Tag Archives: Kentucky Irish American

The Twelfth, 1919: Carson tells America to butt out

UPDATE:

“It is an anxious time for Northern Ireland’s unionists. Catholics will soon outnumber Protestants … and Brexit is wobbling the UK’s constitutional edifice. Conceivably, within a decade, a majority could vote in a border poll to join a united Ireland, as permitted under the Good Friday agreement,” the Guardian reported about this year’s Twelfth celebrations.

ORIGINAL POST:

In a fiery July 12, 1919, speech near Belfast, Ulster Unionist Party leader Sir Edward Carson warned that changing Ireland’s government to a republic or home rule status would result in him calling out the Ulster Volunteers, an implicit threat of arms against the British authorities.

“Don’t let us talk. Let us be prepared for all and every emergency,” Carson bellowed before a large crowd of Orangemen.1

Carson also had a message for America: butt out.

I today seriously say to America: You attend to your own affairs and we will attend to ours. You look after your own questions at home and we  will look after ours. We will not brook interference in our own affairs by any country, however powerful.

He took aim at the American Commission on Irish Independence (ACII), the three-member, non-government, delegation that visited Ireland in May on a side trip from its advocacy at the Paris peace conference. Carson said:

What right had the American mission to come to this country? To come here in a breach of hospitality on one nation toward another–to attempt to stir up strife in matters in which they were not connected? … The encouragement that those men gave to the Sinn Féin Party has created for His Majesty’s Government far more difficulty than they ever had before. I believe that the visit of these men and the encouragement they gave to lawlessness, which was being preached throughout the land, has added greatly to the campaign of assassination of innocent policemen …

Edward Carson, in 1919.

Carson also mocked Sinn Féin leader Eamon de Valera, “who is now working against you in America with the help of the Catholic Hierarchy … and who imagines in his vanity that one day or the other he is going to march through Belfast and Ulster and you will all willingly take off your hats and bow the knee to the head of the organization, which in the darkest hour of the war for the world’s freedom shot his Majesty’s soldiers in the streets of Dublin.” De Valera was then one month into his tour of America to raise money and U.S. political support for an Irish republic.

An Associated Press report of Carson’s speech was widely published in U.S. and Canadian newspapers, which focused on the charge of American meddling and the ACII, not de Valera. The Chicago Tribune Foreign News Service cabled from London, “Sir Edward Carson’s simultaneous declaration against the British government, the  Sinn Féin, and the United States over the question of changing the present form of government in Ireland has met with general condemnation from the London press.”2

The Brooklyn Times Union was not fooled by the Carson’s hypocrisy, and noted on its editorial page:

Sir Edward Carson’s record for loyalty to his own country is not so immaculate that the citizens of the United States need feel greatly pained by his reckless and absurd animadversions … The politician who threatened to fight the British Government with arms rather than submit to the laws of the British Parliament manifestly does not speak for the majority of the people of Ireland and presumably speaks only for a small and bigoted moiety of any British constituency.3

The Kentucky Irish American published a rebuttal to Carson by ACII member Michael J. Ryan,  who noted that “Carson now asks that America should attend to its own affairs. This, however, is a change from the plea when the cry for help came across the ocean when England’s army faced certain defeat.” The piece also said the Ulster leader “represents intolerance and organized ignorance in Ireland.”4

The Irish Press, Philadelphia, dismissed Carson’s “Belfast outbreak” with an uncharacteristically restrained shrug.

We have in America–even if the breed be unknown in Britain–some politicians who ‘play politics’ and who recognize the elemental fact that there are men in this country who give or withhold their votes from an American candidate in an American contest because of his policy toward Ireland. So they act accordingly. But there was no need for Sir Edward Carson to warn the mass of the American people off the grass.  They were not on it.5

The centenary of Carson’s 1919 Twelfth speech comes as the Oct. 31 deadline for Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain to withdrawal from the European Union–Brexit–draws closer and talk of a united Ireland grows stronger.

“No flag will fly in Ulster but the Union Jack,” Carson was reported saying at the 229th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne.6  Whether that remains true in five or 10 years remains to be seen.

The Union Jack flutters at a housing estate in the unionist Shankill Road section of Belfast in July 2016.

