The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian

by Pat Walsh

  ‘I would declare the amendment,’ he said, ‘as a pretence or a sham attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the people of Mayo and at the same time to let the minister out of a difficulty. Here we have as a result of this collusion between the minister and Deputy Davis, this amendment tabled and we have the newspapers this morning scheduling it and portraying it in double-column headings as a first-class situation.’2

  Deputy Ruttledge went on to query some of the procedures used by the Local Appointments Commission in its selection of Miss Dunbar Harrison, in particular the raising of the recruitment age. He questioned the fact that ‘the lady appointed got more marks for “personality” than the others got … People who want to do it, and people who did do it, got that vague word “personality” to cover a multitude of the sins they may commit … but personality would be of very little use to Irish speakers in Mayo …’

  He then spoke of the religious issue, closely echoing the words and opinions of Dean D’Alton and Canon Hegarty at the library committee meeting. ‘There is one matter that I have to speak about,’ he said, ‘and I do it with considerable reluctance, for the reason that when you speak about these matters you are often likely to be misunderstood.’ Deputy Ruttledge denied any sectarian bias but insisted that a 99 per cent Catholic county like Mayo was entitled to have a Catholic librarian. In this he reaffirmed the words of his party’s leader, Eamon de Valera, at the public meeting in Irishtown, County Mayo, in January 1931. He outlined the series of events that had led to the dissolution of the council, paying particular attention to the role of Michael Davis as chairman of the council and as senior Cumann na nGaedheal TD for the county.

  ‘I know what happened subsequently when Deputy Davis came up to Dublin,’ he said, ‘when he was accused by the minister of being “a weakling and a wobbler”.’

  ‘Will I have the right of reply to this?’ asked Deputy Davis.

  ‘No,’ replied the Ceann Comhairle.

  ‘I am very sorry …’ persisted Deputy Davis.

  ‘Hold a meeting when you go home,’ suggested Deputy Killilea.

  ‘… in Crossmolina,’ added Richard Mulcahy.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Deputy Ruttledge. ‘Crossmolina seems to be the place where we all hold them – both sides.’

  ‘Let us keep to the debate here,’ advised the Ceann Comhairle, ‘and not stray to the crossroads.’3

  Ruttledge continued, accusing the minister of suppressing the council and misleading the senate when he had answered questions there on 25 March 1931.

  ‘Gracious me!’ exclaimed Mulcahy.

  ‘What is the good gracious about?’ protested Deputy Ruttledge.

  ‘The minister will get his opportunity,’ interjected the Ceann Comhairle.

  ‘If we could get more good graces in Mayo we would be better off,’ murmured Deputy Ruttledge. He went on to outline the state of the library service in Mayo since the appointment of Letitia Dunbar Harrison, revealing that the vast majority of the library centres had returned their books by March 1931. He had tried in vain to get more up-to-date information.

  ‘I believe he visits Mayo occasionally’

  ‘I understand the Commissioner [P.J. Bartley] might be away. I believe he visits Mayo occasionally,’ continued Deputy Ruttledge dryly. ‘There are books with about thirty of the 112 library centres … The fact is that only four centres are in semi-operation out of 112 in operation since last December, when the minister started this heavy hand. The people who patronise these four centres which are in semi-operation are people of a religious persuasion which is the opposite to the majority of the people of Mayo.’4

  Deputy Ruttledge then brought up the difficulties faced by the various committees of Mayo County Council. Commissioner Bartley was unable to take over the duties of the Old Age Pensions Committee or the Technical Instruction Committee. From the time of his appointment technical instructors had not, and could not, be paid.

  ‘Perhaps the minister hoped the people of Mayo would reel under his feet,’ continued Deputy Ruttledge, ‘that they would come forward and appoint committees to assist the commissioner he had sent down. He may hope as long as he likes. Until he removes the person appointed from that position, and removes the Commissioner from the office he has been appointed to as a result of refusing to appoint this lady, he may rest assured that there is no hope whatever that the priests and people are going to crumble under his feet.

