was a particularly bad year for the IRA. There were mass arrests in Britain, in Northern Ireland, and in the Free State. Prison conditions were bleak. Arbour Hill Military Detention Barracks in Dublin was reported to be the coldest prison in Europe. People who had been arrested but not charged with a crime, “internees,” were sent to the Curragh Military Camp in County Kildare. The camp consisted of wooden stables left over from the British Army, surrounded by barbed wire. As they had during the Anglo-Irish War, IRA prisoners fought the conditions and eventually turned to the hunger strike as their most potent weapon. Among the strikers was John Plunkett, yet another of the Count’s sons. Two IRA men, Tony D’Arcy and Sehn MacNeela, died before the IRA called off the strike. At D’Arcy’s funeral a confrontation between the police and the Republican crowd caused the coffin to be knocked to the ground.
These events were closely followed in the Brady household. One of the funerals traveled through Longford, and the Brady family paid their respects as the cortege passed by. Rory Brady remembers that he “couldn’t understand this at all.” He knew that the British had left Longford in the early 1920s, “but why were men dying on hunger strike in Dublin?” He asked questions and discussed politics with his schoolmates, some of whom said it was suicide. He remembers, “I was politically aware enough to say, ’Well, what about Terence MacSwiney?’ They’d say, ’Ah, well, that’s different.’ Well, how different? It’s the principle of it.” MacSwiney had died after a 74-day hunger-strike. He is perhaps best known as the author of Principles of Freedom and for the quotation “It is not those who can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will conquer.” In the Brady household, there was no difference between Terence MacSwiney in 1920 and Tony D’Arcy and Sehn MacNeela in 1940.
As the IRA campaign continued, Fianna Fáil set out to destroy the organization. The Longford IRA was especially hard hit. Barney Casey, the Longford commanding officer, was arrested and sent to the Curragh, where the situation was tense. In December 1940, the prisoners burned down several of the huts. Fighting broke out between prisoners and warders, and several prisoners were wounded. A few days later, Barney Casey was shot in the back and killed. For Casey’s funeral, the IRA provided a coffin and hearse. Republicans, wearing tricolor armbands, marched alongside the hearse. The mourners included Kathleen Clarke and Maud Gonne Mac Bride, widows of executed 1916 leader Tom Clarke and John Mac Bride. Busloads of people arrived from throughout the country, including one organized by Seán F. Lynch. Matt Brady and Hubert Wilson were there together, and after the funeral they were harassed by Free State troops. Richard Goss, the IRA’S North Leinster-South Ulster Divisional commanding officer, was arrested in County Longford after a shootout in which two soldiers were wounded. Under the Emergency Powers Act of 1939, anyone found guilty by the military tribunal faced a mandatory death sentence. Goss was executed by firing squad in Port Laoise Prison on August 9, 1941. With him, for all practical purposes, died the Longford IRA.
Matt Brady had never recovered from his wounds of 1919. As a youngster, Rory would climb into bed with his father and spot a red stain about the size of a sixpence on the man’s pajamas; he was still bleeding after twenty years. Not long after the Casey funeral and the Goss execution, Matt Brady’s health declined further. He was in Dublin’s Mater Hospital twice in 1942, to no avail. On Sunday morning, June 7, 1942, he died at the family residence; he was 51 years old. In passing a resolution of sympathy for the family, a member of the Board of Health stated, ’X fairer or straighter or more honourable man I never met in my life.” An obituary described him as “a man of sterling national principles and unrelenting patriotism throughout the whole period of his career, fair in criticism and unfailing in the cause of justice.” He was described in tributes as the first man in Longford “to shed his blood for the Cause" in the Anglo-Irish War and as a “die-hard Republican.” He was given a soldier’s funeral.
