A Woman in Ballyshannon who was an Eyewitness to the Independence Struggle and The Spanish Flu of 1918

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.

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 21^st 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.

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.

        Susan and Cecil Stephens had their family business here and it 

also included the premises now occupied by A Novel Idea.

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 21^st 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

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 7^th 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. 

  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

Ten Local Memories of William Allingham who did his hometown proud

William Allingham’s Final Journey to Ballyshannon

1.       On the 17^th November 1889 in his home at Eldon Road in Hampshire, England,  as he was in a weak condition, William Allingham,  was asked if he had any request to make, he replied:  “No, my mind is at rest”. Then to his wife he said:  “And so, to where I wait, come gently on”.  Once on the morning of his death he said; “I am seeing things that you know nothing of”. He died peacefully about 2 o’clock on Monday 18^th November.

2.   At his own request he was cremated at Woking. A few friends and relations were present. There was no funeral service. Mr. F.G. Stephens, the oldest of his friends there gathered together, read aloud Allingham’s own Poet’s Epitaph.

Body to purifying flame,

Soul to the Great Deep whence it came,

Leaving a song on earth below,

An urn of ashes white as snow.

William Allingham’s ashes were interred at St. Anne’s Church on Mullaghnashee in his native Ballyshannon with the  following simple inscription on his gravestone-

William Allingham, Poet, born at Ballyshannon
 March 19 1824. Died in London, November 1889.

3.    Two years later, in 1891, Helen Allingham brought the children to visit their father’s grave at St. Anne’s Church in Ballyshannon and also to meet their Irish relations. Helen was busy painting on her trip to Donegal and was later to exhibit thirteen paintings from her Ballyshannon visit.

Remembering William Allingham

4..    Helen believed that her husband’s work was superior to her own and she tried hard to gain for him the recognition she thought he was owed. In the years following his death, she rearranged, edited and published all his writings in an effort to keep his name alive. Helen Allingham died on the 28^th September 1926.

5.      Their oldest child Gerard Carlyle (1875-1961) was a chartered electrical engineer, their daughter Eva born in 1877 was to suffer from ill health during her lifetime and their youngest son, Henry William (1882-1960) was also an engineer and company director.

6.     In 1968 a William Allingham Association was formed in Ballyshannon by a group of young people, to promote the poet’s memory. I was a very young Chairperson of this first Allingham Association. We  were responsible, for having the new road leading from the bridge towards Belleek named Allingham Road.   
       In 1971 a bronze bust of the poet was unveiled at the Provincial Bank (now the Allied Irish Bank), where both William Allingham (Senior), William Allingham (Junior) and Hugh Allingham had all worked. 
      In 1978 the Allingham Society was formed and successfully perpetuated his memory by organising a literary week-end with poetry competitions for students and adults.

7.     In 2007 the Fair Green in the town was converted into a park and named Allingham Park. Recently a fairy garden was opened in Allingham Park by Foróige commemorating William Allingham’s famous poem called “The Fairies”

8.    In the Abbey Centre an exhibition area has been named the Helen Allingham Gallery. In Bundoran Allingham Lodge was owned by Florinda Allingham, a member of the Ballyshannon family, and today is called The Allingham Arms Hotel and has verses of the poet and prints of  Helen Allingham on display. The plaque on the bridge, erected by townspeople in 1895, in memory of the Bard of Ballyshannon, recalls his early life in the town which he never really left.

Here once he roved a happy boy

Along the winding banks of Erne

And now please God with finer joy

A fairer world his eyes discern.

9..     The Allingham Arts Society continue to run a successful Allingham Arts Festival every November in memory of William and Helen Allingham. 

10.   The painting on the cover of my current  book below “Ballyshannon Genealogy and History” is by William’s cousin, Maud Allingham, the last of the family to live in Ballyshannon. For those who have my book "Ballyshannon and Surrounding Areas. History, Heritage and Folklore" the cover is a painting of the Assaroe waterfall by Maud Allingham.

If ever I’m a money’d man, I mean, please God, to cast

My golden anchor in the place where youthful years were pass’d;

Though heads that now are black and brown must meanwhile gather gray,

New faces rise by every hearth, and old ones drop away-

Yet dearer still that Irish hill than all the world beside;

It’s home, sweet home, where’er I roam through lands and waters wide.

And if the Lord allows me, I surely will return
To my native Belashanny and the winding banks of Erne

                                                                                         "The  Winding Banks of Erne"

                         

                                                                                                By William Allingham

A humorous local ballad remembering how local farmers dealt with cross-border duties in Ballyshannon and Belleek

Limited edition quality hardback with dust jacket as above available in A Novel Idea and Local Hands Ballyshannon and Four Masters Bookshop Donegal Town. Also available for postage from anthonyrbegley@hotmail.com

An incident on the border between Ballyshannon and Belleek 

In 1934 the Irish government refused to pay the British government annuities on land. These annuities were loans dating back to the land purchase acts, and had formed part of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921.In retaliation the British Government imposed a tariff of 20% on all farm produce entering Britain for sale. This wasn’t sufficient to cover the land annuities, so the British Government increased the tariff from 20% to 40%. 

Early on 8th November of that year the news was released. Several local farmers and cattle dealers, hearing the news, took their cattle across the Border to Belleek to escape the higher tariff.  The following ballad is an account of the goings on of that day when the time limit was 5.30 p.m. As this ballad was held in the oral tradition, there may be slight variations in the wording depending on the source. In the pre-television age ballads on local events  were very popular and the naming of local people added spice to the verses: 

On the 8th of November the news it was sent,

That the tariff was raised to 40%.

From the town of the Erne there was a great drive,

And into Belleek they all did arrive.

When Gavigan heard it ‘Im thinking, said he,

‘I’ll put out my cattle and they will be free’.

Going up Belleek street he hit on a plan

and he put them out to his mother-in-law’s land.

At Belleek Station a meeting took place.

Pat O’Brien and his son were discussing the case.

Says Pat to the son,  ‘Our big bullocks won’t thrive.

We must have them here at a quarter to five’

Bigger and McGinley they were in good time.

They came down the town at a quarter to nine.

Bigger he marched like a soldier to battle.

Says McGinley to him, ‘You have very bad cattle’.

Says Bigger to McGinley, ‘where will they sell?’

‘I don’t know, says Jimmy, ‘except down in Hell’.

When Willie Moore heard it he got all alarmed,

He and his men with ash plants they were armed.

His men took the cattle and he took the car.

‘Be careful’, says he, ‘Will they slip on the tar.’

You all know McFeeley – he’s our wee vet.

Beside Willie Moore in the car he did sit.

Said old Henry Vaughan to his brother that day,

‘We’ll go to the hut and the duty we’ll pay’

Tom he was sore and Henry was sick

They took it so bad at Thomas’ big stick.

They went to the men and they told them the news

Said Tom to the man who wore the white shoes,

‘Go get the cattle and do it in haste.

You are in charge and there’s no time to waste’.

Out the road they did go, all dressed in rags.

And following close was O’Brien and his stags.

Young Charlie Moore, being a new married man

Says he ‘I must get all across that I can’.

They came over the bridge with long standing horns.

In charge of a man called gallant Joe Thorns

When they had them loaded they came in so straight

Says Charlie to Josie, ‘I thought we’d be late.’

They pulled up at Breslin’s and there they got out.

‘Come on in’, says Charlie, ‘I’ll stand you a stout’

The Breslins went out in a vast motor car,

The women in the Port got a terrible scare,

They went to the fields and gathered their flock,

And Michael was taking side jumps at the rock.

Says Armstrong to Graham, ‘You must toe the line

Go out the hill for the lame and the blind.’

You’ll get the  wee doctor.’ Says Graham, ‘Now hardly.’

‘Well if you will not, You’ll get poor old Charlie.’

The cows on the road were a pitiful fleet,

Some of them coulldn’t stand up on their feet.

He had an old cow with a back like a saw.

Another had four or five lumps on her jaw.

The Pattons had theirs at Cherrymount gate

Said Alfred to Georgie, ‘I thought we’d be late.’

‘It’s hard now, said Georgie, ‘the tariff to pay

But what can we do when we’re so scarce of hay.’

Patterson came to town and he gathered his men,

Two of them down to Wardtown did send.

Out to Carrignahorna the Swank he did go

And he came in the road with eight beasts in a row.

Old Paddy went out and he cleaned up the Camp

When he came in his throat he did damp.

Alfie O Neill was the man of the day,

For he whistled the dead March as Coy marched away.

The next man to come was O’Donnell Abu.

Says big Walsh to Paddy, ‘Now, who sent for you?’

Says Michael, ‘we’re robbed, our cattle didn’t fatten

And we’ve thirty three pounds worth of grass from John Patton.’

Paddy Coughlan was there with his head so red

He would have been better all Summer in bed.

Said he, ‘to make money it isn’t so handy

I’m robbed these few years by taking Parkandy’.

Wee John he was there with his tummy so fat

Beside him was standing his big brother Pat

At the end of the day when we were all leaving

Who should arrive but little John Slevin.

He had ten nice wee cattle as fat as could be,

Says Jimmy McGinley, ‘Now these would suit me’

He bid him for them, but they couldn’t agree

‘Never mind now’, says John, ‘I’ll put them to sea.’

Packie, the doctor he was in a fix

He had nothing to ate from nine to near six.

The land it is clear of all bullocks just now

Instead we will see the horse and the plough

We will never again hear the bullock’s big roar

The dog will be keeping the wolf from the door.

Now anyone mentioned need make no offence

For if you do you have no common sense

We had to give you your place in the song

I’m afraid my dear fellows I kept you too long.

Local History Talk tomorrow Friday 4th November. 10 Things to discover

Illustrated Talk will reveal forgotten Ballyshannon links to World War One

Tomorrow  Friday 4th November an illustrated talk will be given by Anthony Begley, local historian,which will reveal new stories and incidents concerning local men who fought in World War One. Upwards of 60 local men died in the War. He will be joined by Jim (Seamus) Melly who traced his grand uncle Patrick Melly’s footprints from Finner Ballyshannon to the Somme in France where he died on 1st July 1916. Conor Carney will be on hand to record letters from the front and poetry and songs with local connections. Much of the material has never been heard before and the talk is free to all. The event is in memory of Kathleen and Louis Emerson of County Donegal Historical Society and also forms part of the Allingham Festival.

 The talk will uncover new material and will include the following  10 topics:

 Letters and postcards from the war front to families on Erne Street, Main Street, Back Street,

 The Mall and The Abbey.

 A Ballyshannon born Brigadier who was rated as the best Canadian officer in World War One.

 How 4 Ballyshannon soldiers are remembered on an Enniskillen Memorial today. 

 New insights into the deaths of three local men who died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. How 200 men travelled on a Great Northern railway train from Ballyshannon to fight in the 1916 Rising. A previously unrecorded event. 

 A famous Ballyshannon ballad “ The Flight to Falgarragh” and it's connections to the War.

 A Captain of Bundoran Golf Club who lived at Laputa and who was killed in 1914.

 A war veteran who was a leading Ballyshannon businessman and member of the Dail. 

 Why only 4 houses were built in the town for veterans of the War and were only opened in 1930- twelve years after the War ended.

 A Ballyshannon First World War veteran who played a major role in protecting the town during World War Two and who was a local pioneer of cinema in the town.