The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian

by Pat Walsh

  19.Christina Keogh, The County Library System in Ireland 1929, p.10.

  20The Anglo-Celt, 10 January 1931, p.1.

  21. Seán Ó Súilleabháin, op. cit., p.2.

  22. Dermot Foley, ‘A Minstrel Boy with a Satchel of Books’, op. cit., p.208.

  23. Seán Ó Súilleabháin, op. cit., p.6.

  24. Brigid Redmond, op. cit., p.166.

  25. Ibid., p.167.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Helen Roe, ‘Laoighis County Libraries’, An Leabharlann, vol. 3, no. 1, April 1933, p.8.

  28. Brigid Redmond, op. cit., p.167.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Christina Keogh, Report on Public Library Provision in the Irish Free State, 1935, p.14.

  31. Rev. J. Butler, ‘The Committee-man Plays his Part’, An Leabharlann, vol. 7, no. 1, December 1939, p.12.

  32. Ibid.

  33. Brigid Redmond, op. cit., p.170.

  34. Dermot Foley, op. cit., p.209.

  35. Brigid Redmond, op. cit., p.171.

  36. Ibid., p.175.

  37. Ibid., p.177.

  38. Ibid., p.178.

  39. Ibid., p.179.

  40. Ibid.

  41. Helen Roe, op. cit., p.8.

  42. Brigid Redmond, op. cit., p.167.

  43. Christina Keogh, Report on Public Library Provision in the Irish Free State, 1935, p.15.

  44. Ibid., p.18.

  45. Mayo News, 17 January 1931, p.8.

  Chapter 9

  ‘Unwept, unhonoured and unsung’

  If the government hoped that the dissolution of the council and the appointment of Miss Dunbar Harrison by Commissioner Bartley would bring an end to the political controversy, they were proved mistaken. In the immediate aftermath of the special meeting of the council, the government felt it necessary to rebut the claims of a letter written by an unidentified unsuccessful candidate. Councillor Bernard Joyce had dramatically read this letter aloud at the meeting. Accounts of its contents were widely publicised in national and regional newspapers. In order to protect the good name of the Local Appointments Commission, the accusations in the letter needed to be tackled directly.

  In a further development, the anonymous letter writer gave permission for her name and address to be published. She was revealed to be Miss Ellen Burke, with an address at Bank House, Longford. Her epistle, the exact text of which Councillor Joyce had written into the minutes of the meeting of Mayo County Council, was printed in its entirety in most of the national dailies and the regional weekly newspapers, together with an explanatory covering letter from Dean D’Alton. The covering letter read as follows:

  Sir,

  The letter read at the Mayo Council meeting, on Saturday, had been handed by me to our local county councillor, Mr Joyce, and it was read without giving the writer’s name and address. Since then I have got full authority to publish both the name and address of the writer, and I will ask you to publish the letter in full in the interests of fair play and in justice to a young lady who has been wronged.

  I make no comment, except to point out that this young lady, Miss Burke, when the appointment as librarian was made, had already reached the required age, had the diploma in library training, and had plenty of Irish even for a Gaeltacht county. Not one of these qualifi-cations was possessed by her successful opponent, Miss Dunbar.

  E. A. D’Alton,

  Parish Priest, LL. D., Dean of Tuam,

  St Mary’s, Ballinrobe

  Ellen Burke’s letter read as follows.

  Dear Canon D’Alton,

  I have just received a letter from Fr Brown, SJ, instructing me to write to you with reference to Mayo library. I was called before the Appointments Commission when they selected librarians for the last group of libraries, including Mayo, and, much to the surprise of my professors, was passed over.

  I received a good secondary education in St Louis Convent, Balla, Loreto Convent, Killarney, and Dominican College, Eccles St, Dublin. I passed Junior and Middle Grade Intermediate and Matriculation (N.U.I.) I am a Bachelor of Commerce and have the Higher Diploma in Education and the Diploma in Library Training of the National University of Ireland. I passed an oral and written examination in Irish for my B. Comm. Degree, and have had the advantage of spending my holidays in the Kerry Gaeltacht for the past five years.

