The Curious Case of the Mayo Librarian

by Pat Walsh

  Deputy Mullins was particularly critical of the religious, sectarian attitude introduced by some deputies. ‘There is plenty of material to damn the minister,’ he said, ‘and to crucify him fifteen times over, without introducing any other aspect.’ However, despite his reservations Deputy Mullins was still in favour of the amendment.

  ‘Corrupt in twopence-halfpenny matters’

  Deputy Frank Aiken argued that in the old days ‘it was said that local bodies were corrupt in twopence-halfpenny matters. But these are the gentlemen who are corrupt in matters of hundreds and thousands of pounds.’12

  As the debate was nearing its end, Richard Mulcahy made his defence at length. He defended the actions of his department. ‘We might have mandamused the council,’ he said, ‘and got an order from the court that the Mayo County Council should so act. We did not do so for the reason that in the final minutes of the Mayo County Council dealing with the matter they instructed their solicitor to take the fullest possible steps to resist the mandamus and they decided that they would defer until their next meeting what they would do about striking a library rate. There was no reason in the first place why the rate-payers of Mayo should be saddled with the cost of mandamus proceedings and there was no reason in my opinion why I, as representing this assembly, should allow the Mayo County Council to put us in the position that they had to evade their statutory duties by declining to provide the necessary funds for the carrying on of the library.’

  Mulcahy was particularly critical of Deputy de Valera’s remarks. ‘I say that the deputy has gone as near saying as constitutionally he can, that no Protestant librarian should be appointed to county libraries in this country.’

  He also mentioned that there had been Protestant librarians working in the Free State. ‘I do not think that you can have one religious policy in Mayo and another in Leix,’ he said. ‘I am in the position as Minister for Local Government of having an official document giving the greatest possible praise to a Protestant county librarian in one county and condemning the idea of having a Protestant as librarian in another county … I have nothing to show me that a Protestant librarian can be a danger to faith more or less in Mayo, but not in some other county. As an ordinary lay Irishman, I deny that County Mayo is any more Catholic than my own native county or any other county.’

  As he neared the conclusion of his defence, Richard Mulcahy raised the issue of finance, criticising Mayo County Council’s expenditure and in effect telling the people of Mayo that they were better off with a commissioner controlling the purse strings. ‘I believe the people of Mayo,’ he said, ‘are people who pay their rates pretty well up to date, and the people of Mayo who responded to a demand from the County Council in the year 1928-29 by giving them £71,000 odd to carry on their administration had to respond two years afterwards, in the year 1930-31, by giving them an additional £51,000.’

  ‘The minister is attacking his own party on the council,’ protested Deputy Walsh.

  ‘I am being attacked by my own party,’ replied Minister Mulcahy.

  ‘He is now attacking them.’

  ‘I am telling my own party that it might not be a bad day’s work done on the ordinary administration side.’

  ‘Let him test public opinion and he will know it,’ added Deputy Walsh.

  ‘There was just one other point which I might answer,’ continued Richard Mulcahy. ‘Deputy Walsh is full of talk here.’

  ‘He wants your job,’ suggested Deputy Sheehy from Cork by way of explanation.

  ‘He gets more coherent when he goes down to Mayo,’ alleged Mulcahy, ‘and you get somehow to understand him better when he speaks from a platform in Mayo, as reported in some of the local papers, than you do when hearing him here on certain matters. I think the same might be said of Deputy Clery and Deputy Ruttledge.’

  ‘Crusaders,’ exclaimed Deputy Gorey.

  ‘Deputy Gorey is more at home with his bulls in Kilkenny,’ jeered Mr Kennedy.

