Buried Lives

by Bury, Robin;

  In 1935, there was an outbreak of widespread sectarian outrages against the southern Protestant community, as reported in considerable detail in the National Archives of Ireland.33 The trigger was an outbreak of violence in Belfast. Catholic frustration with their exclusion from power and their disadvantaged position led to violence at the end of an Orange parade on 12 July, when rioting broke out and continued to the end of August. Reportedly, 8 Protestants were killed and 5 Catholics and up to 2,000 Catholics were driven from their homes.

  However, an outrage occurred in Cork that was not motivated by these riots.34 The Masonic Lodge in Tuckey Street, Cork was raided by some 10 men who clearly had inside information, as they arrived just as the 72 Masons were sitting down to dinner at their annual meeting. These men lined the Masons up against the wall of the dining room and proceeded to fire shots in the air (later discovered to be blanks). They smashed the china and some tables and chairs, using two sledgehammers. An unsuccessful attempt was made to force open the safe.

  The Gardaí undertook a thorough investigation but were severely hampered by the refusal of all Masons present to co-operate with an identity parade. ‘Not one of those men who were present will make any attempt to identity anyone on the parade as being one of the raiders.’35

  Clearly the Protestant professionals and businessmen present feared consequences and adopted the wise approach of keeping their heads down. The American Consul was present and agreed to attend an identity parade but refused to identify suspects. He complained to his superiors in America, who brought the incident to the attention of the Taoiseach, de Valera.

  The Gardaí suspected prominent IRA men were involved but were unable to arrest anyone, lacking evidence. They reported that the ‘object appears to be an attempt to break up the Masonic Society in Cork’.36

  Following the Belfast riots in July 1935, there were widespread outrages against Protestants in 19 of the 26 counties of the Free State. A Church of Ireland church was burnt to the ground in Co. Limerick and attempts were made to burn others as well as a Masonic Lodge and Protestant halls. There were anti-Protestant riots in Limerick and Galway and some individual Protestants were targeted elsewhere. The police reported that these outrages were not ‘organized by particular or central organization’, though in Galway a trade union was involved.

  Very early on Monday 22 July, some men broke down the door of the Church of Ireland in Killmallock, Co. Limerick. They poured petrol on the wood inside and burnt the building to the ground. The rectory nearby where Canon Taylor lived was attacked and the windows were broken. The Circuit Judge awarded £4,555 to the Representative Church Body (Church of Ireland). Apparently 4 men were arrested but never tried, as the jurors ‘were canvassed with a view to an acquittal of accused in this case’37 and 11 refused to convict. A Garda report recommended that the trial be referred to the Central Criminal Court.38

  In Limerick and Galway, large mobs assembled and targeted Protestant premises and individuals. The plate glass window of a Protestant shop owner was broken on 20 July at 10.30 p.m. in Limerick. A large crowd gathered of some 600 young men. They attacked the Mission Hall, the Diocesan Hall, Archdeacon Waller’s house, the Masonic Lodge, the Baptist and Presbyterian churches and tried to burn down the Church of Ireland church in Henry Street. The mob shouted, ‘We won’t let a Protestant house standing’. The Gardaí decided to bring in military aid and it was reported that 14 cases of malicious damage and attempted arson were brought. However the Lord Mayor, District Justice and Catholic clergy sought to interfere, in an attempt to stop the police making further investigations. A police report from the superintendent stated that ‘further proceedings would tend to revive the bitterness and ill-feeling which have died down.’39

  On 23 July in Galway, dockers refused to unload a coal boat owned by a Belfast man by the name of Mr Kelly. Later the SS Dun Aengus, which sailed to the Aran Islands, was not allowed to leave until the Protestant chief engineer disembarked. A crowd of about 500 assembled and marched with a band, demanding Catholic workers down tools in the Galway Foundry, Connaught Laundry and ESB centre, where the workers refused to leave and a police baton charged the mob. They dispersed to Eyre Square, where they visited Protestant houses in the area with the band playing. The ATGWU union and two councillors led the way; a police report noted that ‘all are of a poor type’.

