

Those In attendance Saw the Symbolism of the Moment to Be conducted in the Irish Language and it was the only Time when the Business of The Dail was Conducted Entirely in the Native Tongue, and the Members Elected Cathal Brugha as It’s Ceann Comhairle and Declared an Independent Irish Republic.

During the course of the Meeting a Number of Documents have been Adopted including:
A New Constitution, the Constitution of The Irish Republic, a Declaration of Independence which Claimed the Dail was the Parliament of the Sovereign State called Irish Republic and was based on the Proclamation that was Delivered by the Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood being at the same time the Members of the Provisional Government of Ireland Republic, was

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

adopted,
”Message to the Free Nations of the World” was Released asking for all the Free Nations to Recognise Ireland’s Right to Self -Determination, Governance and as well as her Place in the International Community and as Irish Republic free from British Rule.

The Members also Agreed to the Democratic Programme.

During the Inaugural Meeting of First Dail Eireann a Ministry / Cabinet was Chosen.

SINN FEIN ELECTION MANIFESTO 1918

THE Party’s manifesto for the 1918 general election.
After its reform in 1917, the Sinn Féin party campaigned against conscription in Ireland. Following the armistice of 11 November 1918 the British Government called a general election for 14 December, in which Sinn Féin won 73 out of 105 seats in Ireland.

The policy of our opponents stands condemned on any test, whether of principle or expediency. The right of a nation to Sovereign Independence rests upon immutable Natural Law and cannot be made the subject of a compromise. Any attempt to barter away the sacred and inviolate Rights of Nationhood begins in Dishonour and is bound to end in Disaster. The enforced exodus of millions of our people, the decay of our industrial life, the ever-increasing financial plunder of our country, the whittling down of the demand for the ‘Repeal of the Union,’ voiced by the first Irish Leader to plead in the Hall of the Conqueror to that of Home Rule on the Statute Book, and finally the contemplated mutilation of our country by partition, are some of the ghastly results of a policy that leads to national ruin.

Those who have endeavoured to harness the people of Ireland to England’s war-chariot, ignoring the fact that only a freely-elected Government in a free Ireland has power to decide for Ireland the Question of Peace and War, have forfeited the right to speak for the Irish People. The Green Flag turned red in the hands of the Leaders, but that shame is not to be laid at the doors of the Irish people unless they continue a policy of sending their representatives to an alien and hostile assembly, whose powerful influence has been sufficient to destroy the integrity and sap the independence of their representatives. Ireland must repudiate the men who, in a supreme crisis for the nation, attempted to sell her birthright for the vague promises of English Ministers, and who showed their incompetence by failing to have even these promises fulfilled.

The present Irish members of the English Parliament constitute an obstacle to be removed from the path that leads to the Peace Conference. By declaring their will to accept the status of a province instead of boldly taking their stand upon the right of the nation they supply England with the only subterfuge at her disposal for obscuring the issue in the eyes of the world. By their persistent endeavours to induce the young manhood of Ireland to don the uniform of our seven-century-old oppressor, and place their lives at the disposal of the military machine that holds our Nation in bondage, they endeavour to barter away and even to use against itself the one great asset still left to our Nation after the havoc of the centuries.

Sinn Féin goes to the polls handicapped by all the arts and contrivances that a powerful and unscrupulous enemy can use against us. Conscious of the power of Sinn Féin to secure the freedom of Ireland the British Government would destroy it. Sinn Féin, however, goes to the polls confident that the people of this ancient nation will be true to the old cause and will vote for the men who stand by the principles of Tone, Emmet, Mitchel, Pearse and Connolly, the men who disdain to whine to the enemy for favours, the men who hold that Ireland must be as free as England or Holland, Switzerland or France, and whose demand is that the only status befitting this ancient realm is the status of a free nation.

ISSUED BY THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF SINN FÉIN’1918

DEFENSE OF REALM ACT OF THE BRITISH STATE IN IRELAND

In the years 1916 to 1918 the most important legal weapon in the hands of the British state in Ireland, as it sought to repress the activities of Irish separatists, was the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA). DORA was a piece of emergency legislation created in the context of the outbreak of World War One. It was passed by British parliament on 7 August 1914, three days after Great Britain entered the war, and received the royal assent a day later.