Select newspaper editorials on de Valera’s U.S. arrival

This is part of my year-long series of posts about American reporting of Irish independence, 1919, including the centenary of Éamon de Valera’s arrival in America. Below are select U.S. newspaper editorials from the start of his 18-month tour. The three Irish-American newspaper are hyperlinked to the corresponding page of the digitized issue. MH

The Brooklyn (New York) Daily Eagle, June 26, 1919

Crazy as the de Valera ideas may have seemed a few months ago, Premier Lloyd George has himself to thank for making them a serious element in the international situation … Delay in enforcing home rule was not inexplicable before the armistice. Since then the pernicious influence of Sir Edward Carson and the new dependence of the Premier on Tory support established by the [December 1918] parliamentary election are conditions, not explanations or justifications, for procrastination.

The Irish Press, Philadelphia, June 28, 1919
Ireland’s President Visits America

The common people, who after all are what really count, do not feel themselves constrained to draw distinctions in the same way as Government officials. They do not believe that a Republic which has the support of the people living under it is a pretense–something to be named inside quotation marks–just because a foreign army is on its territory. … Few of the chief executives of republics represent so large a proportion of their people as does President de Valera. To emphasize these we need go no further than President Wilson (who in 1912 and 1916 received less than 50 percent of the popular vote, but put into office by the Electoral College.) … That ordinary people are indifferent to diplomatic formalities, and recognize Mr. de Valera as President of Ireland, is proved by the acclaim with which he has been greeted since his appearance in this country. … The friends of Ireland, who include all true Americans, will welcome the President, and will assist him in his efforts to make the heads of the American Government recognize the true status of Ireland.

The Irish Standard, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 28, 1919
Welcome President De Valera

Of American birth himself and imbued with the American ideals of truth, justice and humanity, [de Valera] is particularly fitted to present the cause of Ireland to the America people. Of pure life, stainless character, and noble spirit and engaging personality his appeal cannot fail to engage the consideration of all Americans who cherish the traditions and policies of this great Republic of the West, and who are free from the obsession of British propaganda. A new Parnell has come to plead the cause of Ireland, but under circumstances that are far more promising and inspiring than those existing in the decade [1880s] of the visit of the great Home Rule leader; and he is asking not merely for colonial or dominion government of Ireland, but for absolute and complete independence, and in this stand he is sustained by more than three-fourths of his fellow countrymen. He seeks recognition of a government that is unquestionably of right as subjected to the tests of democracy and Americanism.

The Decatur (Illinois, 200 miles south of Chicago) Herald, June 29, 1919

These schoolmasters! One of them [U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, a former college professor] brought his country into a successful war, defined the conditions of peace which brought the war to an end, and was the leading spirit a world court of peace enforcement. Another [de Valera] was a professor of mathematics in Dublin … [Though] there is nothing about Prof. De Valera suggesting the fiery Irish patriot of history … Ireland probably made no mistake in the gravely professorial Mr. De Valera. Schoolmasters have been known to turn out fairly successful politicians.

Kentucky Irish American, Louisville, Kentucky, July 5, 1919
Leader De Valera

…Irish skill and daring, in the hour of Ireland’s need, outmatched the might of the empire–outreached the lion’s claws! Like an eagle from the clouds, sudden [de Valera] is among us. … We are asked only to fill the war chest; to give a little work and a little money; to provide an Irish Victory Fund with which the last grim struggle on the field of world-wide public opinion may be waged and won. The Irish republic is a reality; but so is the British army of occupation in Ireland–and so is the British propaganda in America.

June 1919: U.S. editorials on Senate support for Ireland

On June 6, 1919, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution requesting the Paris peace conference to give a hearing to the delegation appointed by Dáil Éireann, and expressing sympathy with the “aspirations of the Irish people for a government of their own choice.” The U.S. House of Representatives had voted in favor of self-determination for Ireland in early March, on the last day of the previous legislative session, but a parliamentary maneuver by opponents delayed consideration in the Senate.

The combined legislative action “prove that there is in this country a general feeling in favor of having the case of Ireland presented at the peace conference,” The Washington Post editorialized a day after the Senate vote.7 The capital daily continued:

The present condition of Ireland—with a dwindling population, industries destroyed, law flouted, and her people on the ragged edge of rebellion kept down only by a large army of occupation—is altogether anomalous and … alarming.  It surely is not expecting too much of the peace conference to ask it to clean off the slate in this matter before it brings its labors to a close. … It is inconceivable that President Wilson and the other members of the American delegation at Paris will not heed the combined appeal of the Senate and the House.