  ‘He may be keen on dictatorship, and he may think that the people are going to give way after a time. The people of Mayo are united on this issue; they are more united than ever they have been in the history of that county before, and no attempt by the minister to trample on them, and import amongst them a person in the position of librarian who they have good reason to believe may prove a danger to the faith of the people, will succeed. They are not going to let the minister walk on them.’

  Dick Walsh, also a Fianna Fáil TD for Mayo, endorsed the arguments of Deputy Ruttledge. The Vocational Education Act was ‘a dead letter’ in Mayo due to the impasse created in the county by the actions of the minister.

  ‘He can get no man in Mayo,’ Dick Walsh declared, ‘either clergyman or public man or any responsible person, to act upon the Vocational Education Committee or any committee connected with local affairs … There may be places in the County Mayo where, as a result of these vacancies remaining unfilled, people cannot get their old-age pensions.’

  Deputy Walsh went on to re-iterate his stance on the issue. ‘When this question came up in the Mayo County Council,’ he said, ‘I myself clearly indicated that we who are members of the Fianna Fáil Party in the council were not actuated by any question of bigotry, that we were not influenced by what I might call anti-Protestantism, that we did not object to Protestants or other non-Catholics in this country getting their share of public appointments.’

  Deputy Walsh criticised The Irish Times for trying to portray Fianna Fáil as intolerant because of the actions of their councillors in Mayo. ‘We are not a party of bigots,’ he said. ‘But neither I nor any member of Fianna Fáil in the County Mayo or in this Dáil apologise to anybody for being Catholics or for taking up a Catholic attitude on a question of vital importance to Catholic interests. If the minister thinks he is going to cow the people and the priests of Mayo in this matter, he is making a great mistake. If he thinks he is going to gain political kudos by proving to a certain element in this country that his is the great party of tolerance; if he thinks that by creeping to certain elements in this country who are always anti-national and anti-Catholic that he is going to gain anything, and that he is going to increase prestige of his party west of the Shannon, he is certainly making a great mistake.’5

  Deputy Walsh referred to the history of Mayo and its ‘very bitter memories … A large number of the small farmers of the county have not very sweet memories of those times, times when they were faced with the alternative of the roadside or of changing their religion.’ He argued that the minister risked intensifying the tension and bitterness between neighbours in Mayo because of his actions. Mayo County Council had been abolished for what was only a technical breach. The inspector sent down had given the council a clean bill of health after a sworn inquiry that lasted barely fifteen minutes. Deputy Walsh then proceeded to criticise Deputy T.J. O’Connell, the leader of the Labour Party and also a Mayo TD, for not condemning Commissioner Bartley for reducing the wages of the road workers in Mayo from thirty-five shillings to thirty-two shillings a week.

  ‘It could happen, and you not hear it,’ protested Deputy O’Connell.

  ‘A long way of using a short word’

  Deputy Walsh then accused Richard Mulcahy of making ‘a deliberate misstatement’ in the chamber. The Ceann Comhairle intervened. ‘The deputy ought not to accuse the minister,’ he said, ‘or any other deputy of making a deliberate misstatement. That is a long way of using a short word. The deputy can say if he wishes that the minister was wrong in his statement.’

  ‘It
can stand as far as I am concerned,’ declared Richard Mulcahy.

  Walsh went on to criticise Trinity College, despite the objections of the acting Ceann Comhairle, Mr F. Fahy, who had taken over the chair.

  ‘The deputy should leave Trinity College alone,’ insisted Mr Fahy. ‘Trinity College is not one of the bodies dissolved.’

  Nevertheless, Professor William Thrift rose to defend Trinity. Some mud slinging resulted until the acting Ceann Comhairle finally put a stop to it. ‘This is neither the time nor the place,’ he said.

