it might happen again. Seán Ó Donnabhhin, an Irish scholar who worked on an ordnance survey in North Longford, described the people of the area in an 1837 letter from Granard as “poor, and what is worse, kept down by the police.” One of the few Irish soldiers to survive the battle was Brian O’Neill. People like him kept the memory of the battle alive, and it became a symbol of local resistance to British injustice. O’Neill’s grandnephew, James O’Neill, was born on March 1, 1855, and over the course of his long life he was a keeper of the flame of Ballinamuck, a direct link between 1798 and decades of political activity in Longford, until his death in 1946. A contemporary of Peter Brady, he was involved in the Land League, was president of the Drumlish and Ballinamuck United Irish League, and was later active in Sinn FCin with Matt Brady.
In 1913, Matt Brady moved from Gelsha to Longford town and became a rate collector for the County Council. The town developed on the Camlin River; in 1913 a main feature was two military barracks, one for cavalry and the other for artillery. The barracks indicated Longford’s strategic location and a tradition of resisting the Crown’s authority. It was a prosperous town, and architecturally it was and is dominated by the facade and tower of St. Mel’s Cathedral. The foundation stone for St. Mel’s was laid in May 1840, but the building was not completed until the 1890s. In 1914, after Matt’s brother Hugh left for the United States, Matt continued his work for the county and maintained the small farm at Gelsha. World politics would soon set in motion events that would directly affect both Matt Brady and Longford.
When it became apparent that Home Rule would pass in Westminster, anti-Home Rule Unionists in Ulster organized the Ulster Volunteer Force and began drilling. The Irish Republican Brotherhood, heirs of the Fenians, countered this by forming the Irish Volunteers. When World War I began, Unionists supported the war effort and the Ulster Volunteer Force joined the British Army en masse. John Redmond, Parnell’s successor as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, encouraged the Irish Volunteers to do the same, splitting the Volunteers.
In August 1914, the Irish Republican Brotherhood’s Supreme Council met and determined that Ireland’s honor would be tarnished if no fight was made for an Irish Republic during the world war. The Irish Republican Brotherhood planned a rebellion to coincide with the importation of arms from Germany at Easter 1916. The arms were to arrive in County Kerry, then be distributed throughout the south and west of Ireland. Instead, Irish Volunteers missed their rendezvous with a German Steamer, the Aud, which was eventually spotted by the Royal Navy. The crew scuttled the Aud, and her cargo, at the entrance to Cork Harbor. When word of the lost arms reached the rebel organizers, confusion set in and the Rising was postponed from Easter Sunday until Easter Monday. Rebels seized the General Post Office and other strategic buildings in Dublin, and Patrick Pearse, “Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Republic and President of the Provisional Government,” stepped forward and proclaimed the Irish Republic. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) took up positions throughout Dublin. So did the Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly, a socialist critic and labor organizer, who had formed the small (approximately 200-member) Citizen Army in 1913 as a defense force for workers during a bitter lockout.
British reinforcements quickly suppressed the rebellion; within a week, several parts of the city were reduced to rubble and 450 people were dead. The rebels’ surrender was followed by large-scale arrests in Dublin and in the provinces, and general courts-martial were set up. One hundred and sixty-nine men and one woman, the Countess Markievicz of Connolly’s Citizen Army, were tried and convicted by courts-martial. The Easter Rising’s leaders—including the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, Tom Clarke, Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Sein Mac Diarmada, Eamonn Ceannt, Thomas McDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett—were executed. Over 1,800 men and five women were sent to Frongoch internment camp in Wales. Eight of them were from County Longford; three were from Granard.
Internees were quickly released; 650 after a few weeks, more in July, and the rest by Christmas 1916. They were welcomed home by crowds and bonfires. The prisoners had not wasted their time in the camp. Placed together in one location, they formed friendships, organized themselves, and plotted. When they were turned loose, they joined the political party Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, or both. When it was announced that there would be a by-election for the North Roscommon seat at Westminster in February 1917, the Republicans had a chance to find out how much support they had. Count Plunkett was put forward as the representative of the new Irish nationalist direction in opposition to the Irish Parliamentary Party candidate. A prominent and respected member of the community, he was director of the National Museum, a papal count, and the father of the executed 1916 leader Joseph Plunkett. He ran as an independent, heavily supported by Sinn Féin, and won handily. After some pressure from Sinn FCiners, he declared he would follow Sinn Féin’s policy of not taking his seat at Westminster. This decision continues to influence Irish politics.
In May 1917, there was another by-election, this time in South Longford. Mick Collins, who had been interned in Frongoch, was a conspiratorial genius. He arranged to have Joe McGuinness, who was imprisoned in England, nominated as the Sinn Féin candidate. McGuinness, a Dublin draper, was a native of nearby Tarmonbarry, and his brother, Frank, owned a small shop in Longford town. The campaign slogan was “Put him in to get him out.” Republican Ireland descended on Longford; among those speaking on behalf of McGuinness were Margaret Pearse, widowed mother of the executed brothers Patrick and Willie Pearse, Count Plunkett, and Mrs. Desmond Fitzgerald, whose husband, a 1916 veteran, was in an English jail. Count Plunkett told one crowd, “Every vote for McGuinness [is] a bullet for the heart of England.” The public was presented with two distinct choices, the moderate work-with-the-system approach of the Irish Parliamentary Party versus the radical challenge-the-system approach of Sinn Féin. McGuinness won by thirty-seven votes. Around this time, Matt Brady joined the Irish Volunteers.
When McGuinness was released from prison, a rally in Longford brought together a who’s who of Irish Republicans, including McGuinness, Count Plunkett, Arthur Griffith, am on de Valera, and Thomas Ashe. Griffith was the founder of Sinn FCin and the prime source of its abstentionist tactics; that is, the refusal of Republican elected officials to take their seats at Westminster. De Valera was the most senior 1916 rebel who had not been executed. In 1916, Ashe had led attacks on Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in North County Dublin and directed a pitched battle with the RIC outside Ashbourne in County Meath. Collectively, they were key actors in a series of dramatic political events. Matt Brady was a witness to and participant in these events and probably heard Ashe introduced as “Commandant Thomas Ashe of the Irish Republican Army.” Soon after the rally for McGuinness, under the Defence of the Realm Act, Ashe was charged with attempting to cause “disaffection" among the people while making a speech at Ballinalee, County Longford. He was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment at hard labor and joined about forty other prisoners in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. The prisoners attempted to distinguish themselves from the criminal population by requesting a number of special privileges, including unrestricted conversation, optional work, classes for study, and no association with ordinary criminals. When the privileges were refused, they embarked on a hunger strike. The prison authorities countered by force-feeding them, but liquid was pumped into Ashe’s lungs instead of his stomach, causing his death in September 1917.
Republicans from throughout Ireland attended the funeral; years later, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh recalls his parents’ account of the event. The First Battalion (Ballinalee) of the Longford Volunteers, including Matt Brady of the Colmcille Company, marched eight miles to Longford town to catch a special train to Dublin. There were so many passengers that extra carriages were attached as the train progressed. The funeral, an open display of contempt for the power of the authorities, brought the city to a standstill. After a volley of shots was fired over the coffin, the oration was given by Mick Collins. He was brief, but powerful: “Nothing additional remains to be said. The volley which we have just heard is the only speech which is proper to make above the grave of a dead Fenian.” On detail was Matt Brady and his comrades in the Colmcille Company of the Longford Battalion, Athlone Brigade, of the Irish Volunteers. As did many others, Brady took his turn “on guard over [the] corpse in the city hall … and then on duty at [the] funeral.”