  I did a considerable amount of practical work in University College Library in preparation for the Library Diploma, as I gave whole-time attention to library training all through the year. I did practical library work in the Catholic Central Library from the beginning of February until the end of June last. I attended daily at Kilmainham Library under the supervision of Miss R. [Roísín] Walsh, county librarian.

  When I had completed one week’s practical work in Kilmainham I was called before the Appointments Commission, but I told the examiners I intended continuing my work in Kilmainham for two months, and I did so. I was twenty-five years of age last April, and so had reached the required age. I am also a Catholic.

  Ellen Burke,

  Bank House, Longford, 22 December 19301

  Fr Stephen Brown, who Miss Burke mentioned as her mentor, was the librarian of the Catholic Central Library where Miss Burke had worked for roughly five months. He was also an active member of the Library Association of Ireland. Dean D’Alton speaking to the Western People said that it was surprising, in view of all her attainments, that Miss Burke had not been selected for the position. Moreover, she was a Catholic and Mayo was a predominantly Catholic county.2

  Up to this time, the internal actions of the Local Appointments Commission and its interview boards had been treated as confidential. They had at all times acted independently of the government. It is a sign of the pressure that he was under that President Cosgrave, acting on the advice of the attorney general, formally asked the LAC for a response to the Ellen Burke letter. It was felt that the government had no option but to reply. To not have done so and to let such a devastating accusation go unanswered would have been politically disastrous. Considering the time of year, the Local Appointments Commissioners responded with some alacrity, and by 5 January 1931 the office of the president had received a written report from the Commission which formally rebutted each of the points in Miss Ellen Burke’s letter.

  1) The statements in the letter of the candidate as to her education, training and experience were correct.

  2) All those statements with regard to her education, training and experience were all before the selection board when they interviewed her.

  3) The selection board was aware of all the circumstances of Miss Burke’s career, as set out in her letter.

  4) The Local Appointments Commissioners, after considering the report of the board of selection, which did not place Miss Burke on the list of qualified candidates, were satisfied that the interview board had taken fully into account all the facts and circumstances above referred to as to Miss Burke’s career and qualifications and had exercised all due care in assessing her merits and those of the other candidates.

  5) If anything to suggest the need for doing so had presented itself, the board would have been invited to review their assessment.

  6) As regards knowledge of Irish, Miss Burke had not reached the standard.

  7) As in the case of other applicants, the commissioners were not aware of, or concerned with the religion of Miss Burke.3

  One can only imagine the grim satisfaction, or at the very least immense relief, of the cabinet. Ellen Burke had, despite her declarations to the contrary, failed the Irish test as well as the interview proper. If this was the sole basis for the opposition to Miss Letitia Dunbar Harrison, it was on feeble grounds. Miss Burke had shown astonishing naïvety. To put it at its mildest, she had been badly advised. By going public, she had allowed herself to be used as a pawn in a political game. The government could not be seen to back away from such a public challenge to their integrity. To add emphasis and with a certain harsh inevitability, it was later revealed that Ellen Burke had previously gone
before another selection board for a county librarian post with a different set of interviewers. She had also been unsuccessful on that occasion. The government felt its hand had been strengthened. They could now put up a more robust defence of the Local Appointments Commission than had seemed possible a few days earlier. They were in a position to cut the ground from under Ellen Burke and those who were backing her.