DORA was a short piece of legislation but its ramifications were enormous. In effect it enabled the government to devise regulations – known as Defence of the Realm Regulations (DORR) – giving to the military powers to secure ‘the public safety and defence of realm’. Specifically, that first Act provided that those who breached regulations designed to prevent communicating with, or providing information to, the enemy or those who breached regulations designed to secure key communication and transport infrastructure could be tried by court-martial rather than in civil court.

Subsequently, DORA was amended and consolidated by five further Acts that widened the areas governed by DORR and increased the number of these that might be prosecuted before a court martial. A plethora of DORR followed, restricting subjects in myriad areas of life, including travel, place of residence, postal communication, food production and consumption, publications and public speeches. In a letter to the Evening Mail in June 1915 George Bernard Shaw wrote, ‘The Defence of the Realm Act abolishes all liberty in Great Britain and Ireland except such as the authorities may choose to leave us’.

Rebellion broke out in Dublin on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916. Lord Wimborne, the Lord Lieutenant, declared martial law in Dublin city and county, on the following day, 25 April, and extended it to the rest of the country on 26 April. Perhaps the most important act taken under martial law was the suspension in Ireland of the key provision of the Defence of the Realm (Amendment) Act of 1915. As a consequence of this, once more, civilians in Ireland could be tried by court-martial.

As Brian Barton explains, 187 civilians (183 in Dublin, 2 in Cork, and 2 in Enniscorthy) were tried by court-martial after the Rising. They faced charges under DORRs 42 and 50, those relating to attempting to ‘cause a mutiny, sedition or dissatisfaction . . . among the civil population’ and carrying out an act ‘prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the realm . . . for the purpose of assisting the enemy’. 22 of the trials were General Courts-Martial (presided over by a judge advocate assisted by 13 officers) while the rest were Field General Courts-Martial (presided over by just three officers). 15 men were subsequently executed (14 at Kilmainham Gaol and one, Thomas Kent, at Cork detention barracks). At least 53 more were sentenced to death but had their punishment commuted to terms in prison. In total, 140 men and one woman would serve prison sentences imposed by these courts-martial.

Those interned without trial were also held under DORA. In this case the relevant regulation was 14B, which allowed for the internment – by the competent military authority – of individuals with ‘hostile origin or association’. This regulation had been devised to facilitate the holding of what were termed ‘alien internees’, for the most part individuals of German or Austrian background who were living (or in some cases holidaying) in Britain and Ireland at the outbreak of the war. By November 1915 there were more than 32,000 such individuals in camps and other detention centres around Britain and Ireland. The regulations did provide for the establishment of an advisory committee to which individuals interned in such circumstances could appeal. In the case of those interned after the Rising the equivalent committee was chaired by Sir John Sankey, who was assisted by Justice Jonathan Pim, a former solicitor-general and attorney-general of Ireland, and J. J. Mooney, an Irish Party MP.

Though many of the internees refused to appeal to it, that committee met over the summer of 1916 and made adjudications in the cases of all 1,846 internees still in custody. They held hearings on 25 days, 24 days initially (27 June – 28 July) and then an extra day (28 August) to hear the cases of five internees who had been ill. They recommended the continued internment of only 573 (or 31% of those interviewed). Sankey’s diary entry for 28 July read ‘Finished the S. Fein prisoners except for few in hospital. Thank God. One of the hardest and certainly the most disagreeable job I have ever done’. The subsequent decision to release all the internees in December 1916 and, indeed, the decision to release all the convicts in June 1917 were political not legal or judicial decisions.