U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1919.

The Irish Press, Philadelphia, which had direct ties to Ireland’s revolutionary government, correctly noted that such resolutions did not have the full force of legislation sent to Wilson to sign into law. It said such passage was critical, and continued:

If some step is not now taken by the United States to aid Ireland, there is little reason to hope that a situation will again soon present itself where anything can be done by the American government. … We have come to the end of a war in which the victory has rested with the powers which declared that they fought for world freedom and especially the rights of small nations. The spokesman of the United States [Wilson] has made very clear and specific declarations on this point. The people of Ireland have voted for separation from Great Britain, and have set up a government of their own. If under these conditions the government of this county does not take some action, it is hardly to be expected that it will do anything when the conditions are less favorable, as they undoubtedly will be later.8

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, The Irish Standard wondered if Ireland would have received her freedom at the peace conference if she had been among the oppressed nations of the German and Austrian empires.

But because the despotism under which she is groaning is the British brand, it is not to be interfered with. Was it then to curb the tyranny and autocracy of certain particular nations only that the world war was fought, or was it against all such anachronisms of government wherever found? … The world’s wounds are about to be sewed up while at least one dangerous source of infection is left within—that of the rankling Irish discontent at British domination.9

In Louisville, the Kentucky Irish American suggested that Britain’s “domineering and bulldog tactics” regarding Ireland and other matters “has aroused much indignation in this country. … Despite the efforts of the pro-English press on this side, the American public as a whole is fast discovering the hypocrisy and hoggishness of the English nation.”10

On June 17 in Dublin, Dáil Éireann passed a motion of thanks to the Senate to “assure the people of America that the ties of blood and friendship which subsisted between both nations in the days of their subjection to one common oppressor have endured and are indissoluble.”

Irish Americans reach Paris, demand Wilson’s answer

The American Commission on Irish Independence emerged in spring 1919 from the failed New York City meeting between representatives of the just-concluded Irish Race Convention and President Woodrow Wilson.

Convention leaders appointed the three-member delegation to travel to Paris to support the cause of Irish self-government at the post-war peace conference. “They were a distinguished group,” Whelan noted.11

Walsh

Frank P. Walsh: a nationally-known lawyer, he had served on the National War Labor Board and War Labor Conference Board. Named chairman of the commission, Walsh became its “most important and dynamic member.”12

Dunne

Edward F. Dunne: another lawyer and former judge, he had served as Chicago mayor, then Illinois governor. Along with several Irish-American U.S. senators, Dunne was the highest elected official identified with the Irish nationalist movement in America.13

 

Ryan

Michael J. Ryan: a former Philadelphia city solicitor and public service commissioner, he had been president of the United Irish League of America.  Ryan publicly distanced himself from Irish Parliamentary Party support for the British during the war and repudiated home rule politicians. 14

At the March 4 New York meeting with Irish nationalists, Wilson banned New York Supreme Court Judge Daniel F. Cohalan, a longtime political nemesis who had opposed his 1916 re-election. None of the three commission members carried such political baggage to Paris. “Consequently, the group had a national prominence in orthodox politics and were of good character.”15

The trio’s mission was threefold: obtain safe passage to Paris for Éamon de Valera, Arthur Griffith and Count Noble Plunkett; plead the Irish cause at the peace conference on their behalf if such passage was denied; and secure U.S. recognition of the Irish republic.  In the Kentucky Irish American, Walsh was quoted:

“The committee is going to France as American citizens, holding no allegiance, material or spiritual, to any other nation on earth, but imbued with the necessity of extending the principals of free government to Ireland, which is the typical small nation of the world, being deprived of the right to determine for itself the form of government under which it shall exist.”16

The commission reached Paris on April 11, 1919. In a front page-story in The Irish Press, Philadelphia, Dunne recalled that six weeks earlier in New York Wilson told the delegation that he was not prepared to say whether Ireland qualified for self-determination.

“We then informed the president that we were in no hurry and were prepared to wait for his answer, and were even willing to journey to Paris to obtain it. President Wilson now has had sufficient time to reflect.  We have come to Paris for his answer.”17

More on the American Commission on Irish Independence in future posts.

