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Susan and Cecil Stephens
Monday 20th April 2020. No. 6 in the top ten has the wonderful memoirs of a woman who in her early years knew the leading lights in the Independence Struggle and she assisted with the Spanish Flu in 1918.
5 Fun Quiz. all answers for you in the blog.
1.How did Susan O'Daly know Thomas McDonagh one of those who signed the Proclamation in 1916?
2. Two brothers from Ballyshannon married two sisters from Monaghan. Who were the brothers?
3. What did Susan witness "all day every day" in O'Connell Street during the Spanish Flu in 1918?
4. What connection had she with Michael Collins?
5. The priest who said the prayers when the First Dáil met in Dublin on 21st January 1919 was very well known to the people of Cliffoney Co. Sligo. Who was he?
Tuesday 21st April. No. 5 in the top ten of most popular blogs selected by Facebook viewers.
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The
fascinating memoirs of a lady who spent the greater part of her life in
Ballyshannon, reveals the role played by her, in events in Dublin during the
1916 period and later, and are now published for the first time. Susan O’Daly,
as a young woman in Dublin, witnessed the immediate aftermath of the 1916
Rising and learned of the execution of one of her teachers, Thomas McDonagh,
one of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation. She acted as a courier during
the independence struggle and was a classmate of Ernie O’Malley. Susan also
took a keen interest in Gaelic culture, was an Irish speaker, and engaged in
the politics of the day. In the 1918 Election she canvassed for the Sinn Féin party
and was present in the Mansion House for the opening of the First Dáil on the
21st January 1919. In her memoirs she tells of the destruction in
the heart of Dublin, the effects of the Great Flu of 1918 and her meetings with
Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith.
Early Days of the G.A.A. in Ballyshannon
Meanwhile back in Ballyshannon Cecil
Stephens of Castle Street, was immersing himself in Gaelic culture. Branches of
the Stephens’ family were engaged in the commercial life of Ballyshannon with
major interests in hardware, stationery and fancy goods in Castle Street and an
extensive drapery business at the bottom of Main Street where the Saimer Court
Shopping Centre is located today.
Susan O’Daly, a native of Monaghan, had a
family link with Ballyshannon as her uncle Fr. James O’Daly was curate at St.
Joseph’s Church in the town. He was actively involved in the formation of the
Aodh Ruadh Hurling & Football Club in October 1909. The meeting that formed
the new GAA Club was called by Fr. O’Daly a native of Carrickmacross, Co.
Monaghan, who placed a great emphasis on the promotion and preservation of not
alone Gaelic games but all aspects of Irish culture. Fr. O’Daly became the
first President of the club and subsequently two of his nieces, Susan and Mary,
who would have regularly visited him, married two related local businessmen,
Cecil and John Stephens. Cecil Stephens was the first secretary of the Aodh
Ruadh Gaelic football club and also was secretary of the Gaelic League who were
engaged in the promotion of the Irish language. Susan O’Daly married Cecil
Stephens in 1922 and resided in Ballyshannon for the remainder of her life. Susan
has left her memoirs of life in her native County Monaghan, her exciting
student days in Dublin during the 1916 period and her subsequent life as a
teacher and a mother in Ballyshannon. This article reflects on the 1916 period in Dublin through the eyes of a woman who witnessed the
historic beginnings of this country.
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| Group of men on road and footpath outside Stephens premises and home. |
A Witness and Participant
in Events in Dublin in 1916
Susan
O’Daly was a first year student at University College Dublin in 1916 and like
many other students was on Easter holiday, back in her native Clonturk in
County Monaghan, when the Rising commenced. On her return to Dublin she
witnessed the destruction and smouldering buildings:
The city was practically
deserted and only a couple of small groups were in Grafton Street whispering
fearfully with white faces. There was nobody then till we came to O’Connell
Bridge. There was the smoke rising from the broken glass and rubble that had
fallen all-round the G.P.O. and across the road, and more smoke and rubble
about Capel Street and in the Liberty Hall area. I don’t think we could have got through the
heat and smoke and very likely the Dublin Metropolitan Police would not allow
us through.
Susan
gathered up some broken glass and other bits of rubble outside the G.P.O. to
keep as mementos of the Rising. She was actively involved in the Gaelic League
and her sympathies were with the Rising, and she remembered attending frequent
masses for the repose of the soul of deceased rebels. Many students were in
active sympathy with the fight for independence and she regularly attended at
Kilmainham and Mountjoy jails, when those arrested were being transported to
the North Wall on their way to English jails. Students then marched beside the
military escorts to show solidarity with the detainees, cheered on the
prisoners and broke through the ranks of the military.These impromptu
gatherings of students were often organised by her classmate Ernie O’Malley who
was a major figure in the guerrilla war during the War of Independence. The air
of unease was everywhere in the city and Susan recalled those uncertain day:
The arrests went on, the
city was packed with military armed to the teeth. We were beaten to the ropes,
our leaders’ dead- and those who had gone to fight in Flanders for small
nations were completely disillusioned. It was not just the executions that
turned the whole country into a rebel camp, these were many of the factors but
unknown to us teenagers the underground had already taken root.
Susan
noted how the executions of the leaders of 1916 played a crucial role in
turning public opinion in favour of the rebellion. Also the impact of the 1916
Rising on the Irish born troops, in places like Flanders in Belgium in World War One, must have been one of confusion, as the 1916
Rising took the general population completely unawares. Susan was also appalled
by the slums and by the dirt, rags and immense poverty in Dublin in 1916.
Student Days and
Revolutionary Meetings
Susan
O’Daly had been a past pupil of St. Louis Convent in Carrickmacross where she
successfully obtained a county council scholarship to attend University College
Dublin. Her family background was modest as her parents had a three roomed
thatched house with a hearth fire, a settle bed in the kitchen and a few stools
and basic fittings. The scholarship meant that she could receive an education
that otherwise might have been beyond her family means and she certainly made
the most of her opportunity. She completed a B.A, a B. Comm. H.Dip. and
graduated with first class honours and first place in the B.Comm. class of
1920. As a young student she was
very much taken with the fashions of the day and noted that there were no
teenagers in her youth just ‘school girls’ or ‘young ladies’. The girls wore
their hair long or in plaits but on entering the university grounds they had to
put their hair up. Hats were always worn out of doors by both women and men.
There were no cosmetics in use, just a touch of powder to take the shine off
their features. There were no low necks, except evening dresses, and skirts
were long. For entertainment they went to a lot of ceilídhes, dances and
concerts in the Round Room of the Mansion House:
In Powerscourt House in
Parnell Square we danced and had supper, all for 2/6- while upstairs the I.R.B.
held their meetings. I suppose in case of a raid they could mingle with the
dancers. Usually some of the St. Enda’s boys would call for us.
Susan
Daly was familiar with some of the activities of the Irish Republican
Brotherhood (I.R.B.) who had planned the Rising and also knew students
attending Patrick Pearse’s all Irish school called St. Enda’s. She had a flat
in a house in Harcourt Street and recalled attending meetings, in the house,
attended by Belfast rebels and Ernest Blythe and Darrell Figgis were in
attendance.
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Susan and Cecil Stephens had their family business here and it
also included the premises now occupied by A Novel Idea.
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The 1918 Election, The Spanish Flu and a Courier to Michael Collins
The
1918 Election saw many young people including Susan O’Daly canvassing for the
Sinn Féin Party. She recalled that, with a friend, she canvassed all the house
on Leeson Street in Dublin. She also remembered cycling to Newry, a distance of
75 miles, to assist with the election there by helping out in the committee
rooms. Fortunately she got back to Dublin in a van which also carried her
bicycle.
Also in 1918 she assisted in
nursing duties during the devastating Big Flu commonly called the Spanish Flu
which killed millions all over Europe. She recalled a constant stream of
hearses moving thorough O’Connell Street on their way to Glasnevin Cemetery ‘all
day every day’. The university was
closed and she offered her services to assist the suffering flu victims. Back
at home in Monaghan the Great Flu also had an impact on her family, with her
Aunt Mary suffering great pain and anguish as two of her young children died
from the flu.
On completion of her B.Comm. she was looking for any kind of work
and was interviewed by Arthur Griffith, the Sinn Fein leader; she also remembered
meeting Michael Collins when she and another girl delivered a message to him.:
I went to 6 Harcourt
Street to ask Arthur Griffith for a job of work. He was very shy and quiet and
asked me how good I was at Irish. I told him truthfully that I could read and
write it better than I could speak it, and he said he was in the same boat and
that’s exactly all I remember about it. But that was a time when Arthur
Griffith was a very ordinary individual, not likely to go down in history. The
same applies to Michael Collins whose hide-out I visited accompanied by an
older girl with a message of some sort. He was working at a typewriter in a
cellar-like room in St. Ita’s in Rathmines. I think that it was part of the St.
Enda’s school (for girls). I thought him a rough diamond.
Susan
O’Daly later taught in the St. Louis Convent in Carrickmacross, and the
Technical school in Naas. Whilst in Naas she frequently acted as a courier,
during the War of Independence, bringing dispatches to and from Dublin where
she frequently spent the week-ends. She was ‘not in the know’ but was a young
woman who was willing to play a part in the national struggle. This was during
the dangerous days of the War of Independence when the Black and Tans were
active, ‘the atrocities were mounting up and the jails filling up, and it was a
losing fight for the rebels’. She frequently brought messages from a Mr. Maher
in Naas to various people in Dublin which she delivered by bicycle. Frequently the
messages were for Michael Collins:
More or less weekly he
gave me an envelope containing ‘information’ and this I was to smuggle to
Kingsbridge and surreptitiously slip it to one Sean O’Connell, a porter. He
then took it over and handed it to Michael Collins who at the time was staying
hidden in the Ossory Hotel in Gardiner Street. I forget the name of the lady
who owned the hotel-she hid him well! I just don’t remember how long I
continued doing this job, but even when I was away doing summer courses I used
to return frequently to the flat for weekends and do any job that was wanted.
.
Maher
had been a member of the R.I.C in the offices in Naas. All communications
between the British Military in the South and Dublin Castle, passed back and
forth through Naas, where Maher typed a copy before forwarding them. The typed
copies were then passed on to Michael Collins through couriers like Susan
O’Dolan. On one occasion Maher gave Susan O’Dolan a note of appreciation from
Michael Collins:
Mr. Maher gave me a note
from Michael Collins, to me, about three typewritten lines signed by himself
about his appreciation of my work! I kept it a long time, but we had been
visited in the flat in Naas by the R.I.C. and I got cold feet. As I had no sure
place for hiding it in a small flat, Mollie and I decided it would be better to
burn it. Actually we were raided by the Military, and a woman searcher later,
and they searched every inch of the flat.
Mollie
McCarthy whom she mentioned above was a friend from her Cumann na mBan days in
Dublin and who was working in the Munster and Leinster bank in Naas, where they
shared accommodation.
Susan O’Daly an
Eyewitness to The First Dáil
On
the 21st January 1919 the
Sinn Féin elected members refused to attend the parliament in Westminster but,
instead, declared their independence by meeting in Dublin. This was a challenge
to the British government and was at the beginning of the War of Independence. Susan
O’Daly got an invitation to witness this historic event and was among the
audience, in the Mansion House Round Room, who looked on in some trepidation but
with a sense of great pride.
I have a vivid
recollection of the whole procedure- Fr. Flanagan began with a prayer. Then the
reading of the proclamation in Irish, English and French and on to the roll
call every second name called, met with the response “Faoi glas in nGallaibh”
(in prison in England) and this rang out through the whole building. I can
still hear it! Outside, Dawson Street was packed with people, spilling over
into Molesworth Street and St. Stephen’s Green.
Fr. Flanagan, the priest who said the prayer
at the beginning of the First Dáil, had been stationed, at an earlier stage, in
Cliffoney Co. Sligo, where he championed the people’s right of access to the
turf bog which was being denied. Susan recalled that there was a tremendous air
of excitement around the meeting of the First Dáil, but this was tinged with
fear that there would be a raid by the British military, with perhaps wholesale
arrests and shootings.
I wonder how many in the
Round Room and in the streets outside thought the whole performance an act of
sheer madness-the idea of defying the might of the British Empire. What
reasonable person could think it possible that a Dáil could ever be
established! Certainly not in 1919; it just couldn’t happen! But it did!
Cecil Stephens and Married
Life in Castle Street Ballyshannon
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AGM notice for Aodh Ruadh Hurling and Football Club 1910
Cecil Stephens was the first Secretary. |
On her marriage to Cecil
Stephens in 1922 Susan O’Daly devoted her life to family, the business and
their shared love of Gaelic culture and music. She would still be remembered by
members of the community, as she was engaged in the extensive family hardware
and fancy goods business on Castle Street in the town. A teacher by profession,
with her commercial training, she was well suited to keeping the financial records
for the business. She also established an Argosy lending library in the shop
and this was popular with the local population, as they could rent books, at a
nominal cost, long before the days of television and public libraries. Her
husband Cecil played an active role in the development of the G.A.A, the Gaelic
League and was a member of the delegation from Ballyshannon to the Boundary
Commission in Enniskillen in 1925. Cecil Stephens was for many years Town
Clerk, Conductor of Ballyshannon Brass and Reed Band, Conductor of the local
Musical Society and a founder of the Donegal Democrat along with John Downey.
Susan and Cecil Stephens had four children; Donal, Nan (Sister Colmcille),
Aiden and Cecil. Susan Stephens died on 7th May 1979 and is interred
in Abbey Assaroe alonside her husband Cecil. Very few outside her family circle knew that Susan Stephens
(nee O’Daly) had been in Dublin during the 1916 period and that she had been active
in Cumann na mBan, acted as a courier in the War of Independence and had
participated in much of the beginning of modern Ireland.
This
article is dedicated to the memory Cecil Stephens (Jun.) son of Susan and Cecil
Stephens who shared his parents’ love for Ballyshannon.
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| Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available when things return to normal in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com |
(Anthony Begley (left). Jim Melly