  Two Protestant men were targeted in Marlow, Co. Tipperary. Richard Pennefather, related to the author, was a 70-year-old farmer with over 300 acres of land. He ‘lived on very good terms with his immediate members [sic] and had ‘a quiet and very honest disposition’, according to the police report, and this was borne out by the fact that his two sons assisted in the farming. He had been attacked during the civil war, when his car was commandeered and attempts were made to make him leave the area so that his farm could be taken.

  Joseph Abercrombie was Pennefather’s secretary, aged 75. He was a retired RIC sergeant who did not take part in politics. He and Pennefather lived very near to each other and both suffered their houses being shot at by a rifle or rifles on 26 July. Approximately 12 shots were fired at Pennefather’s house and 18 at Abercrombie’s, but no damage was done. Police had suspicions of who the attackers were but, despite many attempts to find incriminating evidence, could not make any arrests. They believed that ‘the real motive for underlying the attacks is agrarianism and that the conditions now prevailing in the North together with some incidents in An Staorstát (the Free State) are merely a cover up for restarting attacks – especially on Mr Pennefather’.40

  Masonic Halls were targeted in Kells, Co. Meath, and in Athlone, Co. Galway. In Clones, Co. Monaghan, the Masonic Hall was destroyed and the Pringle Memorial Hall and Plymouth Brethren Gospel Hall were ‘badly damaged’.41 An attempt was made to burn the Methodist church in Boyle, Co. Roscommon, in which petrol was poured at the end of pews and set on fire, but little damage was done. The Garda report stated: ‘the general public in Boyle are [sic] not in sympathy with any demonstrations by way of retaliation for North of Ireland incidents.’42

  There were a number of other incidents in which individual Protestants were targeted in Listowel, Co. Kerry, and in Castlepollard, Co. Meath, where the Church of Ireland church had a notice put up on 21 July warning ‘people that attend this church – if this trouble in Belfast goes on much longer we will be compelled to make it hot for you and your friends. To hell with King William’. In Clones, Co. Monaghan, the plate-glass windows of W.M. Meighan, a Protestant shop owner, were broken. Furthermore, a letter was sent to T. McDonagh’s furniture factory, which read:

  God bless our Pope.

  Remember Belfast.

  Up de Valera.

  To hell with the King.

  We don’t want you or your Orange Bastards in the Free State. We want revenge take a kindly warning you and your orange employees clear out.

  Beware the IRA.

  In Feint, Co. Kerry, 50 dockers refused to unload a boat containing coal owned by a Belfast man.

  The Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, had no doubt that the riots in Belfast gave rise to these sectarian outrages. Yet clearly the Gardaí who so thoroughly investigated all these outrages laid no blame at the feet of any of the Protestants who were attacked in the South. They had provoked no one but had been provoked themselves. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Irish Catholic people who were responsible for the attacks were motivated by a desire to remove Protestants from ‘their’ nation, to drive home the message they were unwanted.

  Some did leave. According to the Belfast News-Letter, a unionist paper, in 1936, ‘… Loyalists were finding it more and more difficult to live in the Free State. During the past two or three years scores of Cavan and Monaghan families had crossed the border.’43 Dennis Kennedy adds: ‘the conclusive proof that Protestants were being “squeezed out” was that they were undeniably leaving the Free State. Between 1926 and 1936 another drop of roughly 12 per cent, or 25,000, had been recorded in the Protestant populatio
n.’44 The drop cannot be attributed to natural decline and little of it to mixed religion marriages and the dreaded ne temere decree which took effect later on. By the early 1960s it was reckoned that at least 16 per cent of Protestant marriages were to Catholics and most of the offspring were brought up as Catholics.

  Protestants targeted during these outrages were unsympathetic to the behaviour of the Belfast Orangemen. They had to live in a country where they suffered cultural and constitutional discrimination. Catholic social principles were enshrined in law. Contraceptives could not be sold (though many ordered them through the post) and the 1929 Censorship of Publications Bill banned all books that ‘advocate the unnatural prevention of conception or the procurement of abortion or miscarriage’. Some of the works of the best Irish writers – indeed the best international writers – were banned, regardless of religious denomination, including Brendan Behan, Samuel Beckett, Edna O’Brien, Sean O’Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Seán Ó Faoláin, and Liam O’Flaherty. Added to that were Graham Greene, J.P. Dunleavy, Muriel Spark, Morris West and Compton MacKenzie: all Catholic writers. The films Girl with Green Eyes and August is a Wicked Month, based on the novels of Edna O’Brien, were also banned.