St. Patrick’s Day in America, 1919

UPDATE:

Against the backdrop of Brexit chaos, the classic “England Get Out of Ireland” banner in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day is damaging political discourse, Stephen Collins writes in The Irish Times. Plus, a 2018 New York Times piece about the sign. See bullet points below.

ORIGINAL POST:

U.S. President Donald Trump will host Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar March 14 at the White House, continuing a St. Patrick’s week tradition that began in 1952. Things were much different in 1919: the revolutionary parliament of the Irish Republic, Dáil Éireann, had been established for two months; skirmishes and ambushes in the War of Independence flared across Ireland; more than 5,000 supporters of Irish independence gathered in late February in Philadelphia to bring attention to the cause; and the U.S. House of Representatives at the beginning of March passed a resolution in favor of Irish self-determination. All of this nationalist activity on both sides of the Atlantic influenced 1919’s annual celebration of Ireland’s patron saint.

Trump and Varadkar in 2018. White House photo

Below, a look at March 1919 coverage in the Irish-American and mainstream press. MH

“Irish freedom was demanded, and the league of nations, as proposed at present, was condemned at a mass meeting last night at Liberty Hut under the auspices of the United Irish Societies of the District that was the climax of the National Capital’s celebration of St. Patrick’s day. Ten thousand people were packed in the spacious auditorium, while more than 5,000 other clamored for admission to the most wildly enthusiastic meeting ever held in Washington in the cause of Irish independence. There was almost constant applause as the speakers extolled the virtues of Ireland and her sons.” The Washington Post, March 18, page 1

Of course, the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City drew plenty of press attention:

“The existence of the Irish Republic, and the demand that it be recognized as one of the sovereign nations of the earth, were proclaimed by the great demonstration held [in New York City]. Probably the most notable feature of the parade, and one in which it differed considerably from the processions of earlier days, was display of thousands upon thousands of tri-colored flags, the emblem of the Republic of Ireland. The old green flag with the harp on it was entirely abandoned … ” The Irish Press, Philadelphia, March 22, page 1

The New York Times coverage of the massive parade, placed on page 4 of the March 18 issue, said “it was a perfect day” for the event, and “not a single unpleasant incident marred the celebration.” Rather than noting the change of flags, the report made an extensive inventory of political banners carried by the marchers. These included:

  • England–Damn your concessions. We want our country.
  • “No people must be forced under a sovereignty under which it has no desire to live.”–President Woodrow Wilson
  • There will be no peace while Ireland is ruled by a foreign force.
  • If there is right and justice in the world, then Ireland should have its share.
  • A true American is a true Sinn Feiner.

More mainstream celebrations occurred in the American heartland:

“Ireland and St. Patrick were by no means forgotten on Monday, the greatest of Irish holidays, in Minneapolis. Many store windows were dressed up in green in honor of the day. The shamrock, the harp, and many other emblems of the old sod were seen in generous abundance.” The Irish Standard, Minneapolis, Minn., March 22, page 1

“In a room hung with the green flag of old Ireland, and the three-colored flag of the hopes for a new Ireland, intermingled with shamrocks and entwined around the Stars and Stripes of America, 450 members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians sand the songs of old Erin, and cheered and applauded each expression of faith in the hoped-for republic, when the annual St. Patrick’s day dinner of the order was held in the Fort Pitt Hotel last night.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 18, page 11

“Native born and American born Irish men and women of Louisville paid fitting and credible tribute to St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. The religious observances began with the Ladies Auxiliary and the Ancient Order of Hibernians who filled St. Patrick’s Church early Sunday morning … Monday night there were numerous attractions … but it remained for the AOH to eclipse it all with their celebration at Bertrand Hall, which was profusely decorated with the national colors and the flag of the Irish republic and flags and banners of the Ancient Order.” Kentucky Irish American, Louisville, Ky., March 22, page 1

Washington, D.C. in 1919.

March madness 1919: So close, yet so far

American-based supporters of Irish independence on March 4, 1919, appeared tantalizingly close to winning U.S. government backing for their cause. But they fell short.

In Washington, D.C., the U.S. House of Representatives voted 216 to 41 in favor of self-determination for Ireland. It was the last day of the legislative session, however, and a parliamentary maneuver in opposition delayed consideration of the measure in the U.S. Senate for several months.

Cohalan

Later that evening, in New York City, President Woodrow Wilson reluctantly met a delegation from the Friends of Irish Freedom before returning to the post-war peace conference in Paris. The meeting began badly, as Wilson banned New York Supreme Court Judge Daniel F. Cohalan, a longtime political nemesis and member of the delegation. It ended, Francis M Carroll wrote, “with Wilson refusing to commit himself to the Irish-Americans, the Irish-Americans very displeased with Wilson, and all of them on the worst of terms.”18

Irish-American newspaper coverage of the House vote was fairly straightforward. Reporting about the Wilson meeting ranged widely.

Wilson

The Irish Press, Philadelphia, said the president “declared that he was in thorough accord with the aspirations of the Irish people for the right to live without foreign interference” … and “gave the committee to understand that he fully expects the case of Ireland to be dealt with by the Peace Conference.” This was wishful spin of Wilson’s intentions, at best, or intentionally deceitful, at worst.

More significantly, the story ignored Wilson’s ouster of Cohalan, a close ally of John Devoy, leader of the New York faction of the FOIF. By March 1919, a feud had opened between the New York wing and Joseph McGarrity, the Press publisher, and his Philadelphia allies, over the best approach to help Ireland. While the Press was silent about Cohalan in this instance, its editor, Patrick McCartan, took other opportunities to “slander and misrepresent” the judge, historian Charles Callen Tansill wrote.19

In Louisville, front-page coverage in the Kentucky Irish American combined the House vote and Wilson meeting into one story, which gave a more clear-eyed assessment of the latter:

The hope that had been entertained that President Wilson would espouse Ireland’s cause was rudely checked Tuesday night when he met the committee from the Irish race convention in New York on the eve of his departure for Paris. Wilson urged that no questions be urged [sic] and gave no indication of what his action at the Peace Conference would be. In some quarters there is belief that so far as he is concerned Ireland’s case has been closed before it has ever been heard.

The Irish Standard, Minneapolis, was even closer to the real story. Under the page 1 headline “Rumored President Had Old Grudge Against Cohalan,” it noted Cohalan’s work against Wilson’s 1916 re-election and refusal to support him when America entered World War I in 1917. A sidebar story reported that two days after the meeting, the FOIF in Boston passed a resolution that stated “Americans of Irish blood were grievously offended at the action of President Wilson” in banning Cohalan from the meeting.

Here’s more background on the two events:

First words on the 1919 Irish Race Convention

Below are the ledes of front-page stories about the Feb. 22-23, 1919, Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia. The stories appeared in U.S. newspapers, either during or the day after the convention, except the Irish weeklies (hyperlinked), which published March 1, 1919. I’ve edited references to dates and Philadelphia, and added a few other notes. Convention meetings were held in multiple venues, as can be seen on the agenda at bottom. Visit the project landing page. MH

“A platform declaring that a state of war exists between England and Ireland were passed … [during the convention] with numerous overflow meetings. One and a half million dollars, in round figures, was subscribed for the purpose of carrying forward the Irish movement to enforce the principle of self-determination. Of that amount, New York, Massachusetts, Chicago, Philadelphia and the women of the Ancient Order of Hibernians pledged $150,000 each, while communities organizations and individuals underwrote lesser amounts.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the host city’s several dailies.

“England was bitterly denounced and the new ‘Irish Republic’ praised by more than 5,000 delegates attending the Irish race convention … . The convention was held in the mammoth Second regiment armory, which was decorated with the Stars and Stripes and the orange, white and green flags of the Sinn Fein republic.”

The Washington Times, Washington, D.C.

Cardinal Gibbons

“A resolution presented by Cardinal Gibbons urging the peace conference to apply to Ireland the doctrine of national self-determination, and a declaration of principals demanding that if any league of nations be created, all feature which may infringe on the traditional policy, including the Monroe doctrine, shall be eliminated, were adopted unanimously today at the closing session of the convention of the Irish race in America.”

Associated Press story appeared in Feb. 24, 1919, issues of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and many other papers. It was probably the most widely distributed account of the convention.

“One of the most important steps taken by the Irish Race Convention … was its demand that President Wilson secure from the Peace Conference for the envoys chosen by the Dáil Éireann, the Parliament of the Irish Republic, the same status and recognition which have been accorded to those of other small nations. … The convention also decided, if necessary, to send to Paris, if necessary, delegates who will assist the representatives of the Irish Republic in securing for the Irish Government recognition of its sovereign claims.”

