by Anne Clare
Three of Isabella’s daughters, Ada, Nellie and ‘John’, were now working hard in America for recognition of Ireland’s nationhood. To this was added a plea for economic help for the bereaved families of the Volunteers who had been killed in the Rising. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington toured America with the objective of raising funds. The Gifford involvement in this push for help was not hugely significant, it is true, but it was consistent and determined, and there is no doubt that they made an impact in spreading the gospel of republicanism and in collecting funds for the almost destitute families of some of those executed or interned. In fact, in some areas of Irish-American republicanism the Gifford influence was to become quite dramatic.
At home, their three sisters, Kate, Muriel and Grace, were trying to come to terms with the deaths of the two executed men who had been husbands and brothers-in-law. Kate was the quiet stalwart in the background, her home in Philipsburgh Avenue on Dublin’s northside a haven for Grace when she left Larkfield. Muriel, like many widows before and since, had to put aside her sorrow with two children to rear and a capital sum of £300, which constituted the assets her husband had left.
Grace found herself in a rather different position. She became a sort of icon as the story of her Kilmainham Gaol marriage filtered into the public consciousness. Some years ago, a senior citizen in Coolock, who wished to remain anonymous, recalled a poem she had learned at school in Castleplunkett, Castlerea, County Roscommon, in the 1920s:
Grace Gifford, I warn you.
The lion’s revenge knows not justice nor law:
he will preach the world over of justice and freedom
while Ireland lies mangled and crushed ’neath his paw.
In a more romantic view, Father Leonard Feeney wrote emotionally:
Two dresses laid she by at night
and loosed her flowing hair.
She rose at dawn and stood in fright
and wondered which to wear?
Should it be white for her delight
or black for her despair.[8]
Grace’s presence was enough to heighten the emotions at any func-tion. In fact, of course, far more tragic was the plight of those widows, like Muriel, who had children to support, such as the widows of Thomas Clarke and Michael Mallin. However, Grace’s slim, black-clad figure represented a particular tragedy, which was ‘milked’ by the organisers of the republican electioneering campaigns of 1916 and 1917. Her presence on a platform was a dynamic: at one recruitment drive in James’ Street, after Pádraic Ó Conaire had spoken in Irish against recruitment, the crowd hoisted Grace onto the platform to voice a similar rejection in English. That was the end of any further recruitment that day. Ó Conaire’s use of their ancient language reminded them of their nationhood; Grace was a reminder of what had occurred at Easter, and why.
She helped also with by-election posters for three Sinn Féin candidates, all successfully elected, including a North Roscommon seat won by her father-in-law Count Plunkett, and she was photographed with the Count and Countess, apparently electioneering. One of her election posters (below) featured many aspects of British misrule in Ireland. To show their contempt for British government, the three successful Sinn Féin elected victors refused to take their seats in Westminster.
In 1917, Crissie Doyle of Cumann na mBan wrote a book called Women in Ancient and Modern Ireland. Áine Ceannt wrote the pre-face, and Grace Plunkett designed the cover. Another instance of Grace using her art as a political weapon was her own recollection, in later years, of lying on the floor to paint a twenty-foot slogan streamer which was to stretch from one side of North Frederick Street to the other.
Though no one ever thought of Grace Gifford as a political animal, least of all herself, nevertheless she was elected to the Sinn Féin executive at its convention in the Mansion House on 19 April 1917. The three other women elected with her were Countess Markievicz, Mrs Kathleen Clarke and Dr Kathleen Lynn: a historic foursome.