The funeral Mass was held at St. Mel’s Cathedral in Longford. Burial was in Ballymacormack Cemetery, near the town. Behind the ruined walls of a twelfth-century church, Matt Brady’s old comrades formed a guard of honor under the command of Sehn Duffy of Ballinalee. The surviving family watched as the guard exited an ancient door, marched to the gravesite, and fired three volleys over the tricolor-draped coffin. Sehn Mac Eoin had asked May Brady if she would like a bugler to sound The Last Post. She agreed, but only if the bugler was not in uniform. Mac Eoin offered a graveside oration for the man he had saved so many years before. In 1921, they had made different choices on the Treaty. Over time, each remained true to his convictions. They respected each other and the choice each had made, and they remained on good personal terms throughout the tumultuous 1930s and 1940s. For Matt Brady, Sein Mac Eoin was a political opponent and personal friend, but de Valera and Fianna FAil were bitter enemies who had betrayed the Republic. A tombstone, designed by May’s younger brother, Eugene, an architect, was later added to Matt Brady’s grave. Engraved on the front is an Easter lily, the symbol of 1916 and the continuing struggle; on the back is a reversed rifle, symbol of a fallen soldier.
Firing party at the funeral of Matt Brady, June 1942. Ó Brádaigh family collection.
Matt Brady’s Republicanism had several dimensions that combined an interest in history and culture and direct methods of physical force to bring about the Republic. His family and the people of Longford watched him act on each. At home, he spoke the few words of Irish that he knew. On the County Council, he supported changing the name Edgeworthstown to Mostrim, the area’s name prior to the arrival of the famous Edgeworth family. His support for the IRA was unwavering. In 1938 an IRA volunteer from Longford was killed in a premature explosion at the border. When a member of the County Council did not stand in silence for the deceased, Brady told him, “You should be ashamed.” He regularly served as chair of Longford’s 1916 commemorations. The first Easter Commemoration Rory Brady attended was in 1941, at Clonbroney, Ballinalee; he was there with his father, his sister Mary, and Hubert Wilson.
Matt Brady had also married a woman ahead of her time. Thirteen-year-old Mary, 10 year-old Rory, and 5-year-old Sein were in good hands. She was the family’s source of income and she was not afraid to stand up for herself. In the early 1930s, she was dissatisfied with the organization of the Board of Health. At one County Council meeting, which took place after Matt Brady and Sein F. Lynch had joined the council, she expressed her dissatisfaction and asked for change. When two councilors indicated that they were content with the organization, she challenged them, “I am not content at all. I have to sign things I know nothing about.” She explained that she could be held liable if illegal payments were made by the board. A councilor stated, “Nothing will satisfy Mrs. Brady until this Board gives her full control. Is that so, Mrs. Brady?” She replied, “Yes, I have stated that several times.” In her early 40s, she was still young and fit. She played for St. Ita’s Camogie Club of Longford; they were county champions from 1935 until Se6n was born in 1937. After Sein’s birth, she switched to referee. She was chair of the County Longford Camogie Board and an active member of the Irish Language Gaelic League. There was also a scholarly side to her. Matt Brady had introduced her to the poetry of his cousin, Pidraic Colum. In 1954, she offered a public lecture on this topic. She had her own Republican credentials and a keen interest in the North of Ireland. She was born in Belfast, where an aunt and her family were burned out and traumatized during the sectarian rioting of the early 1920s. She still had family in Donegal and they were Republican, too. In August 1942, Mary and Rory, in Dublin on holidays with their maternal grandmother, attended the large funeral of Father Michael O’Flanagan. O’Flanagan, vice president of Sinn Féin from 1917 and president of the organization in 1933–1935, had twice been “silenced" by the Catholic hierarchy, in 1917 and in 1925.
After Matt Brady’s funeral, May went back to work for the Board of Health and the children went back to school. They attended Melview, about two miles outside Longford. From the front of the school, the spire of St. Mel’s Cathedral is visible on a clear day; hence the name. Mary took Sein to school on his first day. The two older children watched out for Sein; he remembers them being very protective of him. Then, in August 1944, May Caffrey Brady