Between July 1916 and July 1917 the military in Ireland had prosecuted a mere 29 persons before courts-martial for seditious offences under DORA. In late June 1917, however, Sir Bryan Mahon, the General Officer Commanding in Ireland, urged the government to sanction a more assertive use of DORA. He did so in response to a new confidence and assertiveness among separatists, best exemplified by the growth in public drilling by Irish Volunteers, This led to a cabinet decision on 14 July to pursue a consistent policy of prosecuting by court-martial those participating in public ‘marching and drilling’. As a consequence, a total of 89 prisoners would be committed to Irish prisons following a court martial in the year 1917 and in 1918 this figure would reach 148. These figures do not include the majority of activists who were committed to Irish prisons during 1917 and 1918 following prosecutions before civil courts using DORA, nonetheless, they give a sense of the trend.

From mid-March 1918, following a series of hunger strikes, Irish Volunteer prisoners won from the authorities in Ireland an ameliorated prison regime for many DORA convicts. It was available to those whose offences were not criminal per se, thus excluding those guilty of assault, violence, robbery, and agrarian crimes. A system to adjudicate upon entitlement to this was established, and between mid-March and the end of 1918 the General Prisons Board (GPB) examined the cases of c. 870 convicts, affording ameliorations to c. 590 of these (just over 66%). These ‘political’ prisoners were, for the most part, held separately at Dundalk and Belfast prisons. For example, on 11 April 1918, following decisions by the GPB, its secretary sent warrants ordering the removal of 70 such prisoners to Belfast from seven local prisons – Cork (26) Galway (2), Limerick (16), Londonderry (4), Mountjoy (10), Sligo (6) and Waterford (6). Most of those excluded from the ‘political’ regime seem to have been prosecuted for their involvement in the agrarian unrest that had become widespread in several western counties during 1918, sometimes with the direct encouragement and participation of local Irish Volunteer or Sinn Féin leaders.

Other Irish Volunteers, though a much smaller number, were prosecuted during 1918 using the Crimes Act of 1887. It had been introduced in response to the agrarian unrest associated with the Plan of Campaign. The authorities could and did use it to take prosecutions for unlawful assembly, and not just during agrarian unrest. Some arrested suspects, including Michael Collins, thought that the authorities had begun to use the 1887 Act against some Irish Volunteers so as to avoid having to grant the ameliorated regime that conviction under DORA would have opened up to them. Once this became a matter of controversy in the press, however, the GPB – on instruction from the Chief Secretary – afforded ‘political’ treatment to those convicted under the Crimes Act when the offence was, for example, ‘illegal drilling’ rather than ‘land grabbing’. In this way the authorities did, for the most part, keep to the spirit rather than the letter of the agreement reached in mid-March.

During 1918 DORA (regulation 14B) was again used to facilitate the internment without trial of a cohort of leading Sinn Féin activitsts. This began in May when 69 men and women were arrested. These including the party’s four MPs (Eamon de Valera, George Noble Plunkett, W.T. Cosgrave and Joe McGuinness), Arthur Griffith, who was a candidate in the East Cavan by-election, the majority of the national standing committee of the party, various well-known propagandists, and less well-known but important local figures. Justifying the internments, the authorities alleged that these men and women were actively involved in a conspiracy with Germany – derisively referred to as ‘the German Plot’ in Ireland. In reality it was an attempt to check Sinn Féin’s growth, particularly in the context of the anti-conscription campaign of spring 1918. The number of internments climbed steadily in the months that followed until, on 17 October, 92 internees were held in small groups at seven British prisons – Gloucester, Usk, Lincoln, Reading, Durham, Birmingham and Holloway. Some of the later internees were captured on the run, while others were re-arrested and interned on the completion of sentences in Irish prisons. When Colivet was interned on his release from Belfast prison in August, Kevin O’Higgins mockingly suggested that Colivet must have been plotting with the Germans from prison.

The ‘German Plot’ internees were released in March 1919. Given that the war with Germany was over, it had become increasingly difficult to justify their incarceration. The British state in Ireland would, however, continue to use DORA throughout the War of Independence. Indeed, as the situation in the country became more violent, it would add a significant weapon to its armoury of emergency legislation with the introduction of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act, passed in August of 1920.

Dr William Murphy is a lecturer in the School of History and Geography, DCU. He is the author of Political Imprisonment and the Irish, 1912-1921 (2014).

CURTESY OF RTE
1916 RISING