Collins issued the following press release: ‘The Members of the Provisional Government received the surrender of Dublin Castle at 1.45 pm today. It is now in the hands of the Irish nation’.
If Emily was in the crowd that day, it was only to have the pleasure of seeing a foreign power leave, and certainly not in support of the Irish Free State instead the Republic proclaimed on the steps of the GPO in 1916.
One Hundred years ago today the Anglo Irish Treaty was ratified by Dail Eireann. It was signed in London on December 6th 1921, by a negotiation team of Michael Collins, Arthur Griffiths, Arthur Robert Barton, Eamonn Duggan and George Gavan Duffy. When they made the return journey to Dublin they did so with heavy hearts knowing well that it would spit political and public opinion.
Eamon de Valera, who had refused to travel to London as part of the delegate rejected it completely, as did many other Dail members. Democratically the terms of the Treaty was opened to debate inside the Dail chambers. Tempers flared, members quit and the discussion continued throughout Christmas 1921 and into the first week of the New Year. On January 7th, the matter finally went to vote, resulting in the Treaty being ratified by a very slim margin of 64 to 57.
Emily along with the majority of Cumann na mBan rejected the terms of the Treaty completely. A convention to for early February to; “reaffirm their alliance to the Republic of Ireland”. At the convention every member cast their vote. A staggering eighty six per cent of members were against the Treaty.
(https://www.rte.ie/history/the-ban/2020/0401/1127789-cumann-na-mban-a-photo-essay/) Cumann na mBan. Copy Agenda of the Cumann Na MBan Special Convention.
On this day, December 6th 1921, the Anglo Irish Treaty was signed. A press release written by Arthur Griffith announced the result of many months of negotiating between the British Government and the Treaty delegation team of Griffith, Michael Collins, Robert Barton, Eamonn Duggan and George Gavan Duffy.
“I have signed a Treaty of peace between Ireland and Great Britain. I believe that treaty will lay foundations of peace and friendship between the two Nations. What I have signed I shall stand by in the belief that the end of the conflict of centuries is at hand”.
On this day 1976 RTE aired a documentary about Three Candles Press on Radio na Raidio na Gaeltachta. Founder, Colm O’Lochlainn was one of the original members of Scoil Acla and a friend of Emily’s. In 1926 he founded Three Candles Press. Each candle represented one of the principles of truth, wisdom and knowledge. The business, was ahead of its time in the way it put the quality of its work and care of its employees ahead of profit.
His real love over printing and the politics of the Revolutionary period, which he was involved in for a time, was music and the collection of Irish Ballads, which he made his life’s work. Along with his friend Seamus Ennis, contributed greatly to the collection and retention of tunes that may have, without their intervention have got lost in the mists of time.
Sources
William Gerard O’Loughlin was born in Dublin on the 11th of October 1892. His father John O’Loughlin was a travelling sales representative for a printing company. His mother was a Delia (Bridget) Carr from Limerick City whose family were wealthy and in the printing business...Read more
After the Easter Rising more than 3,000 were arrested for their part or their supposed part. One was Emily, who was held on Remand at Tullamore Gaol for a week, for “…acting in such a manner as to give reasonable grounds for suspecting that she was about to act in a manner prejudicial to the Defense of the Realm”. The Act was passed when WWI broke out in 1914 to control communications at the ports around Britain and Ireland, and subject civilians to the rule of military courts. It was also under D.O.R.A the leaders of the Rising were tried and condemned to death under. Those who were not given the Death Penalty, were given various sentences, the more extreme rebels were sent to prisons across Britain, such as Emily’s friend Darrell Figgis. One such prison was Frongoch in Wales.
The abandoned distillery was repurposed as a prisoner of war camp during WWI
Frongoch, an abandoned distillery was initially used to house prisoners of war. It was sort of repurposed as a detention centre for prisoners of the Rising. The camp comprised of cold, dank, rat infested huts, equally if not more dismal than prison cells. The internees only real comfort was that they were free to mix and mingle with one another. Nevertheless they overheated in the summer and frozen in the colder months of late autumn and early winter, but were ‘saved by the bell’ when they were released just before Christmas 1916 otherwise some may have perished during coldest time of the year. As early as the summer Irish MP, Mr. Ginnell put it to the Home Secretary whether the food given to the Irish prisoners was sufficient for the healthy young countrymen. Mr. Samuel replied; “The diet is identical with that supplied to military and naval prisoners of war and is amply sufficient to keep the prisoners in good health”. It was not. But the Committee of the Irish National Aid and volunteer Dependents’ Fund, which Emily collected and gave generously to, intervened. They set out to make sure that the internees were not deprived of ‘celebrating’ “Hallow Eve”. They put the notice below in the newspapers:
