J. Flynn stated to the Committee that he committed the assault above described because he had learnt that, in the course of a debate in the Dáil earlier on the same day while he was absent from the Chamber, Deputy O. Flanagan had passed a remark relating to him which would be generally understood as a gross reflection on his personal character … He felt that there was no adequate remedy, under existing Standing Orders, available to him in respect of such a remark when made under the immunity of parliamentary privilege. The remark to which Deputy J. Flynn took exception was made by Deputy O. Flanagan by way of interjection and, as explained by Deputy J. Flynn, conveyed offence to him of a gross personal nature by innuendo. Deputy O. Flanagan was not called to order at the time because – the Committee understands – the Leas Cheann Comhairle did not grasp all the implications of the remark owing to its ambiguity and, further, he would in any case hesitate to censure it since to do so would be to draw public attention to its possible scandalous connotation. Deputy O. Flanagan denied to the Committee that any such hidden meaning was intended by him and asserted that the reference related solely to Deputy J. Flynn’s political activities.2
The committee ruled that the use of violence in the precincts of Leinster House in this manner was ‘reprehensible in the extreme’, adding that ‘Deputy J. Flynn was guilty of contempt in taking, as it were, the law into his own hands in redress of a grievance properly a matter for the House itself.’ Flanagan’s remarks were found to be in breach of the order and decorum of the House. On 5 March 1952, six weeks after the incident, the Dáil accepted and adopted the committee’s report and Flynn was formally censured by the Ceann Comhairle from the chair: ‘In accordance with the provisions of this report, it becomes my duty to reprimand you, Deputy John Flynn, for the assault committed by you in the precincts of the Dáil on January 31, as such assault was in contempt of the privilege of this House.’3
So, what had prompted Oliver J Flanagan to make an obscure personal reference to Jack Flynn during a Dáil discussion? And why had the Kerry South TD taken such umbrage and become so infuriated that he punched Flanagan in the Dáil restaurant? The answer can be found by going back a few years to when, in controversial circumstances following an alleged scandal, Flynn – who had been a Fianna Fáil TD since 1932 – was unceremoniously removed from the party general election ticket by Éamon de Valera.
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John (Jack) Flynn was born at Brackhill, Castlemaine, in 1894, one of five children of Edward and Johanna Flynn. A veteran of the War of Independence, he fought with his local IRA company, the 6th Battalion of the Kerry Brigade. He was involved in numerous engagements with the Crown forces, including an ambush just a stone’s throw from his home at Ballymacandy, between Milltown and Castlemaine, on 1 June 1921, in which several Black and Tans were killed. During the Civil War, he took the anti-Treaty position and became politically involved. He won a seat on Kerry County Council as a republican candidate in the Killorglin Electoral Area in 1926 and joined Fianna Fáil that same year. He became a resilient figure on the local authority. In 1932, he was the chairman of the County Board of Health, which secured funding of £55,000 from the Irish Hospital Sweeps for the construction of St Catherine’s Hospital in Tralee (now the headquarters of Kerry County Council). By the time St Catherine’s and a hospital at Edenburn in Ballymacelligott were opened, Flynn had been replaced by Councillor Kate Breen at the head of the Health Board because it became Fianna Fáil policy that TDs could not chair local authority sub-committees following the 1934 local elections. In 1929, Flynn was charged with membership of an illegal organisation and possession of unlicensed firearms and ammunition in the Circuit Court in Tralee. The jury returned verdicts of not guilty.
John (Jack) Flynn TD (The Kerryman).
Flynn was a well-known long-distance runner and a keen weight-lifter and shot-putter and his sporting profile no doubt enhanced his electoral prospects. Widely considered a hard-working and diligent public representative, he was elected to the Dáil in 1932, when Fianna Fáil swept to power under Éamon de Valera. Flynn headed the poll with nearly 13 per cent of the vote. In the then seven-seater Kerry constituency, Fianna Fáil won five of the seats. Joining the Castlemaine man in the Dáil were Eamonn Kissane, Fred Hugh Crowley, Thomas McEllistrim and Thomas O’Reilly. One of his Fianna Fáil successors in the Dáil, John O’Leary, a TD from 1966 to 1997, recalls Flynn being one of the dominant political figures in his youth and when he joined the party. Flynn, he says, was incredibly popular across the constituency of Kerry and later Kerry South, which he represented from 1937 onwards. O’Leary also recalls Flynn’s somewhat nomadic lifestyle:
He was a great character and was renowned, apparently, in his younger days for going to house parties and Biddy balls; he’d be invited, picked up and taken there – there was great kudos in having a TD at a party you might be organising … Flynn was a single man and someone of no fixed abode for much of his life as a politician. It was common for him to spend weekends in different houses around the constituency. People used often say that when the train was pulling into Killarney station on his return from Leinster House that he’d stick his head out the window to see who was there on the platform and where he could get lodgings for the weekend. Some one of his supporters from some part of the constituency would pick him up and take him to their area. His hosts would put on a party for him, but he would also use the opportunity to do some political work in the locality where he was staying. In that way, people in even the more remote parts of the constituency became familiar with him and were able to meet with him regularly to air their problems and grievances.4
Throughout his years in the Dáil, Flynn proved a diligent and regular contributor to debates and tabled questions to ministers with regularity. His focus was invariably rural matters such as fishing, agriculture and infrastructure, as well as social conditions and housing. Despite having retained a seat for Fianna Fáil from 1932, ahead of the 1943 general election, the frequent poll-topper was denied a nomination by the party leadership: the Irish Press noted that he had ‘withdrawn his candidature’.5 Contemporary newspaper accounts do not record why, but it was alleged that Flynn had been conducting a relationship with a young woman. John O’Leary recalls that the allegation doing the rounds was even more serious than that:
Though it was never proven, as far as I know, the rumour was that a girl had become pregnant by Flynn out of wedlock and that she had gone to England. It was never discussed publicly that I can recall but the story goes that when de Valera got wind of it, he threw Flynn out of the party in order to avoid scandal.6
It is assumed that this is what prompted Oliver J. Flanagan’s jibe linking Jack Flynn to the Adoption of Children Bill in the Dáil in January 1952. The implication was certainly sufficient to prompt fisticuffs in the Members’ Restaurants hours later.
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With Flynn expelled from the party, at the 1943 general election, Fianna Fáil opted for a Cahersiveen solicitor, John B. Healy, to run with Fred Crowley or, as The Kerryman noted, Healy ‘comes on in room of Mr John Flynn’.7 Flynn didn’t contest the poll or the 1944 general election either, but he attempted to recover his political career pretty quickly and decided to run as an Independent candidate at the 1948 general election. Going into that election, there was an extraordinary situation in Kerry South in that Fianna Fáil held all three seats in the constituency. Fred Crowley from Killarney and John B. Healy from Cahersiveen had won two seats at the previous general election in May 1944, but when their constituency colleague and sitting Fine Gael TD, Fionán Lynch – a minister in some of the first cabinets – was appointed a Circuit Court judge soon after, the resulting by-election was won by Fianna Fáil’s Donal O’Donoghue from Glenflesk. Just a year later, in 1945, Fred Crowley’s death led to another by-election, which was won by his wife, Honor Mary Crowley. Crowley, O’Donoghue and Healy were nominated as the three Fianna Fáil candidates for the 1948 general election and faced the unlikely prospect of holding all of the three seats available.
Flynn