The tragic deaths of the 1916 leaders left deep emotional wounds and also financial problems. While Thomas Clarke shared the poetic dreams of the poet philosophers, he had been too long associated with hardship not to ask economic questions as well. The leaders of the Rising all felt death was almost certain, but it was Clarke who had the foresight to deposit with his wife, Kathleen, the residue of the IRB funds, so arduously collected in America, Ireland and Britain, so that relief would be available for the inevitable financial distress. It amounted to £3,100, and on the Tuesday after her husband’s execution his widow set up the Irish Volunteers Dependants’ Fund, with offices at 1 College Green, Dublin. The committee comprised Kathleen herself and her sister Madge Daly, Áine Ceannt, Muriel Gifford-MacDonagh, Sheila Humphries (The O’Rahilly’s niece), Con Colbert’s sister Lila, Michael O’Hanrahan’s sister Eily, and the Pearse brothers’ mother, Margaret. Their twin aims were financial relief and keeping alive the national cause while the bulk of the remaining leaders were still imprisoned.
Another body, the Irish National Aid Association, represented those whose sympathies had been stirred by the executions but who had not taken part in the Rising. Amalgamation was an obvious step, but Kathleen Clarke agreed to their joining only when she was assured that no parliamentarians were involved.
The united bodies became known as the Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependants’ Fund, eventually administered by Michael Collins.[9] It had been decided to give a holiday by the sea to those women whose husbands had been executed. It was a good thought, bringing them together for mutual support and getting a healthy break from the problems of their daily living. The Association rented a beach house called ‘Miramar’ in Skerries, County Dublin. Other activities included distribution of food and clothes from America, delivering comfort parcels to camps and prisons, first-aid training and fundraising by flag days, fairs, céilí móra and concerts.
A brief account in the Catholic Bulletin of the widows’ holiday at Miramar and of Muriel’s conversion to Catholicism reads as follows: ‘Mrs MacDonagh made her First Holy Communion on May 3rd 1917, the anniversary of her husband’s execution, and since then has been a devout and weekly communicant … During her stay in Skerries she and all her friends said the Rosary in Irish in common every night.’[10]
Unfortunately, the holiday which was to help heal the wounds of 1916 was the scene of another tragedy. On 9 July 1917, Muriel went swimming, got out of her depth, and drowned. She was not being foolhardy because she was a strong swimmer from her lessons with ‘the swimmin’ woman’ in her youth at Greystones. There was a fanciful theory at the time about a plan she had to fly the tricolour from Shenick Island, just off the coast of Skerries. The story was that she had bound a tricolour flag around her body and meant to swim to Shenick to flaunt it from the Martello tower there, in defiance of the wireless station in the field at Holmpatrick behind the Old Mills Bakery, from which the very first intimation of the Rising was said to have been wired to Britain. It was manned by a ‘naval’ unit of four. In Easter Week 1916, the highly trained 5th Battalion, Fingal Brigade, of the IRA, led by Tom Ashe, and with Richard Mulcahy as second-in-command, had been a most effective unit, with a capture tally of five barracks and nearly 100 RIC men. The wireless station was an obvious target, but Ashe obeyed Pearse’s order to surrender, however reluctantly. Anyhow Jack McGowan, sent by Ashe to destroy the station, was too late and had to inform his officer-in-command that the South Staffordshire Regiment had arrived in Skerries Harbour.
One can see the emotional stimulation in all this for Muriel’s alleged gesture – but no such flag was found on her person.
Far more plausible was the explanation of Paddy Halpin, long-time resident of Skerries.[11] He remembered boating near Shenick waters when he was in his twenties, and, seeing that the waters were getting treacherous, he got frightened, felt out of control and thought he might not make it home. That was the reality for Muriel and the tragedy for her children. They were collecting shells on the beach with their Aunt Grace when she no
ticed that her sister was in difficulty. She frantically alerted a boat’s crew to the danger, and Jimmy O’Dea, the Dublin comedian, was among those who rushed, unsuccessfully, to help, but, too late, they succeeded only in retrieving Muriel’s lifeless body. The first of the Gifford girls to marry, she was now the first to die.