  ‘A little manliness’

  Deputy Michael Clery congratulated Michael Davis on his courage. ‘I am glad as a Mayo deputy,’ he said, ‘that the day has come in this house when there is a question on which Deputy Davis and myself can stand shoulder to shoulder. I certainly am glad of the attitude he has taken on this question. Deputy Davis has proved to have a little manliness in him. It is about time.’6

  Deputy Clery alleged that the crisis had arisen at that particular time because of the imminent South Dublin by-election. ‘The instructions to have that appointment insisted upon,’ he said, ‘came to the minister from the Orange Lodges of County Dublin … and also to the instructions of The Irish Times … At the time he found it was politic to flout the people of Mayo, to flout the wishes of the clergy there, and to dance instead in attendance on the unionists and masons of the County Dublin, whose votes did count at the time for the minister and his party.’

  Deputy Clery outlined his views regarding Richard Mulcahy’s personality. ‘There was a time in the past,’ he said, ‘when this self-opinionated minister, this over-rider of the people’s rights, got out of his opponents in another fashion. There was a time when not abolition but execution was his method of putting his opponents aside. Now since he finds he can put them aside in another way, according to law, his method is not execution, but abolition … He believes if he had been born in this country six generations ago, this country would be a little heaven now. I believe the minister means well.’

  ‘It will be alright in six generations,’ commented Richard Mulcahy.

  ‘I believe he means well,’ repeated Deputy Clery, ‘but he cannot convince me he is right and 99 per cent of the people are wrong.’7

  Deputy T.J. O’Connell rose next. ‘Of the nine deputies who represent Mayo,’ he said, ‘six are members of the county council and I was awaiting until these men, who are more closely associated with the matter than I, would have spoken.’ Deputy O’Connell concentrated his argument on his unhappiness with the methodology that the Local Appointments Commission interview board had used. He did not address the issue of Miss Dunbar Harrison’s selection directly. The Local Appointments Commission had not advertised the various county library vacancies separately nor had they held separate interviews for those different posts. In his opinion this invalidated the process and justified the council’s rejection of Miss Dunbar Harrison. He also took the opportunity to defend himself against Deputy Walsh’s accusation that he had done nothing in regard to the reduction in the wages of Mayo’s road workers.

  ‘A statement was made that I,’ he said, ‘as a Mayo representative, did not take any action or as the deputy said, that he did not hear that I took any action. A great many things happen about which the deputy does not hear. I have here in front of me a file of correspondence showing that so far back as the first week in April I took action in the matter.’

  Deputy Hugo Flinn congratulated the backbenchers of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. ‘While I do not wish in any way to be personal,’ he said, ‘I do say that it is a very useful and a very hopeful sign, perhaps the first sign in the darkness, which we have seen for a very long time – the darkness of the backbenchers of Cumann na nGaedheal – that there is still somewhere amongst them some backbone, some remaining element of those qualities which made a man walk erect instead of creeping on his belly like a worm.’

  Deputy Flinn drew attention to the fact that Michael Davis was a vice-chairman of his party and was opposing his own minister. He concluded that all nine Mayo TDs were as one on this issue and stated that Mayo was united, preferring to see their County Council abolished, rather than to have something imposed on them by a central authority.

  ‘Unless we have to assume that he is a superman, unless we are prepared to assume that some special inspiration from heaven has given him the wisdom which enables him to know in relation to this County Council more than Cumann na nGaedheal, more than Fianna Fáil, more than Labour, more than priests and people know about it, we must assume he is a superman of a different character, a man whose sole supermanship is in the claim to override the organised, united, public opinion of a county on a matter of which they have full and complete knowledge.’

  He went on to express two possible justifications for this attitude. ‘One explanation,’ he said, ‘is that the minister does actually believe himself to be the legitimate over-rider of the people, that he has a malignant opposition to the rights of the people to express an effective opinion in relation to their own local government. That is one explanation. The other is downright stupidity. I think it is downright stupidity at the back of all this … He had to break the County Council rather than his own pride.’8

  Deputy Seán T. O’Kelly was also highly critical of Richard Mulcahy, ‘the would-be Napoleon, the pocket battleship, the pocket dreadnought of the Free State, that fears nothing.’ He read into the Dáil minutes details of the December meeting of Mayo library committee.