  In the formal and semi-formal meetings with various members of the Catholic hierarchy in the following weeks and months, the contents of the report of the Local Appointments Commissioners were made available to them. These so-called confidential government papers were widely if informally disseminated. The campaign in favour of Miss Burke was quietly dropped. This did not, of course, mean that the argument for the acceptance of Miss Dunbar Harrison had been made. The debate in the letters pages of the newspapers showed no sign of abating. Unlike current practice, it was not uncommon for letters to be published under a pseudonym if the writer so wished. It was, perhaps, easier to support minority opinions if one did not have to sign a name to the letter. In one particular letter a ‘Clareman’ declared, ‘It is with great pleasure that Irish Catholics in England will read of the government’s action in resisting local bigotry in Mayo and insisting on the appointment of the elected candidate, although a Protestant … If the forces of reaction in Mayo succeed in their effort to flout the law of the Free State, it looks as if Ireland is not yet fit for self-government.’4

  The Labour Party’s weekly magazine, The Watchword, was broadly supportive. ‘From beginning to end,’ it wrote, ‘the affair of the Mayo librarianship reflects little credit on the majority of the Mayo County Council. At the sworn inquiry conducted by the Local Government Department before Christmas the council officially put forward the case that its objection to the appointment of Miss Dunbar was based on the ground that she had not a sufficiently good knowledge of Irish. But the lay and clerical leaders of the campaign against the appointment have been guilty of no such hypocrisy. They have maintained openly and frankly all along that their chief objection is against Miss Dunbar’s religion.’5 The Watchword declared its regret that the council had to be dissolved, ‘In future some provision other than the appointment of a commissioner should be made for cases such as these. The affair will not end even with the ratification of Miss Dunbar’s appointment. The campaign which has been waging for the last month will not cease … We anticipate that steps will be taken to make the librarian’s position a very heavy burden indeed.’6

  The political combat continued into the New Year. In early January 1931 the Fianna Fáil newspaper The Nation carried the headline ‘Mayo Council To Go’. It wrote, ‘The story will go around the world that to secure the appointment of a Protestant to a public post the Free State government has to suppress the principal elected local assembly.’7 The paper seemed to be blaming Cumann na nGaedheal for damaging the Free State’s reputation abroad. Indeed the controversy did cause ripples abroad though mainly among Irish exiles.

  ‘Inverted Ku Klux Klanism’

  Daniel Maloney, with an address at 362 St Mark’s Place, Staten Island, New York, wrote to the Western People.

  As an Irishman interested in the good name of Ireland and her repute, not merely for unconditional tolerance in matters concerning the expression of opinion, but for courtesy and good will, I was inexpressibly shocked to read of a candidate for the post of librarianship being discriminated against because of her religion and university. This action is nothing short of inverted Ku Klux Klanism and no civilised community would for a moment tolerate a library committee capable of this perversion of their office.

  If your great county man, Michael Davitt, were now living he would stigmatise this petty bigotry as a blow at Irish culture, Irish democracy, Irish nationality and Irish unity. In our twentieth century such news travels fast and injures the name of Mayo throughout the civilised world.

  Burning issues press for solution in our day and public bodies who waste public time not only by failing to meet these issues, but by maliciously dragging in ridiculous theological prejudices into matters of education and justice, are unworthy representatives of Mayo.8

  In fact Mayo man Michael Davitt had held strong views on libraries. In his book Leaves from a Prison Diary, written while serving his sentence in Dartmoor for treason felony, he wrote, ‘In my opinion, no more efficacious reforming medium … could be employed for the reclamation of all that is reclaimable in criminal lives than a judiciously stocked prison library … Half a prison library might be stocked with biographies of self-made and remarkable men, the struggles and achievements of whose lives would constitute the best class of reading that could be offered to those who, above everything else, stand in need of instruction by example.’ Michael Davitt deplored the religious prejudice shown in much of the stock of English prison libraries. ‘It is a pity,’ he wrote, ‘that sectarianism is so often displayed in their pages that the Catholic chaplains of convict prisons interdict their delivery to Catholic prisoners.’9

  As the letter writer from New York put it, one can only imagine Michael Davitt’s reaction to the sectarianism shown in his native county. As for Fianna Fáil, its leader Eamon de Valera gave his views on 6 January at a public meeting in Irishtown, County Mayo, close to the birthplace of Michael Davitt. Replying to a questioner from among a crowd of nearly two thousand people, who asked him to describe his attitude to what had happened, Mr de Valera said that although he had not intended to speak on it he was prepared to state his opinion. Fianna Fáil had opposed the Local Appointments Commission from the outset, believing that ‘centralisation of power in Dublin was a mistake, as the same intelligence could be found in county councils.’10 Centralisation was not only unnecessary but it was also inadvisable because the people of Dublin had enough work of their own to do and he thought they should let others shoulder their share of the work and responsibility. He went on to state that, although he had not been aware of it at the time, he heartily approved of Fianna Fáil’s opposition on the County Council to Miss Dunbar Harrison’s appointment, on the basis that her lack of Irish rendered her unqualified for the job.