  ‘We are told that we would not have stood by the law in County Mayo were it not that there was a Dublin by-election on, that the freemasons dictated to us – that we had to stand by the appointment of this lady, and that we knuckled under to the freemasons because there was a by-election in County Dublin,’ concluded Richard Mulcahy. He then proceeded to go into forensic detail with regard to his party’s electoral support in County Dublin and argued that they had no need for any extra votes there. Their candidate had received 35,362 votes as opposed to 15,024 for the Fianna Fáil candidate. ‘Deputies on the opposite side ought to read their own papers,’ he advised, ‘Catholic journalism to be effective and to be truly Catholic needs first of all to be fair. We have comments from the great Catholic party over there who are going to replace the bishops in telling us …’

  ‘No, no; it is the minister who is going to replace the bishops in the west of Ireland,’ interrupted Deputy Walsh.

  Richard Mulcahy continued: ‘that in the matter of doctors and librarians we should be fair. They have to answer, not only to the people here and to one another, but they have to answer some place else for the methods they employ to try to establish the Kingdom of God here on earth.’

  The Dáil was divided: Tá, 73; Níl, 62. The Mayo deputies, Michael Davis and Mark Henry, sided against their party, but were not joined by any of their Cumann na nGaedheal colleagues. The Farmers’ Party and the independent deputies in the main, voted against the amendment. It was solidly supported by Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, the Minister for Justice, was the only Mayo TD to support the government.

  The government had prevailed. Later, at that same sitting of the Dáil, Deputy Ruttledge’s long-delayed motion on the dissolution of Mayo County Council was put forward. ‘That the Dáil disapproves of the action of the Minister for Local Government and public health in dissolving the Mayo County Council, and demands its immediate restoration.’ As this substantive matter had already been dealt with, this was voted on without debate. The Dáil divided on this occasion: Tá, 60; Níl, 73. Deputy Michael Davis abstained.

  ‘The pangs of intellectual famine’

  The Irish Times labelled the Dáil debate ‘The Battle of the Books’. ‘Mr Davis,’ it wrote, ‘from whom we cannot withhold our sympathy, was torn between two loyalties. He is not merely a member of the government party, but is a chairman of that party in the Dáil. On the other hand, he was chairman of the dissolved County Council, and we may assume that the local pressure which compelled him thus to challenge his own government and, perhaps to endanger its very existence, was exceedingly strong. He must have known that all the government’s opponents in the house would rally joyfully to his amendment. Fortunately, the debate and its result not only have not impaired the government’s position, but have strengthened it. Mr Davis’ amendment has been defeated by seventy-three votes to sixty-two – a quite substantial majority for the cause of political and religious tolerance.’

  The Irish Times went on to concede that ‘the only case for the amendment was that County Mayo is now enduring the pangs of intellectual famine. Its library service is virtually at a standstill, and the books from more than one hundred rural centres are lying idle at Castlebar. This is a sad state of things and its continuance will do harm; but infinitely greater harm would have been done by the Dáil’s refusal to support the government’s liberal and enlightened policy.’ 13

  In conclusion The Irish Times wrote that ‘the Dáil’s acceptance of Mr Davis’ amendment would have been an invitation to administrative chaos; for every public body that Mr Mulcahy has been forced to suppress or correct would have hastened to challenge him in parliament.’14

  The Times of London was by now taking an interest. ‘Although the republican party [Fianna Fáil],’ it wrote, ‘have occasionally paid lip-service to the principles of religious toleration, they, nonetheless, took up the cudgels for the Mayo County Council, and attacked not only the “horrid arbitrariness” of the minister but also the appointment of a Pro
testant to a post in a Roman Catholic country.’ The paper went on to claim that if Mr de Valera should win the next election that, ‘Protestants may be promised equality of opportunity, but are likely to be effectively debarred from public service in the Irish Free State.’15

  The Catholic Bulletin, predictably enough, was not impressed. ‘The stage management,’ it wrote, ‘of the three days that preceded the Mayo library and County Council debate held by Mr Mulcahy as dictator and general on Wednesday, 17 June, would be no credit even to a minor travelling circus. Mr Davis, chairman of the Cosgrave Party Machine, had been remarkably quiet all through the past six months … that the Davis motion was a palpable frame-up, to afford a would-be dictator an opportunity of whitewashing himself is but too obvious.’16

  The following day a meeting of the Cumann na nGaedheal parliamentary party discussed the matter but, following a statement by Michael Davis and a short debate, decided not to take action against him and he remained in his position as chairman of the party. This would lead one to believe that his own party leaders did not take his public act of rebellion too seriously. They condoned his action. In fact they may even have colluded in it.