  In 1937, de Valera, working with the conservative Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, introduced a constitution that gave the Roman Catholic Church a special position. Divorce was outlawed. De Valera also did away with the provisions in the 1922 constitution, which were designed to protect the minority Protestant interests, such as executive appointments to the Senate and appeal to the British Privy Council. In its preamble, this constitution defined Irishness as being Roman Catholic, Gaelic and nationalist. There were, however, legal provisions for the protection of all citizens, regardless of religion, and ‘practice of religion’ was ‘guaranteed to every citizen’. However, there can be little doubt that the State’s legislation was Roman Catholic in social and moral terms.

  The first Irish constitution, written by the British and Irish, sought to avoid the imposition of Roman Catholic dogma in matters of civil rights such as divorce, birth control and censorship. Pressure by the southern unionists saw to it that their religion and culture would be recognised and protected, and Kevin O’Higgins and Arthur Griffith made this clear from the days of the first Dáil. But de Valera’s constitution changed that. The introduction to the 1937 Constitution stated:

  In the name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions of both men and States must be referred, We, the people of Eire, humbly acknowledge all our obligations to our Divine Lord Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial …

  This is in keeping with Pope Leo XIII’s teaching that all sovereignty comes from God, with the Roman Catholic Church serving as divine arbiter. The people allowed the creation of a State that looked to Rome for its civic values, though there were many who believed that de Valera had betrayed true republican principles.

  As indicated, the majority of Protestants had little interest in getting actively involved with this State. The young mostly emigrated and rarely returned, Samuel Beckett being a famous example. He considered himself to be Irish but disliked Irish nationalism. In the words of Terry Eagleton, Beckett and most Protestants after 1922 felt ‘homeless at home’.

  Those who stayed on mostly worked in farming and Protestants ran manufacturing industries, motor car distributorships and businesses like Guiness, Jacobs, Lambs, Lemons, Dockrells, Brooks Thomas and Switzers. These companies and retail outlets employed fellow Protestants to support their small community. This caused concern:

  [in] some Catholic circles, which led to action by a number of organisations to restrict the Protestant presence in these areas. By the 1960s, however, there was less concern about this Protestant role, partly because of the fall in Protestant numbers and partly, as Kurt Bowen has pointed out, because of the many new opportunities for Catholics, not only in the expanding professions, but also in the businesses and semi-state bodies established from the 1920s onwards.45

  Inter-church relations were poor, if not openly hostile. Something that added to the suspicion and bad feeling was the Roman Catholic Church’s refusal to allow its followers to attend Protestant funerals. A high-profile example was when the Protestant ex-President, Douglas Hyde, died in 1949. The Taoiseach, John A. Costello, his cabinet, and the then President, Mr Sean T. O’Kelly, would not enter St Patrick’s Cathedral for the funeral service and instead sat outside.

  Patsy McGarry, the Religious Affairs correspondent of The Irish Times, wrote in Magill in February 1989: ‘Being Catholics, Costello and his cabinet were banned, under pain of mortal sin and eternal damnation, from entering Protestant Church grounds or partaking in Protestant services.’

  Henry Patterson sums up the situation in Ireland: Since 1939, when he wrote:

  … the Interim Report of the Irish Census of 1946 … showed a sharp decline of 13 per cent in the state’s Protestant population during the previous decade. Speeches by Unionist politicians increasingly focused on what one referred to as an inexorable tendency to ‘the complete and utter extinction of the Protestant population south of the border.

  Perhaps this language was rather shrill, but Protestants were leaving the South and a large part of the reason was that they felt ‘homeless at home’. In the North, by way of contrast, Catholic numbers were growing.