The Irish Press, Philadelphia. The paper’s editor and publisher were deeply involved in planning the convention. The three-member American Commission for Irish Independence soon traveled to Paris and Ireland.

“With all their inherent passion and humor, with all the love of Erin and freedom and hatred of England that have been smoldering for generations, the more than 5,000 delegates to the two-day Irish Race Convention of the Friends of Irish Freedom … responded enthusiastically to the fervent appeals for Ireland’s self-determination made by distinguished members of the clergy and laity from every part of the United States, as well as from “the old country.”

“Special Dispatch” in The Boston Globe and other papers.

“Men and women of Irish birth and descent, more than 5,000 in number, gathered … and by acclamation adopted resolutions which said a state of war exists between England and Ireland. These resolutions were passed with a storm of cheers and applause. … The Peace Conference at Paris, the resolution stated, cannot ignore this state of war; and President Wilson’s task of establishing permanent peace will not be completed until the Irish question is settled on those principals of self-determination to which he as committed himself and the United States.”

The Irish Standard, Minneapolis.

“The convention of the Irish race … adopted a platform of self-determination for Ireland. … [that] was read before thousands of delegates in the Academy of Music, amid a scene of unsurpassed enthusiasm, and was adopted without a dissenting voice.”

Universal Services report in the The San Francisco Examiner.

“[The convention was] the greatest and most influential gathering of representatives and friends of Irish freedom for Ireland in the history of America, the delegates coming from all classes and nearly every State in the Union.”

Kentucky Irish American, Louisville.

Below, the agenda for the Third Irish Race Convention. See the full 76-page program from the Villanova University digital collection.

Promoting the February 1919 Irish Race Convention

Philadelphia in the 1910s.

Fast-moving events in Ireland compelled nationalist supporters in America to call their third “Irish Race Convention” since 1916 for late February 1919. The Friends of Irish Freedom would mobilize 5,000 delegates to Philadelphia within two months of the Sinn Féin election victory and first meeting of the Dáil Éireann.

The Philadelphia turnout was a tribute to the organizational skills of the FOIF’s national officers and the passion of its rank and file members. It built on momentum since the May 1918 second Irish Race Convention in New York City, including months of lobbying President Woodrow Wilson’s administration to recognize Irish independence, which culminated in “Self-Determination for Ireland Week” in December 1918.

The Irish Press, Philadelphia, unabashedly promoted the home city convention. The Feb. 8, 1919, edition contained content that made little distinction between the front page and the editorial page.

“Although several remarkable gathering representative of the Irish throughout the United States have been held in recent years, there is no no room for doubt that the convention to be held in Philadelphia, February 22 and 23, will be by far the most notable event of the kind that has ever taken place in this country,” the page 1 story said.

“In personnel and importance, the coming convention of the Irish Race in America completely overshadows all similar gathering held in these United States,” the page 4 editorial declared.

Press publisher Joseph McGarrity, and editor, Patrick McCartan, were each involved in planning the convention and behind the scenes struggles over what would be publicly declared at the event. Historians have debated how much influence the newspaper’s leaders and their Philadelphia supporters  exerted on the convention, or if John Devoy, Judge Daniel Cohalan, and other Irish activists in New York City really pulled the strings.

Far from these Irish hubs, the Feb. 8 issue of the Kentucky Irish American, Louisville, featured a front page notice that “all societies in favor of Ireland’s national independence” were entitled to send five delegates to Philadelphia. Registrations were to be sent to FOIF National Secretary Diarmuid Lynch, care of the group’s headquarters, 1482 Broadway, in New York City. (Lynch and McCartan each won parliamentary seats in the December 1918 general election while in America. They were in absentia members of the first Dáil.)

The Feb. 15 issue of The Irish Standard, Minneapolis, noted on its front page that requests for credentials were due to New York by Feb. 12. “Delegates presenting themselves without credentials cannot be seated until after those bearing credentials have been dealt with,” it warned. Not to worry. A second story named six delegates selected from Minneapolis and St. Paul, including Rev. Jeremiah Harrington, a member of the FOIF national board.