  Eamon de Valera’s complaints to the Ceann Comhairle had some justification. He suspected that Michael Davis had put down his amendment and the government had manipulated the order of business so as to get his debate on to the floor of the Dáil in advance of Deputy Ruttledge’s motion on the dissolution of Mayo Council, thereby drawing the sting out of that debate. This may only have been a bit of debating-room sharp practice but it was some form of small victory for the government.

  Notes

  1.Dáil Debates, 17 June 1931.

  2.Ibid.

  3.Ibid.

  4.Ibid.

  5.Ibid.

  6.Ibid.

  7.Ibid.

  8.Ibid.

  9.Ibid.

  10.Ibid.

  11.Ibid.

  12.Ibid.

  13.The Irish Times, 18 June 1931, p.8.

  14.Ibid.

  15.Quoted in The Irish Times, 22 June 1931, p.7.

  16.Catholic Bulletin, vol. xxi, no. 7, July 1931, p.310.

  Chapter 18

  ‘The library crux’

  The Cumann na nGaedheal government was hopeful, and not for the first time, that the political storm clouds hanging over Mayo had at long last passed. But they were to be disappointed yet again. There were some faint stirrings over Richard Mulcahy’s staunch defence of his actions, but they came mainly from members of his own party. Seán Ruane was a county councillor in Mayo and had spoken at the special meeting of the council in favour of the appointment of Letitia Dunbar Harrison. He was also President of the Connacht Council of the GAA. He wrote to Richard Mulcahy expressing support for the minister’s performance in the Dáil debate. He received the following reply from Richard Mulcahy:

  Many thanks for your note of the 20th [June 1931]. I will send you a copy of the official debates as soon as they are issued. The whole debate was terribly disgraceful on the side of the Mayo men. On nothing in connection with the matter had they the facts – whether as regards age or Irish or Local Appointments Commission or the relations between the library committee and the County Council. And as far as policy goes, the implications of their speeches insofar as you can get anything coherent from them on the question of policy appear more disgraceful ever still.

  When a week or so has passed and you can size up what the effect of the proceedings have had in Mayo generally I would be glad to have a short note telling me what you think the position in Mayo has been and whether it has eased the position (1) for Davis and (2) for us generally.1

  There is at least an acknowledgement of Michael Davis’ difficulties in his home constituency and the merest hint of sympathy for his position. This contrasted greatly with the minister’s dismissive public stance of his party colleague, and would lend a certain weight to Fianna Fáil’s much-trumpeted accusation that the Davis amendment that led to the Dáil debate was little more than a political charade, especially if one takes into account that the party took no punitive action against Michael Davis for his mutinous exploits.

  In a private letter, Brother S.B. MacSwiney, Christian Brothers, Brow-of-the-Hill, Derry, congratulated Richard Mulcahy on ‘the magnificent reply he made to attacks re the Mayo librarian in the Dáil last week.’2 Generally, members of the clergy who had a previous allegiance with Cumann na nGaedheal had less of a problem with the appointment of Miss Dunbar Harrison. Canon McHugh of Claremorris was perhaps the most prominent; though he was aware he was out of step with public opinion in his county.

  As the Dáil debate receded into memory there was no change in the circumstances that held sway in Mayo. Miss Dunbar Harrison’s library service was still being boycotted. The various sub-committees of the County Council were still in limbo. An effective stalemate endured. As the Connacht Sentinel put it, ‘Boycotting, which originated in Mayo during the Land War, and was successfully used in dealing with landlords and others, has now been employed with equal success in killing the government’s Vocational Education Committee in that county. For the nine months ended on 1 September not one of the twenty domestic science, Irish, lace, commercial or manual instructors has been paid, simply because members of the Vocational Education Committee will not meet as a protest against the decision of the government in appointing a Protestant librarian for the county … no pay sheets have been signed, because the act provides that five members are needed for a quorum.’3

  Boycott was an emotive term in Mayo. As the Sentinel pointed out, boycotting had a long and proud history in the county, the word in fact deriving from the ostracism of Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott and his workers at Lough Mask House near Ballinrobe during the Land War. However, there is perhaps a difference between boycotting being used as a method of passive resistance by an oppressed community with little other means of protesting and a strong majority using it as a tool of oppression.