  The government was quick to point out how well Protestants were doing in the Free State. They were, in proportion to their numbers, still strong in ownership of large farms, in banking and insurance. But this had been the case before partition. Was the government congratulating itself on leaving Protestants in situ, for not replacing them? Might they have expelled them, in extremis, as Idi Amin expelled the Asians in Uganda? This was unthinkable, partly because it was important for northern Protestants to see that their fellow Protestants in the South were being treated fairly well, but also because southern Protestants were patriots, providing services and jobs that were much needed, whether in the banks or in manufacturing industries.

  Henry Patterson tells us that:

  [as] a leading government statistician pointed out, the figures for the decline reflected the fact that non-Catholics had emigrated at a markedly higher rate than Catholics in the decade. This was due to ‘pull’ factors: ‘this class, relatively well-educated…could make a living here but they could do much better for themselves in an environment that suits them.’ (Letter from R.C. Geary, Central Statistics Office, to the Secretary, Department of External Affairs, 23 October 1951, in ‘Position of the Minority in the 26 Counties’.) While the pull of higher wages and salaries in Britain was one dimension of the problem, the fact remained that many had gone to serve in the Forces and ‘an environment that suits them’ was an oblique reference to the reality of low intensity unhappiness [my emphasis] with what many southern Protestants saw as the anti-British and confessional nature of the Irish state, while compulsory Irish in schools aroused much Protestant resentment. The claim was made that in government service and the judiciary Protestants were well represented, although the only example given was that they were two of the eleven members of the Supreme and High Courts. There was no response to the Unionists who pointed out that in the three border counties of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan with a Protestant population of nearly 15 per cent, there were virtually no Protestants on the public payroll.46

  As Marianne Elliott has written, Protestants and ex-loyalists in the Irish Free State ‘felt isolated in a country whose ethos was now so demonstrably Catholic and whose national narrative bore so little relationship to their own’.47 They retreated into a ghetto of the mind or ‘parallel universe’.48 Their churches gave them social and sports facilities (for activities such as badminton and indoor bowls) and they had their own schools. They regarded themselves as Irish, as Brian Walker has pointed out,49 rejecting the descriptor ‘Anglo-Irish’, so commonly used today in the media and by some historians. In 1939, the ‘Archb
ishop John Gregg described how the Protestant and Catholic communities were ‘outside one another’, and how ‘we are outside the close knit spiritual entity which the majority constitutes’. Nonetheless, he insisted that ‘our smaller community … is yet conscious of an identity genuinely Irish, which is more natural to it than the identity it recognizes in the majority’, and stated that it was ‘not necessary to be Gaelic in order to be Irish’. He warned particularly of the danger of ‘Gaelicisation’ which, ‘added to other factors in our environment, would involve our absorption …’50

  Writing in 1946, Professor W.B. Stanford maintained that an exclusive form of nationalism had become prevalent, which took the view that it was ‘we against you, our gang against yours, and may the astute intriguer win.’51 He argued that there was discrimination in ‘some local government bodies and semi-public firms’, giving examples with which he was familiar.52 A young skilled worker in Dublin was offered better-paid work in another firm. He gave notice, and in due time went to the new firm. Within a few days of his arrival, the manager called him for a private interview. He explained that pressure had been put on him by customers and others not to employ a Protestant worker. He offered the man some money as compensation if he would resign and the man found that he had to take it. His former post had been filled and he was forced to take another at a lower salary than he had before. Some other typical cases ran as follows: a factory manager made it clear that unless a Protestant in his employ became a Roman Catholic, he could not hope for any promotion, but the reverse: a bank manager whose maid, formerly a Roman Catholic, had become a Protestant, was threatened and boycotted by a clerically incited public conspiracy; when another Protestant bank manager was about to retire in a provincial town and the directors had appointed another of the same faith, a long list of signatures was locally collected to petition for a reversal of the decision and the appointment of a Roman Catholic; a Protestant institution was refused a lease by the local government officials on the grounds that it was given to proselytizing, though a Roman Catholic organization of a similar kind had been granted land without question; applicants had been refused houses built by public funds because they were Protestants; a charitable organisation for non-sectarian benefits was skillfully manoeuvred out of existence.