In a page 4 editorial, the Standard complained: “The transactions and conclusions of the convention will command world wide attention, despite the apparent conspiracy of silence that seems to prevail among many of our great American newspapers when anything is done to arouse public interest in the promotion of Ireland’s welfare.”

In fact, mainstream newspapers did publish the names of local delegations heading to Philadelphia in the weeks before the convention. Many also announced the confirmation of headline speakers such as Cardinal James Gibbons, of Baltimore; Cardinal William Henry O’Connell, of Boston; Archbishop Dennis Joseph Dougherty, of Philadelphia; U.S. Senator William Borah, R-Idaho; and Pennsylvania’s newly-elected Republican Gov. William C. Sproul, among others.

More news coverage would come from the two-day event, as we will see in future posts. See previous posts in this series at: American reporting of Irish Independence, 1919-1922.

View the full 76-page Third Irish Race Convention program from the Villanova University digital collection.

The Tyrone-born publisher of Philadelphia’s Irish Press

Joseph McGarrity, publisher of The Irish Press in Philadelphia, played a more direct role in America’s effort to secure Irish independence than William M. Higgins, publisher of the Kentucky Irish American in Louisville. [See earlier posts on the series landing page.]

Joseph McGarrity, circa 1900.

McGarrity was born in 1874 in Carrickmore, County Tyrone, 22 years after Higgins in Syracuse, N.Y., to Famine-era Irish immigrants. McGarrity immigrated to America in 1892, a year after Charles Stewart Parnell’s death. The 18-year-old McGarrity settled in Philadelphia, where he lived until 1940–15 year longer than Higgins.

The same name Irish Press in Dublin, begun nine years after McGarrity folded his Philadelphia journal, published this description at his death:

Joseph McGarrity was big in everything. Well over six feet in his socks, with the proportions of an athlete, and the strength of a lion, he was an Irishman good to look upon. Vigour radiated from him. In his talk … he could not keep still–the hands, the toss of the head, the sudden pacing of the floor, all drove home the point he was making. His voice–the American accent making musical the hard speech of his native Tyrone–was big, too, and he did not hesitate to use it to drown yours if the day was to be won by emphasis. Yet this virile person could suddenly become as gentle as a woman.20

McGarrity pursued business enterprises, including liquor wholesaling and real estate in Philadelphia and nearby New York and Atlantic City, N.J. He also was a leading member of the Clan na Gael, the secretive Irish republican organization in the United States that worked closely with the separatist movement in Ireland.

In March 1918, a week after St. Patrick’s Day, McGarrity launched The Irish Press as the U.S. Post Office, “yielding to British diplomatic pressure,”21 banned the New York-based Irish World and the Gaelic American newspapers from the mail due to war-related suspicions of espionage.

Patrick McCartan, another Tyrone native who McGarrity picked as editor of The Irish Press, recalled in his 1932 monograph:

He believed an Irish paper with a circulation of even two thousand would keep our flag flying [in Philadelphia], till the war ended. … [Clan na Gael members] sold the Irish Press at the doors of the churches, with the result that the circulation soon passed ten thousand. … [V]olunteers took the Irish Press in suit cases, or by motor express to New York, where they sold it at the churches.22

Circulating The Irish Press in New York City aggravated the feud between McGarrity and John Devoy, veteran Irish republican activist in America and publisher of the Gaelic American. “Even through the [mail] ban on the Gaelic American had lapsed, the new paper competed with Devoy’s as the voice of the militant exiles,” Devoy biographer Terry Goloway wrote.23

The core of the Devoy-McGarrity fight centered on how, or whether, America should recognize the newly proclaimed Irish Republic as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson negotiated the post-war order in Paris; how funds raised in America should be used to help the Irish; and who should control the message and the money. These tensions mounted in the weeks before the February 1919 Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia, and the June 1919 U.S. arrival of Irish President Eamon de Valera. Golway continued:

…this distrust, verging on paranoia and evident on all sides, would cripple the American movement. As war raged in Ireland, Irish rebels in America would watch each other with studied care, looking for nuances, hints, and suggestions that the war in Ireland might conclude with something less than the Republic the men of Easter [1916] had proclaimed and died for. It was as though they knew that the end would be bitter, that compromise would taint the purity of victory–and that somebody would have to bear the blame.24

More on McGarrity and Devoy and their newspapers as this series continues.