  The cabinet in its initial communications with Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam, had endeavoured to get him to sponsor a compromise by which he would persuade some of the priests of his diocese to sit on Commissioner Bartley’s Vocational Education Committee, thereby allowing sanction for the payment of these teachers to be passed. While initially the archbishop had seemed willing to go along with such a deal, he later backed away from it, one suspects due to the intransigence of his priests who were unwilling to make any concession. It was perhaps a sign of how confident the priests of the county were in the strength of their position. They were in no mood to back down.

  ‘The will of the people’

  The newly established Fianna Fáil daily paper, The Irish Press, reported that ‘since the compulsory installation of Miss Letitia Dunbar Harrison as county librarian the elaborate vocational education scheme evolved for Mayo has remained in the stocks and all the teachers appointed have not received a penny salary from the beginning of the year … As a protest against what has been regarded as a flouting of the will of the people, eleven members of the VEC ignore the monthly notices summoning them to their meeting, and in the absence of a quorum of five no progress can be made. The two attending members are Mr P.J. Bartley, the Commissioner administering the affairs of the County Council, and the Very Reverend Canon M.J. McHugh, of Claremorris, who never fails to make an appearance. Money to which the committee is entitled is piling up in the bank month by month and plans for the erection of schools in Ballina, Castlebar and Westport are awaiting approval.’

  A member of the committee is quoted anonymously as saying, ‘We are staying away from the meetings on principle, and not, as has been suggested, to blockade the adoption of the scheme. We will not administer the scheme until the will of the people to appoint whom they wish is recognised … We know it is hard luck on the teachers to be compelled to go without their salaries, but there you are.’4

  As 1931 drew to a close the situation seemed as bleak as ever for these teachers. And yet the Irish Indepe
ndent sensed some movement. Under the optimistic headline ‘Mayo’s Seventeen Unpaid Teachers – Hope for Salaries After Eleven Months’, it reported, ‘Having waited patiently for almost eleven months the seventeen teachers employed under the Vocational Education Scheme in Mayo hope to be soon paid their salaries again.’5 The three commercial teachers, one manual instructor, three domestic teachers, four crochet teachers and six whole-time Irish teachers had received no payment due to the committee that authorised their salaries refusing to meet. The Irish Independent lamented the plight of these individuals. ‘The teachers had to get money from the banks,’ wrote the newspaper, ‘but whether they would get with their salaries what they had to pay in interest is not yet known.’

  The Irish Press reported that Commissioner Bartley had issued an order directing Miss Dunbar Harrison not to give any information to the paper as to the progress or otherwise of the library service of which she had charge. Asked if there was any truth in the rumour that plans were being made for her transfer to Dublin, Miss Dunbar Harrison replied, ‘There is no truth whatever in that suggestion which I have heard several times. You can say that I have no intention of leaving Castlebar. I like it very much; the people are very kind and go out of their way to show that they have no animosity to me personally.’6

  The Irish Independent asked the question, ‘Will the government do anything about the library crux?’ As for the current situation it reported that ‘except for the limited support in Castlebar, where persons can get books direct from the library in the county courthouse, the scheme is virtually dead, because the dozens of library committees throughout the county had declined to function.’ The Irish Independent recognised the complexity of the library stand-off. ‘This is a much more difficult problem,’ it wrote, ‘which, as far as can be seen, the appointment of a whole army of commissioners could not solve, because it is impossible to make the people avail of the library scheme against their wishes.’7