  Dealing directly with the more controversial issue, of whether Miss Dunbar Harrison was a suitable appointment in an overwhelmingly Catholic county, he said, ‘As regards the question of her religion it depended on what the duties and functions of a librarian are. If it was an educational matter, it must be faced frankly as a denominational one … Catholic schools had Catholic teachers. It would not be fair to compel the Catholic community, who held conscientious views on matters like this, to put them aside for any consideration … Fianna Fáil maintained that every person in the country, no matter of what religious faith, was entitled to a share of public appointments.’11

  Mr de Valera concluded that the situation in the South was very different to that in the North. ‘We do not intend to follow in their footsteps down here,’ he said, ‘and to ignore the rights of minorities. We stand for seeing that minorities get their rights, and there are ways of seeing they get them rather than by violating the opinions of a conscientious Catholic majority.’ This seems to be a clear case of de Valera having his cake and eating it too; claiming to oppose discrimination in theory yet endorsing it in this particular instance.

  ‘The Mayo damp squib’

  The Cumann na nGaedheal newspaper, An Reult [The Star], unsurprisingly took a different stance. Under the headline ‘The Mayo Damp Squib’ it declared that ‘the controversy which it has been sought to work up over the Mayo library appointment shows signs of dying of inanition … the fogs of propaganda created around the Mayo situation by not altogether disinterested champions of “Faith and Fatherland” … please spare us the crocodile tears … it appears to be pretty evident that the Mayo County Council has gone down unwept, unhonoured and unsung … outside of the limited ranks of the anti-government forces not a solitary cry appears to have been heard locally.’12 This statement contains a large amount of wishful thinking. It wa
s as if, having stood up to the pressure and faced down the original resistance, the Cumann na nGaedheal government hoped that the opponents of Miss Dunbar Harrison’s appointment would simply fade away. If this was indeed their hope, they were soon to be disappointed.

  Seán Ruane, a Cumann na nGaedheal councillor from Kiltimagh, wrote to President Cosgrave in December, warning him that there was talk of the establishment of a ‘Catholic Centre Party’ and that the prospect of the suppression of Mayo County Council ‘is giving more pleasure than I like to some people not quite in love with the government or the government party.’ Nevertheless, he continued, ‘I have definitely made up my mind to sink or swim with Cumann na nGaedheal.’13

  Seán Ruane was true to his word. Despite his private misgivings he had spoken strongly in favour of the party line at the special meeting of Mayo County Council. Cumann na nGaedheal needed more of this sort of party loyalty. The talk of a Catholic Centre Party seems to have been just that, talk. However, there was still some fight left in the council. Despite the dissolution, some of the councillors decided to ignore the government’s action and called a meeting which was held in the council chamber of Castlebar courthouse. At this stage they had no legal right to be there. Pat Higgins, T.S. Moclair and John Morahan were the main movers. Sixteen councillors, by now ex-members of the council, turned up on Saturday, 10 January 1931. Following a discussion they opted to hold the meeting in private. As the Mayo News reported, ‘It was decided to hold the proceedings in committee, much to the disgust of the gallery, some of whom were inclined to grumble.’14 This unofficial meeting passed a number of motions:

  1) Refusing to recognise the dissolution.

  2) Demanding of the Minister for Local Government not to levy a rate for the Mayo library service on the grounds that it would be a waste as the service could not function.

  3) Expressing thanks to Leitrim County Council and others for their support.