Muriel’s removal from Miramar to the railway station was given full military honours, accompanied by the Irish Volunteers of Skerries, Rush and Lusk, preceded by four priests, the last of whom, Fr Albert, represented the Capuchins, who a year before had been so close to the executed leaders during their last hours. Huge crowds formed to meet the Skerries train at Amiens Street, and there were enormous numbers the next evening at the Pro-Cathedral and the following morning at Glasnevin Cemetery. The funeral was filmed for the Irish Events Newsreel – the first indigenous newsreel produced in Ireland, the first issue of which appeared in cinemas from 17 July 1917. It showed the funeral procession, which took place on 12 July from the Pro-Cathedral to Glasnevin, accompanied by a wide representation that included Irish Volunteers in uniform, Cumann na mBan and Na Fianna.
Kate and Grace took the two orphaned children home to Kate’s house in Fairview. The MacDonagh family, perhaps not aware of Muriel’s recent conversion to Catholicism, were uneasy that the children might not get a sound Catholic education, as they saw it. One evening, as Kate and Grace were preparing to go out with Donagh and Barbara, their attention was diverted for a moment, and when they turned to the children they saw, to their astonishment, Donagh and Barbara being whisked away in a MacDonagh-driven car.[12] It was obvious that the little niece and nephew were going to a kind and loving home and the Giffords, especially Kate and Grace, never lost touch with them. The MacDonagh action seems shocking but may, perhaps, be excused by virtue of worry and prejudice. Kate was an exceptionally wise lady, and she elected to let matters rest.
If the south of Ireland was badly hit by imprisonments and deportation, the north of Ireland’s innumerable Catholics lost both homes and jobs. Police turned a blind eye as the feared UVF revived. Catholics were stoned or even shot at in the street, and homes were raided.[13] Ireland was by no means at peace – north or south.
That year of 1917 brought another loss for the Gifford family. Just two months after his daughter Muriel’s funeral, Frederick Gifford died on 19 September, in the old family home at Temple Villas after a protracted illness. Frederick had named Isabella and Kate as executors of his estate. Money was allocated meticulously among his children and his grandchildren, Eric (Claude’s son), Donagh and Barbara. No one was deprived because of association with republicanism, and Frederick went to some pains in his will to explain that Gabriel was omitted because he had already received his share – presumably on his departure for America. The most curious thing about this will is the appendix by the Chief Registrar:
This grant is made upon the condition that no portion of the assets shall be distributed or paid during the War to any beneficiary or creditor who is a German, Austro-Hungarian, Turkish or Bulgarian subject wherever resident, or to any one on his behalf, or to or on behalf of any person resident in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey or Bulgaria or whatever nationality, without the express sanction of the Crown …
Sidney Gifford-Czira (‘John’) was not excluded by virtue of her marriage to a Hungarian.
Isabella did her husband proud with the purchase of a double grave and a dignified headstone in Deansgrange Cemetery. She herself, however, elected to be buried in the modest single grave of her son, Gerald, in the cemetery of Mount Jerome in Harold’s Cross – not with the man for whom she had borne thirteen children. She gave as her reason that she wanted to be buried ‘near her neighbours’, Rathmines being much nearer the Harold’s Cross cemetery of Mount Jerome than the Deansgrange location.[14]Following a lonely childhood with neither parents nor siblings, Frederick Gifford, a kind, good man, now lies buried in isolation, the headstone lying broken across his grave.
After her father’s death, Grace seemed to withdraw gradually a little into herself and became a less sociable person. Considering this young woman’s personal bereavements within the relatively short span of sixteen years makes this understandable. In that time she had lost her younger brother Gerald, her husband Joseph, her brother-in-law Thomas, her sister Muriel and now her father Frederick. In two of the bereavements, those of Joseph and Muriel, she had been the last family member to speak to them. There is another alleged loss: that of a miscarriage she is rumoured to have had during her stay at Larkfield. Her sister-in-law, Geraldine Plunkett Dillon, has recorded this supposed miscarriage, but several factors oppose its acceptance. First, Geraldine disliked Grace – a sort of sister-in-law animosity, exacerbated perhaps by the fact that she and Joseph had been so close when they lived together after one of his bouts of illness; second, in an interview given to me, Geraldine’s daughter Blánaid Ó Brolcháin said that both her mother and her grandmother the Countess were inclined to divide the Gifford girls into two categories: the sweet ones (Kate and Muriel) and those with a ‘rather sharp wit’: Nellie, Grace and ‘John’. Neither Geraldine nor the Countess had ever met Ada, but one may definitely presume she would not be grouped with Kate and Muriel.