  President Cosgrave rose to make a robust defence of Richard Mulcahy. He may not have had anything new to say on the matter but he seemed determined to show his support for his beleaguered Minister for Local Government. He made reference to the Catholic Bulletin, in particular the list of questions it had published in its January 1931 issue. President Cosgrave claimed, ‘I have not read that paper since it committed what was to my mind a very serious mistake against Christianity; that was a criticism of the late General Collins after his death.’

  ‘Glory be to God,’ replied Deputy O’Kelly. ‘If that be want of Christianity I hope the President will examine his own conscience.’

  ‘I do,’ said Cosgrave, ‘very often.’9

  Deputy O’Kelly suggested a solution to the impasse. ‘An effort should be made to get Miss Dunbar married to some eligible member of the County Council,’ he said, ‘and thereby get her out of an awkward position and the government out of its present mess … I wonder will the president look round the county and see if there is any eligible young fellow who might get him out of a scrape, for at present he is in a bad way?’

  President Cosgrave stood by Richard Mulcahy and the Local Appointments Commission, taking the debate through the various measures that had led to the installation of Miss Dunbar Harrison as Mayo county librarian.

  ‘What about the president’s own party?’ asked Deputy Clery. ‘The chairman of the party introduced this motion.’ ‘I did not interrupt the deputy when he was speaking,’ replied the president, ‘and he spoke at great length. I believe he invited members of this party to go into the division lobby along with him. They know what to do, but they will not be attracted by that sort of clap-trap.’

  ‘You never know,’ replied Clery.10

  Deputy Eamon de Valera intervened, squandering much time and energy in a squabble with the Ceann Comhairle over standing orders and procedural matters, the withdrawal of the Fianna Fáil amendment and the allowing of a similarly worded amendment from Deputy Davis. The Ceann Comhairle denied any bias and stated that he had merely been trying to be helpful, expediting the business of the house. Deputy de Valera eventually came round to the substance of the debate. In the first place, he was against the appointment of Miss Dunbar Harrison because he fundamentally disagreed with centralisation. Then there was the matter of religion. ‘I say that if I had a vote on a local body,’ he said, ‘and if there were two qualified people who had to deal with a Catholic community, and if one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant, I wou
ld unhesitatingly vote for the Catholic. Let us be clear and let us know where we are.’

  He went on to argue that libraries should be treated similarly to schools. ‘If this librarian were simply a sort of clerk,’ he said, ‘who attended to somebody who came in and handed out a book which that person asked for, then I would not have any hesitation in saying that it was not an educational position, and that there was no reason whatever for introducing religion in that case. The more, however, I examine the question, the more I satisfy myself that if the library system were meant to achieve anything, it should be an educational system, and that the work of the librarian should be actively to interest people in reading books, and that it should not be a mere passive position simply of handing down books.

  ‘I say if it is a mere passive position of handing down books that are asked for, then the librarian has no particular duty for which religion should be regarded as a qualification, but if the librarian goes round to the homes of the people trying to interest them in books, sees the children in the schools and asks these children to bring home certain books, or asks what books their parents would like to read; if it is active work of a propagandist educational character – and I believe it must be such if it is to be of any value at all and worth the money spent on it – then I say the people of Mayo, in a county where, I think – I forget the figures – over 98 per cent of the population is Catholic, are justified in insisting upon a Catholic librarian …

  ‘If the library system is an educational system, the same freedom should be accorded, and whatever is necessary to give the Protestant community their facilities, then it should be provided, but do not try to meet the difficulty in such a way as you are doing in Mayo.’11

  Deputy Thomas Mullins, an independent republican, pointed out the irony that the Minister for Local Government was also chairman of the Gaeltacht Commission which had been set up to investigate how best to preserve the Irish language. He condemned Richard Mulcahy as ‘one who out-Neros Nero. And who is more dictatorial than the Spanish Inquisition, presiding over the Department of Local Government, telling the people of Mayo – remember they are only bog-men and do not matter – to accept his instructions or to get out. Be it said to the credit of Mayo County Council they did get out rather than bend the knee.’