***

Joseph McGarrity’s papers are held at the National Library of Ireland, Dublin. The McGarrity Collection at Villanova University, Philadelphia, contains monographs focusing on Irish history, literature, folklore, travel, music, and Irish-American history, in addition to microfilm of his papers held in Dublin. A selection of the material, including digitized copies of The Irish Press, is available in an online collection.

America’s Irish press reports first Dáil…and more

The Jan. 25, 1919, front pages of the The Irish Press, Philadelphia, and the Kentucky Irish American, Louisville, each reported the opening of the first Dáil Éireann four days earlier in Dublin. Both papers also announced the upcoming Irish Race Convention, Feb. 22-23, in Philadelphia.

“The gathering will undoubtedly be the most momentous ever held by the Irish race outside of Ireland,” TIP proclaimed. “All Irish-American societies in good standing with their national organizations are entitled to five delegates each,” the KIA told its readers.

More about the Philadelphia convention in future posts.

As with their coverage three weeks earlier of the Sinn Féin election sweep in Ireland, reporting of the first Dáil in these two Irish-American newspapers demonstrated the differences of their editorial missions and audiences.

The Press, with its direct links to the revolutionary government, was writing to Irish activists on both sides of the Atlantic. It carried seven stories about Ireland on the front page under the top banner CONGRESS OF IRISH REPUBLIC MEETS. The coverage including the inaugural meeting of the American Council on Ireland, which occurred a few days earlier Philadelphia.

“It marks a new era in the history of the fight for Irish independence carried on in America,” the Press reported. “It is surely a matter of great significance to find Americans of non-Irish affiliations organizing a movement to champion the cause of Ireland.”

The Irish American’s front page story about the first Dáil appeared in the right-side column, a prominent placement, under a five-deck headline topped by IRELAND. The KIA appealed to a wider demographic–if smaller geographic–audience than The Irish Press with its mix of local, national, and international news. The stories included:

  • “Dangerous Extension of Eugenist Propaganda” on the left-side column.
  • Coverage of local Forward League Democrats and “old line Republicans” political meetings.
  • A republished letter from Father Francis P. Duffy in Europe, “teaming with interest and good humor.”
  • Several briefs, such as a Louisville’s couple’s golden wedding anniversary; a child’s death from an appendicitis; the honorable discharges of several soldiers stationed at nearby Camp Zachary Taylor; and the annual meeting of the Holy Name Society.

The Irish Standard of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a pro-Catholic but not religious newspaper, is another example of this balanced coverage. Its Jan. 25, 1919, issue featured the bold headline, Ireland a Republic in the Eyes of World, at the top center of the front page, with more Irish coverage inside, including a supportive editorial. Also above the front fold: a Catholic Press Association story about Rome’s postponement of the unification of Catechetical texts; and a piece about the lack of jobs for servicemen returning from the war.

We prefer to believe it is the suddenness of this happening rather than any lack of appreciation of the glorious work your fighting Yanks have been doing that is responsible for the present deplorable situation. Nevertheless, it seems necessary to recall the promises and pledges made to these young men as they went out on their great crusade to save the civilization of the world.

The Kentucky Irish American was more progressive about using photographs than the Press, Standard, and most newspapers in 1919. The front of the KIA‘s first Dáil issue included images of the former German Crown Prince and his dog; Queen Elizabeth, of Belgium, and Mrs. Poincare, wife of the French president, riding in a carriage through the Paris streets; Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.; Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, and Mrs. Vincent Astor, all returning from France; and renowned pianist Ignacy Paderewski, the Polish foreign affairs minister at the Paris peace conference.

As discussed in my last post, these ethnic newspapers complained about mainstream American press coverage of Irish issues. “News dispatches pertaining to affairs in Ireland, as distributed by some of the great American press agencies, continue to bear prima facie evidence of gross unfairness and inaccuracy,” the Standard declared in its editorial. The Press editorial offered hope for better future coverage:

Hitherto the American daily press has viewed the Sinn Féin program as something to be mocked and jeered at; but now that the Irish people have proved to the world that they are in earnest in their fight for international recognition as a sovereign nation, the tone of the great dailies has undergone something of a change.

This is only a snapshot of Irish-American newspaper coverage in January 1919, of course, not a complete or extensive analysis. Some Irish titles published at that time appear to be lost forever, while others are not yet digitized for review outside limited library and archive collections.