During the Easter week 1916 Darrell Figgis had been busy with his writing. He had now idea about the events that were unfolding in Dublin over the last few days. The only idication that there was anything out of the ordinary was the post was late.

It was not till some hours after noon that, looking along the road for the post that was so unaccountably late, I saw a friend making her way toward to house on her bicycle. As she come nearer and dismounted I could see the traces of tears on her cheeks, and wondered.

“The post is very late, ” I said.

“There is no post,” she replied, “but there’s terrible news. “There has been fighting in Dublin…”

The woman was possibly Emily and the event in Dublin was the Easter Rising. Darrell grew nervous he knew that he was under scrutiny from the authorities since the Howth Gunrunning in 1914. His fears were not unfounded, a few days later the dreaded knock came to the door.

A large number of men were passing round the house. We [he and his wife Millie] leapt out of bed, and, peering through the windows, could see two peelers [policemen] at each window, with rifles at the “ready.”

he was hauled off to Castlebar Jail and then transferred to Richmond Gaol in Dublin before been sent to Stafford Gaol in England before serving further time in Reading Gaol, before he was released in December of that year. This was not the last time he would see English prisons…

Sources

Figgis, Darrell, and William Murphy. A Chronicle of Jails. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2010.

Thanks to;

Edward King, Achill

Besides his involvement in  the cultural life of Achill, Darrell Figgis, became entwined in the political activities there too. Like Emily Weddall and Anita McMahon he also took part in the Land Wars of 1913 taking the tenant’s side to help them gain a fair deal with the Achill Mission Estate.

In November 1913 The Irish Volunteers, was founded in Dublin. Darrell Figgis joined and was given the job of the drilling the Achill Battalion. At the time there was about fifty volunteers on the Island, quite a lot for a relatively small population. According to local legend these drill took place on the beaches of the Island and became a common sight there were also rumors that they hid weapons, at Annagh, on the north side of the Island, a place that was and still is only accessible by foot.

Rifles

Less than a year later in the summer of 1914 Rodger Casement, was appointed him to go to Hamburg to purchase arms for Sinn Fein. Along with Erskine and Molly Childers, Mary Spring Rice, Gordon Shepard and two fishermen from Donegal, he traveled to Hamburg on the yacht Asgard. They collected the 900 rifles and 29,000 rounds of ammunition, and sailed back to Howth, where they unloaded the ‘cargo’. It did not take the authorities at Dublin Castle too long to find out and send in the Dublin Metropolitan Police to disarm the Volunteers.

As a result there was a clash between the police and volunteers on Bachelor’s Walk, which resulted in fatalities. Figgis came to the attention of the authorities and was well scrutinized by them from then on. These guns were used in the 1916 Rising, an event that he did not directly take part in but was implicated anyway. 

Centenary of Howth Gun Running. July 2014

Sources

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0725/633075-the-extraordinary-story-of-the-asgard/

Interview with Mary Kilcoyne McNamara, Achill 1999

Thanks to

John Twin McNamara and Edward King, Achill

Darrell Figgis made Achill his western writing retreat. In 1913 he purchased land and had a cottage built on the Island. If he moved to Achill to live a quiet life away from the distractions of Dublin that was short lived.  He soon,  probably with the persuasion of people like Emily, Claud Chavasse, An Paorach, Eva O’Flaherty and the the other founding members of Scoil Acla to get involved in the summer school.  In 1914 he took part in a production of Douglas Hyde’s Casadh an tSugain, directed by the artist Paul Henry, who also made Achill his home. The photograph below was of the main players in the production.

Back Row: John Kilcoyne, Dominick Lavelle, James Kilcoyne, Pat McNamara.
Front row: John McNamara, Darrrell figgis, Pat McNamara

Thanks

 Edward King and Tommy McNamara, Achill

Darell Edmund Figgis was born on 17th September 1882 in Rathmines, Dublin to Arthur William Figgis and his wife Mary. The family lived between Ireland and India where his father was a tea broker with the East India Company, in Calcutta, West Bengal.

West Bengal, where Darrell Figgis spent his childhood

When Figgis was about ten he was sent to England to be educated. He attended the Company of Grocers School in Hackney, where the merchant class sent their children. The school had the reputation of being one of the best second level educational institution in London at the time. The headmaster at the time Darrell Figgis was a pupil, maintained strict discipline, but had modern ideas on teaching. These early influences may have laid down a firm foundation for his writing career.

The first Head Master, Herbert Courthope Bowen (1847–1899) was committed to  innovative ideas about English teaching, pupils’ learning and children’s development that are usually associated with progressive teaching in elementary schools.

He did not begin his literary career straight after finishing his education.  He joined his father in tea industry, but that was not long lived. Figgis would recount to his fellow inmates, years later during his interment in Durham Jail, to hi that he had a talent for tea tasting. As Kevin O’Shiel disclosed in his Witness Statement:

He [Figgis] was the acknowledged king of all tea-tasters, being gifted with a palate of such exquisite refinement and unerring accuracy that his judgements on the tea samples submitted to the the tasters became celebrated…

His job as a tea broker in his father’s company came to an abrupt end when he fell out with him;

“He was a very obstinate disposition,self-willed, and reluctant to fall in with is father’s ideas as regards the carrying on of their business with a result that he parted form his father and returned to London, working his passage home…”

Sources

India Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947,” database, FamilySearch

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/a-school-that-fell-from-greatness-1593501.html

http://search.findmypast.ie/record?id=gbor%2fschool%2fad%2f10237120&highlights=%22%22

https://remakingenglish.wordpress.com/

http://www.bureauofmilitaryhistory.ie/reels/bmh/BMH.WS1770%20Section%205.pdf#page=100

Public Record Office. CO 904/201/Part 134-153

Darrell Figgis first visited Achill in 1912. After acquiring land from the Mission Estate in 1913 he and his wife Millie, built a cottage and made the island his writing retreat. He was already a published writer having made a name for himself in artistic circles in both Dublin and London.

At the time of his arrival there was a group of people central to the cultural life of the island. These people were Francis Power (An Paroach), Claud Chavasse, Eva O’Flaherty, Anita McMahon, Paul Henry and Emily, the founding members of Scoil Acla. Figgis naturally gravitated towards the group and can be credited with the part he played in formation of the summer school.

At the time the political situation was heating up and some of the Scoil Acla members were getting involved. Emily, Anita McMahon and Eva O’Flaherty, were all members of the newly formed Cumann na mBan (The Irishwomen’s Council). Claud Chavasse was heavily involved in Nationalist circles as were the students that attended Scoil Acla such as Margot and Cesca Trench and Diarmuid Coffey. Figgis was naturally drawn in too.

November 1913 saw the formation The Irish Volunteers, which Figgis joined and was appointed to drill the Achill Battalion. He used to drill them on the beach and is still talked about to this day. Local ledgend tells of him spending a lot of time in Annagh (a remote area on the west coast of Achill), where he drew inspiration from particularly for his poetry but, it was also an ideal place to hide arms.

Scoil Acla 1913

Thanks to:

John Twin McNamara, Achill historian

Edward King, Achill

Sources

http://scoilacla.ie/history/founding-members/darrell-edmund-figgis/

www.militaryarchives.ie/collections/…the…/cumann–na–mban-series

Chenevix Trench, Frances Georgiana, and Hilary Pyle. Cesca’s Diary, 1913-1916: Where Art and Nationalism Meet. Dublin: Woodfield Press, 2005.