The dislike also came out in the Plunkett annoyance at Grace, during her stay at Larkfield, because she converted a Paisley shawl she had found there into a cushion cover. They were also annoyed because she was ‘always asking about an emerald ring’.[15]This was almost certainly the antique family heirloom that Grace had given to Joseph on their engagement. Another fact that makes the miscarriage allegation questionable is the suggestion Geraldine makes that Joseph might not have been the father of the child. The term ‘bias’ hovers about that suggestion, but there is perhaps some excuse in that a nonagenarian’s memory, such as that of Geraldine, might have been inaccurate as well as prejudicial. Geraldine’s brother Joseph would not have thanked his sister for that unacceptable suggestion of promiscuity against his beloved Grace. There is also the fact that Geraldine had left the family home on her marriage and before Grace arrived there, but Fiona, who was at Larkfield, denied that there was a pregnancy. Lastly, Nellie’s daughter Maeve, who was very close to her Aunt Grace, never heard of the baby, and Joseph’s nephew, Eoghan, totally rejected the idea.[16]
In any event, when all is said and done, it would not be regarded today as extraordinary for a couple so much in love, who were to have been married on Easter Sunday, to have anticipated their honeymoon. Eve-of-battle conceptions may not have been rare, with heightened emotions and the shadow of death threatening a final parting. Nevertheless, the allegation is unproven. Not at all uncertain, however, is the fact that a small Joseph or Josephine would have been a joy in Grace’s lonely years and a grandchild for the Count and Countess to have perpetuated the goodness that made Joseph Plunkett the kind of man he was.
Notes
[1]NGDPs.
[2]The rejection in these words is recorded in Nellie’s diary and was narrated by her daughter Maeve to the author.
[3]NGDPs.
[4]Undated cutting from The Irish Press (Reader’s Views).
[5]Gifford-Czira, The Years Flew By, p. 79.
[6]NGDPs.
[7]Ibid.
[8]Grace Plunkett Collection, National Library, M521, 595.
[9]Máire Comerford, The First Dáil, January 21st 1919, Dublin: J. Clarke, c. 1969, p. 42.
[10]Catholic Bulletin, August 1917.
[11]In conversation with Paddy Halpin in 1991.
[12]In conversation with Maeve Donnelly in the early 1990s.
[13]Narrated to the author by Greta Ó Lochlainn, whose family, like many others, had to flee Northern Ireland to avoid persecution by unionists.
[14]NGDPs.
[15]Recorded in the Ó Brolcháin interview.
[16]In conversation with Maeve Donnelly in the early 1990s.
21 - The Giffords Confront the Vigilantes … and Clan na Gael
Nellie had been less than three months
in New York when she met a handsome young Irish-American named Joseph Donnelly, who was a master printer, publisher and a friend of James Connolly. He came from a comfortable, Catholic family in Omagh, County Tyrone, who owned a large drapery shop in the town. Joseph’s older brother, Alec, practised law in Omagh, and his other brother, Nicholas, was a doctor in London. Nellie and Joseph had much in common: a family connection to the law, mutual grief at Connolly’s execution, and, of course, their politics. It was a whirlwind romance, but it was also a mixed marriage, so they married in a registry-office ceremony. Countess Markievicz sent a beautiful Tara brooch to mark the occasion, and Liam Mellows wrote a delightful congratulatory letter to Nellie, his erstwhile hair colourist. A year later a daughter, Maeve, was born.